Designing better habit loops

 So you want to build a habit? Here’s what you need.

Seven months ago I started an experiment to test and develop a new habit every month for a year.

Since then I’ve learned quite a bit about which habits stick and which do not. What’s the difference between those habits that I struggle to act on every day for thirty days, and those which I find myself easily continuing after my month’s experiment is up?

A few things:

Visible output

The months where I’ve succeeded are those where I had something to show for it at the end — literally. With my December challenge of writing every day, I had the great satisfaction of writing in a journal whose pages I saw progressively filled every day. (Yes, I was writing by hand.) By month’s end my little Moleskine was positively bursting with post-its chock-full of ideas for future articles and stories. It was worn and tattered from being carrying around, and its filled pages were evidence of my success in sticking to that month’s challenge. I didn’t think much about whether or not my writing was any good or even whether it was getting any better; the sheer volume was an accomplishment in and of itself. I had a tangible thing I could proudly point to and say: I did that. I had half a mind to tape my journal to my fridge.

Incremental improvement

My April challenge stuck for a slightly different reason. For thirty days I created one sketch a day on the Paper app by FiftyThree. Even more powerful than seeing the pages of my (digital) sketchbook fill up was seeing that my sketches were getting better over time.

Picassos my sketches were not, but in their own way they showed improvement. After a few days of sketching I had begun to think more visually: I doodled less and illustrated more. I reworked images instead of simply starting afresh. I paid more attention to typography and how the shape of letters could bring particular emotions to the page. My technique improved and I soon outgrew the app’s default palette and single calligraphy pen. I wanted to do more, and proceeded to unlock a pen, a marker, a pencil, until at last I was ready for the finest of them all: the watercolor paintbrush. Each was a much-deserved reward for my efforts, earned bit by bit as I graduated from one level to another.

Seeing that I was improving helped me stick with sketching, and I was so inspired that I put in extra work anyway. I ended up with far more than 30 sketches over 30 days, and don’t plan on quitting that habit any time soon.

The right toolkit

There was something else that made the practice of journaling and sketching daily easier, and that was having the right toolkit. It was significant that the Paper app was a very pleasant tool to use. I liked the sensation of drawing on Paper, so I kept going back to it even before my sketches showed improvement. I looked forward to writing by hand with fountain pens that made even my most hurried thoughts look pleasing — I probably wouldn’t have been as successful in my writing challenge had I been forced to type a journal entry a day. These tools were so delightful to use they became part of the reward cycle in building those habits, and reinforced my interest in fulfilling the month’s task. If you want to really set yourself up for success, not just any set of tools will do: when you like the tools you work with, the barrier to entry is significantly lowered.

You can see how this would apply to other activities as well: buy yourself sneakers you feel really, really good in, and I bet you’re more likely to go to the gym than if you felt only just okay about your gym gear. (It may not turn you into a marathon runner, but it’s a solid start.) The right toolkit can make you truly want to go after something, even if the thing itself will be a struggle.

Reinforcement and accountability

The month I went gluten-free I had to explain myself a lot. As it turns out, one cannot go gluten-free quietly: people really like to talk about their food choices, and yours. When friends and roommates made cookies, breads, and other tasty gluten-filled things, I would politely decline and explain that despite knowing their baked goods were delicious, I could no longer eat them. At first it felt unnatural to say that I was gluten-free (well, it’s sort of an experiment, so I guess I’m pseudo gluten-free? Gluten-free for now?). But publicly stating that I was gluten-free reinforced my commitment to it, and my meals being mainly social, this happened a lot. “I’m gluten-free,” I repeated aloud like a mantra, and after a week I had conditioned myself to believe it.

Once I believed it, staying gluten-free became a lot easier. At restaurants, I asked for gluten-free recommendations and off-menu variations with authority. I no longer flinched when passing by bakeries that would have made me melt earlier. Dining out, I instinctively ignored the pasta section of the menu. (This turned out to be a nice side benefit of going gluten-free: the cognitive load of decision-making at mealtime was suddenly greatly reduced.)

It also helped that in talking about my dietary habits with others, they would naturally hold me accountable to it: I couldn’t exactly load up my plate with pasta after telling my lunch mates I was gluten-free.

What didn’t work

All this in contrast to my less than fruitful February challenge, which didn’t tap into any of the aforementioned habit-forming facilitators.

I failed my February no-phone-in-bed challenge in part because I couldn’t see what I wasn’t doing, so I didn’t feel bad about it when I didn’t do it, or accomplished when I did. Apart from my own conscience, no one was really holding me accountable, either. Blogging about it wasn’t enough: I needed more regular, sustained feedback to keep me going. What I should have done was track how much time I spent a day checking my email and social apps, and shared those stats with my network. That I could have measured progress against, and once public, felt guilty or great about.

Designing better habit-loops

Having done this initial audit of my habit-building experiments, I plan on designing the next few with these learnings in mind. For future habit challenges where the task has no visible output, I’ll create it myself. (Maybe that will entail graphs, maybe videos, maybe spreadsheets — I’m not sure yet. How to best visualize and archive your progress is a whole other article unto itself.) For habits that are inherently antisocial, I’ll make them social by reaching out to my network or forming a small group of coaches to keep me accountable. I’ll set regular checkins to measure my progress and remind myself of what’s at stake. I’ll design my habit-experiments using the cues and rewards I know work for me.

What patterns have you noticed in your own habit-building process? Tell me here, or drop me a line @xsvengoechea.