context dependency

Key to shaking or forming a habit is the context. Learning is, to a large degree, context dependent. When you remember the loaf of bread you were suppose to buy when you're back on the front steps of your home, it's because that's where you were told to buy it. Context-dependent learning is why it's easy to not utter profanity in a church but much harder to remain pious at a bar; we learned particular behaviours in particular settings and thus work well when the behaviour performed matches the setting.

To study well, do nothing but study at your desk. The minute you become tired, leave and refresh yourself, so that only positive feedback is associated to studying at your desk. The same principle can be applied to up the quality of other behaviours; only eat at the kitchen table to have healthier digestion; don't read, work or exercise on the bed to get a better sleep; allot a room solely for romantic uses and your partner will feel the difference :P

So conversely, the first step to shaking a habit is to take yourself out of the habit's context. You're not likely to become atheist living in a church, nor stay sober if you keep visiting the pub. Pretty intuitive. It's when leaving the context is impossible that it becomes hard... The work-around is to revamp the environment as much as possible, but it's still a matter of starting starting a new behaviour in place of the old habit.

Slow and steady does it.

Lynch R, Leo S, Sowning K. Context dependent learning: its value and impact for workplace education. Education and Training 2006; 48(1): 15-24.

kill an old habit

The first computer i laid my hands on was an 386 with a monster yellow-black screen, and the first and only thing i did on it was play TETRIS. I learned how Windows-based computers worked by figuring out how to boot an old PentiumI just right to run DOOM, Wing Commander, and countless other games my folks Easter-Egged in the hard-drive, just slightly too hardware intensive for the old tower. I learned while i played but i didn't stop playing after. Even when i finally gave up the last of my games, time spent on first-person shooters and RPGs were replaced by endless video-feeds, news-feeds, art blogs, science blogs, tech blogs... I tell myself i'm absorbing new information, keeping up with news of the day, and becoming more knowledgeable, but, luckily i suppose, i'm yet unconvinced that mere consumption is in anyway meaningful.

So how do you kill an old habit? High school and much of university has trained me to produce mediocre work in little time, and after near twenty years of gaming and pointless browsing in front of the computer i conditioned myself to near uncontrollably do just that and only that when i'm home. I feel like an addict, watching my life slowly being eaten away, all the while indulging in the cannibalism... I want out!

I want out, and this will be my attempt at producing instead of simply consuming. After you hit your twenties, it's all about trading one addiction for another.