Tiny Habits - Chapter 4 Flashcards
What are the three types of prompts in our lives?
- Person Prompts
- Context Prompts
- Action Prompts.
Which type of prompt relies on something inside of you to do a behavior?
The Person Prompt simply means that we remember to do the new habit or behavior, and is not very reliable. Basic bodily urges are the most natural Person Prompts we have. Our bodies remind us to do necessary things like eat and sleep. That pressure in your bladder? Yep, that’s a prompt. Grumbling stomach—prompt. Thanks to evolution, these prompts are pretty reliable in getting us to take action regarding our physical needs.
However, if your survival is not dependent on your behavior, then the Person Prompt isn’t a good solution because our memories are notoriously faulty. Sure, there are a few times when you’ve magically remembered your mom’s birthday, but there are probably more times you forgot if you were relying on the Person Prompt.
Which type of prompt relies on something in your environment to cue you to do a behavior?
The Context Prompt is anything in your environment that cues you to take action: sticky notes, app notifications, your phone ringing, a colleague reminding you to join a meeting. You can learn to design these Context Prompts tend to work well for one-time actions and tend to not be great for new habits.
If BJ had entered his missed dinner appointment on his calendar with a pop-up reminder, he and Denny would have shown up on their neighbors’ doorstep at 6:00 p.m. with a fresh salad. Creating this Context Prompt would have taken him about 20 seconds. But if I he put “Go to Wanda and Bob’s for dinner” on his to-do list, that design would have probably failed because he doesn’t look at his to-do list when he’s deep into a project. Effective design of Context Prompts is a skill. And learning this skill takes practice.
Which type of prompt is a behavior you already do that can remind you to do a new habit you want to cultivate?
An Action Prompt is a behavior you already do that can remind you to do a new habit you want to cultivate. Action Prompts are the best prompts for new habits.
For example, your existing habit of brushing your teeth can serve as your prompt to floss, a new habit. Starting the coffee maker can be your prompt to do a new stretching habit using the kitchen counter. Brushing your teeth and starting the coffee maker are two examples of Action Prompts.
You already have a lot of reliable routines, and each of them can serve as an Action Prompt for a new habit. You put your feet on the floor in the morning. You boil water for tea or turn on the coffee maker. You flush the toilet. You drop your kid off at school. You hang your coat up when you walk through the door at the end of the day. You put your head on a pillow every night.
These actions are already embedded in your life so seamlessly and naturally that you don’t have to think about them. And because of that, they make fantastic prompts. It’s an elegant design solution because it’s so natural. You already have an entire ecosystem of routines humming along nicely—you just have to tap into it.
Action Prompts are so much more useful than Person Prompts and Context Prompts that I’ve given them a pet name: Anchors.
You’ll notice that a strong anchor is a precise event. A fuzzy Anchor (“after dinner” or “whenever I feel stress”) doesn’t work. Make them precise. After I hang up my key when I get home I will… or When I put my head on my pillow I will… (rather than “When I go to bed I will… One good way to think about Anchors is to call them Anchor Moments, which implies a precise moment in time.
When finding good Anchor Moment for a new habit, what three things should you take into account?
- Match the physical location
- Match the frequency
- Match the theme/purpose
Why is it important to find an Anchor Moment in the same physical location as the new habit you want to create?
Because BJ’s research shows that having the Anchor happen in one location and the new habit in another rarely works. Location is the most important factor when you pair Anchors and new habits.
What does it look like to match the frequency of an Anchor and a new habit?
To match the frequency, as you look at your existing routine, decide how often you want to do your new habit. If you want to do it once a day, then sequence it after an Anchor that happens once a day. If you want to do your new habit four times a day, then sequence it after an Anchor that happens four times a day. I wanted to do push-ups throughout my day, so placing it after I peed was a good—though quirky—solution.
What does it mean to match the theme/purpose of an Anchor and a new habit?
Matching the theme/purpose is less vital than matching the location and frequency, but the best Anchors will have the same theme or purpose as the new habit.
If you think of coffee and the push you get from the caffeine as a way to be more productive, then pouring a cup of coffee might be a good Anchor for the new habit of processing your notes from the previous day. However, if your morning coffee is more about relaxation and “me-time,” then processing yesterday notes won’t be a good thematic fit. You might create this recipe instead: “After I pour my coffee, I will open my journal.”
What is the Trailing Edge?
It’s worth reinforcing how important it is to choose a precise event in your routine—that Anchor Moment. Using the Anchor “After I pee” got BJ to do two push-ups. He didn’t need to get more specific than that. But if it hadn’t worked, he could have looked a little closer at the Anchor for a specific moment we call the Trailing Edge. You look for the last action you do in a behavior. The last action of peeing, at least for most people, is flushing the toilet. So he could refine his recipe to “After I flush the toilet, I will do two push-ups.”
To find the Trailing Edge, we look at the Anchor under a microscope to see what the end of an action looks like. This is particularly important for Anchors that are rather fuzzy. Here are some examples of how to be more specific and boost the likelihood of your success by using the Trailing Edge in your recipe.
The fuzzy Anchor of “After I eat breakfast” is better when you focus on the Trailing Edge, “After I start the dishwasher.”
The fuzzy Anchor of “After I get home from work” is better stated as “After I put my backpack on the bench.”
One Habiteer was trying to create a habit of wiping the kitchen counter. Elena created a recipe with what appeared to be a specific Anchor: After I put my breakfast dishes in the sink, I will wipe one counter. That recipe looks good, right? Except it didn’t work very well. Wiping the counter wouldn’t stick, because it wasn’t the last thing she did. Elena solved the problem by finding the Trailing Edge. She realized that the last action of “put my breakfast dishes in the sink” was turning off the water after she rinsed her cereal bowl. So turning off the water was the terminal point of the Anchor. Her adjusted Habit Recipe then became “After I turn off the water, I will wipe one counter.” Guess what? Success.
Finding the Trailing Edge was all it took to snap her new habit into place. The feel of shutting off the faucet and the sound of the water abruptly stopping were sensory inputs that made the prompt more concrete and noticeable.
What is a Meanwhile Habit?
A Meanwhile Habit is a new habit you add into an unused pocket of open time in one of your existing routines.
When I turn on the shower, the water is cold at first. I don’t like cold showers, so my typical routine is to wait until the water warms up, which takes about two minutes. This two minutes of unused time, or waiting period, creates an opportunity: “After I turn on the shower (and while I wait), I will…” I call this type of habit a Meanwhile Habit.
As I wait for warm water to emerge, I think of one thing about my body that I’m grateful for. I search for something new to appreciate every day, from the flexibility in my shoulders to my body’s ability to heal a scratch.
These new habits will start tiny and stay tiny—I have 2 minutes to wait for warm water. But don’t underestimate the power of Meanwhile Habits. A tiny behavior done consistently can make a big difference. As you find a new way to appreciate your body each day, you’ll likely be more motivated to take better care of the magnificent creation that is your physical self.
What is a Pearl Habit?
A Pearl Habits use prompts that start out as irritants then turn into something beautiful.
Fogg, PhD, BJ. Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything (p. 120). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
