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If there is one sentence to describe the book Tiny Habits, it would be "To make lasting improvements, you need to start with tiny habits."
Written by Brian Jeffrey Fogg, an American social scientist who is a research associate and adjunct professor at Stanford University, the book is possibly amongst the very best in the productivity space.
Given BJ Fogg's status as the founder and director of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, later renamed as Behavior Design Lab, it is no surprise that the insights in the book go beyond mere academic validations.
Before starting this post, understand that this is not an alternative to reading the book. It is just an introduction to some of its central ideas and our POV on some of those ideas.
All that said, let's get into it.
The author contends that we fail to achieve consistent results with habit formation because of 3 main factors:
According to the author, the solution is to take the behavior you want, make it tiny, find where it fits naturally in your life, and nurture its growth.
According to the Fogg Behaviour model, behavior occurs when three factors come together, namely:
The FBM outlines Core Motivators (Motivation), Simplicity Factors (Ability), and the types of Prompts.
BJ Fogg believes that the easier a behavior is to do, the more likely it will stick as a habit and vice versa. For example, if you've got a jar of cookies in your room, you are much more likely to consume more of it and build a habit of comfort munching than when you have to walk to the kitchen, open a locked cabinet, and then consume it.
The book operates on the premise that motivation as a sole factor in habit formation is unreliable and needs to be reinforced with the ability to perform a task and an ideal prompt.
Ideally, you'll want high motivation, easy to do (ability) activity, and a well-placed trigger (prompt). If you have high motivation and low ability (challenging to do), you'll be frustrated, which happens when you set big, unrealistic goals.
On the other hand, if it’s low motivation but easy to do (e.g., dust your books), you get annoyed or disinterested.
When you want to build a habit, it helps to start small. For example, if you are looking to establish a habit of flossing your teeth, start with the practice of flossing for just 30 seconds every time you brush your teeth.
While flossing all your teeth sounds time-consuming, flossing for just 30 seconds feels quick and easy to do. Essentially, flossing for 30 seconds is harder to say no to, hence it is easy to make it a habit.
You can also follow the philosophy of the Must Should Want method, to figure out the small task that will give you the best returns.
It is also important to celebrate when you successfully repeat a habit to give your body that dopamine hit to keep it seeking similar patterns in the future.
Setting up a process to identify and diagnose behavior patterns is critical to establishing new habits. And under the FBM model, BJ Fogg suggests exploring behavior patterns with a few questions aimed at assessing our ability to do something and how to make the practice easier to do.
Let's first look at some of the questions worth answering concerning our ability to do something with the example of flossing our teeth for 30 seconds;
Do you have enough time to do this?
Yes, 30 is not too long.
Do you have enough money to do this?
Yes, dental floss is not very expensive.
Are you physically able to do this?
Yes, flossing is not physically demanding.
Does this behavior fit into your current routine?
Yes, I can floss right after I brush my teeth. I don't need to make much time outside of my existing schedule.
Does this behavior require significant mental effort?
No, I can do this without really having to think about it.
Once you have answered these questions, you are better equipped to understand the constraints of creating a new tiny habit.
If you find constraints during this process, you need to ask yourself: How do I make this easier to do?
There are a few ways to make something easier, but the most straightforward ways are to improve your skills at that act, break down the task and make it smaller, and set up a friction-free environment.
Let's say you are trying to build a habit of exercising in the morning by asking, how can I make this easier? You'll likely arrive at:
One of the best ways to build new tiny habits is anchoring them on existing habits. For example, if you want to start meditating, you can anchor that to your existing habit of drinking coffee in the morning.
So, in this case, right after you finish drinking your coffee at your table, you'll have to meditate for 2 minutes.
There are a few factors to consider and match while you begin the process of anchoring tiny habits to existing habits. They are:
Using the above example, you should ideally meditate at the exact location where you had your coffee; this will reduce friction in establishing this habit. On the contrary, imagine a scenario where you have to go to the park every time you finish drinking coffee to quickly meditate for two minutes - this will likely not become a habit.
The next factor to consider is the number of times you want to perform this habit/task. For example, if you're going to meditate once a day, you should pair it with coffee drinking only if you do that once a day. Ideally, the act of finishing drinking coffee should be a trigger to start meditating.
However, if you want to meditate twice a day, you could pair the practice with something you do twice a day, like taking a morning and evening walk. You could take this a step further by adding a reminder or blocking time for this on the Routine planner.
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The final factor to consider while anchoring is compatibility or relevancy to the anchor. Drinking coffee and taking a run feels so far away from each other that it is going to be much harder to set those two together. Hence, it is essential to pair habits that will go well with each other and are related on some level.
So that is essentially it about the book "Tiny Habits." If you want to build long-lasting habits, we strongly recommend going through the entire book.
We recently compiled a list of small habits with a big positive impact on our blog, so do give it a read.
Have we missed any significant ideas from the book? Let us know on Twitter at @RoutineHQ. Thanks for reading.
Shiva is a subject matter expert in communication, marketing, productivity, and learning systems. He has previously contributed to many blogs and newsletters, including Validated, Mental Models, HackerNoon, and several brands. You can find Shiva on LinkedIn or email him at shiva(at)routine.co.
