“For many everyday tasks, goals and intentions are not well-specified: they are opportunistic rather than planned. Opportunistic actions are those in which the behavior takes advantage of circumstances.”

– Don Norman in The Design of Everyday Things

A Space for our Future Selves

Human-centered designers like Don Norman understand that the way that we design our circumstances — that is, our environment, our spaces, and the objects that we use — affect how we behave.

So when we reflect on our own spaces, remember that we’re designing for a future version of ourselves. That person will wake up every morning, and see and experience what you’ve decided to place in your home. In choosing the objects that serve as cues for certain behaviors, feelings and habits, we have the power to change how we behave.

Therefore, it important that we ask ourselves the questions and design our spaces with this intention in mind. How do you want to behave in that space? How would you like to feel? What would you like to be reminded of?

When we decide to place that book on our nightstands and exile our phones from the bedroom, we nudge ourselves to spend those 30 minutes before bedtime reading instead of on the phone. When we create that dedicated space to breathe, we remind ourselves to sit and meditate in the morning.

The space we create for future selves dictates that kind of people we want to become. What kind of person do you want to become? What kind of space should you therefore create?