Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

by Gretchen Rubin

Habits are the invisible architecture of daily life. We repeat about 40 percent of our behavior almost daily, so our habits shape our existence, and our future. If we change our habits, we change our lives.

The Habits Manifesto What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while. Make it easy to do right and hard to go wrong. Focus on actions, not outcomes. By giving something up, we may gain. Things often get harder before they get easier. When we give more to ourselves, we can ask more from ourselves. We’re not very different from other people, but those differences are very important. It’s easier to change our surroundings than ourselves. We can’t make people change, but when we change, others may change. We should make sure the things we do to feel better don’t make us feel worse. We manage what we monitor. Once we’re ready to begin, begin now.

In other words, habits eliminate the need for self-control.

I became convinced, however, that the defining aspect of habits isn’t frequency, or repetition, or the familiarity of the cues for a particular behavior. These factors do matter; but in the end, I concluded that the real key to habits is decision making—or, more accurately, the lack of decision making. A habit requires no decision from me, because I’ve already decided.

Surprisingly, stress doesn’t necessarily make us likely to indulge in bad habits; when we’re anxious or tired, we fall back on our habits, whether bad or good.

For good and bad, habits are the invisible architecture of daily life. Research suggests that about 40 percent of our behavior is repeated almost daily, and mostly in the same context.

1. Eat and drink more healthfully (give up sugar, eat more vegetables, drink less alcohol) 2. Exercise regularly 3. Save, spend, and earn wisely (save regularly, pay down debt, donate to worthy causes, stick to a budget) 4. Rest, relax, and enjoy (stop watching TV in bed, turn off a cell phone, spend time in nature, cultivate silence, get enough sleep, spend less time in the car) 5. Accomplish more, stop procrastinating (practice an instrument, work without interruption, learn a language, maintain a blog) 6. Simplify, clear, clean, and organize (make the bed, file regularly, put keys away in the same place, recycle) 7. Engage more deeply in relationships—with other people, with God, with the world (call friends, volunteer, have more sex, spend more time with family, attend religious services)

For a happy life, it’s important to cultivate an atmosphere of growth—the sense that we’re learning new things, getting stronger, forging new relationships, making things better, helping other people. Habits have a tremendous role to play in creating an atmosphere of growth, because they help us make consistent, reliable progress.

“If I have to do something ‘every day,’ it guarantees I won’t do it. But if I take it one day at a time, and decide I’ll do it this time, then more often than not I end up with a streak.”

Novelist Jean Rhys observed, “One is born either to go with or to go against.” From what I’ve observed, our Tendencies are hardwired, and while they can be offset to some degree, they can’t be changed. While it’s often difficult to identify a child’s Tendency (I still can’t figure out the Tendencies of my two daughters), by adulthood, most people fall into a Tendency that shapes their perception and behavior in a fundamental way.

Obligers, however, often dislike their Tendency. They’re vexed by the fact that they can meet others’ expectations, but not their expectations for themselves. With the other three Tendencies, much of the frustration they create falls on others. Other people may get annoyed by stickler Upholders, or interrogator Questioners, or maverick Rebels, but it’s “people pleaser” Obligers themselves who bear the brunt of the downsides of that Tendency.

Obligers, in fact, may reach a point of Obliger rebellion, a striking pattern in which they abruptly refuse to meet an expectation. As one Obliger explained, “Sometimes I ‘snap’ because I get tired of people making assumptions that I’ll always do things as expected. It’s sort of a rebellious way of asserting myself.” Another added, “I work very hard to keep my commitments to other people, but I’ll be darned if I can keep a promise to myself … Though every once in a while I will absolutely refuse to please.”

“Every time you break the law you pay, and every time you obey the law you pay.” Every action, every habit, has its consequences. Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels, all must grapple with the consequences of fitting in that Tendency. I get up at 6:00 every morning, and I pay for that; I get more work done, but I also have to go to sleep early. We all must pay, but we can choose that for which we pay.

My first commandment is to “Be Gretchen”—yet it’s very hard to know myself. I get so distracted by the way I wish I were, or the way I assume I am, that I lose sight of what’s actually true.

I’d assumed that I was pretty much like everyone else, and that everyone else was pretty much like me. That’s true, but our differences are very important. And they have a big influence on habit formation.

I’m a Lark: I go to sleep and wake on the early side. Owls do just the opposite. I used to believe that Owls could become Larks if they made an effort to go to sleep earlier, but research suggests that this attribute is hardwired. Genes play a big role, as does age: young children tend to be Larkish; adolescents tend to be Owls (with a peak at age 19.5 for women and age 21 for men); older adults tend to be Larks.

research suggests that Larks are likely to be happier, healthier, and more satisfied with life than Owls—in part, because the world favors Larks. Owls fall asleep later than Larks do, and because work, school, and young children start early, Owls get less sleep, which makes their lives harder.

“I love planning routines and planning to create habits as if it’s going to work, but the follow-through is rarely there, almost as if I have some inner repulsion to doing the same things in the same way. On the other hand, the buzz I get from trying new things is brilliant.”

In their thought-provoking book Focus, researchers Tory Higgins and Heidi Grant Halvorson argue that people lean toward being “promotion-focused” or “prevention-focused” in their aims. Promotion-focused people concentrate on achievement and advancement, on making gains, on getting more love, praise, pleasure. They eagerly and optimistically pursue their goals. By contrast, prevention-focused people concentrate on fulfilling their duties, on avoiding losses, and on minimizing danger, pain, or censure. They’re vigilant against possible drawbacks or problems.

Different arguments resonate with different people, and it’s helpful to frame a habit in the way that suits each individual.

A question like “Do you tend to blame other people, or do you blame yourself?” can give me a fresh perspective on myself.

At what time of day do I feel energized? When do I drag? Do I like racing from one activity to another, or do I prefer unhurried transitions? What activities take up my time but aren’t particularly useful or stimulating? Would I like to spend more time with friends, or by myself? Do I have several things on my calendar that I anticipate with pleasure? What can I do for hours without feeling bored? What daily or weekly activity did I do for fun when I was ten years old?

What’s most satisfying to me: saving time, or money, or effort? Does it bother me to act differently from other people, or do I get a charge out of it? Do I spend a lot of time on something that’s important to someone else, but not to me? If I had $500 that I had to spend on fun, how would I spend it? Do I like to listen to experts, or do I prefer to figure things out for myself? Does spending money on an activity make me feel more committed to it, or less committed? Would I be happy to see my children have the life I’ve had?

Am I more likely to indulge in a bad habit in a group, or when I’m alone? If I could magically, effortlessly change one habit in my life, what would it be? If the people around me could change one of my habits, what would they choose? Of my existing habits, which would I like to see my children adopt? Or not?

It wasn’t until I asked myself, “Do I have several things on my calendar that I anticipate with pleasure?” that I realized my book groups played a crucial role in helping me to keep fun habits.

Many strategies help us change our habits, and four strategies tower above the others: Monitoring, Foundation, Scheduling, and Accountability. They’re so ubiquitous and familiar that it’s easy to take them for granted—but they’re invaluable.

Specific habits such as “Read the news every morning” or “Call one client each day” are easy to monitor, while vague resolutions such as “Be more informed” or “Cultivate better client relationships” are hard to monitor.

Lord Kelvin’s observation, overbroad but nevertheless thought-provoking: “When you cannot express it in number, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.” If we want something to count in our lives, we should figure out a way to count it.

Accurate monitoring helps determine whether a habit is worth the time, money, or energy it consumes. A friend tracked his TV watching because he wanted to know if TV was eating up too much of his day (it was). I read about a woman who quit drinking because she figured that in six years she and her husband had spent almost $30,000 on alcohol—money they would’ve preferred to spend on something else. Aaron Beck, founder of cognitive behavioral therapy, maintains that people find it easy to notice what their partners do wrong, but not what they do right, so he suggests keeping “marriage diaries” to track partners’ considerate behavior; one study showed that 70 percent of couples who did this tracking reported an improved relationship.

Until well after college, I’d considered myself overweight—not so overweight that it affected my health, but enough that it affected my self-image—and my weight really bothered me. Finally I managed to get to a number where I felt more at ease, and it’s been a huge relief to feel comfortable with my size. This measure of ease still seems new, however, and my desire not to gain weight shapes many of my habits. I try very hard to make healthy food choices, and I exercise fairly regularly (though not very vigorously). Still, I could be doing better, and like just about most people, I loved the idea of painlessly dropping a few pounds. I wondered if monitoring would help.

As the weeks wore on, along with keeping a food journal, I added a new monitoring habit: No seconds. When people preplate their food and eat just one helping, they eat about 14 percent less than when they take smaller servings and return for more helpings. I’d often pulled this trick myself: I’d give myself a small serving, then go back for more. The need to monitor exactly what I’d eaten, in order to record it, forced me to stop this little game.

(Side note: people weigh their highest on Sunday; their lowest, on Friday morning.)

Sleep, as I remind anyone who gives me the opportunity, is crucial for good mental and physical health and a critical time for bodily repair and regulation. Lack of sleep negatively affects mood, memory, immune function, and pain sensitivity; it makes people more likely to fight with their partners; it contributes to weight gain.

I’d fallen into a classic failure-to-monitor trap: because I felt smug about my good sleep habits, I remembered the nights when I went to bed at 9:45, but overlooked the nights when I stayed up until 11:30 or later. Once monitoring showed that I wasn’t getting enough sleep, I decided to give myself a specific bedtime. Every night, if I was home, I’d aim to be in bed by 10:30. Now, every night at 10:30, I tell myself, “It’s my bedtime,” and if I’m still up at 11:00, I say, “It’s thirty minutes past my bedtime.” Using a clear rule, instead of “feeling sleepy,” helps because too often I get into that restless, wired-but-tired state that tricks me into thinking that I’m not ready for bed, when I’m actually exhausted.

The same principle of disguised expenditure explains why casinos require that gamblers play with chips, not bills, and why it’s easy to overspend in a foreign country, where money looks as if it came from a board game.

Two hundred years ago, Americans ate less than a fifth of the sugar that we eat today. So a “moderate” amount of sugar by today’s standards could be considered excessive by historical standards. Monitoring requires us to make an actual reckoning, which defeats the comfortable fuzziness of “moderation.”

I should monitor whatever is essential to me. In that way, I ensure that my life reflects my values.

Habits gradually change the face of one’s life as time changes one’s physical face; & one does not know it. —VIRGINIA WOOLF, diary, April 13, 1929

While some experts advise focusing on one habit project at a time to avoid draining willpower, others note that people who work on one positive habit often find it easier to improve in other areas; for instance, people who stick to a program of exercise also show better health- and work-related behaviors. Maybe that’s one reason so many major religions have periods of ritualized self-denial, like Lent, Ramadan, and Yom Kippur. Self-command breeds self-command, and change fosters change. The reverse is true, too: undesirable habits often cluster together and reinforce each other.

So where should we start? It’s helpful to begin with habits that most directly strengthen self-control; these habits serve as the Foundation for forming other good habits. They protect us from getting so physically taxed or mentally frazzled that we can’t manage ourselves. From my observation, habits in four areas do most to boost feelings of self-control, and in this way strengthen the Foundation of all our habits.

We do well to begin by tackling the habits that help us to: 1. sleep 2. move 3. eat and drink right 4. unclutter

I realized that although I’d always assumed that feeling tired pushed me toward sleep, feeling exhausted often made me stay up later. Going to bed demands a real burst of psychic and physical energy. When I’m too tired to switch gears, and I can’t face the thought of washing my face, I delay going to bed.

One of my twelve Personal Commandments is to “Act the way I want to feel.” It’s easy to assume that we act because of the way we feel, but to a very great degree, we feel because of the way we act. If I act with more energy, I’ll feel more energetic.

I decided to set myself the habit of going for a walk once each weekend. Each time I set off, it was an effort to get myself out the door, but I did return each time with more energy.

Third: eat and drink right. Few aspects of everyday life are more foundational than eating, but many people feel out of control with food. There’s a paradox: because the brain needs food to manage impulses, one of the best ways to avoid impulsive overeating is to eat.

Fourth: unclutter. I’m constantly surprised by the degree to which, for most people, outer order contributes to inner calm.

Secret of Adulthood: Keeping up is easier than catching up.

Over and over, people tell me that getting control of their stuff makes them feel more in control of their lives.

“Follow the one-minute rule: if you can do a task in less than a minute, do it.”

I’m a full-time believer in writing habits … You may be able to do without them if you have genius but most of us only have talent and this is simply something that has to be assisted all the time by physical and mental habits or it dries up and blows away.… Of course you have to make your habits in this conform to what you can do. I write only about two hours every day because that’s all the energy I have, but I don’t let anything interfere with those two hours, at the same time and the same place. —FLANNERY O’CONNOR, letter, September 22, 1957