James Clear discusses habits in his book Atomic Habits. Ultimately we can develop our desired habits and make them stick.
This post introduces habit stacking, one of the key techniques in Atomic Habits. We’ll also offer a list of habits and methods to streamline your implementing habit stacks.
Habit stacking
In Atomic Habits, habit stacking is a productive technique for picking up new habits. This method involves linking various triggers and our current habits to the new habits that we want to pick up.
How habit stacking works
Habit stacking works by adding several habits together, so they form a routine. You are probably already habit stacking, even if you’re not aware of it.
The Habit Stacking formula is the following:
After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].
For example, if you have a nightly routine, it may look something like this:
- Shower
- Brush teeth
- Floss
- Use mouthwash
- Read for 30 minutes
- Go to sleep
By writing down each habit into a process, we have a simple and clear guide of what our ideal self should do. This routine structure helps us complete as many habits as possible each time we initiate the habit sequence.
These routines are great for waking up, getting ready for sleep, eating healthy, spontaneous exercise and so many other purposes. Habit stacking opportunities are limitless and really come down to the desired habits you want to build.
Making habit stacks work
Habit stacks work best when each activity should be done just as often and at similar times of day. For example, you wouldn’t schedule a weekly activity into a habit stack with daily routines.
This confuses the whole point of a habit stack, as your habit should act as a reminder to perform the new behaviour. The desired habit should have the same frequency as your cue – whether weekly, daily or on certain occasions.
The Habits Cheat Sheet
The first step of optimising your regular habit stacks is to brainstorm a list of your current habits and daily triggers. And that’s where the habits cheat sheet comes in.
Start by grabbing a pen and a piece of paper and drawing two columns. We’re going to list out each habit we do on the left and any regular cue that happens without fail on the right.
To get you started, here’s a Cheat Sheet for you that lists common habits and regular triggers.
Habits you do everyday
- Get out of bed
- Take a shower
- Brush your teeth
- Get dressed
- Brew a cup of coffee
- Eat breakfast
- Pick up your phone
- Take the kids to school
- Start the work day
- Eat lunch
- End the work day
- Change out of work clothes
- Sit down for dinner
- Turn off the lights
- Get into bed
Things that happen everyday
- The sun rises
- You get a text message
- Someone asks you for something at work
- The song you’re listening to ends
- The sun sets
How to map out desired habits into stacks
The activities and triggers above are things most of us do nearly everyday. The list isn’t exhaustive, and you probably have better examples related to your current habits. Fill out your two columns with the relevant examples above and any other items that come to mind. Identifying all the potential triggers will help us create the most optimal habit stacks.
Now that we have these two lists of triggers, we can begin to think where our desired habits would best fit into our daily lives. These will follow either current habits or regular stimulus in our environment.
The trick to successful habit stacking is being specific. Specific activities should trigger the desired habits. For example, “During my lunch break, do one push-up” may sound specific, but it’s vague from a time perspective. Is the push-up supposed to happen before you eat, after you eat, after your lunch tea? Being clear on the details will make it easier to stick to the habit.
Making Habit Stacks Work
The whole point of habit stacks is clarifying where there are opportunities to build routines. The starting point for building these routines are your current habits and the various cues in your environment. From here, we can map out our desired habits to the most relevant cue.
It’s important we write down the routines so we can review it regularly, make any necessary changes and ultimately not forget. If we can improve our daily habits, we start down the path toward our best life. As the Stoics said, the only things we can control in life are our thoughts, our actions and our character. We should learn to embrace everything outside our control as fate.
If we can spend everyday expressing our truest self by living in harmony with our core values, we really don’t need anything else. However, even if we’re content, the small impact of a daily habit performed can have a dramatic long-term impact.
Now that you’ve made it to the end of this post, we can tell you there are two types of people. One type of person smirks and thinks their habits are “fine as they are”. The other type experiences a pivotal moment by reading this post.
Which person you are going to be is your choice. Will you implement this simple technique and improve your life 1% everyday for the rest of your life? Or will you soon forget that you even read it?
Put your mind to practice with habit stacking today. And never look back.