How long does it take to form a habit?

For those trying to start a writing habit: here are some tips that have helped me over the last month, to the point that it's starting to feel automatic:

1. Set realistic goals. Mine is "500 words per day, no excuses." It takes 1-2 hrs.

2. Start when it's easy. I started my 500 word per day rule over a week-long vacation. This builds the confidence that you can achieve your goal in a reasonable amount of time.

3. Have a routine for getting started. I have a special writing playlist and play the same song every time I start writing. Over time your brain forms associations and will automatically go into the right mode.

4. If you're having trouble getting started, try imagining how good you will feel once you've hit your daily goal. While you're doing that, count from 10 to 1 as if you're about to launch the space shuttle. Then start.

5. Focus on daily progress. Your feedback loop should be "I won at writing 500 words today," not, "I'm now 10.5% done instead of 10.3% done."

The writing itself is never going to become truly automatic or habitual. What will become a habit is expecting that you'll make progress every day, and knowing that you're capable of succeeding today.

Made me think why brushing my teeth is so "easy" for me. I don't like it, but I won't miss it. I suspect one reason could be the immediate feedback (bad breath) if I miss it one night.

So interpolating from that, presumably the delay of feedback might make a huge difference for successfully or unsuccessfully taking on a new habit?

I guess pretty much the only other habit I have is drinking a cup of coffee in the morning. So being addictive helps, too.

If it's a bad habit? 1 or 2 repetitions.

If it's a good habit? Apparently never.

I find that some things change faster than others. Acclimatising myself to new things can take quite a short period of time, for instance. I switched from drinking flavoured drinks to drinking plain water and it took about 5 days before flavoured drinks started tasting too sweet and water started tasting 'right'.

I guess it takes a lot of self-experiments to find out. I usually go with this "one habit/month-approach" from T.Ferris: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/01/07/the-power-of...

In short: The article is so so, its more thought provoking than instantly insightful.

note ( I voted this up by mistake )

Below is "Thought provoked" response.

This kind of study/statement should be semi straight forward to turn into a web application. Assuming there was a way to have complete faith in the trust mechanism. But im off topic.

Back to the forming of habits. I don't believe even for an olympic athlete going to the gym or doing a rep, set or lap of something is ever without thinking. So its safe to say everyone's view of a habit will be different.

Things which you get feedback from I would say are easy to continue doing. The feedback can be loose jeans, feeling fresher, looking better, not going back to the api.

Would learning to write unix commands be like learning a habit?

What would happen if you mixed up learning a habit and the spaced learning ( SRS ) concept for learning something new? Or could you argue that they are one of the same.

The complicating factor is that mental rehearsal is both dramatically weaker at producing a habit than actual activity and also mindbogglingly easier to do. If you want to get into the habit of drinking a glass of water each morning you can think about this many times during the day, and rehearse it as you drift off to sleep at night, ready to wake fully committed.

What happens when you multiply the two efficiency factors together forming the product of the near-zero effectiveness with the huge frequency of repetition? More than one? Less than one? I think it is sometimes more than one, which means that research that look at habit as activity only, and discards thought, is confusingly incomplete.