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Implementation intention · also called if-then plan

how to actually follow through

An implementation intention is a plan in the form "when X happens, I will do Y." Specifying the trigger and the response in advance roughly doubles follow-through compared to intention alone, because the decision is made before the moment of pressure arrives.

What to do about it

Write your next goal as a when-then sentence, with a real time and a real place.

Books that work on this

Each is a 90-day programme. Start with the first — later books assume the work in the earlier ones.

Part of the Discipline series.

How people say it

Nobody looks this up by its clinical name. These are the ways it actually gets said.

  • if then planning
  • how to actually follow through
  • I plan but never do it
  • why do my plans fall apart
  • scheduling the habit not just wanting it
  • deciding in advance
  • when and where to do the thing

Written by Brian Spiker, who has run Spiker Carpet and Tile Care since 2013 — the receipts. More terms in the encyclopedia.

About the author

Brian Spiker has run Spiker Carpet and Tile Care since 2013 — a real service business with real customers, real Google reviews, and 13 years of work most self-help authors will never do.

He writes the way operators talk: brutal, funny, and built from work that actually has to get done. Verify everything at spikercarpetandtilecare.com.