Habit Stacking: Make Difficult Changes Easier for Yourself

If you’ve ever tried to make a significant lifestyle change, you know that it isn’t easy. One reason why people quit a new routine or habit is that they “lose steam.” For example, waking up early to exercise takes far more discipline than simply hitting snooze and staying in bed.

Making the “right” decision every time is not always possible because self-regulation is cognitively exhausting [1]. Relying solely on discipline and willpower to drive behavior change can only take us so far. When our cognitive capacity is low, we need a less taxing mechanism, like habits, to regulate our behaviors and ensure that we make better choices.

Habits are behaviors we have repeated to the point that their cognitive drain is minimal [2]. Think about an action you perform daily, like driving to work or checking your email. These behaviors are so habituated that it might often feel like you perform them automatically.

While we develop most of our habits unconsciously, we can purposefully introduce and reinforce new habits into our routines. Cultivating habits that support your behavior change can reduce the need for willpower or discipline to maintain behavior changes [3].

For example, a habit of keeping a water bottle nearby would make it easier for you to increase your water intake. Similarly, swapping a late-night TV habit with a reading habit could help to improve your sleep.

However, just like implementing a new routine or behavior change, starting a new habit can generate friction and resistance.

Luckily, we can use the power of our existing, deeply ingrained habits to accelerate habit formation. This technique is known as habit stacking.

What is habit stacking?

Habit stacking is a behavior change technique first described by author S.J. Scott. The term was later popularized by author James Clear in his book, Atomic Habits. 

In Atomic Habits, Clear suggests that the processes which make our ingrained habits difficult to break can also help us rapidly automate new, healthier habits. If we link or stack the new habit to older, more established habits, we can reduce the cognitive energy needed to perform the new action [4]. As a result, habit stacking shortens the time for a new action to become automated [5].

The science behind habit stacking

Habits are the physical manifestation of complex neurological processes. James Clear simplified this process into the four stages of habit formation.

Habit formation begins when we encounter a cue in our environment. This could be anything from:

When our brains receive the cue, it triggers a craving or need. During this stage, dopamine levels rise and increase our motivation for performing the habitual behavior, also known as the response [6].

After we perform the response, our craving or need is met. Because fulfilling our cravings is rewarding, we tend to respond to the cue similarly the next time. Moving through the stages of habit formation every day creates robust and dense neural pathways in our brains. That’s why simply encountering a cue can trigger the entire loop for deeply ingrained habits with minimal cognitive exertion.

We do not have to forge an entirely new pathway when we link a new habit to an existing one. This saves cognitive energy and thus makes it easier for a newly introduced habit to stick.

Habit stacking strategies

Building a thoughtful habit stack can improve your chances of maintaining positive behavior change. However, it isn’t as simple as performing a new habit first thing in the morning or before bed. For best results, you should consider how the new habit passes through each stage of the formation loop. Ask yourself:

Identify anchor habits

Anchor habits are the most deeply ingrained actions in our routines [7]. For me, drinking coffee first thing in the morning is non-negotiable (regardless of where or when I wake up). Other common anchor habits include watching TV after work or eating dinner at a particular time. 

Anchor habits do not need to happen every day. For example, some people have a deeply ingrained habit of calling their families or reviewing their bank accounts once a week.

Here’s an example. In order to change your financial behaviors, you decide to follow a budget. One way to maintain this behavior is by creating a habit of bringing a grocery list to the supermarket. Since you already visit the supermarket every Sunday, you can easily stack the habit of making a list before you leave to buy groceries.

If you tried to stack this habit on top of an anchor you perform every day or only once a month, it wouldn’t work as well. It also wouldn’t be as effective to write a grocery list as one of your bedtime habits.

Create a habit staircase

Productivity writer Sam Thomas Davies used the process behind habit stacking to create the habit staircase [8]. By using each new habit as a cue for the next one, you can follow an entire routine without relying too much on self-regulation (which is cognitively taxing).

Davies suggests the following formula to create the ideal habit staircase.

After I (anchor habit), I will (new habit).

The same formula can be used to insert actions before anchor habits.

Before I (anchor habit), I will (new habit)

Sample Habit Staircase

The habit staircase works best when the new habits are small and require little time, thought, or energy. This reduces the amount of motivation you need to perform the habit, which also increases the likelihood you will engage in the behavior. In this video, Dr. Benjamin Hardy explains why reducing friction is vital to successful habit stacking:

Habit Stacking Explained and Simplified.

To learn more strategies for successful long-term behavior change, we recommend reading our article: “5 Reasons Why Behavior Change is Hard (and 3 Ways to Make it Easier).”