Buffers are a good thing

Succeeding at 28 is better than failing at 31.

This post is part of the “Make better commitments” series.
You can think of the series as an aggregation of the lessons learned by making bad commitment decisions myself, and seeing others make sub-optimal choices.

Even if you plan on going to the gym every day, it’s probably a good idea to give yourself a little loose. Life just gets in the way sometimes.

Let’s imagine a 31-day month where you plan on working out every day and explore two scenarios.

You could commit to a 31 check-in at the gym (every day), or you could commit to 28 (officially giving yourself up to 3 days off).

For starters, if you were to only go 28 days of of 31… how disappointed in yourself would you really be? My guess in not much.

On the other hand, if you commit to 31 check-ins… what happens if:

• Your phone dies and you can’t record one of your check in?
• The gym unexpectedly closes early because of a burst pipe?
• You have a car accident?

If you insist on committing to a daily check-in, we’ll let you but you’ll probably regret it someday (might not be during the first month, but someday).