Tag: create a new habit

I want to stay in shape, but I don’t like cycling in cold weather. So I have a great indoor trainer. I have Szwift, a great interactive cycling app.

In theory, I’m all set.

But, since indoor cycling makes me feel like a hamster on a wheel, I really don’t like spending hours on an indoor trainer. I “want” to ride the trainer… but I don’t want to ride it. (Think of a “want” as a desire without a subsequent action.)

So I use University of Pennsylvania professor David Premack’s Premack principle. (You know you’ve made it when your principle is eponymous.) The Premack principle involves using a probable behavior (something you really want to do) to reinforce a less probable behavior (something you “want,” but don’t particularly want, to do.)

The result is a temptation bundle, combining something you want to do with something you “want” but tend to struggle to do.

Say you want to get more exercise. A temptation bundle might be only listening to your favorite podcast when you take a walk, combining something you want to do with something you want, but struggle, to actually do. Or only listening to music when you’re doing calisthenics.

Or in my case, only watching documentaries I really want to watch when I’m riding the indoor trainer. I watched Michael Jordan’s ten-episode series The Last Dance that way. Same with The Redeem Team. Same with Metal Evolution, Becoming Led Zeppelin, and History of the Eagles. (Yep: I like documentaries about sports and music.)

I keep a list of documentaries I really want to see, and only watch them when I ride the indoor trainer.

Granted, that also sounds like a bribe, but it’s concurrent rather than after the fact — and works much better as a motivation and procrastination-avoidance strategy. A study published in Management Science determined people who used temptation bundling were approximately 25 percent more likely to follow an exercise program than those who were offered a reward to complete the program. (In fact, the reward group was only slightly more likely to stick with the program than the control group.)

If you’re trying to do things you typically avoid, rewards rarely work. But temptation bundling does.

Try it. Start by creating two columns. Title one column “Like to Do.” List things you enjoy doing. Things that tempt you. Things that divert you. Things you find hard to resist. 

Title the other column “Want to Do.” List things you intend to do, or know you should do, but tend to put off or find excuses not to do.

Exercise should probably be one of your “Want to Do” items, if only because research shows exercise also positively impacts your professional life.

But you can also include a variety of business tasks. Bookkeeping is a task I love to find ways to avoid, so I only listen to UFO — one of my favorite bands (again, I’m old) when I do administrative tasks.

Then see which “Like” items you can link with “Want” items:

• I only watch documentaries I really want to watch when I ride the trainer. (I like documentaries, dislike the trainer.)
• A friend only has popcorn when he develops new sales demos. (He likes popcorn, despises putting together sales demos.)
• Another friends saves his favorite podcast for when he does inventories. (He likes, for example, Titanic: Ship of Dreams, but can’t stand supply management.)

Just make sure your “like” takes place at the same time as the thing you need to or should do, not as a post-willpower treat: again, that’s a self-reward, and self-rewards rarely work.

Temptation bundling also works when you want to build a new habit. Add a few new habits to your “want” list, take an item you really like to do, and only do it when you’re engaging in the activity you want to turn into a habit. If you love listening to music and want to get up every day and work out, only listen to music when you work out. (While that does require some degree of self-denial, it works.)

Granted, it also takes willpower to resist the temptation to do something you really like to do until you’re also doing something you want do.

But body chemistry will help you overcome that hurdle. You don’t get a shot of dopamine — the neurotransmitter that makes you feel good — after you get a reward. Dopamine gets released in advance of a reward: like knowing I get to watch When We Were Kings (the next sports doc on my list) the next time I hop on the trainer.

Link a dopamine-producing activity — listening to your favorite music — with a procrastination-producing activity — organizing your desk — and you’re much more likely to be motivated to undertake your “want” to do task.

And in time, you’ll not only biochemically but also mentally link the “want” with the “do.”