3. Stack the habits for good
Most of us have already engaged in habit stacking for our bad habits, such as procrastinating on work. Let’s say you sit down at your desk to work, but you are reluctant to get started (usually due to some degree of anxiety). “To distract yourself from anxiety, you form a habit of scrolling through your social media feed for a few minutes,” says Wallin. Now you’re not working, and you’re not doing anything else terribly productive either.
This pattern can continue to suck your time, which is the opposite effect of what habit stacking should be. “Next, suppose that, while scrolling through your social media, you see an ad for an item that you’ve been shopping for recently,” says Wallin. “What luck! You click to purchase it immediately. For the next few days, when you sit down to work, you check your social media and then look for other bargain offers. Now you are stacking another habit onto the sequence.”
As you can guess, this type of habit stacking is easy, says Wallin. “But the sequence is counter-productive because it interferes with getting work done,” she says.
If, instead, you want to mirror the morning habits of highly organised people, stack a productive task on top of another one. In time, you will become the naturally productive person you’ve always wanted to be.
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Source: RD.com
