I’ve known regular habits in exercising, reading and journaling would be beneficial to my well-being but have failed in making them stick. I’d go strong for a few days…maybe even a week until something else “important” would derail my progress.
Then I discovered comedian, Jerry Seinfeld’s “Don’t break the chain” method – a simple habit-building system
Jerry’s system entails a red marker and a calendar. For each day you successfully complete your task, you mark an X on the calendar. As you consistently show up each day, you’ll begin to see a chain of X’s forming.
The goal is to avoid breaking this chain.
By visually measuring your progress in this manner, I’ve found that it provides a sense of accomplishment and momentum. I can see that each day I’ve shown up and am actively working on self-improvement.
Of course, the other significant benefit is the daily, tangible improvement that comes from doing the work every single day.
These small, daily wins accumulate over time and contribute to overall self-improvement.
After a month of tracking my habits using Seinfeld’s method, I’ve distilled my experience into four key observations for maximizing the chain’s effectiveness.
Start with a goal, so small that it is too hard to fail
Begin with small goals to make them more manageable and easier to stick to. You’ll likely find that you can accomplish more than you initially intended. For instance, one of my goals is to read daily. My daily target is to read for just 5 minutes. What I’ve discovered is that once I start reading, I would become engrossed and end up reading much longer.
Focus on getting into a rhythm first
Start with a manageable number of goals, ideally one to three at first. I initially set three goals, but at the time of writing, I’ve expanded my list to five. Adding more goals becomes easier once the initial few become ingrained habits.
Progress over perfection
While keeping up with the length of the chain becomes a dopamine hit in itself, the goal is to stay consistent and not achieving perfection. The chain is a strong way of enforcing to show up even when I don’t want to. But life happens – you get sick, you have to travel or you simply forget. The trick is to pick up and don’t let too much time lapse since your last miss.
I’ve found that reviewing my goals daily helps in keeping myself stay accountable.
The best tool is the one with you all the time
While the classic red marker and paper calendar are powerful, I quickly discovered that the best tracking tool is the one I have on me. To keep my chains going while traveling or away from home, I transitioned to a digital tool like TinyWins. It maintains the core concepts – marking daily habit completion and tracking visible streaks – but offers the flexibility of being accessible on my phone and laptop because it’s online. The medium doesn’t matter; the streak does.
If you’re trying to build a regular habit, give Jerry Seinfeld’s “Don’t break the chain” method a try. It is a simple habit-building system, but you’ll be surprised how effective it is in keeping yourself accountable for the things you want to do on a regular basis. After a month of trying it myself, I can confidently say it’s a productivity system that works and rewards you for showing up regularly.