Spreadsheet training

One of the assignments I give in my class is for the students to try classical and operant conditioning on themselves. I’ve talked before about how I’ve conditioned myself to take a daily vitamin and how I unplugged for a week from forums last year as well.

This year I set several goals for myself. And then I set-up a spreadsheet that listed all my goals. My spreadsheet acts as both the stimulus for classical conditioning and the reinforcer for operant conditioning. Each week the spreadsheet automatically adds how many times I should do that goal for the week. If it’s daily it adds a seven to the total. If it’s four times a week it adds a four to the total. And then if I do that goal I put a 1 in the box for the day and it gets added to my total times doing it for the year. And it’s been awesome!

I’ve had six items on my “daily” list for the bulk of the year (morning prayer, scripture study, daily vitamin, fresh fruit or veggie, isometric exercise, and a photo) and this week I just added a seventh (flossing). Because of my previous success with the other six I fully expect to be successful at this new one as well. I’ve kept up with all my daily things perfectly this year. Oddly, or maybe not so, the ones that aren’t daily haven’t been that great (the once a week and once a month ones have though). Probably because I can put them off till later in the week and then it just gets put off too long. I’ll have to work on a better system for those things.

Having something to be accountable for, even just a spreadsheet, has made a real big difference in helping me do the things I want to do each day. I’d like to think that after almost a whole year I could leave off the spreadsheet and keep doing it on my own. But I know me. I’ve had periods where I’ve been great at those things in the past, for a time, and then I get busy or forgetful and suddenly I can’t remember when the last time I did them was. So I’ll keep my spreadsheet.

Power to the spreadsheet!