Habits explained part 4: Routine/Response

In the mini-article, Habits explained part 3: Craving we discussed how cravings work. Craving triggers a response/routine, which is a habit’s active part. In this short article, we discuss how to structure routines so that it is likely to be successful with a new or changed habit. This series explains habits and how to detect, change or establish new and better habits.

Responses/Routines are the actions we execute when we are talking about a habit. When building new habits or trying to change existing habits there are a couple of strategies on how to structure those activities to make it more likely we actually do them and succeed.

The most important rule to keep in mind when building new routines or trying to change them is to make it easy!

The following points help me on a regular basis with shaping new routines:

• Focus on taking action and not planning. The most effective form of learning is practice and not planning. Therefore it is important to simply get started and get your repetitions in! The duration of a routine is not as important as how often you repeat the whole habit pattern, especially the action you want to perform. → Get started. The more often you repeat it the more automatic it becomes.
• Start small! → Cut the habit into the smallest cornerstone action you can think of. The hard part is to establish a habit. Once it is there we can optimize. If you make the initial activity too hard or too big you will fail! I cannot hammer this more home, I experienced it myself so many times: START SMALL AND ITERATE OVER YOUR HABIT. For example:
  • You want to write daily, instead of trying to push yourself to write 10 pages, start with 1 sentence. This might sound ridiculous but it works. Once you regularly show up and write the sentence, then we optimize and make it a paragraph.. once you do this regularly we do a page, etc…
  • You want to start running daily. The cornerstone habit I would choose is putting on my running shoes and clothes. Once I am doing this I start 2 minutes walking, then 5, and at some point jogging and increase the distance till I achieve my goal
• Use environmental design to your advantage. Reduce as much friction as possible for new routines. Increase friction for undesired habits.
  • Environmental design means that you shape your surroundings in a way to support your goal. Examples: You want to run daily. Each evening you put out your running clothes and put your shoes somewhere where you will directly see them in the morning. Make it evident. / You want to read more, distribute books where you can see them constantly
• Use something called a “commitment device”. In many cases, it is more important to prevent a bad habit. To do so you can use this tactic: Make a choice that controls your actions in the future and makes it harder to get out of a good habit. To make it clearer here are some examples:
  • Want to start with training → pay a personal trainer upfront
  • Want to eat less → when eating out tell the waiter to immediately split the food once it is done and box half of it
  • Want to study → make an appointment with a friend to study together

The last thing I want to mention are powerful one time actions that lock in better habits. Those actions can have a huge impact and set you up to achieve what you want. Examples are:

• You want to sleep better: Buy the best mattress you can find/make sure is completely dark / remove the TV
• You want to lose weight: Get small plates to reduce calorie intake
• You want to be happier: Join a club or community / get a pet / start a hobby where you meet other like-minded people
• You want to be more productive: Turn off app notifications on your phone / Delete games from your computer / Put the TV in a closet / Use mail filters or unsubscribe from newsletters