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Ask HN: What's the most effective thing you've done to eliminate bad habits?

4 pointsby markhallover 4 years ago

6 comments

bobrenjc93over 4 years ago
I try to find handicaps to help nudge me in the right direction. I used to have a bad habit of working for hours without a break, causing pretty severe eye pain. A few months ago, I installed an app called "time out" on mac that forces me to take a break after 20 minutes of working. It was hard at the beginning, but now I've pretty much completely eliminated the bad habit.
davidn20over 4 years ago
Replace them with good habits. It's actually almost impossible to eliminate habits. Especially long-standing ones. The best you can do is avoid the cue or change the routine. I highly suggest reading "The Power Of Habit" or "Atomic Habit."
souprockover 4 years ago
1. I used to have a huge glass of Mountain Dew with most meals. I created a new habit, singing a little tune as I had the drink: &quot;Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew, it&#x27;s the drink that&#x27;s bad for you.&quot; It also helped to think about ingredients, particularly the brominated vegetable oil. That did it.<p>2. I used to drive while tired. I crashed. This was effective for eliminating the bad habit, but I can&#x27;t recommend it.
forgotmypw17over 4 years ago
Two-prong approach: Make it easy to avoid them, and easy to do something else.<p>Don&#x27;t bring any refined sugar foods into the house. Make fruits available easily.<p>Don&#x27;t have tobacco around. Make it so I&#x27;m always ready to go on a walk.<p>Disable&#x2F;delete accounts on unhelpful services. Replace their quickmarks with my own websites.
runawaybottleover 4 years ago
Couple the bad habit with a good habit. Then try to taper the bad habit down until only the good one remains, or live with a modest reduction in the bad habit.
_benjover 4 years ago
getting a dumb phone...<p>And I guess the principle in this to make good habits easier and bad habits harder, thus by getting a dumb phone wasting 3 hours a day looking memes became harder and picking up my guitar or ham radio easier.