Most of our routines originated from one habit. Maybe you used to brush your teeth in the evening and jump straight to bed. Over time, it has developed into flossing, journaling, and meditating. Or maybe it evolved into watching Netflix in bed and scrolling through social media. This all happened through something called habit stacking. While most routines are developed unconsciously, you can use this stacking of habits to build better routines.
Let’s have a look at what habit stacking is, why it’s so effective, how you can use it to create better habits, and some examples of habit stacking.
What is habit stacking?
Most of our routines originate from one trigger habit. Over time, new behaviors have been added to the original habit, and routines have been created. This has happened through something called habit stacking. Habit stacking is a technique first mentioned by S. J. Scott in his book of the same name.
When behaviors are placed directly after an exisiting habit, they’ll begin to merge together. The reward from the original habit will act as a trigger for the second behavior, and so on. Depending on the original habit, your personality, and circumstances, these routines can have a positive, neutral, or negative impact on your life.
By understanding what habit stacking is and how it works, you can use it to build better habits and stop destructive routines from developing before they get out of control.
Why does habit stacking make forming new habits easy?
Every habit goes through something called the habit loop. The habit loop consists of three primary stages. Cue, routine, and reward. All stages have to be present before a habit can form. Let’s have a look at what this means before we move on.
- Cue: This is the trigger. It starts the loop and prompts you to make a certain action
- Routine: This is the behavior itself
- Reward: This is what you anticipate at the cue, and what keeps the habit loop alive.
When forming habits, finding an efficient cue is usually the most difficult. This is where habit stacking can help you.
When you place the new behavior after an existing habit, the reward from the first will, over time, act as a cue for the second. As the cue is present, you’ll begin to crave the second behavior. As you do this enough, the second behavior will become automatic. A new habit is formed.
To sum it up, habit stacking is effective for forming new habits because it removes the need for an external cue to new behaviors. It’s an easy solution to one of the hardest parts of building new habits.
How to stack habits
Now that we know what habit stacking is and why it’s so effective, we can look at how you can use it to create better habits. Below are the 4 stages you go through to get the most from this technique.
1. What is the intention of your new habits?
Before you begin something new, you should know your intentions. Which habit are you trying to create, why do you want to, and how will it benefit you? When you answer these questions, you’ll get a clear image of what you want and why. Knowing this will make it easier to find the best trigger habit in step 2, form the new habit, and stick with it.
Related: Identity-based habits
2. Find the trigger habit
When you know which behavior you want, you have to find a trigger habit to stack it on. The trigger habit is a current habit you’ll use as the foundation for your new routine or behavior. To find the most effective trigger habit, you should consider 2 things.
Find a strong habit
It’s impossible to build something strong on a weak foundation. The most effective trigger habits are something that you do automatically every day without even thinking about it – Things such as getting out of bed, brushing your teeth, and eating meals. You can use a habit scorecard to find one that suits you.
Find a habit related to the new behavior
Habit stacking tends to be more efficient if you’re trigger habit is related to or acts as a part of the setup for the new behavior. This might look like using your commute to help you go to the gym or do the dishes after a meal. This isn’t essential for the technique. But it will make it easier.
3. Start small and be patient
Forming habits is a slow process. It takes a lot of time to make it stick, and often, we get impatient in the process. We want it to be faster. We want results now. This impatience might make us try to do too much too soon, and we fail.
When you’re trying to build new habits, you have to be patient. Work on just one or two behaviors at a time. Give them the time to stick. Don’t try to rush the process. It can be frustrating to wait when you want to change now. But rushing it and having to start over is far more frustrating.
You get better through many small changes, not one sudden big change. Be patient and give yourself time to do this.
Related: The power of small wins
5. Build your habit staircase
When you’ve stacked your first habits, you can begin to build a habit staircase. Or in other words, shape your routine.
A habit staircase is many habits added on top of each to create a sequence or a routine. It will take a long time to build, but as it grows, it’ll be easier to maintain. Adding new habits to the routine will be easier as you have more places to stack your new behaviors.
Related: Small habits to include in your routines
Examples of how to use habit stacking
Let’s have a look at some examples of how I’ve used habit stacking to create routines for myself.
Some of the habits in the stacks might have existed before I stacked them, but changing when you do something, is also a change in your habits.
Let’s have a look at how habit stacking can be used to create positive routines for different scenarios. Below, you’ll find 2 examples of how this might look.
1. Create a morning routine for a productive day
Most of us want to be more productive. When we try to achieve this, we tend to look at our productive hours. But nothing happens in isolation. A morning routine is a great place to start if you want to increase productivity throughout the day.
For this example, we’ll use turning off the alarm as the trigger as most of us already do it every day. As both habits 2 and 3 are relatively simple, we’ll work on both of them at the same time. From there, we’ll add just one behavior until the routine is fully formed. If one of the behaviors occurring later in the stack is already a habit, we don’t have to wait for it to form before moving on.
- Turning the alarm off
- Making the bed
- Drink a glass of water
- Do a short meditation
- Eat breakfast
- Get ready for work (Brush your teeth, shower, get dressed, etc.)
- Write in a productivity journal
- Begin your work
Depending on who you are and your current habits, a routine like this might take between a couple of weeks to several months to develop fully.
2. Create a nighttime routine for better sleep
It’s common to have difficulties falling asleep or staying asleep. These sleep disturbances can have a serious impact on our mental and physical health if we don’t do anything about it. A way to work on these problems is to create a nighttime routine.
For this example, we’ll use brushing teeth as the trigger habit, as most of us already do it every day. As most of these habits can be complex, we’ll add one at a time. Work on it for a few weeks before adding the next.
- Brushing teeth (and maybe floss)
- Take a short shower
- Declutter your bedroom (If it isn’t too messy)
- Write in a journal
- Do a short meditation
- Go to bed and let yourself fall asleep without any further distractions
Depending on who you are and your current habits, a routine like this might take somewhere between a couple of weeks to several months to fully form.
Final thoughts
Habit stacking is an effective way of building lasting habits. It works by placing a new behavior after an existing habit. This way, the reward of the first habit will work as a cue for the second behavior.
When you’ve stacked the first few habits, you can slowly work on shaping your routines to help you reach your specific goals.
Try the different formats and approaches and see what works for you. It might be difficult at first. But as you find something that works for you and gets into the habit, it’ll be an invaluable tool.
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