Whenever you organize a space for its intended purpose, you are priming it to make the next action easy. This is one of the most practical and simple ways to improve your habits.
For instance, my wife keeps a box of greeting cards that are presorted by occasion—birthday, sympathy, wedding, graduation, and more.
Whenever necessary, she grabs associate degree applicable card and sends it off.
She is improbably smart at basic cognitive process to send cards as a result of she has reduced the friction of doing thus.
For years, I was the opposite. Someone would have a baby and I would think, “I should send a card.” But then weeks would pass and by the time I remembered to pick one up at the store, it was too late. The habit wasn’t easy.
There square measure many ways to prime your surroundings thus it’s prepared for immediate use.
If you want to cook a healthy breakfast, place the skillet on the stove, set the cooking spray on the counter, and lay out any plates and utensils you’ll need the night before.
When you get up, creating breakfast are going to be straightforward.
Here are some more:
Want to draw more? Put your pencils, pens, notebooks, and drawing tools on top of your desk, within easy reach.
Want to exercise?
Set out your exercise garments, shoes, gym bag, and bottle earlier than time.
Want to improve your diet?
Chop up a large amount of fruits and vegetables on weekends and pack them in containers, thus you have got easy accessibility to healthy, ready-to-eat options during the week.
These square measure easy ways that to form the great habit the trail of exertion.
The Path of Most Resistance
You can conjointly invert this principle and prime the surroundings to form dangerous behaviors troublesome.
If you discover yourself look an excessive amount of tv, as an example, then unplug it after each use.
Only plug it back in if you can say out loud the name of the show you want to watch. (Which prevents you from turning on Netflix and “just finding something” to watch.) This setup creates just enough friction to prevent mindless viewing.
If that doesn’t do it, you can take it a step further. Unplug the television and take the batteries out of the remote after each use, so it takes an extra ten seconds to turn it back on. And if you’re really hard-core, move the television out of the living room and into a closet after each use. You can be sure you’ll only take it out when you really want to watch something.
The bigger the friction, the less likely the habit.
Whenever attainable, I leave my phone in a different room until lunch.
When it’s right next to me, I’ll check it all morning for no reason at all. But when it is in another room, I rarely think about it. And the friction is high enough that I won’t go get it without a reason.
As a result, I get three to four hours each morning when I can work without interruption.
If sticking your phone in another room doesn’t seem like enough, tell a friend or family member to hide it from you for a few hours. Ask a coworker to keep it at their desk in the morning and give it back to you at lunch.
It is exceptional however very little friction is needed to stop dangerous behavior.
When I hide brew within the back of the electric refrigerator wherever I can’t see it, I drink less.
When I delete social media apps from my phone, it can be weeks before I download them again and log in.
These tricks are unlikely to curb a true addiction, but for many of us, a little bit of friction can be the difference between sticking with a good habit or sliding into a bad one. Imagine the cumulative impact of making dozens of these changes and living in an environment designed to make the good behaviors easier and the bad behaviors harder.
Where to Go From Here
Whether we tend to square measure approaching behavior amendment as a personal, a parent, a coach, or a leader, we should ask ourselves the same question: “How can we design a world where
it’s easy to do what’s right?
” Reset your rooms so the actions that matter most {are also|also square measure|are} the actions that are best to try to to.
When you master habits of preparation, habits of execution become straightforward.
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