Trigger-Action Plans did essentially nothing for me the first two serious attempts I made to use them. I found this confusing, since structurally they seemed very similair to drills which do work well for me. The second time I leaned on that similairity, deliberatly setting up multiple instances of the trigger to happen close together the first few days in order to get the idea in my head while I was paying attention to it, which helped a little but ultimately they didn’t stick.
What worked for me the third time was adding a step. The last part of any plan needs to be some kind of reward for myself that I otherwise wouldn’t get. When I go to sit down at my desk, I do twenty push-ups, and then eat a chocolate chip. When I get home from work, I go for a run, and then immediately make myself a smoothie. Importantly, these things are off limits except through the TAP. Apparently I can’t reliably enforce a rule of “when I get to my desk I do push-ups” but I can reliably enforce a rule of “I don’t get chocolate chips unless I did push-ups.”
Trigger-Action Plans did essentially nothing for me the first two serious attempts I made to use them. I found this confusing, since structurally they seemed very similair to drills which do work well for me. The second time I leaned on that similairity, deliberatly setting up multiple instances of the trigger to happen close together the first few days in order to get the idea in my head while I was paying attention to it, which helped a little but ultimately they didn’t stick.
What worked for me the third time was adding a step. The last part of any plan needs to be some kind of reward for myself that I otherwise wouldn’t get. When I go to sit down at my desk, I do twenty push-ups, and then eat a chocolate chip. When I get home from work, I go for a run, and then immediately make myself a smoothie. Importantly, these things are off limits except through the TAP. Apparently I can’t reliably enforce a rule of “when I get to my desk I do push-ups” but I can reliably enforce a rule of “I don’t get chocolate chips unless I did push-ups.”