Module 6 · Environment & context · Research-supported

Friction is a dial you can turn both ways

Lower it for what you want more of, raise it for what you want less of.

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

The problem it solves

How can one idea help you do more of one thing and less of another?

The concept

Think of friction as a dial. Turn it down for habits you want — fewer steps, things ready, closer at hand. Turn it up for habits you don’t — more steps, further away, logged out, packed away.

You can often do both at once in the same space. Put the book on the sofa and the remote in a drawer. Keep fruit on the counter and sweets in a high cupboard.

The dial is adjustable. If a friction change becomes so annoying you undo it, turn it down a notch; if an unwanted habit still slips through, turn it up.

Why it matters

Small changes in effort shift everyday choices, and they keep working without willpower — which is why friction is one of the most practical tools in this lab.

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

Tessa wants to practise drawing more and watch less TV in the evenings.

The ordinary first approach

She should set a rule of no TV before 9pm.

With the idea

She leaves her sketchbook and pencils open on the coffee table and puts the remote in a drawer in another room.

What changed

Drawing became the easy option and TV the one that takes steps — no rule needed.

Easy to get wrong

• Only adding friction to bad habits and never removing it from good ones.
• Adding so much friction that you give up the change.
• Forgetting to revisit the settings as life changes.

Try it now: Turn the dial both ways

1. Pick one habit to make easier and one to make harder.
2. Change one thing for each in the same space.
3. Notice what happens over three days.

Apply it to one of your habits

For one of your habits, what will you make easier — and what competing habit will you make harder?

Reflect

• Which friction change had the biggest effect for the least effort?

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