Module 3 · Build better habits · Research-supported

Remove the small obstacles

Cut steps, simplify the space, and make starting almost effortless.

6 min read · Level: Beginner · Free — no account needed to read

The problem it solves

How do you make a habit easy enough to happen on an ordinary day?

The concept

Reducing friction means removing the small obstacles between you and the habit: unnecessary steps, set-up, distance, searching for things, decisions. Each one is small, but together they decide whether the habit happens.

Simplify the environment around the habit. Fewer things in the way, one place for the equipment, one clear first action. If running needs finding clothes, charging a watch and choosing a route, fix each of those once so it’s ready.

Ask of every step: can I remove it, combine it with another, or do it in advance so the moment of action is simpler?

Why it matters

Research on choice architecture and self-control suggests that changing how easy an action is often shifts behaviour more reliably than trying to raise motivation — and the change keeps working without extra effort.

Research-supported: Good studies support it, but there are fewer of them, the effects are modest, or they come from a narrow set of situations.

See it happen

Yuki wants to make healthy breakfasts, but every morning she has to find ingredients, wash a blender and decide what to make.

The ordinary first approach

She should get up earlier to have time for it.

With the idea

She keeps one breakfast as the default, stores everything together, and washes the blender the night before.

What changed

The same breakfast now takes three steps instead of eight, and no decisions.

Easy to get wrong

• Adding more motivation instead of removing obstacles.
• Keeping equipment in a hard-to-reach place “for tidiness”.
• Leaving decisions for the moment of action.

Try it now: Cut one step

1. List every step between you and starting one habit.
2. Mark any step you could remove, combine or do in advance.
3. Change one of them today.

Apply it to one of your habits

For one of your habits, which step will you remove or simplify this week?

Reflect

• Which step in your habits do you most often get stuck on?

Go deeper — evidence & sources

• Hollands, Shemilt, Marteau, Jebb, Kelly, Nakamura and colleagues (2013). Altering micro-environments to change population health behaviour: towards an evidence base for choice architecture interventions. BMC Public Health. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-13-1218
• Duckworth, Gendler & Gross (2016). Situational Strategies for Self-Control. Perspectives on Psychological Science. doi:10.1177/1745691615623247
• Wood & Neal (2016). Healthy through Habit: Interventions for Initiating & Maintaining Health Behavior Change. Behavioral Science & Policy. doi:10.1353/bsp.2016.0008