A Simple Plan to Refurbish Your Habits

Have you heard of “habit stacking”? It’s a superb concept used by James Clear in his book Atomic Habits. In it, he articulates how to create a new habit by stacking it with an already established one. 

James explains how human behavior tends to follow a cyclical pattern of deciding what to do next based on what you have just finished doing. For example, the tendency for one purchase to lead to another purchase is a cyclical pattern. The Diderot Effect, as it’s called, describes how acquiring a new item can lead to the purchase of more things. The term is named after French philosopher Denis Diderot (1713–1784), who documented the phenomenon in his own life. This is not usually a fantastic pattern since it can create a spiral of overspending and accumulating more possessions than are needed. 

James Clear suggests that when building a new habit, you should use the connectedness of our human behavior to your advantage. He uses this natural human behavior to overhaul our habits for our betterment. Since most behavior doesn’t happen in isolation, how can we make each action a cue that triggers the subsequent behavior? He says, “One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This is called habit stacking.”

This “connectedness of behavior” is also an advantage to building a new habit. Simply identify a current habit you already do each day and stack your new behavior on top. By the way, BJ Fogg created this method as part of his Tiny Habits program. James Clear calls it habit stacking versus Fogg’s designation of the “Tiny Habits” recipe. Whatever they name it, I call it a winner. 

He discusses a typical human behavior of deciding what to do next based on what you have just finished doing. His example is one where “going to the bathroom leads to washing and drying your hands, which reminds you that you need to put the dirty towels in the laundry, which will lead you to add laundry detergent to your shopping list, and so on. No behavior happens in isolation because each action becomes a cue that triggers the next behavior.” James said this process can be repeated to chain the numerous habits together, each acting as the cue for the next. His habit stacking formula is “After [Current Habit], I will [New Habit].”

For example, James Clear references his meditation habit: “After I brew my morning coffee, I will meditate for one minute.” Or a gratitude habit: “Before I eat my first bite of dinner, I will say one thing I am grateful for that day.”

My evening routine is a good example of habit stacking as it has expanded as I have stacked other habits into a well-worn circuit. I flow without much conscious thought once I start moving into this circuit. In fact, until I started writing about this routine, it didn’t occur to me that I followed the same circuitous migration. I check door locks, pull down blinds, and turn off lights in a journey downstairs, and the last door I check is at the bottom of the stairs. Once upstairs in the bedroom, I follow a particular pattern: turning down lights, picking up the floor, and picking out gym gear for the next day. The gym clothes are hung in the bathroom. Now, I am in the bathroom, which cues me to wash my face, brush my teeth, and take my supplements. All those items are in the bathroom, so doing each habit cues the next. Turning the lights off sends me towards the bed, where I set the alarm, plug in my phone, and slide into bed. 

I could do all those things with my eyes closed since I have done them many times before. And yet, if something interrupts the pattern and I have to handle the unusual pop-up, it’s liable to throw me off, and I will forget something in the chain. When I had young children at home, interruptions were regular occurrences, and things got skipped frequently. Parents, give yourself grace and know, “This too shall pass.”

So, rather than pairing your new habit with a time and location, you pair it with a current habit. James Clear suggests “tie your desired behavior into something you already do each day.” My nighttime routine exemplifies how I tied my small habits together using the natural momentum of getting ready for sleep and moving through those steps. 

You probably have many routine stacks already built into your day. Think of those regular routines that have been happening for a long time, such as laundry, cleaning the kitchen, or mowing the yard. Heck, think of how you put on your clothes and notice a pattern of which item goes on first and so on. The brain loves to create habits and patterns to lighten the load on our cognitive energy. 

James also suggests, “When and where you insert a habit into your daily routine can make a big difference, so consider when you are most likely to be successful. Don’t ask yourself to do a habit when you’re likely to be occupied with something else.” For example, if your kids make the mornings somewhat chaotic, inserting meditation into a morning routine is probably the wrong time and place. Look for another time and place where meditation would be a great fit into the energy of that habit stack. 

How can you implement a habit-stacking strategy as a practical way to integrate new and valuable habits into your daily routine without much effort? Consider how partnering with a coach could be an asset to help you refine your daily routine. If you think coaching is an opportunity worth investigating, please click here to contact me or any other coaches at The Center.