The full list

Every habit in one place

Forty habits, seven origins. The table below is the whole site in one screen. Find the ones you actually do, ignore the rest, and do not try to fix everything at once.

People arrive at a list like this expecting a ranking, because most lists about this subject are rankings. This one is not, and the absence is deliberate. Ranking habits by damage would mean claiming to know what each one costs, and that depends entirely on who you are, what else you do and what the rest of your setup looks like. A habit that is harmless for one reader is the whole story for another.

What the list does instead is name the reflex under each habit. Two habits that look unrelated often turn out to be the same reflex wearing different clothes, and once you see the reflex you tend to spot the rest of its family on your own. The reflex behind letting a browser save a password and the reflex behind sending yourself a note are close cousins: both are the reflex to hand a small piece of remembering to a machine that has never once let you down.

The list

Each row links to the page for that habit. The middle column is the name of the habit and the right hand column is the reflex under it.

Habits the browser taught you

No	The habit	The reflex behind it
01	The password manager fills it	Reading a filled field as proof that you are in the right place
02	Letting the browser remember	Accepting a prompt that has never once caused you a problem
03	Restoring the tabs	Trusting that closing a window is the same as ending a session
04	Keeping it on the bookmark bar	Keeping the things you use often within one click of the cursor
05	Typing the name in the bar	Typing a name instead of an address because both end up working
06	Making the browser comfortable	Adjusting a tool until it fits the person using it
07	Translating the page	Reaching for a translation the moment a page is not in your language

Habits the phone taught you

No	The habit	The reflex behind it
08	Taking a screenshot to remember it	Keeping a piece of the screen by pressing two buttons
09	Letting the camera roll back itself up	Trusting that anything worth keeping has already saved itself
10	Banners over whatever is on the screen	Leaving the phone free to tell you things the moment they happen
11	It opens in the app, not the browser	Tapping a link and letting whatever opens it do the opening
12	Letting the keyboard finish it	Letting the keyboard decide what you probably meant to type
13	The clipboard that remembers	Copying something and treating the clipboard as empty afterwards
14	I will just check it on my phone	Reaching for the phone because the phone is already in your hand

Habits from signing in to things

No	The habit	The reflex behind it
15	Looking for a sign in with button	Scanning a new account screen for a one click way past it
16	Reusing the handle you always use	Reaching for the handle you have typed for fifteen years
17	The password shape you always use	One remembered formula with the last few characters swapped out
18	Typing an address into the recovery field	Filling the contact field because a registration form asked for one
19	Keep me signed in	Ticking the box so the site stops asking who you are
20	Assuming there is a reset	Not writing it down, because forgot password has always been there

Habits from paying for things

No	The habit	The reflex behind it
21	Putting a reference on it	labelling a payment so it can be told apart from every other one
22	Keeping the receipt	saving the confirmation because proof is what settles arguments
23	Expecting somebody to refund it	treating a bad outcome as something a third party can be asked to undo
24	The address that worked last time	reusing details that worked before, because details normally stay put
25	Checking it in the usual app	opening the familiar app to look at a number, because looking is free

Habits from talking to people

No	The habit	The reflex behind it
26	Sending yourself a note	Using your own inbox as the clipboard between two devices
27	Asking in the group	Putting the details in so that the question can be answered
28	Pasting the link to someone	Sharing the thing itself rather than describing it in words
29	Writing the way you always write	A voice you never have to think about, because it is simply yours
30	Saying thanks with the details	Writing the useful review instead of the empty one

Habits from the machine you work on

No	The habit	The reflex behind it
31	Using the laptop you also work on	reaching for the fastest machine in the house because it is already open
32	Using somebody else's network	joining whichever network is fastest and already saved
33	A device somebody else administers	trusting a device completely because it works and was handed over ready
34	Printing it out	printing a long page so it can be read properly away from a screen
35	Wherever it saves by default	pressing save and letting the dialog decide which folder it goes in

Habits from the room around you

No	The habit	The reflex behind it
36	The screen facing the room	placing a screen for light and cable length, and never for sightlines
37	Saying it out loud	voicing a long string so that the letters come out in the right order
38	Writing it on paper	writing something down so it survives the machine it lives on
39	The packaging afterwards	stopping paying attention the moment the interesting part is over
40	Walking away from it	leaving a session open because home is where nothing needs locking

Reading the list a second way

The same forty pages sorted by what each habit actually leaves behind. This view is more useful once you have read a few of the pages, because it stops being a list of behaviours and starts being a list of objects: files, records, messages, copies. Almost every habit on this site produces a thing that persists, and the thing is usually more of a problem than the moment that made it.

No	The habit	What it leaves behind
01	The password manager fills it	A vault row naming this market, with a hostname stored beside it
02	Letting the browser remember	Rows in a profile database, plus a copy anywhere sync reaches
03	Restoring the tabs	A session file listing every address that was open at the time
04	Keeping it on the bookmark bar	A labelled entry sitting in a strip that is visible in every screenshot
05	Typing the name in the bar	A query at a search provider, and the typed text kept for later
06	Making the browser comfortable	A window size, an add on list and a rendering profile a page can read
07	Translating the page	The text of the page sent to a translation service under your account
08	Taking a screenshot to remember it	An image file in the gallery with its words already readable
09	Letting the camera roll back itself up	A copy held in an account with your real name attached
10	Banners over whatever is on the screen	Somebody else's message sitting inside your own capture
11	It opens in the app, not the browser	A tap recorded inside an app you were not aiming at
12	Letting the keyboard finish it	Learned strings offered back to you in front of other people
13	The clipboard that remembers	A scrollback of everything copied, and a copy on the laptop
14	I will just check it on my phone	The careful arrangement you made elsewhere, quietly cancelled
15	Looking for a sign in with button	Time spent hunting for the version of the page that offers one
16	Reusing the handle you always use	A string that already exists elsewhere, now attached to this too
17	The password shape you always use	A password that one known example from anywhere else describes
18	Typing an address into the recovery field	A real identifier typed into a box that may simply keep it
19	Keep me signed in	A session that outlives the window, the evening and the reboot
20	Assuming there is a reset	A recovery phrase shown once on a screen that was read past
21	Putting a reference on it	a line of your own words stored next to an order you do not control
22	Keeping the receipt	an image or saved page with a descriptive name in a folder that syncs
23	Expecting somebody to refund it	a search for an authority to appeal to, and a stranger willing to be one
24	The address that worked last time	a transfer sent to a destination that may no longer belong to anything
25	Checking it in the usual app	a lookup logged against an account that carries your real name
26	Sending yourself a note	A copy in sent mail, a copy in the inbox, both under your name
27	Asking in the group	A durable, quotable question with your own particulars inside it
28	Pasting the link to someone	One paste in two accounts, plus whatever went and fetched a preview
29	Writing the way you always write	Openings, sign offs and spacing that match your other accounts
30	Saying thanks with the details	A public line that names particulars, kept after the event is over
31	Using the laptop you also work on	backup snapshots, endpoint records and a browser profile that roams
32	Using somebody else's network	an association record, a device identifier and a portal form
33	A device somebody else administers	inventory entries, policy check-ins and standing administrative rights
34	Printing it out	a spool file, a job entry in a printer log and a sheet of paper
35	Wherever it saves by default	a file in a folder that syncs to an account you did not choose
36	The screen facing the room	a page held still in the line of sight of a door, a window or a camera
37	Saying it out loud	a spoken address in a room, in a recording, and in somebody memory
38	Writing it on paper	a readable object on a shared surface with no owner and no lock
39	The packaging afterwards	printed labels in a shared bin and a box standing in a shared hallway
40	Walking away from it	a lit screen still showing whatever was on it when you stood up

How many of these apply to you

Fewer than you fear and more than you would guess. Most readers who go through the list carefully find between four and eight that they genuinely do, and one or two that they did not know were happening at all because the software does them without asking. Those last ones are the valuable finds, and they are almost always in the browser or on the phone, because those are the two places that automate the most on your behalf.

If you want a shorter way in than forty pages, read the argument the site rests on first and then pick the single group you spend the most hours in. One group is about six pages. That is an evening, and it covers more ground than skimming all forty.

What readers ask about this group

Which habit should I start with?

The one you recognise fastest. Recognition is the scarce thing here, not information. A habit you can already picture yourself doing is one you have a chance of catching, and a habit you have to be argued into believing in is one you will forget by Thursday.

Why is there no severity column?

Because severity depends on the rest of your setup, and a column of high, medium and low would be four hundred guesses dressed up as data. The pages describe what each habit does and leave the weighing to the person who knows the rest of the situation.

Are these in any particular order within a group?

Roughly from the most automatic to the most deliberate. The ones near the top of each group tend to happen without any action from you at all, and the ones near the bottom are things you do on purpose without thinking about them.