Practical ideas to build life systems that support habit change

I recently wrote about how some ideas from the book Atomic Habits helped me practice curiosity (rather than self-criticism) with blogging, and why we struggle with building new habits. It’s also important to talk about practical ideas to support habit change, which give those habits a better chance of sticking. When we’re trying to include something new in our lives on a regular basis, many of us try to just shove new behaviours in and expect them to fit, rather than preparing a comfy home for them ahead of time.

So it can be really useful to ask ourselves... What systems do I have in place to support this new habit? Practicing new behaviours to build structure into our routine can be a big part of this, and that starts with solidifying your basic routine before you try to add new stuff in. If you normally wake up between 7.30 and 8am, somehow get yourself showered, dressed, breakfasted, and packed in the next hour, then stumble out the door late around 9am, your chances of reliably inserting a new activity to that routine will be slim.

In that situation, you might first aim to get up at the same time every day (say 7.30am), using a combination of alarms hidden around the room, pulling the covers off the bed as you get up to hunt down the alarms, and getting a set of houseclothes ready the night before. You might then break the time down into 15 or 20 minute blocks, saying ‘between 7.30 and 7.45 I boil the kettle and make tea, go to the bathroom, do Wordle or listen to a short podcast as I wake up”. So with practice, that 15 minute window starts to gain an identity of its own - that’s the gentle-intro-to-the-day 15 minutes, and over time you’ll start to think of it that way.

You might then do the same with ‘7.45 to 8.15 is shower and get dressed’ (that might sound lengthy but showering usually takes longer than estimated due to the number of steps involved), 8.15-8.30 is ‘pack my bag (including snacks) and check I’m prepared for the day’, then 8.30-8.45 is flexible - maybe a short guided meditation or play with your pet if there’s time, or just sit for a few minutes noticing how it feels to be organised before you have to leave in the morning. Then 8.45 becomes the new walk-out-the-door time. You've gained 15 minutes and lost a lot of stress.

In this way, these little time windows develop their own identity in your mind, and you start to self-regulate your relationship with time, as things happen in order during their own little time windows. Once this starts to get established, you can add something new by getting up a little earlier, or optimising how long the shower-and-dress time window takes. With my ailing blog habit, I'm trialing fitting in just 10 minutes of blog writing after 'check i'm prepared for the day' (by getting up 10 minutes earlier than I had been), on 3 days per week.

So remember that you’re not a failure, but you also won’t rise to the level of your goals without good systems to support those goals. Let this stoke your curiosity about what your systems are, how you can gradually improve them, and notice how your experience of habit-building shifts over time. Good luck with your habit building efforts - and please wish me luck as I’m trying to do the same!