Habit Stacking

Habit Stacking, also derived from the Diderot effect, is a powerful tool to trigger habit cues. It is the tendency for one action that leads to another action. By identifying your current habit and stacking new behavior on top of your current one is what we call habit stacking.

Instead of pairing the habit to a place and time, like implementation intention, you pair a new habit with your current habit. 

The formula for habit stacking: 

After/Before [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

“The key is to tie your desired behavior with a habit that you are already doing every day.”

Let’s say, for example, you want to start meditating and create a habit where you want to meditate in the morning. 

What you can do is search for one of your current morning habits and stack meditation on top of that habit.

That’s when the Habit scorecard is useful. You can see which activity you can use to stack your desired behavior. 

• After [drinking coffee in the morning], I will [meditate for 1 minute]. 
• And this process can be repeated and used as a chain to stack multiple habits together. 
• After [drinking coffee in the morning], I will [meditate for 1 minute]. 
• After [meditating for 1 minute], I will [do 10 push-ups]. 
• After [10 push-ups], I will [do 10 sit-ups]. 

And it can go on and on. 

Habit stacking allows you to take advantage of your natural habits by setting simple rules that guide your behavior.

It is a great exercise you can use. It’s very effective but remember, to successfully stack habits, you have to select the right cue and be specific. 

Habit stacking is one of the many habit building strategies described in the book atomic habits.