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Comment by atemerev | Hacker News Reader

The "chain method" is incredibly frustrating for me. After a first 2-3 slips I tend to quit whatever I tried to start, with incredible feeling of guilt. And slips are inevitable (the more I say I'll not slip this time, the more inevitable they become).

So, I found something better: the accumulation method. I have a intermediate goal of, say, 10,000 push-ups. If I'll do only 10 push-ups a day, it will take me 1000 days to reach this goal — almost 3 years. Or I can do more — then I'll get to it faster. There is no frustration, I can skip any days I want, but if I want to reach this goal, I have to move forward.

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The problem is, doing more on some days to make up for others when you did nothing is well known not to be as effective as consistent daily progress : http://jonkarpman.blogspot.co.uk/

You can spot your own fallacy in that one..

You could plausibly resolve that by tracking an accumulated measure of consistency - ie: % of past N days that you did X, where X is the daily-stable goal.

The goal of reaching South Pole was time-limited. For my approach, it is _very important_ to not commit to deadlines.

It's unwise to extrapolate from one domain into another that doesn't follow the same models/rules.

If I walk 20 miles and my ultimate goal is to get to 10,000 miles, then 20 miles of effort translates into 20 miles of distance covered. It's a linear one-to-one no frills relationship. The units don't even change.

But if I'm doing push ups, my goal of 10,000 is actually a proxy goal for things like upper body strength and physical well being. In that context, the biological impact of 20 push ups x 3 days ≠ 60 push ups x 1 day, and no push ups the next two days.

I went through many iterations of trying to find a workout routine that I could stick with. In the end, I decided to focus on the journey and not the destination. I do a one weight training exercise every day, rotating through different exercises so that muscles have time to rest and increasing reps and/or weight slowly. The key, for me anyway, was to allow some slack time without going outside the rules. I can miss one day, but no more than one in a row, unless I am on an actual vacation away from home. If I'm slacking about exercise, I can skip every other day. If I'm not, I get many days in a row. For me, building the habit was more important than intensity, and working some slack time into the rules was what allowed me to build it.

Requiring myself to do it every day with no flexibility works for me only until the first day I miss, and then it's basically all over except for the death throes. YMMV.

I think the trick is to pick the right goals for the chain method. Something like "walk 10 miles every day" is too constraining of a goal, because realistically there are going to be days where that is impossible (e.g. when you've got a 20 hour flight to China, or a broken hip.)

Instead, you need to make a goal where "work towards that goal" is not concretely defined so that you can do work towards that goal under virtually any circumstance. For example, if your goal is to get a certain time in a 10k race, then you can read books about race strategies or training methods on your flight and count it as progress towards your goal. If you're recovering from a broken hip, you can mark physical therapy or diet decisions as progress towards your goal.

In some ways, it's the fear of facing that guilt that makes the "chain method" work so well. The tricky part, when you miss a day, is figuring out a way to cope with that guilt and frustration without letting it undermine your efforts in general. Especially if you miss multiple days in a row, for instance. Which is hard, because that requires a lot of motivation--which is one of the things the "chain method" is meant to enforce. So in some ways, it's a chicken and egg sort of problem. You just have to hope that you've done it enough that, when you wind up facing a missed day, you've built up your motivation for the task enough to get back into it.

Which is exactly why it doesn't work.

I'll go with "It works until it doesn't."

That was my experience with calorie tracking in MyFitnessPal. Did it for months, had a solid streak, then skipped a couple of days while traveling. I've done it on and off since then, but never got reliably back on the tracking wagon.

I've found that creating an exception list beforehand is a great way to survive "breaking the chain", as then it's not really breaking the chain.

For years I tried to keep a chain of exercising every day. It would work wonderfully for 8 months or so, and then inevitably every summer the chain would break when I was up for several days partying. Then I would start thinking "what's another skipped day" and end up with months of no exercise. After a few cycles of this, I redefined my chain as exercising every time I wake up. This works nicely for me, because my primary reason for initial breaking was that I was exhausted. I've managed to keep this new chain unbroken for years.

I haven't seen this approach before, and I like the idea of it. Dunno if it fits for all goals though. Would it be effective if you just measured total hours?

Yes, but 1 hour is quite a big quantum (if you work out for 55 minutes, then stop, then what — all effort is lost?) Measuring minutes is better.

Another thing: the goal should be quite bold, bigger than you'd think first (something you can think of reaching in 2-3 years; don't worry, it will be faster). Some examples: do 10,000 push-ups. Save $100,000 (or give $100,000 to charity, whatever suits you best). Run 2,000 kilometers. You start slow, but your progress accumulates, and then accelerates.

There's certainly arguments for accumulating towards a target number. You can also combine this with the streak method and say "through date xx aim for yy frequency" - in effect having a goal number and the rate at which you plan to reach it.

Regardless, I like having end points on these projects because they give you a sense of relief at the end. It also helps to aim for low frequency with each goal so that your daily schedule isn't rigid - a 15 minutes per day investment is actually quite a lot.

Geez, you need to break that goal into something more attainable.

Babysteps! http://i.imgur.com/wfHCoSA.jpg

You'll start with baby steps, but you also need to have a great 1000-mile goal to motivate you. Every step counts.

Skipping days with "impunity" is a great way to break habit though :/

It's a great way to get back on track, too. Without guilt. Different strokes for different folks.

Especially useful in diets.

You can always decrease the amount you do per day without breaking the chain. In our case you would decrease the amount of steps, miles or calories.

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