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Habit stacking finally clicked when I paired flossing with my morning coffee routine
I kept forgetting to floss for years until I put the floss picks right next to my coffee maker and now I do it while the Keurig heats up, has anyone else tried linking a tiny habit to something you already do every day?
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drewgonzalez9d ago
Read something on a health blog that said the brain LOVES patterns like this. The writer called it "habit anchoring" and claimed it's way more effective than just trying to remember stuff with willpower alone. Made a lot of sense to me because my memory is garbage for little tasks but rock solid for routines. Fits right in with how I learned to remember to take my vitamins by putting the bottle on top of my TV remote at night.
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craig.mila9d ago
Love that remote trick, that's such a good one. I do something similar with my phone charger - I plug the phone in before bed but leave the cable draped over my glasses case, no way I'm forgetting them in the morning. Your mileage may vary but I've found that if you attach the new thing to something you already do without thinking, it's almost like cheating your own brain. The vitamin bottle on top of the remote is genius because you literally cannot use the remote without dealing with the bottle first. That's the whole secret right there, you're not relying on remembering, you're relying on inconvenience.
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riley434d ago
Three weeks later the novelty wears off and you're just stepping over the vitamin bottle to change the channel. Pattern-based memory is great until life throws one curveball and the whole system falls apart because you never actually trained your brain to remember anything.
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