Deliberately forming good habits is a simple and powerful way to increase productivity. Once your actions become habitual, they don’t require as much effort, leaving you with more energy for other tasks.

All habits have four elements:

• Cue     =          The trigger that prompts you to perform the habit.
• Desire =          The feeling that you need to act.
• Action =          The action you take to satisfy the desire.
• Reward =         The result of the action which reinforces the habit.

An example of a good habit, brushing your teeth, can work like this:

• Cue =          You finish showering.
• Desire =      You feel the urge to brush your teeth.
• Action =      You brush your teeth.
• Reward =     Your mouth feels clean and minty fresh.

When establishing good habits, you can design the cue, desire, action and reward to greatly increase your chance of success. The following strategies can help:

Cue

Aim for a cue that is:

• Obvious:
  • Something that you won’t miss, like
    • An alarm
    • A major phase in your day, for example:
      • waking up;
      • coming home from work;
      • finishing another habit; or
      • leaving or entering a room.
    • Regular:
      • Something that happens at the same time or location:
        • every day; or even
        • multiple times a day.
      • Specific:
        • The cue can be a time or location or a combination of different factors, but it’s important to ensure that it is specific enough to act on every time it occurs.
      • Immediately actionable:
        • The action must be able to occur immediately after the cue.
        • Any items that you need for the habit must be available and ready to use wherever and whenever the cue occurs.

Desire

Aim for a highly appealing desire. It can help to design the habit in one or more of the following ways:

• Connect the habit to something you like doing. The more you enjoy the cue, desire, action or reward, the easier the habit will be to establish.
• Connect the habit to something that you are good at.
• Reframe your mindset around the habit to be more positive, for example: from “I have to exercise” to “I get to be fitter and more healthy.”
• Try associating the habit with a positive experience. Do it immediately before, after or at the same as something you love doing, for example:
  • Listen to music while working.
  • Do chores before having a cup of coffee.
  • Work out while watching TV.

Action

Aim for an action that is as easy as possible. Try the following:

• Eliminate barriers to starting the habit, for example:
  • Set up a workstation with everything you need the night before.
  • Plan your day the evening before so that you can start first thing in the morning.
  • Design the action so it can be done wherever you are.
• When starting a new habit, make the action very easy, for example: do two minutes of work or write two sentences. You can build on the habit and increase the action once it’s established.
• The action must be clear and specific and should be able to be started with little thought. If the cue occurs and you need to decide what action to take, then the action should be clarified.

Reward

The reward should be immediate and satisfying. Try:

• Praising yourself (whether in your head or out loud) each time you complete the habit.
• Giving yourself a small reward upon completion.
• Using a habit tracker to keep track of your success. A simple and effective habit tracker is to write an X on a calendar for each day you succeed. It is surprising how rewarding marking an X on a calendar can come to feel.
• Asking yourself “What’s good about this moment?” and feeling into whatever the answer is for a few seconds.

Helpful habit-building tips:

• Attach a habit you want to one you already have, for example: exercise after brushing your teeth.
• Make a vow.
• Fixing your intention in words increases your chance of acting on it. When starting a habit, write the habit down as precisely as possible, identifying the cue, desire, action and reward. Then say it aloud, for example: “Every weekday afternoon, when I get home from work, I will sit at my table and write two lines in my journal for that day. Once I finish, I get to relax for the evening.”
• Start slow and small.
• To start, make the action as easy as possible. Once the habit is embedded, you can increase the difficulty of the action.
• Consistency is key.
• Habits get stronger with repetition and weaker when skipped.
• Aim never to miss a day, even if you have to half-ass it.
• If you do miss a day, make sure you don’t miss a second day.
• Attach the cue to a time or location, or both.
• The more repetitions of a habit you do, the stronger the habit will become.
• Look for small decisions that drive big results and make those decisions into a habit. Examples of those kinds of decisions are:
  • Deciding to walk to work rather than drive.
  • Deciding to sit at your desk and start working rather than sitting on your couch and turning on the TV.