Negative Tracking

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reinhard
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Negative Tracking

Post by reinhard » Fri Oct 06, 2006 2:31 pm

When you first start out trying to turn a new behavior into a habit, every successful day is "information" and worth noting. The behavior is novel, and by default, you wouldn't have been doing it. This is positive tracking.

But tracking takes effort, even if it's only a minimal "days on habit," and after a while, once you've successfully established your habit, it's no longer very informative. The default has changed. The default is now success. Keeping explicit track of this default takes effort and doesn't tell you much. Failures now become the interesting, unusual, newsworthy thing. You can now switch to just recording these, saving effort and clutter and without losing information. I call this negative tracking. It's basically all I do in my daily check-in anymore.

It's not just a good value over positive tracking, you don't just get the same thing for less, you get more. Since keeping track is a pain, good behavior is rewarded by not having to keep track, bad behavior is punished by having to. So negative tracking gives you an additional incentive to behave. This is magnified since because you're now only keeping track of the bad, it stands out more, it is more obvious and shaming (especially if you confess it publicly here on the bulletin board). It's also an act of generosity, if you post publicly, because it lets other people see that you are still with it. That's inspiring. Yes, they're seeing this only negatively, through a fumble, but when their default is a fumble, the occasional fumble of the generally successful makes success seem more accessible.

I've been negatively tracking behaviors I am not at all worried about for myself at this point: like "no-s." I am utterly confident that no-s will continue to work for me and that I will not backslide, even if some funny stuff crops up now and then. So why do I still track? Because it's very cheap, because it's sociable, because the discipline rubs off on other less well established behaviors, and because the strictness it encourages actually makes the behavior even easier and more natural and pleasurable.

As I mentioned above, positive tracking is best when your habit is young. But for most of our lives, hopefully, we'll be maintaining established habits rather than struggling with new ones. For that, negative tracking is the way to go. It's almost as cheap as no tracking, and provides even more benefits than positive tracking.

Reinhard

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gratefuldeb67
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Post by gratefuldeb67 » Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:05 pm

Hi Reinhard and people of EDS!

Just wanted to tell you that I'm definitely going to start using Negative Tracking from here on with my NoS Daily Checkin..

Wow, to be honest, this last week has been fairly "blurry" to me and I know that for the past two days I've messed up..
I'm gonna start fresh on Monday with a post whenever I break the rules..
Funny enough, the S days were fine! LOL!
Just had a few days where I had to think about how many meals I actually had, and about two days when I had second portions..
So, hopefully, you *won't* see me on Monday!

You know my style though, I usually don't do to well with the whole negative/failure etc deal...
But I guess it might sound too cliched to call this approach
"Honesty tracking" or "Reality Checkin" :lol:

In the end, the motivation which sounds negative, actually yields a positve result, so I'm willing to accept that!
It will make me much more vigilant of the rules, which I like anyway! :mrgreen:

Have a wonderful week!
Peace and Love,
8) Deb
There is no Wisdom greater than Kindness

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:41 pm

Negative tracking sounds like a downer, but it's really very optimistic: it assumes the default is success. No news is good news.

Good luck, Deb! Happy you think this might be useful to you (and hope it is).

Reinhard

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gratefuldeb67
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Post by gratefuldeb67 » Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:47 pm

I'm sure it will be helpful Rein! :)
The self help guru knows what he is talkin about! :mrgreen:

All of these wonderful systems are really optimized to work for us!
Yes, exactly, no news is good news, and this makes the outcome way less random or left to chance..
I absolutely need some external motivators in this aspect of my life.. I really like and need to know that somewhere there is an active structure at work here, and I'm *still* the one making it happen!

Have a great weekend everyone!
Peace and Love,
8) Deb

ps.. Feel free to use this as an advertisement or blub on the back cover for your upcoming hardcover #1 best seller! :wink:
There is no Wisdom greater than Kindness

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