My number one tip, when people ask about habit change, is your physical environment. Set it up to make it easy to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing.

But there’s a problem with relying on your environment. What if it changes?

The perils of contextual cues

I was travelling recently but completely forgot to take my vitamins in the morning. Why? The context had changed.

The behaviour of taking my vitamins is tied to my breakfast routine at home, and it turns...

When it comes to changing your own behaviour or someone else’s, two simple rules are:

• Make the existing behaviour unappealing, and/or
  Make the new behaviour appealing.

Make the existing behaviour unappealing

To reduce the likelihood an existing behaviour will continue, just add friction. For example:

• Slowing elevator doors by just 16 seconds influenced more people to take the stairs. Signs to save energy and improve health didn’t work, but friction did. (Van Houten, Nau &...