Do objects have 'Habit Fields'?. ∞
Something I’d never consciously considered before — but on reading Jack Cheng’s article — makes a lot of sense.
Every object emits a habit field. When we sit down at the desk in our office to work, we shape its habit field into a productive one. When we sit down in a lounge chair to watch our favorite TV program, we nudge the chair’s habit field toward relaxation and consumption. The more we repeat the same activity around an object, the stronger its habit field gets.
Very similar to advice I once read about insomnia — if you can’t sleep, the best thing is to get out of bed, otherwise you begin to associate not sleeping with your bed, and the insomnia gets worse.
The other related example of this I’m immediately reminded of, is when I switched off all notifications of new email at work, I became bore productive. However, slowly but inexorably, I have started checking email more frequently, and now it has become a bad habit, reducing productivity back to where it started. I’m not a prodigious slave to work — but I’d rather be unproductive on something less inane than work emails!