For diet, in my experience, trying to eliminate a food directly is nearly impossible; instead, I approach it from the opposite direction and look for foods to add, which can displace the unwanted ones. From this angle, a lot of subtle failure modes become more obvious; to displace candy, you need something (or some combination of things) that’s equally convenient (or you’ll backslide when you don’t have time to cook), non-perishable (or you’ll backslide when you haven’t grocery shopped for awhile), portable (or you’ll backslide when travedlling), and calorie-containing (or you’ll backslide when you really need the calories).
My most important self-improvement project recently has been researching and experimenting with nootropics. Gadget shopping can sometimes be a self-improvement project; buying a Roomba is better than cleaning, for example, and buying a smartphone can convert a lot of downtime into reading time. Trying new software, particularly in categories you’ve never used before, gives you new capabilities. You do have to be honest with yourself about how much the actual benefit is, and how much money is worth to you, though.
Any time spent searching for and addressing bad habits is especially well spent, if it has a reasonable chance of turning up new insights. But they only count if they’re actionable; deciding to be more considerate is worthless unless it’s followed by thinking about or researching a specific cue to consider, deciding to study more is worthless unless it’s followed by choosing a distraction to eliminate, etc. This is mostly a matter of sitting down with a diary and thinking. (Thanks Alicorn, for pressuring me into doing this more; my diary’s been getting a lot more entries since I started reading Luminosity, and some of those entries had important insights.)
For diet, in my experience, trying to eliminate a food directly is nearly impossible; instead, I approach it from the opposite direction and look for foods to add, which can displace the unwanted ones. From this angle, a lot of subtle failure modes become more obvious; to displace candy, you need something (or some combination of things) that’s equally convenient (or you’ll backslide when you don’t have time to cook), non-perishable (or you’ll backslide when you haven’t grocery shopped for awhile), portable (or you’ll backslide when travedlling), and calorie-containing (or you’ll backslide when you really need the calories).
My most important self-improvement project recently has been researching and experimenting with nootropics. Gadget shopping can sometimes be a self-improvement project; buying a Roomba is better than cleaning, for example, and buying a smartphone can convert a lot of downtime into reading time. Trying new software, particularly in categories you’ve never used before, gives you new capabilities. You do have to be honest with yourself about how much the actual benefit is, and how much money is worth to you, though.
Any time spent searching for and addressing bad habits is especially well spent, if it has a reasonable chance of turning up new insights. But they only count if they’re actionable; deciding to be more considerate is worthless unless it’s followed by thinking about or researching a specific cue to consider, deciding to study more is worthless unless it’s followed by choosing a distraction to eliminate, etc. This is mostly a matter of sitting down with a diary and thinking. (Thanks Alicorn, for pressuring me into doing this more; my diary’s been getting a lot more entries since I started reading Luminosity, and some of those entries had important insights.)