
The Lean Habit - russ_poll
https://russellpollari.com/2019/04/04/the-lean-habit/
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makerescape
seeking to add to the discussion of how to cross-apply lean thinking to habit
development, inspired by “What you want to do and what you actually do are not
always the same.”

I’ve heard innovators say users can’t tell you what they want and use that a
justification for abandoning the study of users. But I’ve found that users can
tell you what they do, if they are interviewed thoughtfully and with concern
for how they feel about telling you something as vulnerable as what they
actually do. They yearn to do it, actually. Especially when they feel
supported and heard.

On habits, seems like the same thing applies, but in this case you are
interviewing yourself. Keeping a daily log of what you do feels tedious and
intimidating. A practice I’ve found helpful is creating not just journals, but
actual maps of the current reality of the thing you’re seeking to improve.
Detailed. With artifacts. Like on a wall. And then a separate activity is to
find the places in the reality that least map to the outcomes you are trying
to achieve. And then, with these problems identified, you can ask the
question: what is the simplest thing I can do now to adjust my behaviors in
these problem areas in a way that accelerates my progress towards the outcome
I want?” I think I’m going to try this out.

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russ_poll
Interesting, do you have an example? This sounds more intimidating than a
daily log (the mvp can be a single line on if you accomplished a habit or
not).

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makerescape
Let me explain what I mean by intimidating, because I’m not talking about
work-load. The work involved in mapping a current reality is much more
intimidating—-in terms of load—-than daily journaling. But journaling—-which
I’ve done: I have a box filled with written personal journals—-turned, for me,
less into a faithful map of what I’d actually done and more into an effort to
reconcile what had already happened to my goals. So if I had a hard day, I
would try to recontextualize it, in my journal, in some positive light that
showed how it ultimately contributed to my goals. And that became burdensome
and painful ... hence intimidating to me as a concept now.

A current reality map, on the other hand, starts with the objective of
forensic impartiality. I’m not doing it with any goal to validate my current
approach. I’m just trying to actually see what is happening, with a bigger
goal to see how what is happening is NOT aligned to what I want to have
happen, so that I can innovate in a way that addresses that inconsistency.

And by framing it this way, it becomes more a process of innovation, which is
less intimidating to me than the self-advocacy or self-defense or self-
delusion I typically experience in journaling.

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russ_poll
Good points. I think automating habit tracking as much as possible can help
avoid the desire to recontextualize.

Keeping measurement as objective as possible as well. e.g. How many sentences
did I write today?

I think you are describing something like this. In which there is less
reliance on self-reporting.

