What is a habit?
To understand what habit stacking is, first let’s remember what a habit is. A habit is a set of actions that gets repeated frequently.
The first time you do a specific action or a set of actions, your attention is at its fullest. A behaviour that happens for the first time requires high focus and concentration.
Repeating a behaviour for the first time usually still requires high concentration, but less than the first time.
The more a behaviour is repeated, the less concentration it requires and the more automatic it starts to happen.
Take for example, walking is an automatic behaviour that most people can perform without a moment spent in thinking how to do it.
However, the same walking that everyone now can perform automatically, was at some point of time very hard to do.
Of course people don’t exactly remember the first time they have walked, but a simple question to the parent can show you how hard your first steps were.
How many times you have fallen while trying to walk, and how many times you have learned step by step how to walk.
The first time to walk required so much effort and attention from us as kids. But look at you now, not just walking, but even running!
A person’s life is filled with habits from the moment he wakes up in the morning to the moment he gets back to sleep at night.
What is habit stacking?
Since now we understand what is a habit, habit stacking is a technique that utilises your existing habits as the foundation to add a new habit to it.
You can use this technique to streamline the process of establishing new habits in your life. You will need a habit that you perform frequently, a habit that you want to add to and stack it to this already existing habit.
What are the requirements of habit stacking?
Compatibility
It is essential that the habit or set of actions / behaviour you want to add is compatible to that of the already existing habit.
It doesn’t make sense to want to add a 20 min meditation after you just drank a cup of coffee. Maybe for some it is normal, but for most people the caffeine in the coffee will push them to want to work, do something physical, or solve a problem.
Pairing meditation and drinking coffee can be difficult if you intend to calm down and meditate.
On the other hand, pairing meditation with finishing your last task at work can work, since there is the element of compatibility.
Of course, you should decide if something is compatible or not with your habit.
Level of complexity of the habit to be added
Since flossing your teeth is a simple action, the probability of you sticking to the habit of flossing your teeth after brushing them is higher.
However, the more complex a behavior is, the less likely you are to be able to stack on top of another habit.
Generally speaking, if the habit you want to stack is composed of multiple actions to be performed, it is advised to either break down that habit into small steps, and add some steps to your existing habits.
Or you can first familiarise yourself with performing the behavior first. Meaning you have to repeat the behaviour you want to incorporate a few times, before you want to add it to an existing habit.
Time and energy commitment
Each behavior will cost you some energy and will require a set amount of time. Some habits would be hard to add to existing habits if they require immense energy or take so much time to be performed.
Since a healthy brain analyzes the mental, physical, monetary cost of an action before you do it, you will have a hard time sticking to a habit that would require extreme usage of energy if you stack it on top of a habit you do at the end of your day when you are at your lowest energy levels.
To some point this time and energy commitment requirement are related to the compatibility of the behaviour to the existing habit you want to add it to.
How to do habit stacking
The formula for habit stacking according to James Clear in his best seller book “ Atomic Habits” is :
After [CURRENT BEHAVIOUR], I will do [NEW HABIT]
You will need to select what current behaviour you want to use. That in turn requires you to have a list of already existing behaviours/ habits that you perform daily.
For most people, daily habits can be tricky to notice or track. Therefore in order to find them, you will need first to start noticing them and writing them in a notebook.
Then you can start to decide what habits you want to use as a foundation for your habit stacking technique.
Examples of habit stacking
Example 1:
After I pour my morning coffee, I will drink a glass of water.
Current Habit: Pouring morning coffee in a cup
Desired behaviour (stacked habit): Drinking water
Example 2:
After I pour my morning coffee, I will think and write the top three goals of the day.
Current behaviour: pouring morning coffee
Desired behaviour (stacked habit): Thinking and writing the top three goals of the day.
Example 3:
After I sit on my car and put my seatbelt, I will take 3 deep breaths and then start the car.
Current behaviour: Sitting in the car and putting the seatbelt
Desired behaviour: Breathing deeply 3 times