H·03
Habits & Behaviour
Habits Live in Contexts, Not in You
About 43% of daily behaviour is repeated in the same context. Change the context and the habit has nothing to hold on to.
- Evidence
- proven
- Topic
- Habits
- Things to do
- 3
- Read
- 1 min
provenHow strong is the evidence?
Tested again and again, by different people, and it keeps coming out the same. You can lean on this.
- Wendy Wood, Good Habits, Bad Habits (2019)
- Wood, Quinn & Kashy, 2002
Why it works
A habit is a learned association between a stable setting and a response. Ex-smokers who move house quit at higher rates than ones who don't — not more resolve, fewer cues.
What to do about it
- Use disruptions — a move, a new office, a trip, a new phone — as the window to change everything at once. It is the cheapest moment you will get.
- Give each habit its own place. One chair you only read in. One desk you never eat at.
- To break a habit, do not fight the response. Remove or move the cue.
Where people go wrong
Trying to install a new habit in the same physical spot as the old one it replaces.
Read next
- Friction Beats WillpowerTwenty seconds of added effort kills a habit; twenty seconds removed creates one.proven
- Speech Is the Worst NoiseBackground speech you can make out words in degrades reading, writing and arithmetic. Meaningless noise at the same volume does not.solid
- Proximity and Repetition Make LikingWho you become close to is mostly a function of who you repeatedly, incidentally encounter.proven
- The If-Then PlanA goal becomes an action only when it names a trigger: “When X happens, I will do Y.”proven