hello and welcome back to The Bliss Bean today's video is gonna be on a
Productivity technique that is called habit stacking and because I want this
to be a very informational very "edumacational" video we're going to start
by defining what habit stacking actually is. It is implementing new habits by
building them on top of existing ones. I think all of us have so many different
habits that we want to incorporate into our lives in terms of health, self-care
productivity, habits that help you stay organized. Just all manner of little
things that you would like to do in your life but it just doesn't really work out
Habit stacking is a technique that will hopefully help you finally break through
that block and be able to do the things that you want to do in order to have a
happy and productive life. So normally when we try to learn new habits it's
very easy to forget to do them. You might write them down and get super motivated
about them but then it just kind of completely disappears out of your
consciousness and you forget about it and that's completely understandable
because there's just nothing prompting you to do it. It's very hard to remember
to do something new every single day. You might set a reminder on your phone and
that might help you but it also might remind you of completely the wrong time
All of a sudden it's like how do I fit this new thing that I want to do into my
schedule that I've already established and have been doing for months. So habit
stacking fixes all of this. I feel like I sound like an infomercial. Habit stacking
is basically a little memory trick that helps you to not forget to do those
habits and I think the best way to explain exactly how it works is through
an example. So say you want to start a habit of doing some exercises in the
morning nothing really crazy we're not doing CrossFit here, just maybe a couple
of squats. So with habit stacking, the first thing
that you do is you sit down and you think of an existing habit that you have
What is it that you do every single morning that you hardly have to think
about. You don't have to will yourself to do it, it just happens. And for me that's
brushing my teeth and probably for you too, so the goal that you might set is
Every single morning as I brush my teeth I will do 50 squats. You've now
linked your new morning exercise to this habit of brushing your teeth. You've linked
this established, solid habit to this new one that's still kind of iffy and you're
trying to get the hang of. Once you practice this routine and this
connection a couple of times, every time you start to brush your teeth your brain
will immediately go to the next action that it has learned to associate with
brushing your teeth which is doing squats and so it will remind you almost
effortlessly to practice this habit every single morning. So now that we've
looked at an example I just want to cover the basic process of how exactly
you can incorporate habit stacking for basically anything that you want to do
Step one is to find a new habit that you want to start doing. I think this step
is the easy part because I think we all have this idealistic list in our heads
of what we would like to do every single day or every single week. These can be
things like studying a language, reading, exercising, journaling, meditating
cleaning, listening to podcasts, clearing your desk in the morning, checking your
schedule, basically anything. Step two: find a habit in your life that's already like
second nature to you that you could use as an anchor for this new habit ask
yourself what is it that you don't need prompting to do, what are the things that
you basically do on autopilot already, and step three just stick them together
so these two habits don't need to be simultaneous like they were in the teeth
brushing and squats example. They can also be sequential and honestly they'll
probably usually be sequential. For example your habit stack might be: after
I climb into bed I will read for 15 minutes climbing into bed is something
you do every single day without fail and you don't need prompting to do it and so
with enough repetitions of that routine where you're connecting going to bed
with reading as soon as you get into bed your brain will just immediately tell
you to pick up a book and start reading and that's it! It's really a simple
process but I think it can be really powerful if you actually put your full
effort into it and fully take advantage of it
This sounds like the end of the video but it is not I'm going to give some
tips on how to best implement habit stacking. So my
first step is, if you're just getting into habit stacking you might want to
start out by sitting down and just writing out a list of those established,
autopilot, well-learned, whatever you want to call them, those habits that can serve
as anchors for your new habit. I think coming up with those is the hard part of
the process, if you just do that in one go you'll have a breeze connecting the
rest of your habits. Tip number two: you thought habit stacking was just for
linking two habits? No no, you can double stack, triple stack,
etc etc you can keep linking habits together in order to build entire chains
of habits. This is basically how you build routines!. So for example with your
morning routine you might say: after I wake up, I will make my bed. Once you've
practiced that a couple of times and formed that connection, then you can move on and
start with making your bed as the anchor habit, so you might say after I make my
bed I will stretch for five minutes and now you've incorporated two habits, and
so then you say after I stretch I will wash my face, after I wash my face I will
journal, and just keep going like that it's basically like you're leaving a
little trail of mental breadcrumbs for yourself so instead of having to
remember a whole set of little habits that you want to do in the morning you
just have to remember the connections between them and the more you practice
the more natural those will feel and you'll be able to progress though if the
entire routine without barely even thinking about it but keep in mind tip
number three: yes these habit stacks will become like second nature to you
eventually. but this process does take time, so in the meantime I highly
recommend that you write down these habit stacks or habit chains or whatever
you want to form just so that you can easily access this information and
remember what habits you committed to doing. So if it's a habit stack you do at
home like your morning routine you might want to write it on a post-it and stick
it in a few of the places where you complete your morning routine. If it's
something that you do on the go you can put it on your phone, set it as your
wallpaper, or put it in your Notes app, just anything that will remind you
because it will be a little tricky at first hang in there. And then
my last tip is know your why. In the same place that you're writing down
these habits and routines also write down why you want to do them. Why do you
want to do squats while you're brushing your teeth? Because you want to feel
energized in the morning. Why do you want to journal after you wash your face?
Because you want to clear your mind before you go to school or work. So
hopefully with all of these habits that you're trying to incorporate there's a
reason why you're doing it hopefully you're not doing it just because other
people are doing it or it's the cool thing to do, I don't know. You're gonna
have a reason for every habit that you want to incorporate and so if you focus
on that reason it'll give you the motivation that you need to keep doing
it because as I mentioned those first few times that you do it are going to be
difficult. It's gonna be hard to motivate yourself and find the willpower to do
things that you're totally not used to but in those times you just have to
remember all of the benefits that you're gonna reap from making this a habit so
that's all the advice that I have on habit stacking that's all the knowledge
that I have for you. Habit stacking is a technique that just has so much
potential and it's up to you to get creative with it and find all the
different ways that you can apply it to your life. I'd love to hear what habits
you decide to stack so please please let me know and yeah that's it thank you so
much for watching this video and as always I will see you next week bye