The two-week rule for new habits

Habits do not fail in week one. They fail in week three, when novelty stops carrying them and nothing has replaced it.

So plan for week three from the start. Decide now what the minimum version looks like on your worst day, and treat that version as success.

Design for the week you feel nothing, not the week you feel inspired.

Two weeks is also long enough to learn whether the habit is actually yours or borrowed from someone you admire. Borrowed habits rarely survive contact with a difficult Tuesday.

Review on day fourteen. Keep, shrink or drop, deliberately. Quiet abandonment teaches you nothing; a considered decision teaches you a lot.