Try 'Habit Stacking' to Make New Routines Stick

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Why is it so easy to form bad habits and so frustrating to try to form good ones? We crave routine, at least to some degree, so it's frustrating when you can't make productive or helpful habits stick. But consider that you already have a bunch of good, small habits, like putting the coffee on in the morning or washing your face before bed. As hard as you might be struggling with the bigger ones, you know you can do it because you've done it countless times before in smaller ways. In fact, those smaller routines can do more than prove your capability when it comes to building them; they can help you entrench larger habits and be even more productive. Let's go over a technique called habit stacking, which is basically like gluing a new habit to an existing one until it sticks.

What is habit stacking?

Habit stacking happens when you tack a desired behavioral change onto an existing routine. Theoretically, and eventually practically, that way the thing you’re having trouble sticking with just becomes part of your broader, ongoing string of habits. At some point, the behavioral change itself will become a habit on its own and you won't even think about doing it anymore, just like you don't think about the smaller habit you attached it to.

Consider the things you already do every day: Brushing your teeth in the morning and at night, making your coffee in the morning, walking your dog at lunchtime, running to the corner store for a 3 p.m. energy drink, etc. During any one of those, you can add in a second necessary task that will benefit reciprocally from happening alongside your existing routine.

This concept was popularized in 2017 by S.J. Scott, who wrote Habit Stacking: 127 Small Changes to Improve Your Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Since then, it’s blown up, with other psychologists adding their own support for the practice. Science agrees: Building routines is key to overall health and well-being, and our brains are wired to seek out routines. Once you have one habit neurologically wired in, building others around it is much easier.

How to get started with habit stacking 

Once you’ve identified the things you want to do but don’t, think more about the things you do do, whether it’s taking a break every day at 12 p.m. to scroll social media or doing the dishes after every meal. Don't just pick hard habits to stack on easy ones; reevaluate the easy ones to see what else they could help you with. Examine each and look for ways you could stack the less-sticky tasks on top of them. If you forget to call your mom often, stack that on top of doing the dishes. If you need to study for a test, alternate drilling flashcards with your nightly cleaning routine tasks.

The trick is to figure out which things can stack cohesively. You can’t return phone calls while you’re running at the gym, but maybe you can do so while you’re commuting. You can’t plan out your weekly schedule while you brush your teeth, but you can practice your deep breathing.

Once you’ve determined which habits can stack, write down your plans somewhere like a Google doc—”I will respond to my emails every morning by 10, while I eat breakfast”—and for the first few days, actively check in on it to make sure you’re staying on top of them. Set reminders in your phone so you're getting notifications prompting you to double-up your tasks. Eventually, they’ll become habitual, just like the activities you’ve paired them with.

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