State of my Nails - Breaking the Nail Biting Habit

Since the point of this whole blog is to document my journey to get long/not bitten nails, every week or so I'll take a pic of my hands sans nail polish. Last Friday I removed the color I had worn most of the week (Essie - Jamaica Me Crazy) and went polish free for the weekend. I've read that you're supposed to leave a few days in between manis but I don't know for sure about the science behind that. I do know however, that if too many days pass my nails will start to split on the sides or I will pick at them. It never fails, the longer I go without polish the worse they get.

Here are what I consider my main nail problems:

I tend to bite/pick at the sides, so they are short and seriously uneven. My nails don't cover the complete nail bed and appear much narrower than they are at the base because of this.
Even when I do manage to get them as even as possible, they split on the sides once they grow past a certain length (usually, the closer they are to the end of my fingertip, the more they break off). (#1 & #2 are obviously related).
I have dry, peeling cuticles. I recently started putting on cuticle oil but I tend to forget so I need to work on that. I used to have red, scabby, inflamed cuticles so at least there's an improvement.

So here are my nails sans polish (just one coat of Grow Stronger).