INDONESIA – Environment Design
Mrs.DEVI VENUGOPAL
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST – 30
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n the past articles we were understanding how the cues can be the triggers for habits, now we will set up our environment to give the support to get rid of the habits and introduce the new ones in a subtle way. Before getting into that, shall we do a small test to ourselves, from today please try to place the charging station outside the bedroom and put away your gadgets for charge in the night. For those who can sleep without any trouble are not in compulsive nature and for others who feel they couldn’t sleep, we need to really do a rain check on our compulsive nature.
If you want to make a habit a big part of your life, make the cue a big part of the environment.
When we look into how many ways a smoker can be prompted to pull out a cigarette: driving a car, seeing a friend smoke, stress, feeling bored and so on. Same way we can trigger good habits, by sprinkling the triggers throughout your surroundings, you increase the odds of thinking about the habit also increases. Making a better decision is easy and natural when the cues for good habits are right in front of you.
Environment design is powerful not only because it influences the world we engage in but also we rarely are aware of. Most of us live in a place created by others, but we have the choice to alter the spaces and increase the exposure to positive cues and reduce the exposure to negative cues. Environment design makes you the author of your story and gives empowerment.
Context is the cue, for example many people drink more in a social situation rather than alone. The trigger is rarely a single cue, but rather the whole situation: watching your friends order drinks, loud music at the bar, seeing the drinks prepped. We mentally assign our habits to a location in which they occur: the home, the work place, the gym. You develop a particular relationship with the objects on your desk, the items on your kitchen table, the souvenirs in your bedroom. Our behavior is determined not by the objects but by the relationship we establish with them. Think about how you interact with the space around you.
Another example, for one person couch is the place to chill and watch Netflix, but for another it’s a place for reading and expand the learning. People have different memories hence different habits associated with different place. Good news is you can train yourself to link a particular habit with a particular context. Now consider the first experiment, about the charging station in a different room, in one study scientists instructed insomniacs to get into bed only when they are tired, and not for browsing, not for watching TV, nor staring the clock. If they are up they can be in a different room, only when they are tired they need to lie on the bed.
The power of context reveals an important strategy: habits can be easier to change in a different environment. It helps to escape the subtle triggers and cues that nudge you toward your current habit.
Go to a new place, a new coffee shop, a new corner in your room and create a new routine. It is easy to create a new habit in a new place rather than in the face of competing cues. It is hard to go to bed early if you watch TV in your bedroom each night. It is hard to study in the living room where youn play video games daily. But when you step outside your normal environment, you leave your behavioral biases behind, which allows new habits to form without interruption.
Want to think creatively, move to a bigger space with rooftop, patio, or a building with expansive architecture. Take a break from the space where you do your daily work, which is linked with your current thought patterns. Not everyone can change the environment, you can alter your space and create different corners for different work. The mantra which I find very useful is “One space, one use.”
Whenever possible, avoid mixing the context of one habit with another. The mixing of habits results in the easier habits to win out. The versatility of modern technology is both a strength and a weakness.
You can use your phone for all sorts of tasks, which makes it a powerful device. But when you use your phone to do everything it’s hard to link with a particular task. You want to be productive, but you’re also conditioned to browse social media, check email, and play video games whenever you open your phone, it’s a mishmash of cues. You can divide your digital space too, a phone for social media, texting, and calls, laptop for work and school and tablet for reading. If you can manage to stick with this strategy, each context would be associated with a particular habit. If you want behaviors that are stable and predictable, you need an environment that is stable and predictable. Sleep comes naturally when you are in your bedroom, focus comes naturally when you are at the desk. Small changes in context can lead to large changes in behavior over time. Every habit is initiated by a cue, make the cue stand out to develop good habits.
