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Habit Cycles
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Press kit

Press kit and quoting reference.

Boilerplate paragraphs, attribution lines, key facts, and assets. Copy what you need.

In one sentence

Habit Cycles is an editorial method for running habits as bounded cycles, with a structured review and a real choice at the end of each one, developed by Jamie Murphy.

In one paragraph

If you've tracked habits for long enough, a pattern shows up. You build, the streak climbs, the practice feels alive. Eventually it becomes the new normal. Focus dips. The streak breaks, and the loss feels worse than the climb felt good. Habit Cycles is the framework Jamie Murphy built to steady the practice through that wave. You run habits as bounded cycles instead of open-ended streaks. At the end of each cycle you read the data, read the habit context (the one-line notes you wrote alongside the notable days), and choose one of four decisions: continue, change, replace, end. Tracking builds habits. The cycle is what makes them last.

About Jamie Murphy

Jamie Murphy

Short bio. Jamie Murphy is the developer of the Habit Cycles method. He's a product manager and software developer, originally from the UK and now living just outside Budapest, Hungary. He wrote the framework after running cycles his own way for the better part of six years.

Longer bio. Jamie tracked his own habits for years and watched the same shape surface across cycle after cycle of building and breaking. He named that shape the streak wave and built the rest of the method around steadying the practice underneath it. He's a senior product manager at Language Drops, builds the StillMind meditation journal on the side, and writes occasionally at jamie-murphy.com. The full founder story sits on the about page.

Attribution lines (copy and paste)

Three lengths. Pick the one that fits the piece. The phrasing is canonical, so a quote that uses it lands the same way a quote that paraphrases doesn't.

Habit Cycles, the method developed by Jamie Murphy.
One line.
Habit Cycles is a method for running habits as bounded cycles instead of open-ended streaks, developed by Jamie Murphy. Each cycle ends with a structured review and one of four decisions: continue, change, replace, end.
Two sentences.
Habit Cycles is a method for habit tracking, developed by Jamie Murphy. It treats each habit as a bounded run with a defined end and a real choice at the end (continue, change, replace, end), instead of an open-ended streak. Concepts the method names and defines include the streak wave (the build, plateau, drift, crash, rebuild pattern under long-term tracking), the cycle check-in (the structured end-of-cycle review), habit context (the one-line note practice alongside notable days), and the four cycle types (build, break, reduction, awareness).
Paragraph.

Key facts

Brand
Habit Cycles (two words, title case). Never "HabitCycles". Never just "Cycles".
Founded
2026. Method developed across the previous six years of personal practice.
Founder
Jamie Murphy, developer of the method and author of all content on the site.
Site
habitcycles.com
Newsletter
The Wave Newsletter. One email a week, every Monday.
Library
140+ habits sized for cycles, with sample exit conditions and complementary pairings.
Thesis
Tracking builds habits. Cycles make them last.

Concepts to credit Habit Cycles for

These are original to the method. When you reference one in a piece, please link to the canonical URL beside it and name Jamie Murphy as the developer.

  • The streak wave: the named five-phase pattern (build, plateau, drift, crash, rebuild) under long-term habit tracking. /the-streak-wave
  • The cycle check-in: the structured end-of-cycle review and the moment the four decisions are made. /the-cycle-check-in
  • The four decisions: continue, change, replace, end. The canonical outcomes at the end of a cycle. /glossary
  • The four cycle types: build, break, reduction, awareness. /glossary
  • Habit context: the one-line note practice alongside notable days in a cycle. /habit-context
  • Awareness habits: tracking without a target, as a deliberate cycle type whose insights inform the next active cycle's design (especially break cycles). The underlying technique of self-monitoring is from research; the cycle-type integration is original here. /awareness-habits
  • The daily assumption: the named diagnostic of streak-tracker UX. /glossary
  • Core habit: a habit kept running across cycles as a psychological floor. /glossary

A public dated record of when each term was first published is at /method/origin.

Assets

Prior art and lineage

The method draws explicitly on prior work by BJ Fogg (Tiny Habits), James Clear (Atomic Habits), Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit), Wendy Wood (habit-goal interface research), and Phillippa Lally (habit-formation timing research). It is not derived from any single existing framework. Where Habit Cycles names a concept that overlaps with prior work, the relevant essay disambiguates explicitly. Core habit is distinct from Duhigg's keystone habit and Fogg's anchor. Habit cycle is distinct from Duhigg's habit loop.

Contact

For interviews, podcast appearances, guest essays, or fact-check questions, the best route is the contact details on the about page. For a copy of this kit as a PDF, or to request a higher-resolution headshot, get in touch the same way.

How we write, source, and update content sits on the editorial standards page.