What’s habit stacking I hear you cry??
Habit stacking is only the best thing you will ever do if you’re relentlessly ambitious and frustrated with the lack of hours in the day to do everything you really want. Habit stacking is the key (in my humble opinion) to being able to keep doing the must do tasks of life but integrating more of the love to do tasks and embedding new habits permanently – you know the eat healthier commitment you keep making and breaking, or the I’m going to drink more water, read more books.
We all know new habits are hard, they involve consistency and routine but there isn’t any time as other things become more important. This means the new health kick goes out the window, that qualification you were going to study for slowly becomes a distant memory as the study time gets consumed by other distractions or things we must do.
Changing the way we do things is hard and as we move through life what we want changes. Our goals shift and we have to prioritise different activities if we want to achieve our goals.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve also had to sacrifice some of the things I love or want to do for the things I have to do as my responsibilities have grown – whether that’s at work with a larger team, bigger projects, more leadership or family commitments from looking after children to caring responsibilities. The juggle is real.
I first read about habit stacking in James Clear’s Atomic Habits (it’s a must read) and it’s so simple, it blew my mind a little bit. I realised it’s the ultimate working smarter not harder. And it pushed me to think about things differently – so that I could do more of the things I missed and embed some of the new habits that I wanted to have. It helped resolve a mounting frustration and resentment I was feeling at never being able to find time to exercise, read a book, listen to a podcast. I felt that my work and my family commitments meant I had to sacrifice these things because I couldn’t find time.
In a real world example, the more senior the role I took on in my work the less I prioritised exercise and fresh air. I rarely found time to get outside as I was in back to back meetings. Then I had my daughter – between the school runs and work – healthy eating, exercise and my love of reading all suddenly vanished. i had no time for me. When I read about habit stacking I realised this could be the tool I needed to enhance my own wellbeing and make those activities daily habits that I don’t have to sacrifice.
Habit stacking is simple and it’s about combining the things we have to do like walking the dog (must do) with listening to an audio book (want to do). Cleaning the house (must do) with catching up on current affairs podcast (want to do). Whatever it is that you want to do more of stack it into an existing habit and your routine and you’re on your way to doing more of what you want. Overtime these routines become habit and thus second nature.
Starting was simple I made a list of all things that I had to do in my day, and rather than seeing them as chores I looked at them as opportunities. I looked at tasks as moments that matter and turned the mundane into something quite appealing! The ‘to-do’ list has never looked so attractive.
If you’re struggling to find time for you – which is so important but is the first thing to go when we are busy – why not sit down and make a list of all the things you would like to be doing more of, then look at what ‘opportunities’ (aka the must do’s) and find ways to integrate both into your day. The beauty of habits is that the more you do them, the more they become second nature. Over time you can slowly build on these – so the 20 minutes whilst the dinner is in the oven becomes a prime opportunity to prep the healthy breakfast and lunch for the next day or snatch a quick body weight workout, or a good stretching session on the yoga matt.
If you want to read more about the psychology behind it – check out James Clear’s blog post – How to build new habits by taking advantage of old ones. I also highly recommend his book – Atomic Habits – it’s a powerhouse of ideas on habit formation.
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