Tiny Habits

The idea of creating habits out of micro-behaviours has gained traction and popularity with the more recent book Atomic Habits by James Clear, but well before that there was BJ Fogg and his Tiny Habits website. This applies the science of habit-making by getting you to add extremely small pieces of behaviour by attaching them to an existing ‘trigger’ in your routine. For instance, you could do five press-ups immediately after you put your toothbrush down after brushing your teeth.

The whole technique is very powerful and realistic, but still, I have never managed to fully and truly ‘automate’ these new behaviours to the point where I would do them without thinking. This might partly be because I have always tried to introduce too many of these changes at once: always pick only one thing at a time! Still, you have a better chance sticking to some new habit for a good few weeks or months by following this method than by following many other guides which promise ‘habit change’, and even doing a beneficial habit for a few weeks at a time can do a lot of good.