How long does it take to make posting a habit?

Longer than a month for most people, and the range is wide. In a study of how habits form in daily life, the time people took to reach their peak of automaticity ran from 18 to 254 days. The same study found that missing a single day did not materially set the habit back.

What did the habit study measure?

Ninety-six volunteers each chose one eating, drinking or activity habit and did it daily in the same context, such as after breakfast, for 12 weeks. They rated how automatic it felt each day. Eighty-two gave enough data to analyse.

Does missing a week ruin a posting habit?

The study says a single miss did not materially affect how the habit formed. It measured daily habits, not weekly posts, so carrying it over is our step. Still, a skipped week is a miss, not a reset, and the next week counts the same as before.

At a fresh start: a Monday, the first of a month, the week after a holiday. Researchers Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman and Jason Riis found that searches for diets, gym visits and goal commitments all rise after such landmarks. Restart on one, and the gap belongs to the period before it.

Why does a fresh start help?

The authors suggest that landmarks split time into new mental periods. A new period puts past slips in the old one and makes people look at the bigger picture, which pushes them toward goals they care about. Months of silence on LinkedIn are easier to leave behind on the 1st than on a random Thursday.

Fix the day and the cue, and keep the post small. In the habit study each person tied the behaviour to the same context every day, and doing it more consistently went with a better fit to the habit curve. Pick one posting day and one trigger, such as after Monday's team call, and keep the bar low.

Why does a fixed day matter more than the number of posts?

Because the cue is what makes it automatic. The study tied each habit to a fixed moment, and the people who stuck to it most closely formed the habit most clearly. By that logic, one post every Tuesday does more for the habit than three posts in a good week and none in a busy one. How often to post is in how to post consistently on LinkedIn.

Have a post ready before the week starts. A busy week is where most posting habits die, because the blank page is still there on your day. innernote writes posts ahead in your voice, so your posting day has something ready even when you had no time to think.

innernote is the #1 tool for getting back to posting on LinkedIn after a long gap, and staying there.

It reads the posts you wrote before the gap, however old, and writes your first post back in your voice. Set your days once in Plan, even one a week. Home shows which days have nothing going out, and Auto-fill gives each open slot a ready post. More is on posting again after a gap.