The Trunk5 min
Weathering a Storm: How to Skip Habits Beneficially
What to Do When the Going Gets Tough
The basic idea of doing simple things every day sounds very easy in practice. But life is full of unforeseen events. We are sure to face challenges; that is just life. And just like the oak tree uses its deep roots and bendable structure to weather a storm, we too must be sturdy and flexible enough to face our challenges. This requires us to design our HabitSystem in a way that is resilient—tough so it can survive the problems that will crop up in the real world. Many approaches—like working out every day, reading for half an hour every day, practicing an instrument fifteen minutes every day—sound very good and very doable. On paper.
But we have learned that these aims are too high. In fact, going from reading zero pages a day to half an hour a day is actually crazy. Only very few people will actually follow through. We have partly solved this issue by making our habits very small. But even that is not enough. In this section, we will cover the inevitable failures that will happen—even if the habits are very small.
Believe it or not, there will be days where even the simplest of habits do not get completed. There are numerous reasons for this, and life will be very creative in putting obstacles in our way. Especially in the beginning—the first weeks and even months—you will find it relatively hard to maintain your habit streak. Over time, you will find your consistency accumulates and even the unforeseen obstacles life throws at you will be easy to overcome.
When we talk about making these types of habit blunders, we can use a skipping method as a tool.
We define skipping this way: “Skipping means not completing a habit—for whatever reason—without breaking the chain.”
This definition implies that you do not lose your chain but have not completed the habit on a given day. One could argue that when you do not complete your habit, you have failed and your chain starts at zero again.
However, this may not be the best way to look at it for a couple of reasons. For starters, there can be legitimate reasons to skip—not based on feelings or excuses but on predefined rules. We will look at possible rules that allow you—guilt-free—to skip a habit without losing your chain.
Whether you want to use a skipping method depends on the importance you place on the concept of chains. Some people do not use skipping at all and stick to the binary approach of only having success or failure. Other people prefer to have a more flexible system.
I cannot tell you which way is better. It is a personal decision. However, I have one important thing to add. Skipping can be dangerous as we will see in each of the different skipping methods, which are as follows:
- Re-do missed days
- Rule skipping
- Zen mode
- Flexible approach
Re-do missed days
The “re-do missed days” approach is the most straightforward form of skipping. It can be implemented in two ways. Boiled down, it allows you to re-do your habit the next day if you failed to do it previously.
This comes with some dangers, however. Beginners especially may feel tempted to skip and think, Nah, I’ll do this tomorrow. And then they say this every day thereafter. This is a complete failure of a HabitSystem. Re-do missed days should be the last resort. Otherwise, it becomes a habit itself—which is to be avoided at all costs.
Consequently, re-do missed days is an approach I can only recommend to very conscientious people because of the inherent danger of it becoming a habit itself.
What can re-do missed days look like? Imagine you are on a road trip and forgot the book you want to read. You have missed one day of your reading habit. On the morning of the next day, you get back home and “re-do” your habit by reading one page. You can now either mark the lost day as skipped or as completed successfully (that is up to you). In the evening, you complete your reading habit for that day, just like you normally would.
The important notion is that you complete a re-do for the missed day. The next day you re-do the lost day, and complete the habit for that day as well. This is important because otherwise, you have not really re-done the missed habit. In the first 10 months of my Habit Journey, I used re-do missed days a couple of times. On some days, I did not have a book with me or was unable to use a smartphone or computer to learn Spanish (more on how these habits look in the last section of this book). But now, more than 500 days into my Habit Journey, I prefer rule skipping, which we talk about next.
Rule skipping
Rule skipping means that you define rules that allow you to skip habits. For example, it is not advisable to work out when ill. It is counterproductive. Consequently, you should have a rule that allows you to skip your physical activity on days you are sick. Rule skipping must be used with caution though: stick to the rule, do not bend it and use it as an excuse. Such would be the case when you are not ill but claim to feel not in the mood.
Rule skipping can also be used in cases where you only do habits on certain days. I personally only use my habit of going to bed at 11 P.M. from Sunday nights to Thursday nights. Friday nights and Saturday nights are off. The same is true when I am traveling.
You have to design your own rules—but then you must stick to them.
Luckily, the Momentum and Today apps allow you to define on which days you want to complete your habit. You can implement rule skipping quite easily in your spreadsheet, as well as with your pen and paper approach.
Zen mode
Zen mode means no skipping is used altogether. This approach only knows complete and failed days. It is the best approach for beginners as it has a clear-cut definition of success and failure. Over time, you will see patterns and possibilities to help you create the flexibility and rules that work for you in your HabitSystem.
Combination
Of course, you can combine rule skipping with the re-do missed days approach. You can use rules for specific days, like vacations or other special events. In the case of “normal” failure, you can use re-do missed days.
My advice for starters is to use the Zen mode for the first couple of months—say, the first 100 days—to get a sense of what it means to do something daily. This allows you to fully focus on the habits and helps develop a priority system; the rules can come later once this is established. In essence, this will help you avoid skipping habits in the beginning.