Confession time: over the past three years, I’ve come to the conclusion that habit-building as a goal is, for most people, counter-productive. I know… a scandalous opinion in the productivity world. However, before I break down all my arguments, I want to start with the first one — checkbox fatigue.
Most of my clients come in believing they should be building habits. It’s not surprising, because every self-help book tells us to do exactly that. Early in the Monthly Method journey, I tried to accommodate that expectation, and I tried to build habits myself. Yet time and time again, I watched people (and myself) burn out from checking daily boxes and trying to be perfect every single day.
Eventually, the exhaustion sets in. Instead of energizing people, habit-building drains them. Therefore, when the constant tracking becomes too much, they end up abandoning all sprint goals.
A real example of checkbox fatigue
It usually looks like this:
Someone decides they want to wake up at 6 a.m., meditate daily, read five pages, and do one load of laundry every day so it doesn’t pile up. Meanwhile, they also want to launch an app they’ve been working on for four months.
They create a detailed habit-tracking system and we try to fit it into a sprint plan. Eventually, around week two, there’s a slip-up — they don’t read one day, don’t meditate the next, and wake up late the day after that. After that, they secretly add even more habits to track because the original four didn’t feel ambitious enough.
As a result, they become overwhelmed by their own tracking system.
So many boxes to check. So many rules to follow. So rigid. So unforgiving. So machine-like.
Inevitably, the inner rebellion kicks in:
“Enough is enough. We can’t live like this. It’s a self-imposed prison. Time to break free.”
And then they quit everything — including launching the app.
Not all goals are created equal
To me, it was clear that the most important goal was to launch the app. The person was passionate about it, had already spent months working on it, and could have earned money, gained skills, and strengthened a portfolio. However, this meaningful goal was derailed by a dozen tiny checkboxes that crowded it out of attention.
When they looked at their sprint board, “read five pages a day” and “launch the app” appeared equal. In reality, these goals are nowhere near equal in impact or importance.
I saw the pattern repeatedly: if a sprint included habit-building goals, checkbox fatigue was almost guaranteed.
Why project-based goals behave differently
Project-based goals rarely create burnout. Unlike habits, they are:
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finite,
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shippable,
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and finishable within a sprint.
For example:
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launching an app vs. meditating every day
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decorating one room vs. sticking to a cleaning schedule
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submitting a dissertation draft vs. writing every day for an hour
Project-based goals change from day to day, which keeps them interesting. In addition, progress is visible and measurable. Most importantly, you can anticipate being finished in three weeks (my ideal sprint duration), and you know when you’re done because you’ve defined “done” in advance.
Our brains love closed loops. In contrast, they struggle with open loops that never resolve. That’s why habits feel heavy — because the finish line never arrives.
The sea of mundane habits stops us from doing the truly impactful
Habit-building introduces daily checkboxes that multiply over time. Because productivity advice encourages starting small, people keep adding small habits until they feel sufficiently “productive.” Unfortunately, the result is a to-do list full of mundane tasks that overshadow high-leverage goals.
Submitting a PhD dissertation ends up in the same column as “tidy the living room.”
Starting a business sits beside “drink lemon water every morning.”
The signal gets lost in the noise.
As a result, the most meaningful goals become buried under the least important ones.
A calmer alternative
I haven’t consciously tried to build a habit in over a year — and I’m doing just fine. Laundry gets done. Books are read. Workouts happen. Meanwhile, I’m not obsessively checking off boxes every day.
Instead of trying to be perfect forever, I now prefer a few meaningful finite project-based goals over endless habits. They give me momentum, a finish line, and clarity about what truly matters.
More on that in future posts.
If you are new to Agile philosophy, you can find the core principles on the Start Here page.
You might enjoy this:
- Agile to the rescue from victim mentality
- Step off the hamster wheel with Agile and Sturgeon’s Law
- Why we fail to achieve some sprint goals
- How to prioritize goals
- The happy path concept
