The problem this solves
You know what to do — sleep on time, lift, write, call your mum, save. The advice landed years ago. The habits still collapse on bad days, and the bad days are the only ones that matter for compounding.
This micro-course treats that as a design failure, not a willpower failure. The reason your habit didn't survive the cold isn't that you're weak; it's that you never designed a bad-day version, never made the cue specific, and asked the habit to be larger than the worst-day version of you can do. Five design levers separate habits that quietly run for years from ones that die in week three.
A taste of the exercise
The preview lesson walks you through scoring one specific habit on the five levers, identifying the lowest score, and removing one friction point or anchoring one cue within the next 24 hours. You'll write down the bad-day version explicitly before you need it.
Key concepts
- Activation energy
- How much friction sits between you and the first 60 seconds of the habit. The first step matters more than the next 60 minutes.
- Cue
- A specific, unambiguous trigger anchored to an existing routine. ‘After I pour coffee’ beats ‘in the morning.’
- Friction
- Anything in the environment that fights the habit. Removing one obstacle usually beats adding three rewards.
- Minimum viable habit
- The version small enough that you can run it on the worst day of your year. Anything above is bonus.
- Bad-day plan
- The pre-decided 50% version. Without one, missed days become quit-events.
- Identity reinforcement
- ‘I am someone who shows up for the minimum, every day.’ Identity is reinforced every time the habit runs, regardless of outcome.
- Streak fragility
- How brittle the habit is when interrupted. Streak-driven apps optimise the wrong thing.
Common mistakes
- Picking five habits at once and finishing none.
- Designing the ‘ideal’ version and never the bad-day version.
- Setting outcome-led identity (“I'm a runner”) on day one — your inner critic catches the lie.
- Anchoring to a vague cue (“in the morning”) instead of an unambiguous one.
- Trying to make up for missed days with heroic Tuesdays.