Looking for better alternatives to self-discipline

Have you tried putting a pack of flossers where you watch videos and/or in your shower?

Have you tried using some other habit or event as a trigger and connecting flossing to it?

Have you tried introspecting about which parts of flossing you dislike and why?

Does flossing cause you physical pain in your gums? Do you bleed? Maybe you need to do it more gently, especially until your gums improve.

Does flossing cause you physical pain in your fingers? Maybe you need plastic flossers instead of a spool of floss.

Have you looked up any information about proper flossing technique?

Is flossing boring? Maybe you should multitask in some way. Maybe you should consider why flossing bores you but many other things don’t, such as, I presume, peeing.

Do you forget to floss but actually doing it is OK? Maybe you just need to form a habit and then things will be fine when you remember automatically. You can use phone notifications to help you start the habit.

Do you have a hard time getting the floss to go between your teeth due to tight teeth? Maybe you need a better type of floss like Glide which will go between your teeth more easily. Maybe you need a better strategy, e.g. you can push floss on a floss pick through teeth using force from the teeth on the other side of your mouth (your teeth can press on the plastic frame) and just use your hands to guide, rather than using your hands to generate the force.


I think this is a representative example of how there are lots of practical steps that people could do but don’t. Maybe you’ve done a good job exploring options with flossing, I don’t know, but I feel confident in saying that many people have a flossing problem along these lines and haven’t tried much to solve it. I think it’s similar with many other types of problems too.

That’s one of the things I was talking about at Wanting to Learn Philosophy - #28 by Elliot (which is a relevant post – I was already thinking of asking your thoughts on it in this thread).