I’ve been building a lot of new habits this summer. Writing, working on the Pixidoku Kickstarter, reading non-fiction, and house-cleaning. But I also started getting in the habit of not playing addictive video games before noon. I’ve noticed that my morning hours are my most motivated, productive and creative hours (and I believe this is backed up by the neuroscience) and so I wanted to reserve these hours for tasks that require high cognitive function. It’s been very successful and it’s given me a new model for how to set myself up for success in forming new habits.

Often, an obstacle to forming a new habit is that there is an existing habit that gets in the way. Before I start building my actual new habit I can first get out of the old habit. I think doing a different enjoyable but non-addictive activity every day during that time slot would be a good start. One candidate for that type of task is a task I’m already habituated to. For me, I’ve been practicing Norwegian on most days for the last few years so it is easy and fun for me at this point. If I want to form a new habit at a certain time I can start doing my Norwegian at that time first. This will prepare me to transition to the new habit.

How do you form new habits? What are the biggest challenges and strategies you’ve tried for overcoming them?