A Good Trick to Form Habits
Using Google Chrome’s “On Startup” Settings
The best way to form a habit is to do it every day. That’s why Seinfeld’s Don’t break the chain method works really well. The downside is that it is too easy to forget what you have been planning to do.
I accidentally discovered a stress-free way to remind myself to do something every day with minimum amount of work.
Every morning, when I come to the office I launch my Google Chrome browser. It stays open during the day and since I like doing a clean start every day I shutdown my computer when I leave the office.
There were tasks I needed to do every day. Things I needed to check daily. So, I started putting them on Chrome’s On Startup Settings.
Do you want to make a new medium post every day? Simply add https://medium.com/p/new-post to your On Startup Settings. When you launch your browser for the first time in the morning
You will find yourself in front of an empty Medium editor and just let yourself type. You can always delete the draft if you can’t get out something good.
I have been using the technique for a long time mainly to remind myself to check various things daily. It works well. Go ahead give it a try. It is under “Preferences” on Chrome.
A great thing about this method is that it is less stressful compare to goal based approaches.
“I have to write 500 words at 9am” is kind of stressful. You feel guilty about the task. Feeling bad about a task is not a good way to form habits.
Let’s say you are at your office or wherever you start your work day and there is an urgent matter you need to take care of. You don’t have to break your chain that day. The tab waits for you in the background in silence. Just complete your urgent tasks and you can process the waiting tabs later in the day.
