My favourite tip from my chat with Stanford behaviour change expert BJ Fogg was on making habits stick.
You can find the full interview here.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So most people have been led to believe that it's
repetition that creates habits, and that's wrong. But what people
have heard is like, if you repeat a behavior twenty
one days, it will become habit, or sixty six days
or one hundred and two or whatever. And it turns
out that's not the case. If you look at the
studies that are cited for that, those studies show that
(00:22):
habits strength correlates with repetition, but they don't show that
it causes repetition. And what causes it surprisingly at first,
but once you see it, it's obvious. It's the emotion
you feel when you do the behavior. So if you
do a behavior and you feel successful, then that behavior
(00:43):
will become more automatic. So it's that emotion that wires
the habitat.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome to How I Work, a show about the technics, hacks,
and rituals used by the world's most successful people to
get so much out of their day. I'm your host,
doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of
innovation consultancy Inventium, and I'm obsessed with finding ways to
optimize my workday. Like yes today is bj fog. BJ
(01:14):
is an experimental psychologist who founded and directs the Behavior
Design Lab at Stanford University. If you've ever read anything
about habit change, you will know that BJ is pretty
much the founding father of this area and has been
researching it for about twenty years. He's renowned for creating
(01:34):
breakthrough methods for changing human behavior and has recently put
them all together in a brilliant book called Tiny Habits.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
So I followed BJ's work.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
For many years, and what I love about him is
got a knack for making complex psychology on the topic
of behavior change really simple and practical. In my chat
with BJ, we start by talking about habit change, and
then we get into some of BJ's productivity habits and hacks,
and we also talk about his approach to making his
(02:03):
teaching at Stanford and also outside of it as engaging
as possible. So if you've ever tried to change your behavior,
I think that you will get a lot out of
this chat. So on that note, over to BJ to
hear about how he works.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Hello, BJ, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Hi, thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Oh, it's so good to be talking to you. I
followed your work for so.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Many years, and I'm just such a huge fan of
everything you've brought to the field of behavior change.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
So firstly, thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
You're welcome, and thank you for paying attention definitely.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Now, I want to start with quite a general and
basic question because I feel like it'll provide a good
frame for a lot of the other questions that I have, and.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
That is, how do you create a new habit?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
So yeah, I have a method called tiny Habits, which
is the title of my new book, and it's basically this,
and it's a method that I developed in about twenty
ten and I started teaching it in twenty eleven, so
I taught forty thousand people personally. And it goes like this,
So you take any habit you want and you boil
it down so it's super tiny. So instead of doing
(03:13):
say twenty push ups, you boil it down to two.
Instead of flossing all your teeth, you do just one.
Instead of reading a Totle chapter, maybe it's just a sentence.
Then you find where that tiny version of that new
habit fits naturally in your life. What does it come
after and what you already do? Does it come after
you sit down on the subway, after you start your
(03:34):
coffeemaker after you feed your dog, so you find where
it fits, and then to wire in the habit. After
you do the new behavior, let's say you read the
paragraph in the book, then you reinforce it by a
technique called celebration, where you do something that causes a
positive emotion inside yourself. For me, one that works is
(03:54):
I do a double fist pump, So think tiger Woods,
but double and go awesome. Or maybe think that's what
Ian Thorpe used to do when he would win his
amazing races. And I'm sure there was something he did
at the end. Do that, and that's a way of
signaling to your brain that this is success, and then
your brain starts making that a habit. You're hacking your
(04:15):
brain through celebration. So it's basically those three things.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah, And in.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Tiny Habits, I think you write about the celebration part
being the key to supercharging habit formation.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Have I got that right? And if so, can you
kind of talk about that?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah? So most people have been led to believe that
it's repetition that creates habits, and that's wrong. But what
people have heard is like, if you repeat a behavior
of twenty one days, it will become habit or sixty
six days or one hundred and two or whatever, and
it turns out that's not the case. If you look
at the studies that are cited for that, those studies
(04:51):
show that habit strength correlates with repetition, but they don't
show that it causes repetition. And what causes it surprisingly
at first, but once you see it, it's obvious. It's
the emotion you feel when you do the behavior. So
if you do a behavior and you feel successful, then
(05:11):
that behavior will become more automatic. So it's that emotion
that wires the habitat. So if you're good at causing
yourself to feel that positive emotion on demand, that gives
you superpowers in creating habits. And that's what I teach
in Tiny Habits. One of the chapters is all about that,
and there's like at least one hundred different ways to
(05:32):
do it, because I created an appendix or I list
one hundred ways, and you got to find what works
for you. But you're essentially hacking your emotion in order
to hack your brain and wire in the habit.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I think that's so interesting because there are so many
kind of myths out there about how long it takes
to form a habit twenty one days sixty six days.
But essentially what you're saying is that's it's just correlational.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, they're making that mistake, but it also means there's
two really really important implications of shifting, and I'm glad
you asked me this early. One is you don't have
to look at habit formation as suffering. Like if I
can just endure going to the gym for twenty one days,
then I'll have this habit. Now, that's not how it works. Instead,
(06:19):
you can create habits through a positive I mean a
positive experience and through positive emotions, So change doesn't have
to equal suffering. Number one. And then number two, you
can actually wire and habits really quickly if you do
a behavior. So I've got a pin here in front
of me, and let's imagine this pin is purple. It's
actually blue, but imagine it's purple. And I pick up
(06:41):
this pin and I start writing with it, and I'm like,
oh my gosh, my handwriting is neater and the pin
is smoother on the paper and this pen. Wow, I
feel so successful using this purple pin. Well, guess what
this afternoon when I come back to write a note
to my mom or something like that, and I have
all these pins in front of me, I'll reach for
the purple pen because that's the one that made me
(07:02):
feel successful. And if that feeling is strong enough and
clear enough and associated with the behavior, if my brain
associates this feeling of great handwriting and easier to do,
then I'm not going to be reaching for the blue
pin or the black pin or the red pin anytime soon.
I'm just going to always go back to the purple pin.
So that's what I would call an instant habit, and
(07:25):
that happens in our lives. Instant habits where we do
things once and then we stop considering the alternatives. We
always sit in that chair or wear those shoes to events,
or write with this pin, or use this app or
what have you.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
That's so true.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I've actually got a grain pen that I love writing with.
And if I don't have that grain pen on me
and I've got a different pin, I sort of feel
a bit, Oh, I don't have my grain pin and
it's not as exciting.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
So actually that that resonates quite strongly with me.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I want to know a little bit more about how
you take all this formation, research and theory and frameworks
and a plight in your own life. Because something I
really like about your book, Tiny Habits is that you
do share a lot of yourself and how you've crafted
your own habits. So I want to delve into that
a bit more. And firstly, I want to know how
do you decide what habits you want to craft in
(08:17):
your own life? Because I feel like after you read
Tiny Habits, it's like, oh my goodness, where do I start?
Speaker 3 (08:23):
So how do you do that in your own life?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Well, and this is a key question, and let me
give it an analogy that will help clarify it. So
in Tiny Habits, I teach you the method, and it's
not the old stuff. This is all new stuff. I
don't summarize the old stuff that doesn't work very well.
So if you're looking for a historical perspective on habits,
don't read my book. If you're looking for the future,
(08:48):
read my book. And I outline exactly how to create habits,
how to pick the right habits, how to wire them
into your life. And the analogy might be and drive
a car. So at first, driving a car might seem intimidating,
just like creating habits might seem intimidating, but once you
(09:08):
learn how, it's no big deal. You hop in the
car and go. So once you learn how to change
your behavior, it's no big deal. You say, oh, I
want to go to from point A to point B,
and you do it. So that's what my book can
teach you. What is the bigger Another question, and it's
the one you're asking, is well, now that I can
drive a car, where do I go? Or now that
(09:29):
I can create habits, which habits should I form? And
there is a method for that I've developed that. Oh
actually I started on that one probably about two thousand
and two when I did a project for LinkedIn when
it was a super small company. I did a project
for them using this method that I now call focus mapping.
And essentially what you do is you first get clear
(09:52):
on what is it that I want to achieve? What's
the aspiration? And let's say, for example, it's like, oh,
I want to reduce my stress, which is the result
of doing things, And so then it's like, well, what
behaviors could I do to reduce my stress? And you
do this method I call magic wanding, where you explore
a whole bunch of different behaviors and come up say
twenty ranging from meditation to playing with my dog, to
(10:14):
working in the garden to surfing at Manly Beach. And
then from that big set of behaviors you pick among them.
You don't do all of them, but you pick the
best ones that I call it golden behaviors. And the
best ones have these criteria. Number One, it will be
effective at helping you achieve your outcome, so in this case,
(10:37):
effective in reducing your stress. Number two, it's something you
want to do. Number three, it's something that you can do.
So of all the options that you've come up with,
you pick the ones that are strongest on those three criteria,
and those are the best habits for you. Those are
the golden behaviors, and those are what you start putting
into practice. So you're not guessing. You're going through assist somatic,
(11:01):
getting clear, exploring options, and then selecting the best from
those options.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
And how how I want to know in your own
life does this work? Like every week are you sitting
down at the start of the week going hmm, what
is it?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
What is a new habit that I'm going to form
this week?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Like, what does it look like? For you the kind
of the guru on habit formation.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, well, because I've been practicing this for since twenty
ten at least, because I've taught over forty thousand people personally,
you know, two hundred three hundred people a week since then.
It is pretty simple to do. You know. It does
really feel like just getting the car and go someplace,
no big deal. So I don't wait for a moment,
and you know, like Sunday, Sunday is the natural day
(11:45):
to plan. It's like in any given moments like oh
my gosh, I need to, you know, stretch this part
of my body. Creat I'll create a habit to stretch
this part of my body, and I just create it
and figure out where it fits. Now there's twists and turnstills.
It's an iterative process. What you do at the beginning
may not be exactly right. Like let's say I wanted
to stretch my shoulders and I say, okay, every morning
(12:08):
is the coffee's brewing, I'm going to stand right here
and stretch my shoulders. It sounds like a reasonable place.
But I may find that's not where it fits very well,
so I find a different place to put it. So
it is a design process. But I don't beat myself
up or say wow, that was terrible. You just say, oh,
I learned it doesn't fit in that part of my
day list, Let me try something else. So I just
create them on demand. There are times when I step
(12:30):
back and look at my life more broadly and go, wow,
is what's an area of my life that I want
to strengthen. And I'll just be honest right here, right now,
the area is close friendships. Doing a book like Tiny Habits,
which took well, it brings together twenty years of research,
but the last two years of really intensive work to
(12:53):
make it so simple and easy to read, and you know,
making something simple and approachable is frankly hard. And in
the process of working so hard to make it easy
for people, honestly, I wasn't able to keep some of
my close friendships nurtured. I didn't go to parties, I
didn't respond to things, I didn't send birthday cards. There's
(13:15):
so many things that dropped. And so now I would
sit down and I've done this, It's like, Okay, nurture
my closest friendships, that's the aspiration. What are the different
ways I could do it? So I come up with
twenty or thirty different ways, and then I choose among
them what I think would be most impactful. And one
(13:36):
of the things is identify specifically with friendships. So that's
a one time behavior, like, Okay, here are the six
friends who I want to strengthen my relationship with. That's
a one time behavior. Then there's habits that also come
out of that. Well, I will text Mitch every Monday morning.
I will include my mom on this list. I'll call
my mom when I've headed for surfing most days, but
(14:00):
not my mom than my dad, and so on. And
so you can go from this abstract thing, the sense
of nagging sense of wow, my friendships have really weakened
to very specific concrete actions you can take, whether one
time actions or habits that you do. And that's a
process you can flow through and it ends up being
(14:22):
really efficient and it feels well, kind of amazing because
it's nothing's really out of reach. Yeah, follow the system.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I really like that idea of applying the strategies in
your book to friendship. I feel like that is not
an obvious connection. I think when most people think about
forming new habits, it's often around kind of themselves around
healthy behaviors, maybe around work.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
So I do like that. I do want to ask.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
About your work and productivity habits, because your book definitely
covers a lot around personal habits and health habits. But
I want to know, like if someone was a fly
on the wall in your office at Stanford, for example,
what are some of the behaviors that they would see
that have become automatic for you.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I'll give you the negative things they might see, and
then the positive.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
The negative is I have a lot going on. I
have many balls in the are too many, and that's
just you know. I mean, I really want to have
a big positive impact, and I'm an optimist, and so
I say yes or I dive into things when it
probably should either delay them or just say no. I
(15:45):
am good at saying no, but not good enough. So
that would probably be the first thing that says, like, man,
digit you're doing a lot, and a lot of what
you do is you don't get paid for it and
you don't have to do it. They would see that
I'm a very casual person. They would say, I set
up my work environment to be efficient, so now we're
getting the more positive things. They would see that I
(16:06):
prioritize throughout my day. That I have this way of prioritizing.
It involves these little stickers. I have stickers everywhere, these
these tiny little stickers that for each task, I write
it down and they're color coded, like yellow is a
typical task, Pink means I have to do this today.
Blue means it's a five minute task. I can just
(16:26):
knock it off, and then there's a two to Then
for each project to have a card, it's five to
a eight card. And I put the stickers on and
I sort them in a way so not only are
they color coded, but there's a two dimensional sorting that
I do. And I explain this some in tiny habits.
I call it focus mapping. So even though I have
(16:48):
probably three hundred stickers with tasks on them, I don't
have to do all three hundred. There's a way I
can prioritize and know which ones to focus on and
which ones I can ignore. I do that in the morning,
I do that maybe later in the morning. I do
it after lunch, and I do it at the end
of the day. So sometimes, frankly, it hurts to prioritize
(17:11):
and see something that you thought you really wanted to do,
and that's what I can't do this today.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
I want to do more into this system. This is
sounding fascinating.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I'm imagining this very colorful office with three hundred stickers
or post it notes or color coded How did.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
You start this system? What led to this?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
This is evolve over probably twenty years. So I grew
up in a culture. I grew up in a Mormon
family in California, and Mormons include the Romneys, the Marriotts,
and Stephen Covey. Okay, you get the victure. This culture
is about productivity. In Utah where the Mormons settled, the
(17:53):
on the crest is like a bee hive. It's like
be busy, you know. And so think Steve cub Et cetera.
In fact, I used to be a ghostwriter for his
newsletter when I was holling, and so there is a
lot in that culture about being productive and contributing and
serving others and so on. And so since I was
a kid, I mean, this is just how you're raised.
(18:15):
But then I started developing my own system of capturing
the tasks and prioritizing them and showing the contingencies and whatnot.
It's evolved and now that it has settled to. I
have these five y eight cards. They're basically index cards
with tabs with they're thick, and then for each project,
(18:37):
each project gets a card, and then I use these
stickers that are about one inch by one and a
half inch little stickers that you can write on with
the right kind of pen's and so it's not like
it's all over the walls. There was a time when
it was all over the walls and it drove me crazy,
and then I had to develop these curtains that I
(18:59):
put over this so I didn't have to see all
three hundred Now, you know, I keep iterating, but now
the method and I really do like it. Five by
eight it's about the right size for a project. I
can fit about twelve stickers on each card, and so
then there's just stacks of cards and I get out
the relevant, the high priority cards for that day, and
(19:19):
I order those cards, and then within the top priority cards,
then I reorder the tasks. So there's this prioritized, prioritized,
prioritize thing that I do. So I feel confident, pretty
confident that I'm spending my time on the most important things,
and I'm not too distressed by all of the stickers
(19:39):
on all the cards I'm not seeing, And how does.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Your prioritization process work, you know, because obviously, I mean
you talked about Stephen Covey, who talks about you know,
important versus urgent, and it's easy to get stuck in,
you know, lured in by the urgent tasks, like what's
your process for prioritizing.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
And make sure you are focusing on what matters on that.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
It actually goes in two phases, so it's a little
bit different. One is to just sit down and go
what are my top three priorities today? Without looking at anything,
just what comes to mind? What are my top three priorities?
Write those down, put those on pink stickers. And then
the more system so that's more intuitive. Then I go
to the more systematic and I go through the cards,
(20:23):
flip the cards of my Yeah, this thing on my
Stanford Lab, this research piece I need to do, and
so I'll pull out the cards that are I think
going to be important for that day it's at the
other side, and then card by card I'll go through
and you know, I don't have to do all ten
things on my Stanford Lab research card. There's probably those two,
and I those end up in the upper right hand
(20:44):
corner because I'm prioritizing by impact and how easy they
are to do. And then I'll order those because sometimes
things need to be done sooner, Like if somebody's waiting
on me, like one of my students is waiting on
me in order to create a piece of the research,
there's stalled until I help them. So that usually goes
up the list, especially if it's super simple. So it's
(21:05):
so the first phase is intuitive, what are the top three?
The second phase is more systematic, and then what bubbles up?
Then I just start cranking it out. Now, there's also
a way I go through my email that influences it,
and it I'll summarize there anything that we all get
too much email, but anything that bubbles up, I translate
(21:26):
it to a yellow sticker and that becomes my to do.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
So you will make that email a physical yellow sticker. Essentially,
you'll write that yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
And people that work closely with me know that if
it doesn't end upon a sticker, it's not gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
That's awesome. And then do you then delete that email
or file it? Like what's happening? This is fascinating. I
love getting into the waves.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah, I just file it. I just archive it. At
that point, I used to file them very carefully, and
I just realized I never go back to, you know,
systematically look at it. So I just I do just
archive it.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Now.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
If it's an email that I can solve, you know,
just like getting things done. If it's something I can
do just really fast, I just do it and I
don't make the sticker. But if it takes any more
than or two minutes or so, then I do make
the sticker and either just stack it up and then
later prioritize it, or if it's something that happens that day,
I'll just go to the appropriate card and put it
there so it stands out.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
I want to come back to this idea of creating
a work environment that is one that you know that
drives productivity and efficiency, and I guess the card system
is part of that.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
And certainly when you talk about.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
In tiny habits around investing time in redesigning your environment
when you're trying to create a new habits. So I
want to know, like in some more detail, around the
office that you work in, what are some other things
that you've done to redesign your work environment.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Oh, I'm a little afraid to tell you the truth
because it's I want to share things that people people
can do, actually do, like practical, but I will share
the fact of the matter, and yeah, people can maybe
do a lot of this. So right now I'm in
our home in South Maui, and so I split my
(23:15):
time between Maui and California. So here in Maui, I'm
sitting at my work desk. It's a stand up desk,
but because I'm using this microphone, I have to sit
down because it doesn't go that tall. And so I
have a desk that is a stand up desk by Ergotron,
where I just flip a lever to put it up
and down. That's way better than electric because I can
just move it up and down in a second or two.
(23:37):
I have a screen arm that's bolted to the desk.
Right now, the screen has moved out of the way
so it's not bugging me in it's a huge screen.
But now I'm seeing out the window and I'm seeing
I have tons of natural light pouring in. I can
see the ocean. Probably during our chat, i'll see a
whale out there. I'm seeing palm tree, so physical light's
coming in right at me. It's coming in from the
(23:59):
left side of the room, right side of the room,
so it feels like I'm in nature. I would normally
have the windows open here, but because we're in the podcast,
I'm not, so as much as I can. It's light
and nature is my work environment. On my desk, I
have this mat. It's a grounding mat, an earthing mat.
This one's by Earth and Moon, and it's really designed
(24:21):
not to be put on a desk, but it fits
perfectly on my desk, and so this then grounds me
to the Earth. So it then runs to the electrical outlet,
which then is a ground so as all day long,
when my hands or arms are on the mat, I'm
essentially grounding. And I know some people may not believe
in that or whatever, but I do. I think it's
(24:42):
really important to be connected to the earth, and so
I feel like that helps make me productive. On my desk,
I have coffee, water, and the vitamins I haven't yet
taken some I have some I haven't and then I
have the cards. I have a table next where I
have some cards. I have the Sturgeent Projects right here.
(25:03):
And then I have a filing system with folders that
is behind a cabinet, so it doesn't bug me. So
in other words, height the things they don't need to
work on now, surround myself with light and nature and
make it really easy to be comfortable, I guess, And
I don't know that's Is that the kind of detail
(25:23):
you want?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah, I'm loving that details. That's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
And then because you've essentially got two officers that are
on opposite sides of the country, like are are there
I guess hacks or things that you've done to make
it easy to go between the offices, like for example,
I interviewed Dan Heath, who I'm sure you're aware of
his work, just a few days ago for the podcast
(25:47):
and talking about his new book Upstream and I'm not
sure if you've got your hands on a copy yet,
but all about how can we move more upstream when
we're solving problems as opposed to reacting, And he talked
about this example where he's got a home office and
then he'll also work and write from cafes a lot.
And he talked about this just this frustration where he
(26:08):
would only have the one power cord for his laptop,
and so there'd be all this kafaffle every time he
had to move from the cafe to the office. And
he had a stroke of genius and bought a second
power cord, which then eliminated the frustration. So essentially going
upstream to solve what was a bit of a frustrating problem.
So I'm wondering, like, there are things that you do
because I'm the same. I've got a home office, and
(26:29):
I feel like I've got three offices. I've got a
home office, I've got a real office with my coworkers,
and then I work from cafes a lot. So are
there things that you've developed to make that switching easier?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, yeah, And it is a process. And I think
it's a good question because I feel like I've settled
it for myself now. First of all, anything that is
digital that all lives in the cloud. There's no reason
I need any one device with me. There's no device
that's indispensable. I could lose any device and just go
to a different one and be fine. And surprisingly along
(26:59):
the way, surprisingly I got off the Mac email client.
So I'm a big mac Apple person, and I went
to Outlook.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Oh, my gosh, this is.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
A year ago, I know, right, Like who I would
have never guessed. I was going to Outlook, but the
Mac email client was so inefficient and frustrating me like
crazy that I started looking at all these third party
things and I thought, well, okay, maybe I'll try Outlook,
and it's like just right for me, and it works
so well across devices, so weirdly enough, which also shifted
my calendaring to Outlook, which I'm super happy to be
(27:32):
off some of Google's products, so that just even their watch,
their Apple Watch version of Outlook is for calendar, email,
and notes. It's like, who knew?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
So I'm not depending on any device. I can use
my phone, my iPad, not really, the watch is limited,
but still and when I travel, I don't travel with
a laptop anymore. I figured out in the last three
months and my most my most recent trip to Sydney
helped me affirm this. I was like, Okay, I'm going
to go and not bring the laptop and see what happens.
(28:05):
I can get by with an iPad. I can do
everything I need with an iPad and that's been very liberating.
I had no idea I can make that work, but
now I can, and so I don't even travel with laptop.
It's iPad and my phone. And then in each of
the offices I have, I have a bigger, more powerful computer,
(28:25):
but there's no transferring of anything. It's just like you
open it up and it's all there in the cloud,
or it downloads to your client from the cloud. So
everything's so that's worked for me really well. Another gloss
on this or high level is my dad coached me
very early on this principle, and he's an I surgeon,
and equipment and gear and quality really matters, of course
(28:49):
when you're doing eye surgery, and even young, even as
a college student, he said, look by the very best equipment.
Invest in the best equipment for what you do. Do
not skim. And so even as a student, I was
buying the best computer for my purposes with the memory
I needed. And he's right, you know, the saving of
the two hundred and five hundred one thousand bucks that
(29:13):
does not pay off. Get the best gear and then
use it and it pays off for and over. So
that's kind of two answers.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah, long one one short one. No, that's interesting. I
want to delve into a couple of those things. So
gear aside from the obvious gear of you know, iPad,
computer and so forth, what's what's some other gear that
has helped you, I guess, be more productive and run
your run your life more effectively.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Oh well, one one category is kind of fitness and
wellness gear. So right here by me, I have a
dumbbell sitting by my desk at my home office I
have in California. I have other kinds of stretching and
workout gear right there. So I'm not doing it now
(30:02):
because I need to be close to this good microphone.
But you know, during the day, I can stretch, I
can lift weights, I can do other things. So certainly
take care of your body and have that gear. When
I travel, I bring It's not the TRX branded suspension training.
I've hacked my own version that's lighter and a lot cheaper,
So I travel with you know, kind of suspension training
(30:24):
so I can get some some resistance training in wherever
I am. In terms of food, I would consider that
part of the overall package. You know, even when you travel,
especially when you travel, bring food that's on your game plan.
In terms of productivity, like actual tools I use timers
(30:46):
a lot. I have this little timer. Yeah, you could
use your watch, but there's another timer that goes by
various brands, but it's just basically like a kitchen timer,
a tiny one where I can set the timer for
things that I use. Timer a lot and tiny habits.
One of my methods is after I feel like I'm procrastinating,
I will set the timer and dive in. So I'll
(31:07):
set a timer for like seven minutes and dive in.
I always have these little stickers with me. Of course,
I have, you know, the index cards with me, and
the pen depends that I like. And then after that,
you know kind of obvious things like noise blocking bose
(31:27):
Head said when I need them, and I do wear
the glasses that block blue light when I travel and
at home. I don't think there's anything else that's surprising
in terms of gear but that I think would be it.
And then I'm using my iPad more and more. I'm
finding Here's what I'm surprised. Email and the iPad is
(31:51):
not as debilitating.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
I don't know the words.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
It's more fun. I'd hate to say fun. And you
do you think that is more fun to use email
on the iPad than on a laptop or does I
have no idea some more fun thanks for now.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
I want to know on the iPad because I'm kind
I'm quite struck that you're traveling without a laptop, and
for me is I would typically travel once or twice
a fortnite into state that that kind of blows my mind.
But I'm also very jealous about the idea of just
traveling with the iPad. So what, like, aside from the
obvious apps, like whether you're using iWork or you know,
Microsoft Office for you know, creating presentations or documents and
(32:33):
so forth, what other apps are you're using on the
iPad that you're finding allow the iPad to be this
great tool for traveling and working.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Yeah, well, Outlook, but I'm sure the email applely my
client would work as well. But Outlook plus Outlook Calendar
is great. I do use, but I did this a
few years ago. One Note surprisingly, you know, I think
that's what opened me to look at other Microsoft products.
One Note is really great and it of course goes
across the vice. With my lab and all my main projects,
(33:03):
we use Slack, so I know Slack is the go
to from my lab work and other projects like working
with tiny habits people. I use space camp and what
else for productivity. Oh, for presentations, I try to use keynote.
Some people insist on getting PowerPoint but keynote and storing
(33:23):
it to the cloud, which I was so resistant to do.
I don't know why. And then I had well to
make the iPad work. I had to do that, and
then I discovered this is kind of awesome doing keynote
and having it be in the cloud. It worked way
better than I expected. So that's kind of the lineup
for me.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah, cool, cool, I want it.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I want to switch gears now and move on to
the topic of education, because you spend a lot of
your time teaching, whether that be face to face teaching
with your students in California or the online course that
you do in Habit Change, and I want to tackle
face to face teaching first because I mean, one of
the big challenges about teaching anyone anything is actually making
(34:08):
that knowledge stick and be used, which is obviously your
area of expertise. It's about creating habits out of what
you teach. So I'm curious as to how have you
applied your strategies in the face to face teaching environment.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
So what you teach actually sticks well so much.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Today, for example, I taught five hundred people in US
free online course about my book. So people have enrolled,
you know, if they bought my book by certain data.
I invited them to go chapter by chapter with me
and guess what and figure out what topics I wanted
to cover. I wrote them on stickers. I prioritized the stickers.
I created the curriculum, and that so designing the teaching
(34:54):
experience carefully, like what are we going to cover and
what order? What are the examples? And like I love
having fun. I love love love having fun. So make
it like a game show or bring in stupid process
Like today I played my recorder. It's an instrument most
people hate, but I play it and use it as
an example just to maybe shock people or torture them,
(35:16):
I don't know, just because they don't expect it. They
don't expect me to pull out stuffed animals and use
them as examples. And then I try to make it.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
I really.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
You try to craft the flow of the experience and
the learning and the ideas in a way that makes sense.
But also what you're doing I think as a teacher
is you are empathizing with the learner, and you're feeling
what it feels like to have that happen moment by moment.
So I think empathy for that the audience member or
(35:50):
the student or the listener is the best, the most
important skill you have in designing content, because you're feeling
and even writing the book tiny habits, it's okay, this,
then this, Oh this is going too much, Let's cut that.
Here's this example. Oh, they're gonna have a question about this,
Let's answer this. So it's putting yourself in their position
(36:14):
and delivering to them what they need and what will
excite them. And so it's so you're feeling, I don't
know how so I'm a scientist, and it's going to
sound all woo woo. It's it's it's empathizing with their
experience and imagining like you're them as you're creating it,
and then as you're going along, and the advantage of
(36:35):
face to face and I love zoom too, I use
zoom all the time. Add that to the list is
as you're teaching it, you're sensing from the people listening
how you're doing. Now in this case me talking to you.
It's hard because I can't read how you're responding, and
I certainly can't read how the listeners are responding to
(36:56):
this later, and that makes it harder to be effective
because as I teach, I don't. I almost I never
teach from slides, and when I keynote sometimes they do.
But even when you have slides and you have a
fixed structure, you adjust according to the audience feedback. You adjust,
you adjust, you adjust. It's an interaction with the audience,
(37:18):
and especially when I'm teaching. Yeah, I have a plan,
but if I'm sensing they want more depth there, I
see puzzit looks there, or I need to go faster,
you adjust, you adjust, you It's like a it's like
an improv. You're doing back and forth with the audience.
But you need I at least I flatter myself to
(37:42):
think that I can put myself in their position and
feel like, what what is this going to feel like
on the other side. But then as you do it,
you also adjust.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
And then when you're thinking about let's say homework assignments
or you know, out of class assignments. Again, how do
you think about designing that you know what that it
actually gets done? Because I guess you know in the classroom, obviously,
you know, people can tune out and get on Facebook,
but I would imagine you're very engaging teacher, so they're
(38:10):
not going to do that.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
But it is hard to get people.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
To, you know, do what you want them to when
you're not standing there in front of them. So like,
what are some tricks or hacks that you're using to
get them doing that?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
A few ways? Well, first of all, in the classroom,
there's no technology allowed. No laptops out, sorry, no phone. Really,
we have to take notes, take it with a pen
and a paper, okay, yeah, yeah, And if you don't
like it, drop my class. And I say that in
a nice way, but I mean it actually and so
and we all sit around one big table, so it's
(38:43):
not like we're in bros. We're in a everyone can
see everybody else. And so I limit my class size.
So people apply to my class, and then I select
who I think would benefit the most. So first while
I select who I want next, the homework never never
is busy work. It's all going to be valuable and
I have one hundred percent expectation they're going to do
(39:04):
it one hundred percent. So my situation is not like
a lot of teachers where you're bagging people to do
homework and whatever. So Stanford students they'll they'll do it
if they feel it's valuable, they'll do it.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Any other things that you're applying that I guess might
surprise people, or that any kind of educators listening might
go ooh, I'm I'm going to steal that with pride.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
That is a great way to get better outcomes in education.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Oh my gosh, I there's probably a lot. I mean,
I'm given the background I grew up in. Of course,
you start teaching early and you know Sunday school all that,
So I always try to get better at how I teach,
both at Stanford and also industry. I mean the boot
camp I do. I do a two day boot camp
where I train people in behavior to sign And these
(39:54):
are people from big companies, healthcare systems, big financial organismsations,
all the way down to startups, and I'm teaching them
how do you apply behavior designed to create these amazing
products and services. And for years, probably five years ago,
my partner and I sat down and said, Okay, what
we're doing with this is we're going to create the
best professional training program in the world. And we're going
(40:19):
to assess it at every boot camp we do, and
we're going to ask them, is this the best anonymous question?
Is this the best training you've ever had in your life?
And professional training? Yes? Or now? Ninety five percent plus
of the people say yes, and it's anonymous, so they
don't have to say yes. So it's not just Stanford,
it's outside. How do you really create the most impactful training?
(40:42):
And part of it is being flexible and always learning
and always adjusting. And part of it is, I want
to say, it's being vulnerable. It's it's trusting the students
or you know, giving people hard projects, letting them work
on it, letting them get from to come back, explore
(41:02):
that with them, or have them watch you. As Stanford
really pushes on this, they want the students to watch
you struggle with the problem in real time. So do
something you're not sure, tackle a problem that you're not
sure you're going to be able to solve, and have
the students watch you or join you. And that's a
(41:22):
bit of a leap, because at least it was for me,
because it's like, oh my gosh, what if I look
bad to my students? Well, what I found was. They
love it and they respect you for taking on something
where it's like, Okay, I don't know where this will go,
but here's I'm going to dive in, and you just
watch me do it, or do it with me. The
other thing that I do this is more at stamp
(41:43):
and in the boot camps that I do. I customize
what I'm teaching to the group's coming. And actually it's
not hour by hour, but even more frequently I'm changing
the flow of what I'm doing so I have a
two day experience I've already created, but depending on their questions,
(42:03):
I'm adjusting, adjusting, adjusting, so it never goes exactly as
I plan, because hopefully it goes better because I'm adapting
very quickly. Now at Stanford, I will take risks even
the whole class. First day of class is like, welcome
to class. Nobody's ever done this before. Like coming up
in early first week of April. I'll be in mind.
(42:24):
Every year I teach a new class, it always has
to do with behavior, change it some way, But first class,
I'll say hi, welcome. As you know, this class is
all about designing a curriculum for climate change professionals. In
ten weeks from now, we will have a curriculum posted
online that anybody in the world, any professional and climate
change can access so they can understand how to change behavior.
(42:44):
Nobody's ever done this before. I've never done this before.
I've run some pilots. We could totally fail, but we're
going to try, and so welcome to the journey. Welcome.
We're going to work figure this out together. And they
love it. I mean, it's true the class could totally fail,
but the fact that we're blazing new trails and it's
(43:07):
a big thing. So every year I pick something big
and important and we're going to dive in and figure
it out. We got ten weeks that I love it,
and the students can see how much I love it,
and so I think that energizes them as well.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
I love that example.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
I love that idea of being vulnerable, and I didn't
realize that was a thing that Stanford really emphasized with educators.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
That is very cool. I'm now of thinking in my head,
how can I apply that to my own work.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Well, it's I think even in business settings and even
in settings with friends, what it boils down to is
be authentic, be the real. You don't pretend like oh
I have everything figured out or whatever. Just you know,
be totally authentic what you really know for sure, Like
all the research I've done on habits and tiny habits,
(43:59):
I know that for sure. You know, bam, I know this.
But then I'll get questions I don't know, like oh,
what's the best financial habit? It's like, well, I haven't
studied that, but here's how I would think about it.
So what it frees? So the takeaway is just be you, authentic,
worts and all. But what it does, what I learned
and did for me, is it reduced stress. I don't
(44:22):
have to be anybody magical in the classroom or in
my boot camp. I just be me. Just be me,
and that's easy to be me, and that's what works apparently,
And so that's the takeaway, just be you, be authentic.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
That's fantastic. That is such a lovely note to end on.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
And I do have one final question, which is if
people want to participate in your online course, your boot camps,
get tiny habits find out more about you, what should
they do next?
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Two online resources bjfog dot com is the broad umbrella
about my work. Tinyhabits dot com is specif about Tiny Habits,
and yeah, I would encourage people to connect with my
book in some way, whether it's at your library or
buy it or what have you, because I put a
whole bunch of new stuff that I've not shared in
(45:12):
other ways in the book, so that's really important. There
is a way to schedule a phone call with me
at bjfog dot com. I've done like four thousand of these.
It's free, there's no hidden motive, so if you need
it's not for personal coaching, but if you're working on
a product or service, or if you're an academic or
a student, then you want my input. There's ways to
find me and book time with me, and I do
(45:34):
that every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And there's a whole bunch
of other little videos and stuff, but those are the
main things.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
That's awesome, and look, I would strongly recommend people go
out and get Tiny Habits. I've read a lot of
books on habit change, and I just I love what
you've written. I must say before reading it, I'm like, well,
what new things can this teach me? I'm a psychologist,
I've read so much about this, but I must say
it really opened up my eyes to quite a lot
(46:02):
of new ways of thinking about habit changed. So I
just thought it was absolutely brilliant and I need to
let you go, Bejay. This time has flown. It's just
been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. So thank you
so much.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
That is it for today's show.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
If you enjoyed it, why not share this episode with
someone else that you.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Think would get a lot out of it.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
And if you're feeling like you've got to spare ten
seconds in the day, why not mosey on over to
Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts from and
leave a review. You might want to leave a star
rating or perhaps write some words. I personally love getting
feedback on the show, So a big thank you if
you have done that or planned to do that today.
So that's it for today and I'll see you next time.
So most people have been led to believe that it's
repetition that creates habits, and that's wrong. But what people
have heard is like, if you repeat a behavior twenty
one days, it will become habit, or sixty six days
or one hundred and two or whatever. And it turns
out that's not the case. If you look at the
studies that are cited for that, those studies show that
(00:22):
habits strength correlates with repetition, but they don't show that
it causes repetition. And what causes it surprisingly at first,
but once you see it, it's obvious. It's the emotion
you feel when you do the behavior. So if you
do a behavior and you feel successful, then that behavior
(00:43):
will become more automatic. So it's that emotion that wires
the habitat.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome to How I Work, a show about the technics, hacks,
and rituals used by the world's most successful people to
get so much out of their day. I'm your host,
doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of
innovation consultancy Inventium, and I'm obsessed with finding ways to
optimize my workday. Like yes today is bj fog. BJ
(01:14):
is an experimental psychologist who founded and directs the Behavior
Design Lab at Stanford University. If you've ever read anything
about habit change, you will know that BJ is pretty
much the founding father of this area and has been
researching it for about twenty years. He's renowned for creating
(01:34):
breakthrough methods for changing human behavior and has recently put
them all together in a brilliant book called Tiny Habits.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
So I followed BJ's work.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
For many years, and what I love about him is
got a knack for making complex psychology on the topic
of behavior change really simple and practical. In my chat
with BJ, we start by talking about habit change, and
then we get into some of BJ's productivity habits and hacks,
and we also talk about his approach to making his
(02:03):
teaching at Stanford and also outside of it as engaging
as possible. So if you've ever tried to change your behavior,
I think that you will get a lot out of
this chat. So on that note, over to BJ to
hear about how he works.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Hello, BJ, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Hi, thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Oh, it's so good to be talking to you. I
followed your work for so.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Many years, and I'm just such a huge fan of
everything you've brought to the field of behavior change.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
So firstly, thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
You're welcome, and thank you for paying attention definitely.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Now, I want to start with quite a general and
basic question because I feel like it'll provide a good
frame for a lot of the other questions that I have, and.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
That is, how do you create a new habit?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
So yeah, I have a method called tiny Habits, which
is the title of my new book, and it's basically this,
and it's a method that I developed in about twenty
ten and I started teaching it in twenty eleven, so
I taught forty thousand people personally. And it goes like this,
So you take any habit you want and you boil
it down so it's super tiny. So instead of doing
(03:13):
say twenty push ups, you boil it down to two.
Instead of flossing all your teeth, you do just one.
Instead of reading a Totle chapter, maybe it's just a sentence.
Then you find where that tiny version of that new
habit fits naturally in your life. What does it come
after and what you already do? Does it come after
you sit down on the subway, after you start your
(03:34):
coffeemaker after you feed your dog, so you find where
it fits, and then to wire in the habit. After
you do the new behavior, let's say you read the
paragraph in the book, then you reinforce it by a
technique called celebration, where you do something that causes a
positive emotion inside yourself. For me, one that works is
(03:54):
I do a double fist pump, So think tiger Woods,
but double and go awesome. Or maybe think that's what
Ian Thorpe used to do when he would win his
amazing races. And I'm sure there was something he did
at the end. Do that, and that's a way of
signaling to your brain that this is success, and then
your brain starts making that a habit. You're hacking your
(04:15):
brain through celebration. So it's basically those three things.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah, And in.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Tiny Habits, I think you write about the celebration part
being the key to supercharging habit formation.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Have I got that right? And if so, can you
kind of talk about that?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah? So most people have been led to believe that
it's repetition that creates habits, and that's wrong. But what
people have heard is like, if you repeat a behavior
of twenty one days, it will become habit or sixty
six days or one hundred and two or whatever, and
it turns out that's not the case. If you look
at the studies that are cited for that, those studies
(04:51):
show that habit strength correlates with repetition, but they don't
show that it causes repetition. And what causes it surprisingly
at first, but once you see it, it's obvious. It's
the emotion you feel when you do the behavior. So
if you do a behavior and you feel successful, then
(05:11):
that behavior will become more automatic. So it's that emotion
that wires the habitat. So if you're good at causing
yourself to feel that positive emotion on demand, that gives
you superpowers in creating habits. And that's what I teach
in Tiny Habits. One of the chapters is all about that,
and there's like at least one hundred different ways to
(05:32):
do it, because I created an appendix or I list
one hundred ways, and you got to find what works
for you. But you're essentially hacking your emotion in order
to hack your brain and wire in the habit.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I think that's so interesting because there are so many
kind of myths out there about how long it takes
to form a habit twenty one days sixty six days.
But essentially what you're saying is that's it's just correlational.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, they're making that mistake, but it also means there's
two really really important implications of shifting, and I'm glad
you asked me this early. One is you don't have
to look at habit formation as suffering. Like if I
can just endure going to the gym for twenty one days,
then I'll have this habit. Now, that's not how it works. Instead,
(06:19):
you can create habits through a positive I mean a
positive experience and through positive emotions, So change doesn't have
to equal suffering. Number one. And then number two, you
can actually wire and habits really quickly if you do
a behavior. So I've got a pin here in front
of me, and let's imagine this pin is purple. It's
actually blue, but imagine it's purple. And I pick up
(06:41):
this pin and I start writing with it, and I'm like,
oh my gosh, my handwriting is neater and the pin
is smoother on the paper and this pen. Wow, I
feel so successful using this purple pin. Well, guess what
this afternoon when I come back to write a note
to my mom or something like that, and I have
all these pins in front of me, I'll reach for
the purple pen because that's the one that made me
(07:02):
feel successful. And if that feeling is strong enough and
clear enough and associated with the behavior, if my brain
associates this feeling of great handwriting and easier to do,
then I'm not going to be reaching for the blue
pin or the black pin or the red pin anytime soon.
I'm just going to always go back to the purple pin.
So that's what I would call an instant habit, and
(07:25):
that happens in our lives. Instant habits where we do
things once and then we stop considering the alternatives. We
always sit in that chair or wear those shoes to events,
or write with this pin, or use this app or
what have you.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
That's so true.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I've actually got a grain pen that I love writing with.
And if I don't have that grain pen on me
and I've got a different pin, I sort of feel
a bit, Oh, I don't have my grain pin and
it's not as exciting.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
So actually that that resonates quite strongly with me.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I want to know a little bit more about how
you take all this formation, research and theory and frameworks
and a plight in your own life. Because something I
really like about your book, Tiny Habits is that you
do share a lot of yourself and how you've crafted
your own habits. So I want to delve into that
a bit more. And firstly, I want to know how
do you decide what habits you want to craft in
(08:17):
your own life? Because I feel like after you read
Tiny Habits, it's like, oh my goodness, where do I start?
Speaker 3 (08:23):
So how do you do that in your own life?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Well, and this is a key question, and let me
give it an analogy that will help clarify it. So
in Tiny Habits, I teach you the method, and it's
not the old stuff. This is all new stuff. I
don't summarize the old stuff that doesn't work very well.
So if you're looking for a historical perspective on habits,
don't read my book. If you're looking for the future,
(08:48):
read my book. And I outline exactly how to create habits,
how to pick the right habits, how to wire them
into your life. And the analogy might be and drive
a car. So at first, driving a car might seem intimidating,
just like creating habits might seem intimidating, but once you
(09:08):
learn how, it's no big deal. You hop in the
car and go. So once you learn how to change
your behavior, it's no big deal. You say, oh, I
want to go to from point A to point B,
and you do it. So that's what my book can
teach you. What is the bigger Another question, and it's
the one you're asking, is well, now that I can
drive a car, where do I go? Or now that
(09:29):
I can create habits, which habits should I form? And
there is a method for that I've developed that. Oh
actually I started on that one probably about two thousand
and two when I did a project for LinkedIn when
it was a super small company. I did a project
for them using this method that I now call focus mapping.
And essentially what you do is you first get clear
(09:52):
on what is it that I want to achieve? What's
the aspiration? And let's say, for example, it's like, oh,
I want to reduce my stress, which is the result
of doing things, And so then it's like, well, what
behaviors could I do to reduce my stress? And you
do this method I call magic wanding, where you explore
a whole bunch of different behaviors and come up say
twenty ranging from meditation to playing with my dog, to
(10:14):
working in the garden to surfing at Manly Beach. And
then from that big set of behaviors you pick among them.
You don't do all of them, but you pick the
best ones that I call it golden behaviors. And the
best ones have these criteria. Number One, it will be
effective at helping you achieve your outcome, so in this case,
(10:37):
effective in reducing your stress. Number two, it's something you
want to do. Number three, it's something that you can do.
So of all the options that you've come up with,
you pick the ones that are strongest on those three criteria,
and those are the best habits for you. Those are
the golden behaviors, and those are what you start putting
into practice. So you're not guessing. You're going through assist somatic,
(11:01):
getting clear, exploring options, and then selecting the best from
those options.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
And how how I want to know in your own
life does this work? Like every week are you sitting
down at the start of the week going hmm, what
is it?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
What is a new habit that I'm going to form
this week?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Like, what does it look like? For you the kind
of the guru on habit formation.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, well, because I've been practicing this for since twenty
ten at least, because I've taught over forty thousand people personally,
you know, two hundred three hundred people a week since then.
It is pretty simple to do. You know. It does
really feel like just getting the car and go someplace,
no big deal. So I don't wait for a moment,
and you know, like Sunday, Sunday is the natural day
(11:45):
to plan. It's like in any given moments like oh
my gosh, I need to, you know, stretch this part
of my body. Creat I'll create a habit to stretch
this part of my body, and I just create it
and figure out where it fits. Now there's twists and turnstills.
It's an iterative process. What you do at the beginning
may not be exactly right. Like let's say I wanted
to stretch my shoulders and I say, okay, every morning
(12:08):
is the coffee's brewing, I'm going to stand right here
and stretch my shoulders. It sounds like a reasonable place.
But I may find that's not where it fits very well,
so I find a different place to put it. So
it is a design process. But I don't beat myself
up or say wow, that was terrible. You just say, oh,
I learned it doesn't fit in that part of my
day list, Let me try something else. So I just
create them on demand. There are times when I step
(12:30):
back and look at my life more broadly and go, wow,
is what's an area of my life that I want
to strengthen. And I'll just be honest right here, right now,
the area is close friendships. Doing a book like Tiny Habits,
which took well, it brings together twenty years of research,
but the last two years of really intensive work to
(12:53):
make it so simple and easy to read, and you know,
making something simple and approachable is frankly hard. And in
the process of working so hard to make it easy
for people, honestly, I wasn't able to keep some of
my close friendships nurtured. I didn't go to parties, I
didn't respond to things, I didn't send birthday cards. There's
(13:15):
so many things that dropped. And so now I would
sit down and I've done this, It's like, Okay, nurture
my closest friendships, that's the aspiration. What are the different
ways I could do it? So I come up with
twenty or thirty different ways, and then I choose among
them what I think would be most impactful. And one
(13:36):
of the things is identify specifically with friendships. So that's
a one time behavior, like, Okay, here are the six
friends who I want to strengthen my relationship with. That's
a one time behavior. Then there's habits that also come
out of that. Well, I will text Mitch every Monday morning.
I will include my mom on this list. I'll call
my mom when I've headed for surfing most days, but
(14:00):
not my mom than my dad, and so on. And
so you can go from this abstract thing, the sense
of nagging sense of wow, my friendships have really weakened
to very specific concrete actions you can take, whether one
time actions or habits that you do. And that's a
process you can flow through and it ends up being
(14:22):
really efficient and it feels well, kind of amazing because
it's nothing's really out of reach. Yeah, follow the system.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I really like that idea of applying the strategies in
your book to friendship. I feel like that is not
an obvious connection. I think when most people think about
forming new habits, it's often around kind of themselves around
healthy behaviors, maybe around work.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
So I do like that. I do want to ask.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
About your work and productivity habits, because your book definitely
covers a lot around personal habits and health habits. But
I want to know, like if someone was a fly
on the wall in your office at Stanford, for example,
what are some of the behaviors that they would see
that have become automatic for you.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I'll give you the negative things they might see, and
then the positive.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
The negative is I have a lot going on. I
have many balls in the are too many, and that's
just you know. I mean, I really want to have
a big positive impact, and I'm an optimist, and so
I say yes or I dive into things when it
probably should either delay them or just say no. I
(15:45):
am good at saying no, but not good enough. So
that would probably be the first thing that says, like, man,
digit you're doing a lot, and a lot of what
you do is you don't get paid for it and
you don't have to do it. They would see that
I'm a very casual person. They would say, I set
up my work environment to be efficient, so now we're
getting the more positive things. They would see that I
(16:06):
prioritize throughout my day. That I have this way of prioritizing.
It involves these little stickers. I have stickers everywhere, these
these tiny little stickers that for each task, I write
it down and they're color coded, like yellow is a
typical task, Pink means I have to do this today.
Blue means it's a five minute task. I can just
(16:26):
knock it off, and then there's a two to Then
for each project to have a card, it's five to
a eight card. And I put the stickers on and
I sort them in a way so not only are
they color coded, but there's a two dimensional sorting that
I do. And I explain this some in tiny habits.
I call it focus mapping. So even though I have
(16:48):
probably three hundred stickers with tasks on them, I don't
have to do all three hundred. There's a way I
can prioritize and know which ones to focus on and
which ones I can ignore. I do that in the morning,
I do that maybe later in the morning. I do
it after lunch, and I do it at the end
of the day. So sometimes, frankly, it hurts to prioritize
(17:11):
and see something that you thought you really wanted to do,
and that's what I can't do this today.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
I want to do more into this system. This is
sounding fascinating.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I'm imagining this very colorful office with three hundred stickers
or post it notes or color coded How did.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
You start this system? What led to this?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
This is evolve over probably twenty years. So I grew
up in a culture. I grew up in a Mormon
family in California, and Mormons include the Romneys, the Marriotts,
and Stephen Covey. Okay, you get the victure. This culture
is about productivity. In Utah where the Mormons settled, the
(17:53):
on the crest is like a bee hive. It's like
be busy, you know. And so think Steve cub Et cetera.
In fact, I used to be a ghostwriter for his
newsletter when I was holling, and so there is a
lot in that culture about being productive and contributing and
serving others and so on. And so since I was
a kid, I mean, this is just how you're raised.
(18:15):
But then I started developing my own system of capturing
the tasks and prioritizing them and showing the contingencies and whatnot.
It's evolved and now that it has settled to. I
have these five y eight cards. They're basically index cards
with tabs with they're thick, and then for each project,
(18:37):
each project gets a card, and then I use these
stickers that are about one inch by one and a
half inch little stickers that you can write on with
the right kind of pen's and so it's not like
it's all over the walls. There was a time when
it was all over the walls and it drove me crazy,
and then I had to develop these curtains that I
(18:59):
put over this so I didn't have to see all
three hundred Now, you know, I keep iterating, but now
the method and I really do like it. Five by
eight it's about the right size for a project. I
can fit about twelve stickers on each card, and so
then there's just stacks of cards and I get out
the relevant, the high priority cards for that day, and
(19:19):
I order those cards, and then within the top priority cards,
then I reorder the tasks. So there's this prioritized, prioritized,
prioritize thing that I do. So I feel confident, pretty
confident that I'm spending my time on the most important things,
and I'm not too distressed by all of the stickers
(19:39):
on all the cards I'm not seeing, And how does.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Your prioritization process work, you know, because obviously, I mean
you talked about Stephen Covey, who talks about you know,
important versus urgent, and it's easy to get stuck in,
you know, lured in by the urgent tasks, like what's
your process for prioritizing.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
And make sure you are focusing on what matters on that.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
It actually goes in two phases, so it's a little
bit different. One is to just sit down and go
what are my top three priorities today? Without looking at anything,
just what comes to mind? What are my top three priorities?
Write those down, put those on pink stickers. And then
the more system so that's more intuitive. Then I go
to the more systematic and I go through the cards,
(20:23):
flip the cards of my Yeah, this thing on my
Stanford Lab, this research piece I need to do, and
so I'll pull out the cards that are I think
going to be important for that day it's at the
other side, and then card by card I'll go through
and you know, I don't have to do all ten
things on my Stanford Lab research card. There's probably those two,
and I those end up in the upper right hand
(20:44):
corner because I'm prioritizing by impact and how easy they
are to do. And then I'll order those because sometimes
things need to be done sooner, Like if somebody's waiting
on me, like one of my students is waiting on
me in order to create a piece of the research,
there's stalled until I help them. So that usually goes
up the list, especially if it's super simple. So it's
(21:05):
so the first phase is intuitive, what are the top three?
The second phase is more systematic, and then what bubbles up?
Then I just start cranking it out. Now, there's also
a way I go through my email that influences it,
and it I'll summarize there anything that we all get
too much email, but anything that bubbles up, I translate
(21:26):
it to a yellow sticker and that becomes my to do.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
So you will make that email a physical yellow sticker. Essentially,
you'll write that yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
And people that work closely with me know that if
it doesn't end upon a sticker, it's not gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
That's awesome. And then do you then delete that email
or file it? Like what's happening? This is fascinating. I
love getting into the waves.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah, I just file it. I just archive it. At
that point, I used to file them very carefully, and
I just realized I never go back to, you know,
systematically look at it. So I just I do just
archive it.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Now.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
If it's an email that I can solve, you know,
just like getting things done. If it's something I can
do just really fast, I just do it and I
don't make the sticker. But if it takes any more
than or two minutes or so, then I do make
the sticker and either just stack it up and then
later prioritize it, or if it's something that happens that day,
I'll just go to the appropriate card and put it
there so it stands out.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
I want to come back to this idea of creating
a work environment that is one that you know that
drives productivity and efficiency, and I guess the card system
is part of that.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
And certainly when you talk about.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
In tiny habits around investing time in redesigning your environment
when you're trying to create a new habits. So I
want to know, like in some more detail, around the
office that you work in, what are some other things
that you've done to redesign your work environment.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Oh, I'm a little afraid to tell you the truth
because it's I want to share things that people people
can do, actually do, like practical, but I will share
the fact of the matter, and yeah, people can maybe
do a lot of this. So right now I'm in
our home in South Maui, and so I split my
(23:15):
time between Maui and California. So here in Maui, I'm
sitting at my work desk. It's a stand up desk,
but because I'm using this microphone, I have to sit
down because it doesn't go that tall. And so I
have a desk that is a stand up desk by Ergotron,
where I just flip a lever to put it up
and down. That's way better than electric because I can
just move it up and down in a second or two.
(23:37):
I have a screen arm that's bolted to the desk.
Right now, the screen has moved out of the way
so it's not bugging me in it's a huge screen.
But now I'm seeing out the window and I'm seeing
I have tons of natural light pouring in. I can
see the ocean. Probably during our chat, i'll see a
whale out there. I'm seeing palm tree, so physical light's
coming in right at me. It's coming in from the
(23:59):
left side of the room, right side of the room,
so it feels like I'm in nature. I would normally
have the windows open here, but because we're in the podcast,
I'm not, so as much as I can. It's light
and nature is my work environment. On my desk, I
have this mat. It's a grounding mat, an earthing mat.
This one's by Earth and Moon, and it's really designed
(24:21):
not to be put on a desk, but it fits
perfectly on my desk, and so this then grounds me
to the Earth. So it then runs to the electrical outlet,
which then is a ground so as all day long,
when my hands or arms are on the mat, I'm
essentially grounding. And I know some people may not believe
in that or whatever, but I do. I think it's
(24:42):
really important to be connected to the earth, and so
I feel like that helps make me productive. On my desk,
I have coffee, water, and the vitamins I haven't yet
taken some I have some I haven't and then I
have the cards. I have a table next where I
have some cards. I have the Sturgeent Projects right here.
(25:03):
And then I have a filing system with folders that
is behind a cabinet, so it doesn't bug me. So
in other words, height the things they don't need to
work on now, surround myself with light and nature and
make it really easy to be comfortable, I guess, And
I don't know that's Is that the kind of detail
(25:23):
you want?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah, I'm loving that details. That's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
And then because you've essentially got two officers that are
on opposite sides of the country, like are are there
I guess hacks or things that you've done to make
it easy to go between the offices, like for example,
I interviewed Dan Heath, who I'm sure you're aware of
his work, just a few days ago for the podcast
(25:47):
and talking about his new book Upstream and I'm not
sure if you've got your hands on a copy yet,
but all about how can we move more upstream when
we're solving problems as opposed to reacting, And he talked
about this example where he's got a home office and
then he'll also work and write from cafes a lot.
And he talked about this just this frustration where he
(26:08):
would only have the one power cord for his laptop,
and so there'd be all this kafaffle every time he
had to move from the cafe to the office. And
he had a stroke of genius and bought a second
power cord, which then eliminated the frustration. So essentially going
upstream to solve what was a bit of a frustrating problem.
So I'm wondering, like, there are things that you do
because I'm the same. I've got a home office, and
(26:29):
I feel like I've got three offices. I've got a
home office, I've got a real office with my coworkers,
and then I work from cafes a lot. So are
there things that you've developed to make that switching easier?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, yeah, And it is a process. And I think
it's a good question because I feel like I've settled
it for myself now. First of all, anything that is
digital that all lives in the cloud. There's no reason
I need any one device with me. There's no device
that's indispensable. I could lose any device and just go
to a different one and be fine. And surprisingly along
(26:59):
the way, surprisingly I got off the Mac email client.
So I'm a big mac Apple person, and I went
to Outlook.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Oh, my gosh, this is.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
A year ago, I know, right, Like who I would
have never guessed. I was going to Outlook, but the
Mac email client was so inefficient and frustrating me like
crazy that I started looking at all these third party
things and I thought, well, okay, maybe I'll try Outlook,
and it's like just right for me, and it works
so well across devices, so weirdly enough, which also shifted
my calendaring to Outlook, which I'm super happy to be
(27:32):
off some of Google's products, so that just even their watch,
their Apple Watch version of Outlook is for calendar, email,
and notes. It's like, who knew?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
So I'm not depending on any device. I can use
my phone, my iPad, not really, the watch is limited,
but still and when I travel, I don't travel with
a laptop anymore. I figured out in the last three
months and my most my most recent trip to Sydney
helped me affirm this. I was like, Okay, I'm going
to go and not bring the laptop and see what happens.
(28:05):
I can get by with an iPad. I can do
everything I need with an iPad and that's been very liberating.
I had no idea I can make that work, but
now I can, and so I don't even travel with laptop.
It's iPad and my phone. And then in each of
the offices I have, I have a bigger, more powerful computer,
(28:25):
but there's no transferring of anything. It's just like you
open it up and it's all there in the cloud,
or it downloads to your client from the cloud. So
everything's so that's worked for me really well. Another gloss
on this or high level is my dad coached me
very early on this principle, and he's an I surgeon,
and equipment and gear and quality really matters, of course
(28:49):
when you're doing eye surgery, and even young, even as
a college student, he said, look by the very best equipment.
Invest in the best equipment for what you do. Do
not skim. And so even as a student, I was
buying the best computer for my purposes with the memory
I needed. And he's right, you know, the saving of
the two hundred and five hundred one thousand bucks that
(29:13):
does not pay off. Get the best gear and then
use it and it pays off for and over. So
that's kind of two answers.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah, long one one short one. No, that's interesting. I
want to delve into a couple of those things. So
gear aside from the obvious gear of you know, iPad,
computer and so forth, what's what's some other gear that
has helped you, I guess, be more productive and run
your run your life more effectively.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Oh well, one one category is kind of fitness and
wellness gear. So right here by me, I have a
dumbbell sitting by my desk at my home office I
have in California. I have other kinds of stretching and
workout gear right there. So I'm not doing it now
(30:02):
because I need to be close to this good microphone.
But you know, during the day, I can stretch, I
can lift weights, I can do other things. So certainly
take care of your body and have that gear. When
I travel, I bring It's not the TRX branded suspension training.
I've hacked my own version that's lighter and a lot cheaper,
So I travel with you know, kind of suspension training
(30:24):
so I can get some some resistance training in wherever
I am. In terms of food, I would consider that
part of the overall package. You know, even when you travel,
especially when you travel, bring food that's on your game plan.
In terms of productivity, like actual tools I use timers
(30:46):
a lot. I have this little timer. Yeah, you could
use your watch, but there's another timer that goes by
various brands, but it's just basically like a kitchen timer,
a tiny one where I can set the timer for
things that I use. Timer a lot and tiny habits.
One of my methods is after I feel like I'm procrastinating,
I will set the timer and dive in. So I'll
(31:07):
set a timer for like seven minutes and dive in.
I always have these little stickers with me. Of course,
I have, you know, the index cards with me, and
the pen depends that I like. And then after that,
you know kind of obvious things like noise blocking bose
(31:27):
Head said when I need them, and I do wear
the glasses that block blue light when I travel and
at home. I don't think there's anything else that's surprising
in terms of gear but that I think would be it.
And then I'm using my iPad more and more. I'm
finding Here's what I'm surprised. Email and the iPad is
(31:51):
not as debilitating.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
I don't know the words.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
It's more fun. I'd hate to say fun. And you
do you think that is more fun to use email
on the iPad than on a laptop or does I
have no idea some more fun thanks for now.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
I want to know on the iPad because I'm kind
I'm quite struck that you're traveling without a laptop, and
for me is I would typically travel once or twice
a fortnite into state that that kind of blows my mind.
But I'm also very jealous about the idea of just
traveling with the iPad. So what, like, aside from the
obvious apps, like whether you're using iWork or you know,
Microsoft Office for you know, creating presentations or documents and
(32:33):
so forth, what other apps are you're using on the
iPad that you're finding allow the iPad to be this
great tool for traveling and working.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Yeah, well, Outlook, but I'm sure the email applely my
client would work as well. But Outlook plus Outlook Calendar
is great. I do use, but I did this a
few years ago. One Note surprisingly, you know, I think
that's what opened me to look at other Microsoft products.
One Note is really great and it of course goes
across the vice. With my lab and all my main projects,
(33:03):
we use Slack, so I know Slack is the go
to from my lab work and other projects like working
with tiny habits people. I use space camp and what
else for productivity. Oh, for presentations, I try to use keynote.
Some people insist on getting PowerPoint but keynote and storing
(33:23):
it to the cloud, which I was so resistant to do.
I don't know why. And then I had well to
make the iPad work. I had to do that, and
then I discovered this is kind of awesome doing keynote
and having it be in the cloud. It worked way
better than I expected. So that's kind of the lineup
for me.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah, cool, cool, I want it.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I want to switch gears now and move on to
the topic of education, because you spend a lot of
your time teaching, whether that be face to face teaching
with your students in California or the online course that
you do in Habit Change, and I want to tackle
face to face teaching first because I mean, one of
the big challenges about teaching anyone anything is actually making
(34:08):
that knowledge stick and be used, which is obviously your
area of expertise. It's about creating habits out of what
you teach. So I'm curious as to how have you
applied your strategies in the face to face teaching environment.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
So what you teach actually sticks well so much.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Today, for example, I taught five hundred people in US
free online course about my book. So people have enrolled,
you know, if they bought my book by certain data.
I invited them to go chapter by chapter with me
and guess what and figure out what topics I wanted
to cover. I wrote them on stickers. I prioritized the stickers.
I created the curriculum, and that so designing the teaching
(34:54):
experience carefully, like what are we going to cover and
what order? What are the examples? And like I love
having fun. I love love love having fun. So make
it like a game show or bring in stupid process
Like today I played my recorder. It's an instrument most
people hate, but I play it and use it as
an example just to maybe shock people or torture them,
(35:16):
I don't know, just because they don't expect it. They
don't expect me to pull out stuffed animals and use
them as examples. And then I try to make it.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
I really.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
You try to craft the flow of the experience and
the learning and the ideas in a way that makes sense.
But also what you're doing I think as a teacher
is you are empathizing with the learner, and you're feeling
what it feels like to have that happen moment by moment.
So I think empathy for that the audience member or
(35:50):
the student or the listener is the best, the most
important skill you have in designing content, because you're feeling
and even writing the book tiny habits, it's okay, this,
then this, Oh this is going too much, Let's cut that.
Here's this example. Oh, they're gonna have a question about this,
Let's answer this. So it's putting yourself in their position
(36:14):
and delivering to them what they need and what will
excite them. And so it's so you're feeling, I don't
know how so I'm a scientist, and it's going to
sound all woo woo. It's it's it's empathizing with their
experience and imagining like you're them as you're creating it,
and then as you're going along, and the advantage of
(36:35):
face to face and I love zoom too, I use
zoom all the time. Add that to the list is
as you're teaching it, you're sensing from the people listening
how you're doing. Now in this case me talking to you.
It's hard because I can't read how you're responding, and
I certainly can't read how the listeners are responding to
(36:56):
this later, and that makes it harder to be effective
because as I teach, I don't. I almost I never
teach from slides, and when I keynote sometimes they do.
But even when you have slides and you have a
fixed structure, you adjust according to the audience feedback. You adjust,
you adjust, you adjust. It's an interaction with the audience,
(37:18):
and especially when I'm teaching. Yeah, I have a plan,
but if I'm sensing they want more depth there, I
see puzzit looks there, or I need to go faster,
you adjust, you adjust, you It's like a it's like
an improv. You're doing back and forth with the audience.
But you need I at least I flatter myself to
(37:42):
think that I can put myself in their position and
feel like, what what is this going to feel like
on the other side. But then as you do it,
you also adjust.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
And then when you're thinking about let's say homework assignments
or you know, out of class assignments. Again, how do
you think about designing that you know what that it
actually gets done? Because I guess you know in the classroom, obviously,
you know, people can tune out and get on Facebook,
but I would imagine you're very engaging teacher, so they're
(38:10):
not going to do that.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
But it is hard to get people.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
To, you know, do what you want them to when
you're not standing there in front of them. So like,
what are some tricks or hacks that you're using to
get them doing that?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
A few ways? Well, first of all, in the classroom,
there's no technology allowed. No laptops out, sorry, no phone. Really,
we have to take notes, take it with a pen
and a paper, okay, yeah, yeah, And if you don't
like it, drop my class. And I say that in
a nice way, but I mean it actually and so
and we all sit around one big table, so it's
(38:43):
not like we're in bros. We're in a everyone can
see everybody else. And so I limit my class size.
So people apply to my class, and then I select
who I think would benefit the most. So first while
I select who I want next, the homework never never
is busy work. It's all going to be valuable and
I have one hundred percent expectation they're going to do
(39:04):
it one hundred percent. So my situation is not like
a lot of teachers where you're bagging people to do
homework and whatever. So Stanford students they'll they'll do it
if they feel it's valuable, they'll do it.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Any other things that you're applying that I guess might
surprise people, or that any kind of educators listening might
go ooh, I'm I'm going to steal that with pride.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
That is a great way to get better outcomes in education.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Oh my gosh, I there's probably a lot. I mean,
I'm given the background I grew up in. Of course,
you start teaching early and you know Sunday school all that,
So I always try to get better at how I teach,
both at Stanford and also industry. I mean the boot
camp I do. I do a two day boot camp
where I train people in behavior to sign And these
(39:54):
are people from big companies, healthcare systems, big financial organismsations,
all the way down to startups, and I'm teaching them
how do you apply behavior designed to create these amazing
products and services. And for years, probably five years ago,
my partner and I sat down and said, Okay, what
we're doing with this is we're going to create the
best professional training program in the world. And we're going
(40:19):
to assess it at every boot camp we do, and
we're going to ask them, is this the best anonymous question?
Is this the best training you've ever had in your life?
And professional training? Yes? Or now? Ninety five percent plus
of the people say yes, and it's anonymous, so they
don't have to say yes. So it's not just Stanford,
it's outside. How do you really create the most impactful training?
(40:42):
And part of it is being flexible and always learning
and always adjusting. And part of it is, I want
to say, it's being vulnerable. It's it's trusting the students
or you know, giving people hard projects, letting them work
on it, letting them get from to come back, explore
(41:02):
that with them, or have them watch you. As Stanford
really pushes on this, they want the students to watch
you struggle with the problem in real time. So do
something you're not sure, tackle a problem that you're not
sure you're going to be able to solve, and have
the students watch you or join you. And that's a
(41:22):
bit of a leap, because at least it was for me,
because it's like, oh my gosh, what if I look
bad to my students? Well, what I found was. They
love it and they respect you for taking on something
where it's like, Okay, I don't know where this will go,
but here's I'm going to dive in, and you just
watch me do it, or do it with me. The
other thing that I do this is more at stamp
(41:43):
and in the boot camps that I do. I customize
what I'm teaching to the group's coming. And actually it's
not hour by hour, but even more frequently I'm changing
the flow of what I'm doing so I have a
two day experience I've already created, but depending on their questions,
(42:03):
I'm adjusting, adjusting, adjusting, so it never goes exactly as
I plan, because hopefully it goes better because I'm adapting
very quickly. Now at Stanford, I will take risks even
the whole class. First day of class is like, welcome
to class. Nobody's ever done this before. Like coming up
in early first week of April. I'll be in mind.
(42:24):
Every year I teach a new class, it always has
to do with behavior, change it some way, But first class,
I'll say hi, welcome. As you know, this class is
all about designing a curriculum for climate change professionals. In
ten weeks from now, we will have a curriculum posted
online that anybody in the world, any professional and climate
change can access so they can understand how to change behavior.
(42:44):
Nobody's ever done this before. I've never done this before.
I've run some pilots. We could totally fail, but we're
going to try, and so welcome to the journey. Welcome.
We're going to work figure this out together. And they
love it. I mean, it's true the class could totally fail,
but the fact that we're blazing new trails and it's
(43:07):
a big thing. So every year I pick something big
and important and we're going to dive in and figure
it out. We got ten weeks that I love it,
and the students can see how much I love it,
and so I think that energizes them as well.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
I love that example.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
I love that idea of being vulnerable, and I didn't
realize that was a thing that Stanford really emphasized with educators.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
That is very cool. I'm now of thinking in my head,
how can I apply that to my own work.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Well, it's I think even in business settings and even
in settings with friends, what it boils down to is
be authentic, be the real. You don't pretend like oh
I have everything figured out or whatever. Just you know,
be totally authentic what you really know for sure, Like
all the research I've done on habits and tiny habits,
(43:59):
I know that for sure. You know, bam, I know this.
But then I'll get questions I don't know, like oh,
what's the best financial habit? It's like, well, I haven't
studied that, but here's how I would think about it.
So what it frees? So the takeaway is just be you, authentic,
worts and all. But what it does, what I learned
and did for me, is it reduced stress. I don't
(44:22):
have to be anybody magical in the classroom or in
my boot camp. I just be me. Just be me,
and that's easy to be me, and that's what works apparently,
And so that's the takeaway, just be you, be authentic.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
That's fantastic. That is such a lovely note to end on.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
And I do have one final question, which is if
people want to participate in your online course, your boot camps,
get tiny habits find out more about you, what should
they do next?
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Two online resources bjfog dot com is the broad umbrella
about my work. Tinyhabits dot com is specif about Tiny Habits,
and yeah, I would encourage people to connect with my
book in some way, whether it's at your library or
buy it or what have you, because I put a
whole bunch of new stuff that I've not shared in
(45:12):
other ways in the book, so that's really important. There
is a way to schedule a phone call with me
at bjfog dot com. I've done like four thousand of these.
It's free, there's no hidden motive, so if you need
it's not for personal coaching, but if you're working on
a product or service, or if you're an academic or
a student, then you want my input. There's ways to
find me and book time with me, and I do
(45:34):
that every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And there's a whole bunch
of other little videos and stuff, but those are the
main things.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
That's awesome, and look, I would strongly recommend people go
out and get Tiny Habits. I've read a lot of
books on habit change, and I just I love what
you've written. I must say before reading it, I'm like, well,
what new things can this teach me? I'm a psychologist,
I've read so much about this, but I must say
it really opened up my eyes to quite a lot
(46:02):
of new ways of thinking about habit changed. So I
just thought it was absolutely brilliant and I need to
let you go, Bejay. This time has flown. It's just
been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. So thank you
so much.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
That is it for today's show.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
If you enjoyed it, why not share this episode with
someone else that you.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Think would get a lot out of it.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
And if you're feeling like you've got to spare ten
seconds in the day, why not mosey on over to
Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts from and
leave a review. You might want to leave a star
rating or perhaps write some words. I personally love getting
feedback on the show, So a big thank you if
you have done that or planned to do that today.
So that's it for today and I'll see you next time.
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