Thursday, July 01, 2010

Blogging Self-Nudge Update

Last August, after reading Dick Thaler and Cass Sunstein's book Nudge, and feeling a bit disappointed in the laxity of my blogging at the time, I was inspired to try out a "self-nudge" to get me blogging more consistently and frequently. So far, the experiment has been quite a success. I have met my self-nudge target for every month since then. And I am pleased to say that SarahPac, the Vitter Campaign, and the RNC are none the richer for it. But what I am most proud of is that I have managed to meet my goals for almost a year. And with my commitment to the conditions of the self-nudge for this new month of July, I am poised to make the one-year anniversary mark successfully and without a single interruption. Sure, I have sometimes put up some throw-away postings to make my monthly goals; but I gave myself the leeway to do this. The fact is that I thought that I would have actually done much more throw-away postings than I did. So the self-nudge really helped in making me not only post on the blog regularly, but also to post more substantive entries than I think I otherwise would have done. I'm pleased with the whole experiment and can recommend the whole "nudge" concept to anyone who wants to learn about it. Not only is the thesis of Thaler and Sunstein's book persuasive; but I am living proof that it actually works. THOUGHT: I wonder if I brought this to Thaler and Sunstein's attention, would they highlight it as an example of the validity of their theory. That's an idea I think I might explore! Anyway, let the self-nudge blogging continue and I'll be preparing a celebratory moment when I hit the July threshhold mark, thus completing one year of blogging self-nudge success!

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