I read the James Clear book Atomic Habits and decided to add these to my life some seven years ago. The idea is fairly straightforward: it is hard to build healthy habits and end negative ones. However, by making them 'atomic', i.e. easy, attractive, simple to do, and satisfying, you can start to bank wins day over day in changing your life. I had already started a meditation practice seven years ago when I started with my daily habit routine. This practice was allowing me to see the impact of my behaviors on my inner state, the difference in feeling from a healthy meal vs. a junky one, the impact of even a small amount of alcohol on the body and mind the next day, and the invigoration after yoga or exercise. My idea was that I could use these habit techniques to make changes for a healthier life, in addition to using them to develop hobbies, social, or productivity goals.
A friend gave me a suggestion for a simple iOS tracking app called Momentum and I came up with a set of 10 daily habits or so which I added there. Every day if I do the habit I make a check mark. I enjoy the positive reward of having a day where I do most of my habits in the app. I experimented with a different app called Streaks for awhile but I didn't like the interface much and I liked the other one for seeing more of a grid of my progress.
I evolve my daily habit list from time to time, maybe a couple of times per year. To give an idea, here was my list from 4 years ago: Meditation, Internet Reading, Exercise, Original Thinking, Mid-afternoon Yoga, Guitar/Music/Art, Cooking, Language learning, Coding, Original writing, End of day ANKI, End of day reading - 30 minutes, and End of day meditation - 30 minutes. At this time I had a remote product management job and so these habits are roughly in sequential order of when I would do them in the day. Some of them are straightforward. Others like 'Original Thinking' or writing are a bit more vague. They have the nature of being things that I want to find time for in my life above and beyond the duties of work and family.
For contrast, here is my current list: Meditation, Yoga, Morning Pages, Daily Planning, Exercise, Daily in person chat, Message at least 3 people, Coding, Neuroplasticity or language learning, Love for Elizabeth, Quality time with Chloe, Quality time with Jasmine, Writing, No alcohol, and Reading. When I look at these I notice that I have added more socializing and especially making sure I spend quality time with my family. These are also less vague and things like reading or writing have a more flexible nature.
So what I have learned in the last six years since I started this practice? Well, first, I really do think having the tracker has kept me more committed to these things than I otherwise would have been. Some days when I have some free time and I am not sure what to do I simply open my tracking app and go through the next things on the list. Since these are not 'to do' items on a task list, they are usually perfect for breaks or filling in otherwise free time.
Secondly, there have been many failed iterations of habits in this. I have experimented and failed with things like removing added sugar completely from my diet, reducing my caffeine intake, talking to a stranger daily, publishing writing every day, and so on. Just adding a habit to my list is not enough to ensure it gets done. The ones that tend to stall out are the ones that don't come to me naturally like the social ones (I'm an introvert) or ones where I have to do a somewhat complex thing that costs a lot of time (like writing an essay each day.)
Finally, although habits compound I'm not actually sure that even the ones I have done a long time have led to much progression. It takes conscious effort (or a teacher) to make sure one is getting the right balance between repetition and novelty. In 6 years of meditating I have progressed, but I have had a lot of interest and taught guidance with it. In 6 years of guitar playing (another habit I've had on or off) I am sure I learned some things but I don't feel like I've made great strides. I haven't had a teacher. It could also be that the compounding value comes slowly so it's not as perceptible when you can just unconsciously do the skill better. I think writing has been like that. For the last 5 years I have kept morning pages writing everyday, and I think it has finally made my essay writing come a lot easier (at least the part of getting drafts out onto the page.)
In the end, I'd recommend both the book and the approach and I'd claim that it's enriched my life. Having these extra helpers which add consistency to starting and stopping behaviors makes the change feel, well rewarding. It turns out we can hack our own dopamine loops if we design a system for doing so.