Questions, answered

Questions people actually ask about behaviour and change, answered as straight as the evidence allows — including where the honest answer is that something does not work. Every number here names the study it came from.

• Is there a self-improvement app without streaks or gamification?

  Streaks, badges and daily targets are design choices, not requirements. How to tell whether an app uses them, and what to look for instead.

• How do I test whether a habit is actually working for me?

  Run it as a single-case experiment: measure a baseline first, then start, then stop. The method, and the mistakes that make the result meaningless.

• What is an n-of-1 experiment?

  A trial with one participant, where each person is their own control. How the design works, what it can prove, and where it fails.

• Do self-improvement apps actually work?

  The honest answer from the evidence: small effects for targeted, specific interventions, and a retention problem that swamps almost everything else.

• Why do I keep doing things I don't want to do?

  Because a large share of daily behaviour is triggered by context rather than chosen, and because the reasons you give yourself are reconstructed after the fact.

• How do I find my own blind spots?

  Introspection cannot reach them by definition. The three sources that can: other people, your record, and deliberate tests.