Personal Dev Habits¶
12 cards — 🟢 5 easy | 🟡 5 medium | 🔴 2 hard
🟢 Easy (5)¶
1. What is the habit loop and what are its three components?
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The habit loop consists of: (1) Cue — a specific trigger that initiates the behavior (e.g., "after I pour my coffee"), (2) Routine — the behavior itself, and (3) Reward — the benefit that reinforces the loop. The cue must be specific, time-bound, and tied to an existing behavior to be effective. "When I feel motivated" is not a cue.2. What is a Minimum Viable Habit (MVH) and why is it more effective than starting with the full behavior?
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An MVH is the smallest version of a behavior that still counts — completable on your worst day in under 2 minutes, requiring no decisions. Example: instead of "study for 1 hour," the MVH is "open Anki and review 5 cards." It works because it maintains the identity loop ("I study every day") and keeps the neural pathway active. You can always do more, but the MVH is the non-negotiable floor.3. What is the two-day rule for habit recovery and what should you do after missing a day?
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The two-day rule: never miss two days in a row. One miss is noise; two consecutive misses is the start of a new (worse) habit. After a miss: (1) notice without drama, (2) briefly diagnose the cause, (3) do the MVH today — not the full version, (4) adjust if the miss reveals a system problem, (5) resume normal schedule tomorrow. Never "make up" a miss with a double session — this creates punishment associations.4. What is the one-metric rule for habit tracking, and why does tracking more than one metric per habit backfire?
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Track one binary metric per habit (did it / did not do it). Tracking multiple metrics per habit turns tracking into its own hobby, consuming energy that should go to the actual habit. If tracking takes more than 60 seconds per day, it is too heavy. Common anti-patterns: tracking 6+ habits simultaneously, building elaborate spreadsheets before the habit exists, obsessing over streak length rather than trend direction.5. Why does motivation often follow action rather than precede it?
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Waiting to feel motivated before starting is the primary avoidance trap. Action — even the smallest version — generates its own momentum. The feeling of "being in the groove" appears after starting, not before. Practical implication: design habits to start before motivation is required. The MVH lowers the activation energy so low that starting requires no motivational state at all.🟡 Medium (5)¶
1. What is the 20-second rule in habit design and how does it apply to both building and breaking habits?
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The 20-second rule states that making a desired habit 20 seconds easier to start dramatically increases compliance, and making an undesired habit 20 seconds harder to start dramatically reduces it. Example: Anki as the first app on your dock (easier to start) vs. logging out of social media on the desktop (harder to reach). This tiny friction differential is disproportionately powerful because it works without relying on willpower.2. What is habit stacking and what makes a good anchor habit?
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Habit stacking uses an existing habit as the cue for a new one: "After I [EXISTING HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT]." A good anchor habit is rock-solid (daily, automatic, no-brainer) — like making coffee, opening a laptop, or finishing standup. The new behavior must be small enough not to disrupt the anchor. Stack no more than 2-3 new habits onto one anchor.3. Why is self-regulation better understood as resource management than willpower, and what conserves it?
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Self-regulation draws from a finite daily budget — full in the morning, depleted by evening. Each decision, temptation resistance, and forced start costs from this budget. Conserve it by: pre-deciding what, when, and where you will do things (eliminate decisions), front-loading difficult tasks when the budget is full, automating low-value decisions through environment design, and protecting sleep and exercise which refill the budget.4. What does "avoidance often protects you from a feeling, not a task" mean in practice?
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Avoidance is usually not laziness — it is threat management. People avoid tasks because of the feelings associated with them: confusion (the task is unclear), fear (of failure or judgment), boredom (low reward), shame (past failure associations), or resentment (the task feels imposed). Naming the specific feeling lowers resistance because you can address the actual cause. "What feeling am I dodging?" is a better diagnostic than "why am I procrastinating?"5. What are the three most common reasons new habits fail in weeks 2-3?
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(1) Starting with the heroic version — ambitious targets collapse under normal life friction; (2) Changing multiple behaviors simultaneously — each new habit competes for the same finite regulation budget; (3) Treating one miss as system failure — a single miss is statistically meaningless, but catastrophizing it creates a second miss and then a collapse. Fix: MVH, one habit at a time, no-drama recovery protocol.🔴 Hard (2)¶
1. How do you know when a habit is ready to be scaled up, and what are signs you need to scale back?
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Scale up when: compliance is above 90% for two weeks, you frequently do more than the minimum naturally, and the cue-routine-reward loop feels automatic. Scale back when: compliance drops below 80%, you negotiate with yourself about whether to do it, the habit feels like a burden, or you skip "just this once" more than once a week. Scale gradually: add a small increment, sustain for 2 weeks, evaluate before adding more.2. Why does consistency beat intensity at every timescale that matters for habit-driven improvement?