The idea of Don’t Break the Chain is simple — you choose a task that you want to complete every day (e.g. writing 500 words, going to the gym, keeping a diary) and you tick off each day that you do manage to complete it. The more days in a row you tick off, the longer a ‘chain’ you’ve created… the longer the chain, the more motivated you are to keep it going.

This technique was supposedly used by Jerry Seinfeld when he was an up-and-coming comedian and wanted to write a new joke every day. It’s super simple and actually really effective — I’ve used it for a  few different habits that I wanted to stick with. The website http://dontbreakthechain.com provides a simple way to keep track.

If you’re looking to get better at what you do, the key is incremental progress. Getting a small amount done consistently every day is going to be way more effective than working in fits and starts, doing a lot one day but then nothing for the next week. Don’t Break the Chain is a great tool to get you actually doing stuff day in, day out.