Kitchen scales have a tare function. Put a bowl on the scale, press tare, now the bowl weighs nothing. Only what you add to the bowl counts. 1 Tare and zero are different functions. Zero resets the scale when nothing is on it (recalibration). Tare ignores the weight of what’s already there (the container). What I’m describing is taring, not zeroing. The weight is still there. You’ve just made it invisible to the measurement. See also Tare Weight on Wikipedia. 2 This note used to be called “Redefining Zero” before I thought of the tare analogy.
I do this with Habits.
Three 30-minute runs per week used to be my exercise. Now it’s tared out. It’s maintenance. My non-exercise state. Only a fourth run or strength training counts as actual exercise.
Muhammad Ali only started counting sit-ups when they hurt. When a reporter asked how many he did, his response: “I don’t count my sit-ups; I only start counting when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count.” Video. 3 Often misattributed to Arnold Schwarzenegger. The principle is the same either way. Everything before the burn is container weight. Only what comes after counts as real effort. See 200 Weeks for how I apply this to my running habit. Same principle. The warm-up reps are tared out.
How it works:
A habit becomes automatic when it requires no decisions, takes minimal time, and happens reliably (see Habits). Once it’s automatic, it disappears from your effort budget. That’s when you tare it out. Only what you add on top counts.
The progression:
Each tared level becomes the foundation for the next. You’re not starting from zero. You’re building on a container that’s already invisible. 4 The metaphor breaks down if you push it too far. You can’t infinitely stack containers on a scale. But the principle holds: automatic behaviours become the platform for the next level of effort.
What I’m considering next:
Some sort of weekly strength training ritual. Eventually it’ll be tared out too.
The question:
Not everything should be tared out. What actually earns that level of invisibility? There’s a cost to making something automatic (see Streaks). The habit has to be worth the investment of making it disappear.
Where this shows up:
Sleep schedule. Daily writing. Financial reviews. Morning routines. Code review rituals. Weekly planning sessions. 5 This is similar to what software engineers call “infrastructure.” You don’t think about the CI/CD pipeline every time you push code. It’s tared out. It only becomes visible again when it breaks. Once you see it, you see it everywhere. Anything that happens reliably enough becomes infrastructure.