6.4 Creatures of Habit

Question 1

Stairs prominent, elevators out of sight

Answer 1

Trying to make new behaviours, making habits

Question 2

People who seem to do the hard things every day consistently are just experts of building good habits

Answer 2

sd

Question 3

To build habits, we just need to understand the __________ behind our routines

Answer 3

psychology

Question 4

Making public post on Facebook is an example of

Answer 4

committing yourself, and getting +ve feedback from supportive friends

Question 5

Willpower is not the best way to achieve our…

Answer 5

goals, especially long term goals. It pervades our culture.

Question 6

If you try not to think about something, it’s hard not to think about it. This is related to how we suppress our desires

Answer 6

sd

Question 7

How do we persist with long term goal?

Answer 7

Initial Thought: Self control and commitment with strong intentions. -> Not really true…
Update: Decision making and intentions are important at start of change. Sustaining changes require

Question 8

High achievers (whom we associate with high willpower) don’t actually experience many temptations or desires.

Answer 8

For example, no cake in fridge, rather than resisting eating cake at all

Question 9

Habits are like blinders. The more you ignore temptations, blinders become more strong.

Answer 9

Eventually, they stop being conscious and automatic whenever you are in a context that you trained the habit in.

Question 10

Habits are not necessarily the easiest things you do, it’s the

Answer 10

most often thing you do

Question 11

How long does it take to develop a habit?

Answer 11

If you are more spontaneous, it can take longer to form a habit. Complex behaviours with many parts take longer too.

Gym - 3-4 months
Drink Water - 2 months

Question 12

Habits are both good and bad.

Answer 12

sd

Question 13

Much of our lives are being run on autopilot

Answer 13

43% of everyday actions are done repeatedly in the same context

Question 14

Health campaigns focus on conscious efforts, however…

Answer 14

although awareness increased, consumption did not as our eating is habitual. People eat based on the environment they are in, and the patterns they develop.

Question 15

Changing people’s minds really only work for…

Answer 15

one off behaviour changes, like signups

Question 16

Uber: Puts money into training drivers and they would quit. To fix this, the app pings at the end of one drive to signal another one, so they dont have time to…

Answer 16

think. This moves them forward through the process to the point that they become more comfortable and form habits to deal with customers

Question 17

Same as Uber, Netflix does the…

Answer 17

autoplay for next episodes

Question 18

How can we manipulate ourselves to form habits?

Answer 18

• Make easy, fun actions
• Study: People travel to gym. ~3.5 miles, they go to gym 5 times a month, 5 miles, they go 1 time a month.
• The distance increases friction

Question 19

Friction: High means hard to do, low means easy

Answer 19

Stale popcorn study: Patrons watch trailers. Give popcorn to eat (some stale, some fresh). Ppl who dont eat popcorn ate lots of fresh, but avoid stale. Ppl who ate a lot of popcorn ate indiscriminately (70%). They all hated the stale popcorn.

People of habit, cues are so strong that they eat without thinking

Popcorn study 2: Right hand eat with left hand, left hand eat with right hand. Made eating more thoughtful. Strong habits ppl ate less stale popcorn.

Question 20

To interrupt a bad habit…

Answer 20

find ways to make it more conscious and add more friction

Question 21

Friction to eat more fruit

Answer 21

Europeans eat lots of fruit, but it was in a box to the side, so no one was eating it.

After putting it right in the line, it went immediately.

Same idea is elevator and staircase in that building

Question 22

Why do we form bad habits?

Answer 22

They provide short term rewards

Question 23

Rewards of habits

Answer 23

We get dopamine when we are rewarded
Dopamine helps build mental associations of habit in brain
Only certain types of rewards useful
Long term exercise and healthy eating don’t provide much dopamine
You have to link long term behaviours with rewards. Make veggies delicious, for example.

Cheat days don’t build habits, as the rewards aren’t there when you do the good action

Question 24

Add things to behaviours to help build habits

Answer 24

Listen to good music when working out

Watch shows that you only watch when you work out

Question 25

Habitual jogger

Answer 25

Challenge to find time (full family)
Have to find a time you can do it regularly
6 in the morning was hard, but it got easier each time.
Listening to radio, slept in running clothes to reduce friction, don’t have to worry after running

Consciousness helps, but not in the form if willpower. It helps in form of scheming in how to make actions as friction-less as possible

Question 26

Pro Chefs

Answer 26

Train chefs with mise en place
Beginners just want to jump in and cook, but they find they need more stuff…
They have to learn to put everything in place before beginning, so they don’t think a lot while cooking

Metaphor for behaviour change. It takes work, but it makes it so much easier to automate other decisions

Question 27

Increase cigarette friction

Answer 27

• Warning labels
• Remove vending machines
• Behind the counter
• Ban smoking in places
• Taxing cigs

Surprising that saying cigs would cause cancer has not that much effect. We act on autopilot mostly

Question 28

3 additional ideas

Answer 28

Stacking/ Piggy backing: Taking an existing habit and adding a new action to it, eventually automating it

Cues: Popcorn study, smoking porch, wake up and have breakfast (then cue is to write for 2 hours)

Chaos: Cues can be thrown away. This is time to make a new habit and act more authentically. Ex, getting new job, relationship end