Great article. One comment—the Oreo story is an explicitly negative example. You are choosing to ‘not’ to do something. I’m not sure the effective force principle works so well for positive actions. To take one example—I am struggling to exercise at the moment. To my mind the key to starting to exercise again is establishing a routine (e.g. go for a run every morning) but this seems to be a different framework to the idea of applying maximum force at the opportune moment. How would the effective force principle work in this context?
Where is the “smallest nudge” sufficient to give you the momentum you need?
For instance, while struggling to exercise, I found that just going and physically touching my treadmill each morning was enough. It was a small enough commitment that it didn’t take much energy and didn’t meet much resistance, but it caused me to consciously reconnect with my desire to exercise, each morning, such that I found myself more naturally thinking “okay, when today might be a good time to do this?”
Yeah, my first suggestion is some kind of (extremely) low-effort ritual, early in the day, that causes you to notice the potential for taking a walk, without any pressure to do anything about that fact.
One trick that worked for me in such a scenario, is to make refusal to exercise costly in terms of hassle and inconvenience.
For example, when I’m done exercising, I put my dumbbells on my gaming chair. Thus, it will be impossible for me to go sit and play the next day without actually lifting them again, and if I lift them again...its not that hard to just keep on lifting until I’m exhausted.
Trick number two, was to ask my SO to remind me to work out every other day before sleep. If I refuse, to do so, I would have to face a minor embarrassment of having to explain why, to person who knows all my lies and self-lies. Moreover, my SO claimed sexual preference for a physically fit partner over a pudgy one, so I’m indirectly reminded that refusing to lift is detrimental to my sexual pleasure in the long run, while getting and keeping a sixpack has enormous and enthusiastically noticed benefits.
So in effect, the concentration of force here is a pile of small inconveniences for non-compliance, and small rewards for compliance, that themselves can be established with minimum effort.
Great article. One comment—the Oreo story is an explicitly negative example. You are choosing to ‘not’ to do something. I’m not sure the effective force principle works so well for positive actions. To take one example—I am struggling to exercise at the moment. To my mind the key to starting to exercise again is establishing a routine (e.g. go for a run every morning) but this seems to be a different framework to the idea of applying maximum force at the opportune moment. How would the effective force principle work in this context?
Where is the “smallest nudge” sufficient to give you the momentum you need?
For instance, while struggling to exercise, I found that just going and physically touching my treadmill each morning was enough. It was a small enough commitment that it didn’t take much energy and didn’t meet much resistance, but it caused me to consciously reconnect with my desire to exercise, each morning, such that I found myself more naturally thinking “okay, when today might be a good time to do this?”
This is interesting. Given that I do not have a treadmill, and want to go for actual walks, what would be your suggestion? Perhaps touching my shoes?
Yeah, my first suggestion is some kind of (extremely) low-effort ritual, early in the day, that causes you to notice the potential for taking a walk, without any pressure to do anything about that fact.
One trick that worked for me in such a scenario, is to make refusal to exercise costly in terms of hassle and inconvenience.
For example, when I’m done exercising, I put my dumbbells on my gaming chair. Thus, it will be impossible for me to go sit and play the next day without actually lifting them again, and if I lift them again...its not that hard to just keep on lifting until I’m exhausted.
Trick number two, was to ask my SO to remind me to work out every other day before sleep. If I refuse, to do so, I would have to face a minor embarrassment of having to explain why, to person who knows all my lies and self-lies. Moreover, my SO claimed sexual preference for a physically fit partner over a pudgy one, so I’m indirectly reminded that refusing to lift is detrimental to my sexual pleasure in the long run, while getting and keeping a sixpack has enormous and enthusiastically noticed benefits.
So in effect, the concentration of force here is a pile of small inconveniences for non-compliance, and small rewards for compliance, that themselves can be established with minimum effort.