Willpower is a bad plan: decide once instead
Every time you pick up your phone, you're negotiating with yourself. Make the decision once, when you're thinking clearly, and stop re-making it every time your thumb wanders.
How to decide once
- 1
At 1am, you lose
Late at night you're negotiating with the most tired version of you. That's not a fair fight, so don't plan on winning it.
- 2
Decide while you're clear-headed
Morning you already knows tonight is for sleep and this afternoon is for the essay. Let that version of you make the call.
- 3
Make the good option the default
Don't plan on saying no 40 times a day. Set things up so the easy thing is the good thing: the phone in another room, the app off the home screen.
- 4
Remove the choice
If the app won't open, there's nothing to argue about. That's the whole trick.
This is called precommitment, and it's the same reason people put savings in an account that's hard to touch.
