Stay Productive at Home!
A Doable Strategy for Keeping Habits
We perform our everyday tasks for some motives. These motives drive us through our daily routines. For instance, you will finish your morning routine-having breakfast, taking a bath, getting dressed-before 9:00 am, if you were to leave for school at nine. Similarly, you are more likely to finish your work before 5:00 pm, if your office ends at five. But what happens when we are at home? These dominoes of motives fall, and things get complicated.
That is what happened to the masses in this quarantine. We no more have to leave for school or office. We can work and eat whenever and wherever we want. As a consequence, our associated habits, like the morning routine, also suffered. Our previous routine, which resembled the following table, now makes no sense. Here “Leave for school” was the motive. Since we lost that motive, we have nothing to drive us.
- Wake up at 7:00 am
- Take a bath and get dressed at 7:30 am
- Have Breakfast till 8:00 am
- Leave for school at 8:30 am
Habit Stacking Strategy
It is where Habit Stacking strategy comes into play. I learned this strategy while reading the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. Habit Stacking is a strategy of building new habits with the least effort, and habits that require the least effort tend to stay longer.
The habit stacking formula is “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT]”
Clear has suggested this strategy to build new habits, but it works equally well in maintaining previous habits.
Why this Strategy?
The main issues with our previous routines were time constraints and motives. Once those deadlines got flexible, and our motives got diminished, we became unproductive.
Habit stacking strategy, on the other hand, is independent of the motives and time constraints. For instance, if you wake up at noon, you can still keep up with your routine without having any guilt of waking up late. Interested to see how it works? Let me take you through it!
How it works!
Habit Stacking strategy uses our previous habit to create a ground for our next habit/task. This creates a sequence of habits, helping you stay consistent and productive. Consider the following table, for instance:
- When I wake up, I will take a bath
- After I take a bath, I will have breakfast
- After I have breakfast, I will start my workday
In this way, you can stack your complete routine on the tasks you are certain to do. You can start with something as simple as waking up. Stack your habits over it, and make a pattern that suits you.
EndNote
Some of you might not notice the change we are making with this strategy, but that is what makes it attractive and doable. You are following the same routine, but instead of tracking your progress with time, you are tracking it with the help of your last activity.
This strategy helped me a lot to stay on track during this quarantine, so I would definitely recommend you to try this out. I hope it adds value to your life as well. Till then, Stack habits not regrets!
That’s all folks!
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