measuring progress properly

[ajasatya]

when i want to ditch a habit that i find toxic, this is how i measure my progress...

instead of counting the days i stay clean and restarting everytime i relapse, as if i were expecting some kind of prior perfection, i find a way to see my progress on the long run, avoiding losing data.

suppose i want to quit porn, but atm i watch porn every 2 days. my goal would be to increase the gap between the days that i relapse. a systematic way of doing this is by using bars to plot those gaps:

x represents the gap (1st, 2nd, 3rd etc) and y represents the number of days that i was able to do what i want to do. this is how a steady progress looks like:

Edited December 5, 2018 by ajasatya

[ivory]

How many lifestyle changes do you try to make at the same time. Just one?

[fewrocker]

Habit managing and changing works differently from people to people. Good to do the stuff that works for you, if you're being honest all the time in judging if is actually working

 

That is definitely a good one. Just be careful of not using the "Im getting better a little bit at a time" card to avoid getting better in a quicker way. With the porn thing, if your gaps looked liked this: 1 week, 2 weeks, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks. That looks like good progress. But "3 days,  4 days, 5 days, 6 days, 7 days" is not good progress. Actually you might get a mindset of "woof, I've beat my best gap of 7 days, so I will just jerk off on the eigth"

 

It seems to me that it is much more a question of honest judgment of the process than the process mechanics itself

[Charlotte]

@ajasatya I think that's awesome! Kinda changes your perspective doesn't it. Brilliant dude! 

[ajasatya]

6 hours ago, ivory said:

How many lifestyle changes do you try to make at the same time. Just one?

it depended on the degree of attachment. when the craving was too strong, i only picked one.

4 hours ago, fewrocker said:

1 week, 2 weeks, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks. That looks like good progress. But "3 days,  4 days, 5 days, 6 days, 7 days" is not good progress. Actually you might get a mindset of "woof, I've beat my best gap of 7 days, so I will just jerk off on the eigth"

yeap that's why i chose a picture with a curve, not a straight line, to represent good progress. the progress can be quadratic, cubic or even exponential (the best one imo).

Edited December 8, 2018 by ajasatya

[Bluebird]

@ajasatya Do you have an example spreadsheet you use to track this data? Or what's your process for tracking the data.

[CreamCat]

I usually don't measure progress in changing a habit because I try to change one habit at a time. When you change one habit, it is obvious when a habit changes.

[ajasatya]

2 hours ago, Bluebird said:

@ajasatya Do you have an example spreadsheet you use to track this data? Or what's your process for tracking the data.

since i'm very familiar with numbers it's easy for me to keep track of them in my memory... so i don't have an example spreadsheet to share .

[Shroomdoctor]

@ajasatya This is really cool. I also like the percentage of "success" days against "failed" days.