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How to ThinkIn the Age of AI

Question

What does it mean that environmental design for habit support?

intermediate

Quick Answer

Make the cues for good habits visible and the cues for bad habits invisible.

Example: You want to read more books and spend less time scrolling your phone in the evening. You place a book on your pillow every morning when you make the bed, and you plug your phone charger into an outlet in the kitchen instead of on your nightstand. Within two weeks, your evening reading doubles and your bedtime scrolling drops by over an hour — not because your willpower improved, but because you changed what was easy to reach.

Try this: Walk through the space where you perform your most important habit. Identify three cues that support the habit and three cues that compete with it. Physically rearrange one supporting cue to be more visible and one competing cue to be less accessible, then observe what changes over the next five days.

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