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

by S.J. Scott

Identifying the most important activities (or habits) related to their goals. Repeating these activities every day.

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.

complete the habits that you know are important by stacking them on top of one another.

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

focus on the tasks that give you the biggest bang for your buck.

a keystone habit can have a positive impact on multiple areas of your life—even

choose the habits that are most important to you and make sure they get completed

they support the achievement of an important keystone habit.

Elephant habits are designed to overcome the natural resistance that we all feel whenever we’re forced to do a potentially unpleasant task.

chip away at a simple but time-consuming project in five- to fifteen-minute daily increments.

I use elephant habits all the time whenever I’m faced with something unpleasant.

our willpower is like a muscle. It weakens throughout the day because of constant use.

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

identify the small actions that relate to a goal or an important desired outcome.

put these habits into a step-by-step routine that’s completed in a logical sequence.

use proven psychological strategies to make this routine “sticky” so ...

“Know your ‘reason why’ you’re completing this habit.”

set a simple goal that overcomes inertia.

start with five minutes, picking one or two habits,

Build your routine around habits that don’t require a lot of effort.

Focus on these activities for a week or two

Every stack should be anchored to a trigger related to a location, time of day, or combination of both.

external triggers (like a cell phone alarm, a push notification,

internal triggers, which are the feelings, thoughts, and emotions that you relate to an established habit.

create a trigger for each habit stacking routine.

A trigger should be an existing habit.

A trigger can be a specific time of day.

A trigger should be easy to complete.

A trigger shouldn’t be a new habit.

checklist is the most important part of a stack. It should include the sequence of the actions, how long it takes to complete

where you’ll do them.

using an app like Beeminder.

The first is Coach.me,

having an accountability partner

Giving yourself a reward can be a great motivator to complete a daily routine.

Repetition is key for the first few weeks

it’s not the end of the world if you miss the occasional day.

Marking X’s on a calendar encourages you to complete your desired task every single day. The more you look at an unbroken string of red X’s, the more compulsion you’ll feel to get over any initial resistance and force yourself to get started.

Create a doable daily goal that can be achieved no matter what happens,

build up to a thirty-minute routine, where you complete at least six small habits.

Do this in an incremental manner.

second week will be ten minutes, then up fifteen minut...

The more you understand about your lack of motivation, the easier it will be to overcome it.

takes anywhere from 18 to 254 days for an action to become a permanent habit,

shouldn’t try to build more than one habit at a time

When you begin a new stack, you must rely on a checklist

look for small habits that resonate with your life.

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