Never miss two days in a row

I’ve been experimenting with Complice.co for goal setting lately, and today I noticed this feature:

(The button at the bottom links here, if you’re curious.)

I love this feature because it’s an answer to failing with abandon.

The “don’t break the chain” method (aka the Seinfeld Method) of productivity gets a lot of attention. But if you do break the chain (say you get sick or your power goes out) then you’re screwed. Nothing screams “Fail me with abandon! Bring on the shame!” like breaking that chain.

So if you redefine “the chain” as being “the number of days you’ve gone without missing two days in a row” then you don’t feel the urge to fail with abandon if you miss a day.

What finally worked was getting her to commit to some big, embarrassing consequence — not if she missed a day of the habit, but if she missed two days in a row.

Her rule was: it’s OK to miss one day, but never miss two days in a row.

And the corollary was: when you miss one day, do everything you can to figure out why you missed, and solve it so you don’t keep missing. Use the missed day as feedback that your habit method needs to be adjusted.

Source (complice.co)

Plus, “chillStreak” is a cool name.