Ah, that makes sense, thanks :)

Because it’s not a habit. It’s a deliberate choice to pick up their instrument and play. Every time.

Muscle memory helps, because that seems to be separate from forming habits. Once you’ve got it, it seems to stick.

I was in a band in my late teens, and I had to force myself to practice if I was alone. Practicing with the band was much easier because it was something that I really enjoyed, but even then, I’d almost always be late, or have to be reminded to go.

This was something that I loved to do, but still really struggled with. As soon as something else came along that was a bigger distraction, the band was done.

That sounds more like the muscle memory isn’t there yet. I can play a few instruments (badly), but it’s because I really wanted to do it when I was younger, and developed the muscle memory.

I haven’t played properly for a few years, so now I’m back to a similar place to you, and have to think about what I’m doing again.

What I’ve been finding helpful is making a playlist of the songs I want to learn, or to play again, and putting it on nice and loud. It makes me want to play along, and seems to let me concentrate on the songs.

Good luck :)

this is not automatic, all my toothbrush stuff is set up as a visual cue any time I’m near the sink

I can’t even do that. If I leave my toothbrush in the same place, it becomes part of the background and I don’t really notice it.

Brains are weird.

Ah, I convinced myself that I was wrong to think that. I know you can get electricity from lemons, and thought I’d mixed them up 🙈

Imagine buying a book only to find out that you can’t read it anymore because the store you bought it from decided to remove it from sale and stop all downloads of it. You can’t restore it from a backup because the DRM prevents that.

A potato is a very slow computer. Usually old and / or low quality. I’ve got no idea where it comes from though.

That looks great, thanks :)