Habit Stacking
How to Build New Habits from Old Habits
David Allen, organizational and personal productivity expert and author of Getting Things Done says, “Our minds were designed for having ideas, not holding them.” I find that so true. Frequently my clients are able to come up with great ideas for new habits that will shift their life in positive ways (eating better, working out, yoga, meditation, taking a walk with a loved one). What they frequently lack is reliability in execution. It’s easy to come with an idea, but executing it? That’s a whole different issue. When these ideas are habits, behaviors a client wants to implement on a regular basis in their life, I enjoy introducing my clients to the idea of habit stacking. Turns out I’ve been habit stacking for years, long before James Clear identified the concept in his book, Atomic Habits. You may have been, too.
How habit stacking works
“What is habit stacking? [It’s] taking a habit you already have (walking into the office) and building your new habit before, during or after it (stopping on the walk at a park bench for five minutes).”
You decide you want to develop a new habit, let’s say you’d like to start meditating for five minutes every day. However, even though you know you want to do it and you know it would be good for you, you keep forgetting to do it. A friend suggests setting a phone alarm, but you just swipe it as soon as it goes off without looking at what the alarm was for. Another friend suggests a meditation app that even reminds you to meditate, but part of the reason you wanted to start meditating was to get away from screens even if it was just for five minutes a day. Fortunately, you have a lightbulb moment. You realize you go by a park bench every morning on your way into work, so one day you decide to sit down for five minutes and meditate right there before going into work. Turns out that five minutes of quiet right before work felt so good you decide to do the same thing the next day on your way to work. Suddenly you find yourself meditating every work day because every day you walk to work and stop at that bench before continuing on to the office. A habit is born (or “stacked” in this case).
What is habit stacking?
Habit stacking is taking a habit you already have (walking into the office) and building your new desired habit before, during or after it (stopping on the walk at a park bench for five minutes). While I made up the example above off the top of my head, I do in fact have a client who has had a huge breakthrough in meditation as a habit and the trick was habit stacking. After twenty years of inconsistent meditation, he is now on his fifteenth month of daily meditation. The secret? He started playing a guided meditation recording every night as he got into bed. Going to bed every night is definitely a habigt. Stacking meditation on top of that took a little bit of intentionality and reminding at first, but clearly after fifteen months, the habit stack is cemented.
Why does habit stacking work so well? Well, creating a new habit out of thin air is tough. Often you need to be rigorous in creating reminders and safety nets to make sure you remember this new thing and your brain doesn’t switch back to autopilot (which is does so well). But stacking a habit onto another habit means there is far less for your brain to remember. It sees the bench, it sits on the bench. You’ve already created the environment for the habit to happen. Yes, you still have to remember to sit down on the bench, but the likelihood of you remembering this is far greater than remembering that at some arbitrary time you have to stop everything and start meditating. With habit stacking you are already in the environment and the time is chosen for you. There’s just a greater ease (and therefore a greater likelihood) for the habit to occur.
I am a habit stacking machine. I tend to tie a series of habits together. I have a morning routine and an evening routine. There’s anywhere between three to eight habits for each routine all stacked together. It makes things easier for me. There’s less I have to think about. One habit follows the next habit until they are all completed. I encourage you to use habit stacking as well, especially for new habits you are struggling to implement. Here’s how:
How to Habit Stack
Identify the new habit you would like to implement.
Is there anything you do on a regular basis that you could tie together with this new habit? Take a careful look at your day and habits you already have. (examples - making coffee in the morning, brushing your teeth at night, coming home from work or school, getting up in the morning, going to bed at night.)
Create reminders. At first you will most likely have to create reminders, but you won’t need them for very long if the habit stacking is working. I’ve used post-its or phone alarms, taped notes to my coffee maker, put things in my shoes. Get creative. You won’t need them for long, just long enough to tie the two behaviors together. Once the brain has stacked the habits together, you shouldn’t need the reminders anymore.
Celebrate your new habit!
I hope you find this helpful. If you have any thoughts or questions about it, please feel free to reach out. If you would like to schedule a FREE 90-minute coaching session, click on the link below.