Do your future self a favor.
August 3, 2016 10:37 AM Subscribe
Set it and forget it. "When your willpower is depleted, you are even more likely to make decisions based on the environment around you. After all, if you're feeling drained, stressed, or overwhelmed then you're not going to go through a lot of effort to cook a healthy dinner or fit in a workout. You'll grab whatever is easiest. And that means that if you take just a little bit of time today to organize your room, your office, your kitchen, and other areas, then that adjustment in choice architecture can guide you toward better choices even when your willpower is fading."
I read the first link just the other day, and made a small change to my phone layout. Facebook and Twitter are now on the second page of apps, my learning spanish app and kindle are on the front page. SO far there has been a reduction in social media usage, but no increase in reading or Spanish learning :)
posted by Joh at 10:57 AM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Joh at 10:57 AM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
I posted on the Green yesterday about a financial tracking app because Shepherd and I have tried Excel spreadsheets, Google sheets, an old fashioned accounts ledger to stay on budgetary track, but so far it hasn't worked. We both have iPhones so I think something that we can access to see where we are more easily will help.
I just started doing a Bullet Journal to organize my life; so far, it's baby steps but it seems to be working in terms of getting stuff done on the day I need it to be done.
I would rearrange the apps on my phone but I have pretty much dropped Twitter right now, so it's not a temptation.
posted by Kitteh at 11:02 AM on August 3, 2016
I just started doing a Bullet Journal to organize my life; so far, it's baby steps but it seems to be working in terms of getting stuff done on the day I need it to be done.
I would rearrange the apps on my phone but I have pretty much dropped Twitter right now, so it's not a temptation.
posted by Kitteh at 11:02 AM on August 3, 2016
We both have iPhones so I think something that we can access to see where we are more easily will help.
If not already suggested, check out Mint, and You Need a Budget.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:09 AM on August 3, 2016 [4 favorites]
If not already suggested, check out Mint, and You Need a Budget.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:09 AM on August 3, 2016 [4 favorites]
Those were the two I asked for comparisons on, so if you have any to share, head on over there.
posted by Kitteh at 11:10 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitteh at 11:10 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
I automated sending a bit to savings every paycheck, and it's really added up nicely. It's a great way to have something in reserve that I have some trouble getting to immediately (it takes about 5 business days to clear) unless I go through the hassle of transferring savings to checking and writing a check to myself and depositing it in my real checking account.
posted by xingcat at 11:12 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by xingcat at 11:12 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have many, many thoughts on how to manage personal finances. I work in QA and compliance at a large commercial bank now but I have years of experience in the branches. I've seen a lot of ways different people manage their money and I've seen a lot of the ways it goes wrong.
At the end of the day, if it works for you, then it works, period. The way I recommend people do it is a little different.
First, the most effective time to manage your expenses is when you're spending it. If you want to spend less money, you need to buy fewer things and you need to remember that, as you're making the decision whether or not to buy it. Budgets don't make you frugal, being frugal makes you frugal. Generally speaking, if you critically examine every purchasing decision you make and always err on the side of not spending money, your budget will take care of itself.
But how do you know? You track your spending with the least amount effort.
1. At the start of the month figure out a quick and dirty estimate of how much you spend in a month. Let's say it's $2,000. You can adjust up or down based on how low you're comfortable with your balance getting in a month. You'd probably be okay with a lower starting balance if you get paid every week vs. monthly, for example.
2. Transfer funds out of or into your checking account to make the balance exactly $2,000 (or whatever your number is)
3. Us a credit card for as much of your spending as you're able to (without incurring fees).
4. At the end of the month, pay off your statement balance on your credit card (which is as little as you can pay to avoid paying interest or fees) and then transfer funds into or out of your checking account to bring the balance back to exactly $2,000. Note the amount of the transfer.
You can add up your deposits and subtract the amount of the transfer to tell you what your expenses were. As long as you're happy with that number, no additional budgeting is required. If you're not happy, then you'll want to sign up with Mint.com or use some other budgeting tool to figure out where the money is going and if you can change it.
If you're trying to dig your way out of debt, put the extra funds towards the highest interest rate debt you're paying (the minimum payments should be deducted automatically).
And that's it. You can optimize a little more by shopping around for the best deals on a credit cards to find the rewards program that will bring you the most value but it's a really simple and easy way to keep track of your spending without devoting a ton of time to it.
The next step is figuring out a similar system for your investments. You basically trade zero risk and total liquidity for rate of return. Your savings account should just hold your emergency "holy shit something has gone wrong and I need access to $10,000 right the eff now" funds. Idle cash is stagnant cash. As you build up your savings, you can tolerate less liquidity and more risk so the next most liquid investment should be pretty safe and stable and be more for "something has gone wrong and I need access to $10,000 sometime this week" sorts of situations.
As balances grow, keep adding riskier investments with higher rates of return until you have yourself a nice diversified investment portfolio. It just be a savings account, some kind of stable value or bond fund, and then a straight indexed mutual fund but that stuff gets highly individual.
posted by VTX at 11:51 AM on August 3, 2016 [21 favorites]
At the end of the day, if it works for you, then it works, period. The way I recommend people do it is a little different.
First, the most effective time to manage your expenses is when you're spending it. If you want to spend less money, you need to buy fewer things and you need to remember that, as you're making the decision whether or not to buy it. Budgets don't make you frugal, being frugal makes you frugal. Generally speaking, if you critically examine every purchasing decision you make and always err on the side of not spending money, your budget will take care of itself.
But how do you know? You track your spending with the least amount effort.
1. At the start of the month figure out a quick and dirty estimate of how much you spend in a month. Let's say it's $2,000. You can adjust up or down based on how low you're comfortable with your balance getting in a month. You'd probably be okay with a lower starting balance if you get paid every week vs. monthly, for example.
2. Transfer funds out of or into your checking account to make the balance exactly $2,000 (or whatever your number is)
3. Us a credit card for as much of your spending as you're able to (without incurring fees).
4. At the end of the month, pay off your statement balance on your credit card (which is as little as you can pay to avoid paying interest or fees) and then transfer funds into or out of your checking account to bring the balance back to exactly $2,000. Note the amount of the transfer.
You can add up your deposits and subtract the amount of the transfer to tell you what your expenses were. As long as you're happy with that number, no additional budgeting is required. If you're not happy, then you'll want to sign up with Mint.com or use some other budgeting tool to figure out where the money is going and if you can change it.
If you're trying to dig your way out of debt, put the extra funds towards the highest interest rate debt you're paying (the minimum payments should be deducted automatically).
And that's it. You can optimize a little more by shopping around for the best deals on a credit cards to find the rewards program that will bring you the most value but it's a really simple and easy way to keep track of your spending without devoting a ton of time to it.
The next step is figuring out a similar system for your investments. You basically trade zero risk and total liquidity for rate of return. Your savings account should just hold your emergency "holy shit something has gone wrong and I need access to $10,000 right the eff now" funds. Idle cash is stagnant cash. As you build up your savings, you can tolerate less liquidity and more risk so the next most liquid investment should be pretty safe and stable and be more for "something has gone wrong and I need access to $10,000 sometime this week" sorts of situations.
As balances grow, keep adding riskier investments with higher rates of return until you have yourself a nice diversified investment portfolio. It just be a savings account, some kind of stable value or bond fund, and then a straight indexed mutual fund but that stuff gets highly individual.
posted by VTX at 11:51 AM on August 3, 2016 [21 favorites]
Times New Roman (or the current default) does not connote apathy. It connotes that the emphasis of the text is on its content, not its form. It wasn't designed, it was written. No matter what typeface you select, someone will hate it and hate you for selecting it. But if you use the default then they will merely hate your software.
posted by rlk at 12:26 PM on August 3, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by rlk at 12:26 PM on August 3, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm becoming almost a total skeptic about "willpower". Certainly it's futile to try to effect long-term change by a program of fighting - always fighting - what you in fact want to do. What has worked for me, in for example, quitting smoking 16 months ago, after 30 years of heavy-to-chain smoking, is tricking myself into looking at relapsing on a cigarette as something that's simply impossible. Sometimes I very badly want one, but there's nothing to do but wait for that feeling to go away, which it always does. I'm a non-smoker now - why would I smoke?
posted by thelonius at 12:38 PM on August 3, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 12:38 PM on August 3, 2016 [12 favorites]
There are a couple of things that I've ended up doing that mirror the 5th link in the post: keep my phone away from my bed and schedule weekly gym sessions with a trainer. I don't know if the phone thing has helped, and I can only do it now because it is the summer so no one has to be anywhere in the morning, but the gym one definitely has. It is damn expensive but at the same time it means that there is no way I am going to miss my session because then I'm out the cost of the session. And it also means that my family knows this is an appointment that can't be missed unless something big comes up. Because my trainer will ask if I exercised during the week on my own I have to go to the gym or at least exercise at home. I wish I didn't have to do things this way because it is damn expensive but between family and work it is the only way to make sure that I make it to the gym on a consistent basis and I am in the fortunate position to be able to afford the expense.
Not having junk food in the house is another big one for me. If it isn't there then I don't miss it (too much) but if it is then I will eat it.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:23 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Not having junk food in the house is another big one for me. If it isn't there then I don't miss it (too much) but if it is then I will eat it.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:23 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's good to be a skeptic about "willpower," as thelonius says, but it's also good to be a skeptic about the conviction that it doesn't exist and can't be manipulated. As the linked piece notes, we're susceptible in ways we don't or can't anticipate. We're social creatures, not just individuals, and we have very limited understanding of the social-vs-individual theories that designers and doctors and all manner of people theorize about and capitalize on. More of us will buy salad, per the article, if more of us walk by the salad bar on the way to pay. I, too, quit smoking for two years by agreeing with myself that smoking is not a thing I'd do. Until one day, for some fleeting salad bar stimulus, I had a cigarette. And then another. It's difficult or impossible to "redesign the defaults around you" for every variable. It's damaging to expect that it is. But it's nice to think in these aggregated population terms. We can arrange our collective and individual lives so that we buy more salad, but not only salad. We can arrange our lives to do anything more or less frequently, but aiming for total and perfect behavior control is hubris. Planning for incomplete and imperfect behavior control (which is really interchangable with the term "harm reduction" in my field) is a good, focused goal for now. But yeah I want better social theory in my lifetime. If I need to rearrange my apps in the meantime, I'll take that for now.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 5:31 PM on August 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 5:31 PM on August 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
I would love to hear about ways that people have set their personal life "defaults" - not just financial, which I am OK at, but everything else. Health, housecleaning, keeping in touch with people, staying on top of work...
posted by Miko at 7:21 PM on August 3, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Miko at 7:21 PM on August 3, 2016 [4 favorites]
tricking myself into looking at relapsing on a cigarette as something that's simply impossible
How is this different from exercising willpower?
posted by en forme de poire at 8:13 PM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
How is this different from exercising willpower?
posted by en forme de poire at 8:13 PM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
I mean, the decision to just accept and ride out an urge to smoke, as opposed to yielding to it, is still a decision you have to make when you're tempted to smoke. I can't imagine a situation in which that doesn't take willpower, at least during the period where you're training yourself to have the habit of letting those urges come and go. Not using willpower would be something like cutting up all your cigarettes when you're seized with the urge to quit, so that even if you would have later decided to smoke you can't.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:17 PM on August 3, 2016
posted by en forme de poire at 8:17 PM on August 3, 2016
That is a good question! One I am not sure I can answer very well. It feels different....have you ever read Infinite Jest? The AA parts, where characters talk about surrendering their will? It's like that. Still, in calling it a triick, I suppose I am admitting that perhaps there's not that much difference.
posted by thelonius at 8:18 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by thelonius at 8:18 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
But I actually have worked myself into some kind of Socratic state where I don't know what "willpower" is, and I don't see that anyone else knows, either.
posted by thelonius at 8:19 PM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 8:19 PM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
I guess I can get the distinction between 1. wrestling with an urge and 2. accepting it while still not giving in to it, and I agree the second way is a lot more effective. But "pretend it is not even an option" to not exercise or to get up early or to quit smoking or to finish work on a particular project early has never worked as advice for me, unfortunately -- at least not for more than a day or two.
Then again, as galling as this is to admit, I don't think I've ever successfully changed a habitual behavior long-term -- at least in the absence of concrete, proximate consequences. I still oversleep, stay up past 3 am, show up late to things, fail to exercise, fritter away money (mostly due to lack of planning, combined with a failure to resist various other impulses and social pressures), and waste too much time on the Internet, among other maladaptive behaviors. I've had these problems for the last 15 years at least. I know my life would be a lot better if I fixed these things, but because I have the kind of job where I don't usually have to show up at a specific time and being late to things probably won't get me fired if I don't do it too much, and because I haven't yet had some dramatic health event where a doctor has told me "you need to exercise more than twice a month, not just one month but on average, or you will die," I can only ever sustain those changes for a couple of weeks. If I had a boss who was really strict about keeping to a schedule, on the other hand, I'd definitely keep to it a lot better -- though honestly, still probably less perfectly than my co-workers.
So, I'm maybe an outlier in how poorly I can rely on skills falling under the broader umbrella of "willpower." Literally the only reason I have been able to pay off any credit card debt, for example, is because I started maintaining a separate bank account for fixed expenses and rolled my credit card payments into those automatic fixed expenses -- the "pay yourself first" trick. (Even then, I still get sloppy about the boundaries between that bank account and the one I'm actually supposed to use for "guilt free" spending, because it's my stupid rule and not someone else's and the consequences to breaking it are usually minor and deferred.)
posted by en forme de poire at 8:47 PM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
Then again, as galling as this is to admit, I don't think I've ever successfully changed a habitual behavior long-term -- at least in the absence of concrete, proximate consequences. I still oversleep, stay up past 3 am, show up late to things, fail to exercise, fritter away money (mostly due to lack of planning, combined with a failure to resist various other impulses and social pressures), and waste too much time on the Internet, among other maladaptive behaviors. I've had these problems for the last 15 years at least. I know my life would be a lot better if I fixed these things, but because I have the kind of job where I don't usually have to show up at a specific time and being late to things probably won't get me fired if I don't do it too much, and because I haven't yet had some dramatic health event where a doctor has told me "you need to exercise more than twice a month, not just one month but on average, or you will die," I can only ever sustain those changes for a couple of weeks. If I had a boss who was really strict about keeping to a schedule, on the other hand, I'd definitely keep to it a lot better -- though honestly, still probably less perfectly than my co-workers.
So, I'm maybe an outlier in how poorly I can rely on skills falling under the broader umbrella of "willpower." Literally the only reason I have been able to pay off any credit card debt, for example, is because I started maintaining a separate bank account for fixed expenses and rolled my credit card payments into those automatic fixed expenses -- the "pay yourself first" trick. (Even then, I still get sloppy about the boundaries between that bank account and the one I'm actually supposed to use for "guilt free" spending, because it's my stupid rule and not someone else's and the consequences to breaking it are usually minor and deferred.)
posted by en forme de poire at 8:47 PM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
My wife quit smoking by promising herself that she can, any time she chooses, have up to x more cigarettes. Once she smokes those x however, she can never smoke again. Worked for her.
I always refill the kettle after making coffee or tea. This reduces my cognitive load first thing in the morning when I stagger out half-awake, because I know that all I need to do is flick a switch to boil some water. The kettle turns itself off once the water boils. I keep my keys, cash, credit cards and public transit card in my wallet, so that I only need to remember one thing (my wallet) when going out. I keep a collapsible umbrella in my day pack so I never need to trust Melbourne's notoriously fickle weather.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 8:47 PM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
I always refill the kettle after making coffee or tea. This reduces my cognitive load first thing in the morning when I stagger out half-awake, because I know that all I need to do is flick a switch to boil some water. The kettle turns itself off once the water boils. I keep my keys, cash, credit cards and public transit card in my wallet, so that I only need to remember one thing (my wallet) when going out. I keep a collapsible umbrella in my day pack so I never need to trust Melbourne's notoriously fickle weather.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 8:47 PM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
(Anyway, blah, blah, blah, me, me, me. But the "set and forget" method did help prevent me from totally tanking my credit score and not being able to pay my rent, so hooray for that.)
posted by en forme de poire at 8:48 PM on August 3, 2016
posted by en forme de poire at 8:48 PM on August 3, 2016
Fidelity Investments did a study to find which of their accounts had made the most money. And what they found was: they were the accounts of people who forgot they had an account at Fidelity.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 11:00 PM on August 3, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 11:00 PM on August 3, 2016 [13 favorites]
That is a good question! One I am not sure I can answer very well. It feels different
As another ex-smoker, I get this and agree with it. It's just kind of a contract you make with yourself that you will just not ever be able to entertain the possibility of smoking ever again. You just don't smoke. You aren't a smoker and you don't smoke and you won't smoke even if it seems like a good idea. For me, when I was ready, making this decision one final time was a thousand times easier than making the "I really shouldn't but I want to" decision hundreds and hundreds of times until I fully relapsed. There is a difference and it's more like employing a sense of finality than willpower.
There's been a lot of research on "willpower" in the last few years, which you might want to read about. A lot of his pointed to some interesting conclusions, like there is only so much of it anyone has, and if you use it on work or family things you probably won't have much left over for walking by the vending machine and all that stuff. That's why defaulting is so helpful - you don't need to waste willpower on it. I know that finding has also been recently contested, but still it seems like our folk idea of "willpower" is a lot more complicated and tied to decisionmaking, gratification and reward systems, etc.
Whenever I've made a permanent behavior change it's taken a lot of focused effort, and I've had to really really want it make it a #1 or #2 priority for a good long while. I'm currently on about a 6 month kick of meditating every morning for 15 minutes, but I dropped it for 5 weeks while I was living elsewhere for part of the summer. The only reason I am back is that I had managed to successfully integrate it into my home morning routine so I find myself thinking "OK, now is meditation time" in the morning. I would have had to summon a whole new energy commitment to keep it going while I was away in a foreign routine where it did not fit well.
posted by Miko at 6:05 AM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
As another ex-smoker, I get this and agree with it. It's just kind of a contract you make with yourself that you will just not ever be able to entertain the possibility of smoking ever again. You just don't smoke. You aren't a smoker and you don't smoke and you won't smoke even if it seems like a good idea. For me, when I was ready, making this decision one final time was a thousand times easier than making the "I really shouldn't but I want to" decision hundreds and hundreds of times until I fully relapsed. There is a difference and it's more like employing a sense of finality than willpower.
There's been a lot of research on "willpower" in the last few years, which you might want to read about. A lot of his pointed to some interesting conclusions, like there is only so much of it anyone has, and if you use it on work or family things you probably won't have much left over for walking by the vending machine and all that stuff. That's why defaulting is so helpful - you don't need to waste willpower on it. I know that finding has also been recently contested, but still it seems like our folk idea of "willpower" is a lot more complicated and tied to decisionmaking, gratification and reward systems, etc.
Whenever I've made a permanent behavior change it's taken a lot of focused effort, and I've had to really really want it make it a #1 or #2 priority for a good long while. I'm currently on about a 6 month kick of meditating every morning for 15 minutes, but I dropped it for 5 weeks while I was living elsewhere for part of the summer. The only reason I am back is that I had managed to successfully integrate it into my home morning routine so I find myself thinking "OK, now is meditation time" in the morning. I would have had to summon a whole new energy commitment to keep it going while I was away in a foreign routine where it did not fit well.
posted by Miko at 6:05 AM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
My future self? Why would I help that jerk?
posted by ODiV at 9:41 PM on August 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by ODiV at 9:41 PM on August 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
What? Your future self is nothing but potential! You past self is the jerk. That jerk STILL hasn't done the dishes!
You should be nicer to your future self, you'll thank your past self later.
posted by VTX at 5:00 PM on August 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
You should be nicer to your future self, you'll thank your past self later.
posted by VTX at 5:00 PM on August 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
I would love to hear about ways that people have set their personal life "defaults" - not just financial, which I am OK at, but everything else. Health, housecleaning, keeping in touch with people, staying on top of work...
Inexplicably, it seems I'm now one of those people, so belatedly, on fitness:
Since late May I've been exercising every morning, in spite of the fact that I am a) not much of a morning person and b) have never considered myself remotely athletic. Based on an AskMeFi thread, I got a yoga app for my phone (Yoga Studio) that has prebuilt videos of varying difficulty and intensity from 10-60 minutes. Every morning when I wake up, I let myself do whatever I want until I get up to pee. (Mostly, I read Metafilter.) After that, I immediately have to put on clothes, go out to the back deck, and do a yoga session. It can be a 10 minute beginner session labeled "Relaxation" that mostly consists of mild stretching, but it can't be skipped unless I'm either too ill to go to work or about to go hiking for 5+ hours. What I've found is that while I often gripe in my head about how I'm only going to do the shortest, easiest video because I don't wanna get out of bed, once I'm up I don't actually choose to do that 95% of the time.
According to my phone I've been averaging 17 minutes of yoga a day, and have only skipped 3 days (see: hiking). Also I can finally do a few real pushups, which coincide with some significant strength gains & ab definition starting to show up in the past couple weeks. The whole thing's kind of surreal, since I have literally zero experience with doing a physical activity consistently and getting better at it in my 3+ decades of life until now. Somehow this combination of "you have no choice about doing this thing every morning, but lots of choice about how exactly you do this thing each morning" has been working fantastically well for me.
posted by deludingmyself at 10:35 AM on August 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
Inexplicably, it seems I'm now one of those people, so belatedly, on fitness:
Since late May I've been exercising every morning, in spite of the fact that I am a) not much of a morning person and b) have never considered myself remotely athletic. Based on an AskMeFi thread, I got a yoga app for my phone (Yoga Studio) that has prebuilt videos of varying difficulty and intensity from 10-60 minutes. Every morning when I wake up, I let myself do whatever I want until I get up to pee. (Mostly, I read Metafilter.) After that, I immediately have to put on clothes, go out to the back deck, and do a yoga session. It can be a 10 minute beginner session labeled "Relaxation" that mostly consists of mild stretching, but it can't be skipped unless I'm either too ill to go to work or about to go hiking for 5+ hours. What I've found is that while I often gripe in my head about how I'm only going to do the shortest, easiest video because I don't wanna get out of bed, once I'm up I don't actually choose to do that 95% of the time.
According to my phone I've been averaging 17 minutes of yoga a day, and have only skipped 3 days (see: hiking). Also I can finally do a few real pushups, which coincide with some significant strength gains & ab definition starting to show up in the past couple weeks. The whole thing's kind of surreal, since I have literally zero experience with doing a physical activity consistently and getting better at it in my 3+ decades of life until now. Somehow this combination of "you have no choice about doing this thing every morning, but lots of choice about how exactly you do this thing each morning" has been working fantastically well for me.
posted by deludingmyself at 10:35 AM on August 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
immediately have to put on clothes, go out to the back deck, and do a yoga session. It can be a 10 minute beginner session labeled "Relaxation" that mostly consists of mild stretching, but it can't be skipped unless I'm either too ill to go to work or about to go hiking for 5+ hours.
This is how I tried to be when I started walking on local trails every day. I decided it was far more important that I went out and walked some, avoiding a missed day, than how far or fast I went. Going a half of a mile and turning around > skipping a day, mostly mentally.
posted by thelonius at 5:04 AM on August 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is how I tried to be when I started walking on local trails every day. I decided it was far more important that I went out and walked some, avoiding a missed day, than how far or fast I went. Going a half of a mile and turning around > skipping a day, mostly mentally.
posted by thelonius at 5:04 AM on August 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oh wow. I do the same thing with weight lifting. Even if I can't do my whole program because of whatever reasons, I try to do something.
It's a bit easier with weight lifting because if you miss a day or especially if you miss two weeks straight, you body loses a lot of it's ability to recover and the next time you work out, your muscles will stay sore for a LOT longer.
I'm too lazy to go to a gym so have a weight set in the basement. I've been on a break while we're finishing the basement and I'm dreading the days following my first workout. I wouldn't be surprised if one workout keeps me sore for a whole week.
posted by VTX at 7:35 AM on August 8, 2016
It's a bit easier with weight lifting because if you miss a day or especially if you miss two weeks straight, you body loses a lot of it's ability to recover and the next time you work out, your muscles will stay sore for a LOT longer.
I'm too lazy to go to a gym so have a weight set in the basement. I've been on a break while we're finishing the basement and I'm dreading the days following my first workout. I wouldn't be surprised if one workout keeps me sore for a whole week.
posted by VTX at 7:35 AM on August 8, 2016
This makes a lot of sense! James Clear has been a favorite author of mine for years now and he continues providing good value with these well-researched articles. Still hoping I could implement them as I read and forget. Should probably ask James about that too but this willpower thing seems like a good starting point as well.
posted by deeplearner at 8:09 PM on August 9, 2016
posted by deeplearner at 8:09 PM on August 9, 2016
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And the place where I work now has an automated-enrollment in the 403(c) plan, auto-set to 1%, for all new hires. We're encouraged to up that if we want, but I doubt most people do.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:55 AM on August 3, 2016 [3 favorites]