Meditation Optimization

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“I want to do numerous micro-meditations throughout the day, but I keep forgetting it. How can I remember to practice more often?”

“Let’s use BJ Fogg’s habit-creation framework as a guide:

Anchor
Behavior
Celebration

Anchor is a reminder to do the habit.
Behavior is a tiny version of the habit, which you do right after the Anchor.
Celebration is something that creates positive emotion, which you do right after the tiny habit.

To remember to practice more often, you need to surround yourself with reminders. Create a system of reminders. These create structure.

You can focus on time. For instance, by having a timer that rings every half an hour. (Reminder: timer)

You can focus on activity. For instance, at the beginning of certain activities. It’s important to be specific about it. Make a list of them. (Reminder: every activity on the list)

You can focus on both time and activity. Let’s say you’re doing activity A, and then you start doing activity B. I call the time in between them, transitional-time. (Reminder: transitional-time)”

“What if I start activity B immediately after activity A?”

“In this case, you need to create transitional-time. I like to (metaphorically) think of this practice as creating space.

You can also set reminders in your environment, and use things in your environment as reminders. For instance, the color blue can be a reminder – or whatever colors you associate with the practice. Every instance of beauty can be a reminder. And so on.

To remember to practice more often, you also need to associate positive emotions with the practice.

Turn every micro-meditation into a micro-moment of positivity [<link; medium read].“

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