Habit Stacking

In an effort to use this extra time of quarantine, I decided to work on developing some new habits. However, I have not successfully implemented any new habit so far. But recently I read one book on Kindle i.e. Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes That Take Five Minutes or Less by S.J. Scott.

What I really like about the book is that it’s incredibly feasible, simple and to the point.

I decided to cover the concept of Habit Stacking in my blog as I found it very interesting as well as helpful. It happens to be a powerful productivity technique that anyone can pick up with minimal effort.

And hopefully I’ll come out a better person on the other end with this technique.

Daily routine of all

Now mornings are different for everyone, but we all have one thing in common. Routine. 

It may not be an efficient or ideal routine like we read in successful people’s journals. It may not happen in a well-timed manner or it may not even work. 

But the fact is, everyone has a number of steps they habitually go through when they start their day in the morning.

Even if you’re the world’s most famous person, you’ll still follow certain patterns as you go through your day. 

And we have certain habits which are either good for us like exercising, writing, reading etc or some are damaging us like smoking, getting distracted by smart phones etc creating obstacles in our success path. Isn’t it?

Now let me tell you, all that matters, which creates a huge difference in your life, are your habits. And you can change your life by changing some of your habits or add a few. 

It’s tricky. And needs a whole lot of discipline to start something new and be regular at it to make it a habit. Right ?

That’s when habit stacking helps. 

Habit stacking : 

What exactly is a habit? Normally our brain builds a strong network of neurons to support our current behaviors. 

The more you do something in a timely manner, the stronger and more efficient the connection becomes.

Eg. You have very strong habits that you take for granted each day. For example, your brain is probably very efficient at remembering to take a shower each morning or your morning cup of tea or coffee or  thousands of other daily habits. 

You can take advantage of these strong connections to build new habits.

How?

As you’ve experienced, it’s not easy to add a few habits  to your day suddenly. But it’s fairly easy to build a single and small routine. 

In simple terms, it’s a process that involves implementing a new habit by adding it to an existing habit.

The quickest and simplest way to build a new habit into your life is to stack it on top of a current habit.

This concept is called “habit stacking” because you stack your new habit on top of a current habit. Because the current habit is strongly wired into your brain already. 

How to work on your habit strategy:

First, identify a habit you want to add to your life. Maybe you want to take up yoga, start reading books or to learn meditation or anything.

Next, psychologically go through your morning routine or your old habits. For example, maybe you get up every morning at six a.m., go to the bathroom, brush your teeth and then have a cup of tea or coffee. 

Now let’s assume that you wish to add a habit of reading in your routine. You can begin habit stacking here. 

As soon as you’re done with your morning tea, which is an established habit you do every day, take five – ten minutes to read a book immediately.

Continue to use those five minutes every day after your tea / coffee to read good books every day, and you will have stacked a habit! 

From there, you can find other time slots in your daily routine where you can make some positive changes.

Examples of  habit stacking:

Before / After {Regular Habit}, I will {New Habit}.

I experimented this technique with my regular habits. I love reading. But I don’t have a fixed routine of reading. Whenever I get time in a day, I read.

This results in irregular reading. And I wanted to read a lot. So after knowing about habit stacking, I stacked my reading habit on top of regular sleeping at night.

That’s common for all of us that whether good or bad, at the end of the day, we go to bed. And that’s the common habit.

Since last week I have started reading at least 2 pages before going to bed. And it’s working fine. Slowly it is turning into my habit.

In the book, it’s also mentioned that a very small change in routine can be, stacking a new habit of drinking a full glass of water before going to bed. Now that tiny habits can make tiny positive changes in your life.

Isn’t that inspiring ? At least that small thing can be done. Right?

The reason habit stacking works so well is that your current habits are already built into your brain. You have patterns and behaviors that have been strengthened over years.

By linking your new habits to a cycle that is already built into your brain, you make it more likely that you’ll stick to the new behavior.

I totally understand, that developing a new habit in a routine life, is challenging.  But turn the challenges into opportunities. And this whole quarantine is a door of opportunities for all of us.  Right?

A simple quote by W.Clement Stone is:

Big Doors swing on little hinges

That means, many big outcomes happens because of small events.

Conclusion:

 As you perform the stacked actions every day, they become part of your routine. Habit stacking results in a positive change in your life.

Happy habit stacking!