Muskwalker

That’s not true, everybody has to think about whether they’re going to start some activity or not

I think that a key difference between a habit vs not might be that when it’s a habit, the decision you’re thinking about when planning your course of action is less “whether to do the thing” but more “whether not to do the thing”. For example if you’re in the habit of eating regular meals, the question is “should I skip/postpone dinner”, but if you’re not then the question is “should I make dinner”. Sure, you have as much choice as you have in any other thing, but your default course is different.

Crucially (I think) that while the questions technically result in the same outcomes, they can engage different values: for example ‘should I make dinner’ feels like it goes first to how much effort you feels like expending, while ‘should I skip dinner’ feels more like it starts with how much time you have.

Man, I miss furry cons.

Your suggestion is very regional specific and perhaps limited to the USA

(probably fine for OP, who indicated they live in the USA, but)

In many countries, like whole Europe, its literally impossible to get a “burner number” because any SIM card requires by law a personal verification

‘Burner’ in this context means ‘cheap enough to be disposable’, not necessarily ‘anonymous’. It’s not about being untraceable, it’s just about not pinging all the Normal People who may know your main phone number with whatever difficult-to-explain profile info/icon you want to use.

Interesting to know about Europe though. I wouldn’t expect to need a SIM card at all to get a phone number where I live. (I think that’s a mobile phone thing; I’ve never owned one. Here I have my public/private phone numbers through online services like Textfree and Google Voice.)

Agree with the suggestion to get a burner number. The big one to be aware of is that Telegram users who have you in their phone contacts may get a notification that you’ve joined Telegram, so if you’re using a number other people know then you’ll want to make sure your profile is something you’re fine with them seeing.