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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: January 14th, 2024

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  • I have something similar. I practice doing certain routine micro-habits until they become ingrained in muscle memory and always do them.

    For example, I still set my keys down without thinking most times they are in my hand, but thanks to spending several hours practicing the motion years ago, I now always unthinkingly set them where they belong: clipped to my beltloop and tucked into my pocket. Anytime I identify a need to add one of these to my life I spend an hour practicing experiencing the trigger and then doing the motion. To learn the keys-in-pocket habit, I held my keys, clipped and tucked. Pull them out, note the feel of them in my hand, and repeat, over and over. It feels silly to practice doing something so easy, but once it becomes muscle memory, it doesn’t rely on my faulty thinking memory. I’ll do several sessions of practice every few days until I can feel that it’s fully ‘set’ as an unthinking motion. They’re a pain to establish, but they are well worth it and have saved me a ton of grief over the years.

    One of these automatic habits saved me this morning. I always pat my keys when closing a locking door behind me (even if it isn’t locked), and this morning I had missed swapping my keys to my new pair of pants. I would have been locked out of my house and late for work if patting my empty pockets hadn’t alerted me just before a pulled the locked door close behind me. I have some other ones that I haven’t mentioned, because I can’t think of what they are. I’d notice the problems they prevent coming back if I stopped doing them, so I can only assume they must still be working.