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

by S.J. Scott

if you regularly miss a day, then you’ll make it even easier to skip another day whenever you don’t feel like doing the list.

Create a doable daily goal that can be achieved no matter what happens, and don’t let yourself be talked out of it.

Antifragile, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb

these stacks should be “check-in habits” that you know are important but are easy to forget, like reviewing your credit card statements, completing safety checks, and planning fun activities.

By putting them into a routinely scheduled activity, you’ll make sure these tasks get completed without them weighing on your subconscious as yet another project that you haven’t finished.

Don’t ignore any feelings of stress, boredom, or overwhelm when it comes to your stacks.

If you notice that it’s getting progressively harder to get started (e.g., you’re procrastinating), then you should either reduce the number of habits or start asking yourself why you want to skip a day.

The more you understand about your lack of motivation, the easier it w...

in a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Phillippa Lally found that it takes anywhere from 18 to 254 days for an action to become a permanent habit, with the average being 66 days.

The lesson here is you shouldn’t try to build more than one habit at a time because each additional new action will make it increasingly difficult to stick with your stacks.

Really, the only time I even consider adding a new stack is when I stop thinkin...

When you feel that a stack has become a permanent behavior, that is when you can add a new habit to your daily routine.

each small action is broken down into five components: Type: Is it a keystone, support, or elephant habit? (Review Part II if you’re confused about the difference between the three.) Best time to complete: When should you complete this action? This isn’t written in stone, but I feel some habits are best done at a specific point in the day. Frequency: How often should you complete this habit? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Description: What actions do you need to take to complete this habit? Benefit: In what way does this habit benefit the specific category of your life?

Use the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to rate the importance of each task: 1 (important and urgent), 2 (important, but not urgent), 3 (not important, but urgent), or 4 (not important, not urgent).

Identify Your Three Most Important Tasks (MITs)

Identifying three MITs ahead of time keeps you focused on priority activities. In fact, if you only complete the MITs, then you can still consider it a productive day.

Keep your goals in an easy-to-access place.

Then, once or twice a day, take five minutes to review these goals.

During this review, read each goal aloud and think about the tasks you have scheduled for that day.

For each item, ask yourself, “How does this action bring me closer to one of my goals?” If you can’t come up with a good answer, then perhaps it’s a tas...

Chunk Down a Project (or Task) into Manageable Steps

It’s difficult to stay focused when surrounded by chaos. Spending five minutes clearing your work area at the start (or end) of each day will help to mentally prepare you for being productive.

A cluttered desk can also be highly distracting, constantly reminding you of all the other things you need to do. Remove these physical distractions and you’ll see an improvement in your concentration.

A cluttered computer not only can be distracting, but also leads to wasted time that you’ll spend looking for the files you need. Get organized and you’ll be instantly more productive.

Science has shown that certain types of sounds and music can improve concentration or focus. Calming music, ambient nature sounds like rain or ocean waves, and simple background noise like a fan or the babble of conversation in a coffee shop may help you to concentrate and stay focused on your tasks.

The benefit of tracking your time is it gives you true perspective on what you’re accomplishing, where you’re spending the most time, and what activities are a waste of effort.

The Pomodoro Technique is a popular time-blocking system created in the 1980s by Francesco Cirillo that has been embraced by entrepreneurs and work efficiency experts.

Cirillo recognized that humans can focus only for a limited amount of time before becoming distracted. He found that it’s better to create a system where people focus for a condensed period and then proactively take a rest break before beginning the next sprint.

He named his technique after a popular kitchen timer that looks like a tomato (hence the name pomodoro,...

The timer was used like any old kitchen timer, but Cirillo experimented with time blocking until he discovered the most effective usage of time bl...

When using the Pomodoro Technique, you: Choose a task (e.g., writing). Set a timer for twenty-five minutes. Work for twenty-five minutes without succumbing to any distractions. Take a five-minute break by getting up and walking around. Go back to work for another twenty-five minu...

create a “done list” where you jot down all the tasks you achieved for the day. This will help create motivation about what you’ll work on the next morning.

Make a note of tasks as you complete them, or reflect at the end of the day and write down a list of everything you achieved.

Research One “Side Hustle”

Nick Loper’s Side Hustle Nation and his book Buy Buttons.

The best time to complete a flexibility routine is after your muscles have warmed up, so you should consider going for a quick walk before getting started.

Spiritual habits, above all else, are meant to be inclusive, never exclusive.

Speak Words of Affirmation

Description: Make eye contact with the mirror as soon as you wake up in the morning. Repeat positive sentences that are personally significant to you aloud four to five times apiece. Here are some examples: “I am in control of my life.” “I am worthy of love and joy.” “I can make a change in this world.” “I embrace my uniqueness, which makes me beautiful, body and soul.” “I will accomplish my goals today.” “I am brimming with energy. I am active and alive.” “I possess the qualities needed to be successful.” “Abundance and blessings flow freely through me.” “Every decision I make is the right one for me.” “I take pleasure and satisfaction in my own solitude.” “I breathe in calmness and breathe out nervousness.” “I let go of my anger so I can see clearly. I am in charge of how I feel.”

First, Google search daily affirmations for [goal]. All you have to do is substitute [goal] for the area of your life where you’d like support. So if you want to find affirmations for losing weight, then you’d Google search daily affirmations for weight loss.

Create “I am” statements. These could include “I am healthy” and “I am wealthy.” Use simple affirmations that state the positive things about yourself or who you want to be.

Keep it positive. Affirmations work best when they focus on your goals and eliminate negative thinking. That’s why it’s important to phrase these statements in a positive and self-confident manner, even if you don’t believe the words 100% at first.

Say affirmations in the present tense. When you talk about goals, it can seem fake to use an affirmation that assumes it is completed. That is why I personally like to focus on affirmations that support the idea that you can achieve the goal, instead of having already accomplished it. For example, if you want to lose 10 pounds, instead of saying an affirmation like “I am ...

Don’t worry about how. Affirmations are about maintaining a positive outlook. This is not the time to worry abo...

Speak Words of Prayer

In many ways, prayers are similar to affirmations. You are asking for help to overcome an obstacle for you or an important person in your life. The way prayers are different is because they are backed by faith in your religion. If you’re a religious person, then building a prayer habit can become a foundation of your daily routine.

Practice Gratitude

Keeping a gratitude list doesn’t need to be a formal process. You can write it online, in a journal, or even on a spare scrap of paper. What’s important is to think about what (and who) you’re thankful for and then write it down somewhere.

To get started, I recommend a four-step process:

1. Be Consistent: Choose a number of items to be grateful for every day and then stick to this format. It could be one, five, or ten things, but the key thing is to have a number in your mind ahead of time. This is because, throughout the day, your subconscious mi...