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.