A {{c1::habit}} can have a powerful influence by determining what follows for minutes or even hours afterward if it acts as a {{c2::decisive moment}}.

There are a handful of moments every day that are decisive moments: forks in the road between spending time doing your homework or playing video games.  A {{c1::decisive moment}} is a times where an action or decision sets the options available to your future self. Walking into a restaurant is a {{c1::decisive moment}} that decides what food options you will have to eat. The first choice determines the options for the future choice. Every day has many moments but a few of them determine how you spend larger chunks of time and are decisive moments.

The 2-minute rule: when you start a new habit, it should take less than 2 minutes to do. Any habit can be scaled into a less than 2-minute activity. Read for 2 minutes before bed. It makes habits as easy as possible to start. Once you have started doing the right thing, it is much easier to continue to do it. Make gateway habits that naturally leads you down a more productive path. Putting on your running shoes is a gateway habit to running a marathon. The point is not to do one small thing, it is to master showing up to do it. If you can't do that, you will never get to optimizing all the right details. The first 2 minutes simply become a ritual at the beginning of a hard routine. You will be making it easier to slip into a state of deep focus. Make the first action mindless. The rest hopefully will follow.

A {{c1::gateway habit}} is a good habit that naturally leads you down a more productive path. Use the {{c1::2-minute rule}} to scale a new good habit into ones that can take hold and act as a {{c2::gateway habit}} into a longer period of productive behavior.

It can be good to always keep it below the point where it feels like work. For a habit like writing, stopping before it starts to feel like work will help you associate with it positive emotions and reinforce your identity. Even these small actions confirm the type of person who you want to be. One minute of reading is better than never picking up a book.

Stopping a good habit like writing when it is still going well can help you associate it with positive emotions and reinforce your {{c1::identity}}.

Nearly any larger life goal can be transformed into 2-minute behaviors that can be mastered one at a time. Making your habits take less than 2 minutes is a simple way to make your habits easy. When you start a new habit, it should take less than 2 minutes to do. Standardize before you optimize. You cannot improve a habit that does not exist.