Habit Stacking: 127 Small Actions That Take Five Minutes or Less

by S.J. Scott

Steve Scott Habit Stacking methodology.

“I’m a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more luck I have.”

The people who succeed in the game of life understand the important power of small actions. They flourish by doing two critical things well: Identifying the most important activities (or habits) related to their goals. Repeating these activities every day.

Simply put, when you know the important tasks related to your goal and do them continuously, you’ll surpass the folks who spend their time making ...

To quote Jeff Olson, from his book The Slight Edge: “The truth is, what you do matters. What you do today matters. What you do every day matters. Successful people … do things that seem to make no difference at all in the act of doing them, and they ...

Really, all the people in your life need are the small gestures that show you care.

Even worse: a small action is often overlooked due to its level of ease.

You can convince yourself that you’ll “get around” to it. The task doesn’t require much effort, so you never feel the need to schedule it into your day. Unfortunately, what usually happens is you end the day without doing it. This is what I call the “I’ll remember to do it” paradox.

Some actions seem so easy to complete that you don’t feel it’s important to create a reminder to do them. They’re too small to fail.

That’s the paradox when it comes to these small habits. They’re super easy to do, but they get overlooked because there isn’t an immediate negative consequence for not completing them.

Habit Stacking: A Quick Definition

All you need to do is: Identify those small important actions (like writing a loving message to the important people in your life). Group them together into a routine with equally important actions. Schedule a specific time each day to complete this routine. Use a trigger as a reminder to complete this stack. Make it super easy to get started.

The purpose of this book is to help you identify the important small actions in your life and build them into your daily routine—without causing you to feel overwhelmed by this change.

My name is Steve “S.J.” Scott. I run the blog Develop Good Habits, and I’m the author of a series of habit-related titles, all of which are available at HabitBooks.com.

I decided to schedule a thirty-minute block of time into my day when I would complete a bunch of quick but important habits. These included making a nutritious shake, reviewing my goals, researching the market for my business, and jotting down the three priority tasks for the day.

Each task took less than five minutes to do, yet they improved my life because they directly aligned with my important goals.

The best way to build a habit stack is to combine actions related to what you want from life.

You only have a little time each day to make things happen, so you should focus on the tasks that give you the biggest bang for your buck.

“Is there a small habit that can support a major habit?”

“Do I often end the day frustrated because I didn’t complete the most important tasks?”

“What quick activities make me feel inspired or happy?”

“What five goals are the most important to me right now?”

“What are the activities that I love to do?”

“What areas of my financial life do I need to improve?”

“Can I improve the quality of my interpersonal relationships?”

“What makes me feel great about myself?”

“How can I become more spiritual in my daily life?”

“What is a new skill I’ve always wanted to master?”

“Is there anything I can do to support my local community or an important cause?”

“Is there something that I can do to improve my job performance and get a raise?”

a keystone habit can have a positive impact on multiple areas of your life—even if you’re not intentionally trying to improve them.

There are many examples of great keystone habits that can include meditating, tracking your expenditures, planning your day, and scheduling regular meals with your family.

Never underestimate the power of support habits. While they only take a few minutes to do, they are the glue that holds together your keystone habits.

“How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

The idea here is that whenever you’re faced with a large, complex goal, all you need to do is chip away at it in small chunks.

motivation alone does not work.

it’s a temporary feeling. Motivation won’t get you through those times when you’re tired and uninterested in working at an important goal.

Willpower, authors Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney

ego depletion, which is a person’s “diminished capacity to regulate their thoughts, feelings, and actions.”

our willpower is like a muscle. It weakens throughout the day bec...

The groups that didn’t previously exert willpower (i.e., they ate whatever they wanted or weren’t given a food option) worked on the puzzle for an average of twenty minutes. The group that had to exert willpower and resist the tasty treats worked on the puzzle for an average of eight minutes.

People don’t achieve peak results with a task because of motivation.

the number of decisions and completed tasks ultimately determine their level of success with a new task.

You have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it.

You use the same stock of willpower for all manner of tasks.

It’s important to recognize that your levels of willpower (and therefore motivation) will d...

This means that if you’d like to make any significant, lasting change in your life, you need to schedule it a...

Kelly McGonigal, author of The Willpo...

your ability to work on complex tasks diminishes as the day wears on.

cognitive load.