| author | title | date | image | authorImage | tags |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Trevor Lane |
Analog Habit Counter |
06/26/2021 |
build, idea, hardware |
I've been thinking about building something like this for a while now. Until recently, I haven't had a quantifiable habit suited to be tracked by this kind of device. A couple of weeks ago I took several days off of work and largely unplugged from the internet. During this break, the first since starting college, I had time to reflect on life, patterns, trajectories, and habits. I decided that, with the burden of school lifted, Now would be a good time to stop drinking soda.
Inside the razor-laden pit that was my university experience, i was under too much pressure to stop drinking soda. Typing these words now feels ridiculous, but coke was my main method of caffiene & sugar consumption. Both ingredients despartely needed for a university student studying full-time, working part-time and supporting a wife & kids.
An added pressure leading to excessive soda consumption is the culture of Utah and The LDS Church. Soda consumption is a common habit of Utahns and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There exists a doctrine within The Church, which forbids the consumption of coffee and tea (most tea, that is, depenging on who you ask. As a result, we drink soda. A lot of it. Most other cities have drive through coffee shops. Cities in Utah have drive through soda shop and they're always packed.
The device pictured above would be used to track consecutive days of not drinking soda. A simple metal tally device mounted to a piece of plyboard, which would then be mounted on a wall. In my case, in my closet. Currently, I make a mark on a sheet to track this habit. If, during the day before, I didn't drink soda, I get to mark the sheet. If I relapse (I haven't yet) the count restarts.
The device is symoblic in a few ways. Making change is difficult. Especially change that causes physiologicial affects to the body such as decreasing sugar and caffiene consumption. When you track days without soda, pressing the switch on the metal tally to increment the count adds a certain cermonial aspect to the process.
The process of changing becomes special, because you have this artifact specially created to track the change. Each instance of incrementing the count is a special ritual, further addding to the sanctity of the process.