Tip of the Week: Use Habit Stacking to Build Better Habits

Technology is a great enabler of productivity, and you can use it to build better habits that can compound your productivity over time. Let’s look at a concept called habit stacking that can be used to great impact.

Explaining Habit Stacking

Consider all of the things you do at work day in and day out. These tasks might feel routine, like you can do them without a conscious effort. They just kind of happen. You likely already do things like this in your personal life, tasks that without them your day might feel off or out of place.

Habit stacking, however, lets you add a new habit to what you unconsciously do to create a new one, effectively letting you be productive while just going about your day-to-day duties. Let’s go over how you can do it.

First, Identify What You Want to Do

Some tasks are better than others for the purpose of habit stacking. These tasks are ones that don’t require as much effort—ones that get put off more often than not in favor of other, more interesting tasks. On the other hand, however, you have tasks that you want to bring into your daily routine in an intentional way. However you decide to move forward, know that you’ll want to determine what it is first before you move on to the next step.

Second, Determine What You Already Do

Now that you know which habit you want to build, consider what you already do that could be used to support building that new habit. Make sure that the two behaviors actually make sense when organized together. For example, let’s say you want to take the dog for more walks, and you already wake up early in the morning to drink your coffee. Instead of sitting around the house while you drink your coffee, take it on the go and walk your dog at the same time. Do your best to pair up activities that work well alongside each other.

Third, Learn How to Merge the Two

At the end of the day, the only way to build solid habits is consistency, doing them over and over again until they become second nature. This is not an overnight process, so be sure to keep your expectations in check and give yourself some grace. Write down your intentions and find ways to hold yourself accountable, whether it’s through check-ins with a third party, setting reminders, and so on.

Wash, rinse, and repeat, and you should have a new habit before very long.