When I was stopping myself biting my nails, one of the methods I used
was to record at the end of the day whether I had “ten neat nails” or
not. This didn’t necessarily mean that I had not bitten my nails at
all that day. If I started biting one, or even all ten, and then
stopped and filed them until they were all neat and they stayed that
way until bedtime, then that counted as a success for the day. This
also meant that if I bit one nail so much that it was short and jagged
and could not be made neat, then I’d fail the “ten neat nails” test
for a few days in a row, until it grew out enough to be filed. That
(usually) gave me a lot of incentive to stop biting as soon as I
noticed I’d started. It also rewarded me for not biting my nails for
many days in a row, because then I’d have larger nails that could
stand a tiny bit of biting in stressful times without failing the “ten
neat nails” test. Another benefit was that it forced me to keep my
nails neat even when I wasn’t biting them, so there were fewer times
when there were jagged edges that would tempt me to bite.
Another strategy I used at a different time was to record at the end
of the day simply whether I had bitten my nails or not that day -
record a 0 (good) or 1 (bad) for the day.
Also, for a while I was recording how many times I bit my nails, and
keeping it under a certain limit.
All strategies were (mostly) successful at different times. I’d find
after a while that one technique stopped working for me, so I’d adjust
it a bit, and that seemed to give me more motivation to stop biting.
The “ten neat nails” strategy was usually my favourite.
With an ingrained, automatic habit like biting your nails, it can be
very hard to stop. You might find that one measurement technique won’t
be enough, or will work for a while and then stop working. Don’t be
discouraged. Find some way to adjust it so that it starts working
again. I still bite my nails occasionally but MUCH less than I used
to, so it is achievable.
On 10 July 2014 17:34, Alex Schell schell.alex@gmail.com wrote:
I’d start by setting a super modest limit and just record data to see where
you stand. Then adjust the road steepness from there. But I think your main
problem is going to be recording your data. Nailbiting is semi-autonomous so
it’s hard to measure except in retrospect (and even then, do you count
episodes, time, number of nails, or what?). It occurs to me (though not from
experience) that random sampling with TagTime might be the perfect solution
to both problems.
On Tuesday, July 8, 2014 4:36:00 PM UTC-4, Kenny Yang wrote:
Currently I’ve structured my goal to be a “do less” goal with the weekly
rate of 0.
This would mean one slip up and I’m done. So no yellow brick road really.
Is this too rigid or have you found a better way to do it?
Thanks!
-Kenny
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