Habit hacking.

I’ve been spending some time thinking about habits lately, as I’m falling back into a few old favourites.

Also known as the less-than-healthy-habits-I-worked-hard-to-change.

The unhelpful habits like:

• Having a glass of wine more nights than not.

• Staying up watching TV (yes, I am blaming the World Cup for some of this, but not all of it…)

• Not getting my daily walk in because I’m not planning my days as well as I could be.

• Leaving a few too many tasks to the last minute, because, I’m not planning my days as well as I could be… 

It’s time to go back to the habit hack.

Yep.

The habit strategy that will help me create, modify and maintain my healthy habits more effectively.

Some practical examples of habit hacking are:

• Habit stacking – readers of James Clear (Atomic Habits), BJ Fogg (Tiny Habits), Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit), or my fave, Cyndi O’Meara (Changing Habits Changing Lives), will be familiar with habit stacking. The process where you attach a new habit to an existing one.
  
  For example, when you clean your teeth every morning, stack the habit of flossing. My dentist, who knows how much I hate flossing, suggested I floss first, as I’ll feel a bigger difference when I run my tongue around my teeth, than if I brush then floss. She’s right.
  

• Having an accountability partner – sharing goals and habits with a friend or family member goes a long way to helping you achieve them.
  

• Habit swapping – swapping a glass of something non-alcoholic for my nightly wine. Such as a glass of sparkling water with lime in a wine glass. I know, it’s not the same, but it’s worked for me before!
  

• Visual and audio cues – such as setting an alarm as a reminder to get ready for bed, or go for a walk. Visual cues could include being better at putting all the tasks for projects into my calendar and using a workflow system such as Monday or Asana or going old school and writing in a bullet journal.
  

• Gamify your habit – I did this when I wanted to read more non-fiction business books. By starting my online book club, Connected Learners, I now commit to reading 2-3 books a month if I’m to have enough books to talk about at each session. If you haven’t come along yet, it’s the book club where I do the reading, so you don’t have to! Perfect for time-poor learning.

What are your habits like? And what could you hack to turn an unhealthy habit into a healthy one?