Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives (15 page)

She sighed. “It's not going great. You don't mind giving up those carb foods, but I like more variety. I like eating pizza or pasta now and then.” Then, to my astonishment, she added, “But you know what I figured out? I'm actually an Abstainer. My weakness is French fries, and now I don't eat them, ever.”

“
You're
an
Abstainer
?” I was astonished. When I was first identifying the concepts of Abstainers and Moderators, Elizabeth had been my model Moderator.

“Yes. It turns out that it's easier to give something up altogether. With some things, I can't be moderate. Abstaining's easier.”

“But how do you feel about saying no to yourself all the time?” While I find it fairly easy to tell myself “no,” “stop,” or “never,” Elizabeth is a person who resents restrictions and does much better with positive resolutions.

“I can't give myself a negative,” she told me. “I have to make this a positive thing. So I tell myself, ‘Now I'm free from French fries.' ”

“ ‘
Free from French fries
!' Exactly!” I said. “Free from decisions, free from guilt! Free from the bread basket and the candy bowl.”

Since that conversation, I've concluded that many people are Abstainers who don't realize it. Abstaining sounds demanding and inflexible, so people assume that they're Moderators, even if they've never successfully followed that strategy. But counterintuitively, for many people abstaining is
easier
.

Research—and my own experience—suggest that
the less we indulge in something
, the less we want it. When we believe that a craving will remain unsatisfied, it may diminish; cravings are more provoked by possibility than by denial. William James observed, “
It is surprising how soon
a desire will die of inanition if it be never fed.”
One study of flight attendants
who were smokers compared their nicotine cravings during short flights (three to five and a half hours) and long flights (eight to thirteen hours). Attendants' cravings increased as the plane was about to land, regardless of whether the flight had been short or long. In other words, the duration of abstinence didn't predict a nicotine craving as well as the knowledge that the flight was ending—and a cigarette was coming within reach.

Certainly for me, the Strategy of Abstaining makes some challenging habits far easier to foster. Abstaining
sounds
so hard, but really, it's easier. And while it isn't a universal tool, no habit-formation strategy is universally useful. Different solutions for different people.

Also, the more I worked on my habits, the more I became convinced that most successful habit changes required the coordination of multiple strategies, all aimed at a single behavior. In my case, the Strategy of the Lightning Bolt had made me want to abstain from carbs in the first place, Abstaining had made it easy to eat low-carb, and Monitoring allowed me to track what I was eating. Changing a habit may be simple, but it's not easy, and the more tools used, the better.

There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need do only inner work … that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself, he need only change himself. … The fact is, a person is so formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings.

—Christopher Alexander,
The Timeless Way of Building

P
eople often ask me, “What surprises you most about habits?” One thing that continually astonishes me is the degree to which we're influenced by sheer
convenience
. The amount of effort, time, or decision making required by an action has a huge influence on habit formation. To a truly remarkable extent, we're more likely to do something if it's convenient, and less likely if it's not.

For this reason, we should pay close attention to the convenience of any activity we want to make into a habit. Putting a wastebasket next to our front door made mail sorting slightly more convenient, and I stopped procrastinating with this chore. Many people report that they do a much better job of staying close to distant family members now that tools like Facebook, Skype, FaceTime, and group chats make it easy to stay in touch.

Elizabeth decided to employ the Strategy of Convenience to deal with her eating habits. Ever since she'd come back from the shoot in Budapest, her blood sugar had been far too high, the low-carb approach wasn't working for her, and her doctor advised fast action. Like many people struggling with the decisions and effort involved in eating and cooking right, she decided to try a meal plan that provides prepared food.

From: Liz

Now I'm on Jenny Craig. Adam is doing it too. I feel bad for (temporarily) abandoning the low carb life. I've got to get in better control of my diabetes which just got so off track in Hungary, etc. So I figure I'll do this and then transition back to low carb. Ugh.

I did a little research, and this plan seemed like a good choice for Elizabeth. It definitely wasn't low-carb, but it was probably
lower
carb, especially given the portion control it provided. Also, I'd read a study that found that dieters get the best results when they're in programs that provide meals. Super-convenience was just what Elizabeth needed—not only because she needed to get her blood sugar under control, but also because she was starting work as a show-runner on a new TV show, so she'd be even busier and more stressed than usual.

I called her after her first day of work to see how it went, and she told me, “To celebrate, the studio sent us pizza from the best pizza place in L.A. Plus it was two people's birthdays, so we had cupcakes.”

“What did you have?”

“I had
none
of it. I'm really sticking to the plan, especially at the office.”

“So it's working. Why, do you think?”

“It's the convenience,” she said with conviction.

Elizabeth made a big change in her habits to take advantage of the Strategy of Convenience, but even the tiniest tweaks in convenience affect people's eating. People take less food when using tongs, instead of spoons, to serve themselves. In one cafeteria, when an
ice-cream cooler's lid was left open
, 30 percent of diners bought ice cream, but when diners had to open the lid, only 14 percent bought ice cream, even though the ice cream was visible in both situations.

Convenience shapes everything we do. When it's convenient to spend, we spend. That's why merchants constantly dream up new ways to make spending more convenient, with impulse items arrayed next to the checkout line, offers of easy credit, and websites that store information to make pushing the “buy” button an easy, one-click habit. Hotels stock handy in-room minibars with overpriced items, and nowadays some hotels even place the items in plain sight, right on the tabletop, to make it even easier to rip open that four-dollar bag of chocolate-covered peanuts.

But we can also exploit the Strategy of Convenience to help us save. A reader (who likes “small steps”) wrote: “When I was about fifteen, I started putting my coins into a jar. When the jar was full, I'd roll up the coins and deposit them into my savings account. I've never stopped this habit—and even keep the coins in the same jar I started with fifty years ago. This means $300–$400 a year for the vacation account.”

We can use the Strategy of Convenience to expand and deepen our relationships. We're much more likely to be friends with people whom we see without making an effort—those we run into frequently at work, in class, or around the neighborhood. In what's called the “mere exposure effect,” repeated exposure makes people like each other better. Relationship Convenience is why I love to belong to groups. Belonging to a group that meets regularly is a convenient way of making a habit of seeing people. It sounds odd to talk about “convenience” in the context of friendship, but in truth, it's convenient to see people in groups, and as I see people more, I grow closer to them. If I miss one meeting, I'll see everyone at the next meeting. I don't have the headache of trying to make individual plans. Also, I have the chance to spend time with people whom I don't yet know well, which broadens my relationships in a natural way. It's not easy, as an adult, to make a new friend. It can feel very awkward to say, “Would you like to get a cup of coffee sometime?” The convenience of group membership makes it easier to become friends.

This issue of convenience often arises as an obstacle to regular exercise. Common obstacles include:

It's a pain to pack up the gear when I'm leaving the house.

It's a pain to drive and park there.

It takes too much time to work out.

It's a pain to get a place in a popular class or to wait my turn on equipment.

I don't know how to use the equipment or do the exercises.

I always forget something I need.

It's a pain to shower.

If we tell ourselves, “Oh, I can't exercise, it's too inconvenient,” we don't see ways to make it more convenient; identifying
exactly
why exercise feels inconvenient helps to reveal possible solutions. Identify the problem.

Of course, to make exercise more convenient, and therefore more likely to become a habit, the solution must solve a person's particular problem. One person might realize that the problem isn't the gym, but getting to the gym; or the problem might not be the exercise itself, but feeling embarrassed in a gym environment. A reader wrote: “My gym has multiple branches, but I found it inconvenient. I finally realized that sometimes I'd go to the gym from home, or from work, or from my girlfriend's apartment, so I never had what I needed. I bought multiple sets of everything—deodorant, shoes, a giant bag of cheap socks—and I keep a set in each place. Now I don't have an excuse to skip.” (Not an underbuyer, clearly.)

Buying home exercise equipment is a popular way to make exercise more convenient, so I briefly considered that approach. My sister and my in-laws have a treadmill at home, but with a New York City apartment, we would have no place to put it. Plus Jamie refuses to get one. “It's better to go to a gym and have a real work-out,” he insists, “than to have equipment at home.”

In any event,
acquiring
equipment isn't the same as
using
it
.
According to Consumer Reports, more than 30 percent
of people who buy home exercise equipment admit that they use it less than they expected. A reader commented: “I know deep down that if I really wish to start exercising, all I have to do is step outside. But I still manage to convince myself that buying a ‘nice' pair of running shoes and a book about exercise will make me
really
do it.”

For people who go to a gym, the structure of payment can make exercise feel more or less convenient. When an activity feels free (even if it's not actually free), it seems more convenient. Because
70 percent of people who belong to a gym
rarely go, for most people, it would be cheaper to pay for the gym on a per-visit basis instead of forking over a monthly fee. But although the monthly system may not make financial sense, it makes psychological sense; paying per visit means that each workout costs extra and feels less convenient, while monthly payments make each visit feel free.

I wanted to find additional ways to exploit the Strategy of Convenience to improve my habit habitat. For instance, I decided to apply Convenience to my email habits. I read that
office workers spend a staggering 28 percent
of their office time on email, but I bet I spend more time than that. To make my email habit more convenient, I decided to cut out salutations and closings. I'd fallen into the habit of writing an email like an old-fashioned letter, instead of using the casualness and brevity now appropriate to email.

An email that says:

Hi Peter—

Thanks so much for the link. I'm off to read the article right now.

Warmly,

Gretchen

takes a lot more work than an email that says:

Thanks! Off to read the article right now.

The first version is more formal and polite, but the second version conveys the same tone and information, and is
much
quicker to write.

It took a surprising amount of discipline to change my response habits. It can be hard to make things easier. I had to push myself to erase the “Hi” and to hit “send” without typing a closing. But before long, it became automatic.

Not long after I'd instituted my new convenient email habits, however, I responded to a reader with an email that omitted a salutation and closing, and received a pointed email in return: “I find it really interesting that you don't say ‘Hi Lisa' or end your email in any kind of salutation, or say ‘if I have any more questions to drop you a line.' Please excuse me if this is rude, I am truly just curious. Is this because you are super busy (understandably) or just not your style? I had this preconceived notion after reading your book that your dialogue would be so much more friendly/happy and personal.”

Sheesh. This was nicely put, but clearly the message was “You don't sound very friendly.” I was taken aback. Should I go back to using more elaborate courtesy? Then I decided—no. I was sorry if I didn't sound friendly to her, but I wanted to be able to answer emails from readers, and to keep up, I needed to keep this work as convenient as possible. My habits had to reflect my values. I wrote her back, very nicely, and without a salutation or closing, to explain.

I looked for other areas to make more convenient. Often, a modest purchase can make a habit more convenient, so to control my almond-eating habit, I bought a pack of forty-eight premeasured one-ounce bags of almonds. The additional packaging seemed wasteful, and my mother-in-law laughed at me for not just pouring the almonds into baggies myself, but for me, having a convenient way to control portion size was worth it.

Along the same lines, I needed to improve my cell-phone-charging habit, so to make that task more convenient, I bought an extra charger cord. Now I can charge in two different spots in the apartment, and this small change made a ridiculously large improvement in my daily life. A reader wrote: “It was hard to motivate myself to walk after dark, the only time available to me for exercise. After a few weeks with my dad, who lives in a well-lit subdivision, I was reminded how much I enjoyed walking in the evenings. I decided to ‘identify the problem' and I realized that at home, where the streets aren't well lit, I felt invisible and unsafe walking at night. I bought a reflective vest with LED strips, and it has made such a difference.”

However, purchasing more convenience can be challenging for an underbuyer like me. I have to remind myself that habit convenience is a wise investment. For years, I couldn't bring myself to rent a gym locker, because I lived just six blocks away. The need to lug everything around, however, made going to the gym seem inconvenient, so I went less often. Finally, I realized: “Exercise is an important priority. The locker isn't very expensive. I'll use it frequently, and it'll make life a lot easier. This is a good place to spend money.” One reader reported that she'd assumed she disliked cooking but finally realized that she disliked grocery shopping. Now she pays a little more to order her groceries online, and that extra convenience means that she's willing to cook.

As I continued to look for ways to harness the power of the Strategy of Convenience for my habits, I noticed that more and more, people and institutions exploit the fact that habits stick better when they're pleasurable. It may be an illusion, but an activity seems easier—and therefore more convenient—when it includes an element of fun, satisfaction, or beauty.

Everyone knows that it's healthier to take the stairs than the elevator or escalator, but most people don't bother. However, when
a subway station in Sweden
transformed its stairs into a piano keyboard that actually played notes as people walked on it, 66 percent more people took the musical stairs. When the Schiphol Airport put
the image of a housefly
above the drains of urinals, men began to aim at it—a change that reduced spillage rates by 80 percent. “Gamification” is used in the design of devices and apps to help people improve their habits. Doing something a few times for fun isn't necessarily enough to form a habit, but it's a start.

In the same way, attractive surroundings relieve drudgery, and well-made tools make work a joy—which helps to strengthen habits. As an underbuyer, and a disliker of errands, I tend to skimp, but it's worth the time, effort, and money to invest in good tools and pleasant work surroundings.

I stored tickets, invitations, event information, and school notices in one overstuffed shabby file marked “Upcoming.” To make life easier, I decided to make twelve monthly files. My first instinct was to scrounge through the apartment to find twelve used folders, then I thought—no, nice new folders will make it more pleasant to maintain my filing habits. I may dislike shopping, but I do love to buy office supplies, and after an enjoyable trip to the office-supply store, I asked Eleanor to label the folders by month. I get a shot of pleasure every time I see her careful seven-year-old handwriting on the new folders, which makes me more likely to stick to my habit of regular filing.