Lynne and I were having coffee yesterday afternoon and we started talking about why sometimes we don’t do our press-ups in the morning. We had a look at the data, nothing in the patterns emerged to suggest why, other than perhaps if I get the ping that Lynne has done her pressups I seem to follow it with one back.

We are accountable to each other, we communicate on this and other aspects of our health on a daily basis. The kind of things we log with each other are:

• Pressups
• Weight
• Cold shower
• Swimming
• Blood Glucose level

We both know that the press-ups are good, we both want to do them, and we both know that they are hard. So sometimes they don’t get done, and we will probably have our own reasons. It isn’t that we forget, there is some decision being taken whereby some mornings they are done, and others they are not.

I got to really thinking that it was something around the decision point which was the problem, and worth focusing in on. So I have decided to log the decision each morning. If I do them then log them, but if I don’t then I have to log why I haven’t done them.

So, this morning, I woke up at the usual time. No alarm clock this week. I immediately thought that yes I’ll do my pressups today. That is possibly the first consequence of collecting this additional data. The act of observation changes the outcome. I didn’t want to have to write why I wasn’t going to do them.

I did my pressups even though I was late getting up in the end, I also had a cold shower, had my supplements and shake and was out in record time.

So that is step 1, analyse the decision. I suspect, however, that the answer lies in not allowing myself to take the decision at all. This article goes into more detail:

The Behavioral Economics Diet: The Science of Killing a Bad Habit