When I announced Habits 2.0, a fellow Western MA Hackathoner, Molly McLeod, reminded me of BJ Fogg and his Tiny Habits method.

Only three things will change behavior in the long term.

Option A. Have an epiphany
Option B. Change your environment (what surrounds you)
Option C. Take baby steps

I had first learned of BJ from Ramit Sethi’s interview with him. The moment I remember most clearly was his method to start to floss. He suggested that you only commit to flossing one tooth each day — if you did that to start and internalized that that was success, you’d start flossing more eventually. I started doing this, and while I’m not a perfect flosser, I do floss most of the time. That convinced me that baby steps were a real thing. If you have any interest in this, sign up for a (free) week-long tiny habits session with BJ.

So, with Habits 2.0 out the door, I am going to plan 2.01, a baby step improvement of 2.0 by just doing a very small amount of work each day on it.  I joined BJ’s tiny habits for this week and he recommends adding a 30-second behavior triggered by something you will definitely do each day. I decided that once I put my dinner plate in the dishwasher, I will sit at my desk and run the Simulator. Then, I will celebrate that as a success (and mark it done in Habits, of course).

I have been doing that for about 6 days, and each day when I run the simulator, I usually test Habits out a little, and write up a Trello card or write a small test.  BJ’s advice is to keep it completely pain-free and small and to not worry about building on the tiny behavior. Still, in this time I have managed to make a bunch of small improvements to Habits, which I look forward to sharing soon.