CEO School: Streaking for Fun and Profit

The value of doing a thing one time pales in comparison to doing it consistently. Aristotle saw this clearly when he said:

We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then, is not an act, but a Habit.

In the latest version of TheChecklist™(version Ten) we've added a feature that calculates the number of days in a row, without a miss, that the user has done the desired action. We call this a "streak". It has also been termed the Seinfeld Strategy, named after a favorite comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Call it a habit, if you want, but we like "streak" because it sounds more fun and action oriented. Habit sounds somewhat dull and onerous.

Streaks are highly motivational. Once you get a good streak going, you are more inclined to keep it going because it feels good and you don't want to start over at zero.

Stats from the Calm meditation app

I have some personal experience with this. Regular meditation had always been something I wanted in my life, but I just couldn't seem to get into the habit. After I put it on TheChecklist™and started doing a count of the number of days in a row, I became more consistent, but with occasional missed days, still not a habit. Once I got to 56 days in a row, but then, incredibly, I missed a day, and that really bummed me out because it would take me another 56 days to get even with my previous streak. But I hung in there, and now I've achieved a streak of 469 days without a miss, as of the morning I'm writing this. Every day I look at the increasing count, I'm reminded of my increasing achievement. So it works!                                                                                                                                                               I also wanted to be a person who takes a walk every day, for the health benefits. It was only after I started counting the streak days that it started motivating me to "get out of the building" and go for a walk, usually around sunset. Now I'm up to 247 days in a row, and feeling much stronger because of it. 

Achieving goals starts with the idea, then the intention, and the commitment. But action is the absolute requirement. The goal becomes much more probable when you have a system for achieving your goals. The DBLM system is TheChecklist™ and it is a remarkably effective method for taking action to achieve Success in Life and Business.

More:

Building Habits

Knowing vs. Doing

Elements of Success

The Daily Routines of Geniuses

The fire emoji at the top of this post is a modified version of the Snapchat streak emoji. A "Snapstreak" is the number of days in a row a user has communicated with another user. The idea is to improve and reward consistent behavior.