Habits are hard; stunts are fun. It’s easier to do something for 24 hours straight than it is to do that same thing for one hour every weekday for a month.

If you’re itching for a spike of novelty, commit a whole day to a new pursuit and see what happens. I learned this lesson from hackathons and put it into practice with 24-Hour Bookclub, a reading flashmob that convenes on Twitter every now and then to read a book in a day.

Committing to a new habit feels revolutionary on day one, burdensome on day two. Committing to a day-long stunt feels like mischief all the way through. If transformation is what you’re after, think first on the scale of days, not weeks. Trust yourself to start and finish tomorrow, rather than expecting yourself to be perfect from now on.