🥞 So, What’s Habit Stacking?

Hey there! Welcome back to The Flow by Flocus. If you’re new around here, welcome! 👋 You can catch up on any of our previous editions right here.

For this week’s edition: We're diving into habit stacking, and how you can use it to make your routine more efficient and purposeful as we head into the back-to-routine season.

Let’s waste no time:

🥞 What’s Habit Stacking?

Habit stacking is fusing new habits into your established routine by placing them before, between, or after your current habits.

Instead of starting from scratch, this lets you leverage your existing behaviors and momentum to effortlessly integrate something new and valuable into your day.

🧠 Why it Works

Our brains thrive on predictability. Habits minimize decision fatigue. Less decision-making equals less mental exhaustion, freeing up energy for more meaningful tasks.

🪜 The Habit Stacking Blueprint

1. Identify Your Anchor: Your anchor is that one activity you're already doing daily. It could be brewing coffee, checking emails, or anything else that's a part of your routine.

2. Add the New Link: Slip your new habit into the chain, either before or after the anchor. Make sure it adds value to your existing routine.

3. Visualize the Stack: Draw it, list it, put it in your calendar. Making it tangible is half the battle.

Here’s the template

Examples

• Before making coffee, I will stretch for 5 minutes.

• After clearing my inbox each morning, I will jot down 3 things I'm grateful for.

• Between brushing my teeth and hopping into the shower, I will do 10 push-ups.

🥞 Start-to-Finish Example

Let’s say you want to start exercising in the morning.

Here’s how a habit stacking approach would look:

⚓ Identify Your Anchor

You're a coffee lover and can’t start your day without the ritual of making it. You’ve got your favorite beans, the brewing process, and even milk frothing down to a T. This is your anchor.

⛓️ Add the New Link

Now, let's integrate our new habit: morning exercise.

The key is to make it complementary. Since you're already up and have kickstarted your senses with caffeine, it's a good time to get physical. But it doesn't have to be an hour at the gym right away. Try starting small with a 15-minute home workout, or a walk around your neighborhood.

The idea is to build on the energy and alertness your coffee gives you.

💪 Visualize the Stack

Write your sequence down, or draw it out in a way that makes sense to you.

Your new morning routine and visualized stack might look like:

1. Prep Coffee: Your senses are waking up.

2. Brew: While your coffee is brewing, you're gathering your exercise clothes.

3. Sip & Enjoy: Sip it slow, savor the moment, and let the caffeine soak in.

4. Break a Sweat: Your endorphins kick in, making you feel even more awake and ready for the day and your exercise.

Visualizing this stack makes it tangible. You see how each action flows into the next, creating a seamless transition from one beneficial habit to the other.

Over time, you can always evolve your stack — maybe you extend your workout time, or even add in some meditation after.

🕳️ Common Pitfalls

As you’re building your stacks, here are a couple things to watch out for:

🧮 Overstacking

Adding too many new habits can lead to overwhelm and ultimately, failure. Keep it simple and think "manageable" over "monumental.”

Only introduce one habit at a time when building your stack, and wait till your ‘new’ habit becomes a permanent habit until you move onto the next. This usually takes 2-3 weeks.

🧩 Incompatible Stacks

Make sure the new habit naturally follows or complements the anchoring habit. If the two don’t fit together, your new habit won’t stick.

What makes habit stacking so powerful is its simplicity. You're already doing the first habit — so why not piggyback a second onto it?

Done right, stacking turns a random assortment of habits into a dialed routine, turning your average day into a seamless flow of wins.

Here’s to stacking your way to better days 💪

Until next Sunday,
Flocus Team