The resistance knob
As humans we naturally tend to follow the path of least resistance. The opposite is also true, naturally we hesitate to follow the path where there is more resistance. Whenever I want to lose bad habits or increase the frequency of good habits, I use an imaginary knob called "resistance knob" to fine tune my behaviour.
This imaginary knob either increases or decreases the resistance towards doing an action.
Like everyone I have a list of desired and undesired outcomes I want in my life. My actions decides the outcomes and resistance knob alters the resistance towards those actions.
Below are some of my actions that results in desired and undesired outcomes.
Focussed activities that gets me into the flow gets me desired outcomes, other shallow dopamine pleasures like social media, watching TV gets me undesired outcomes. I increase resistance for undesired outcomes, no TV in the room, use freedom app to block online distractions for 8-10 hours a day.
For focussed activities like reading and writing I decrease the resistance knob, say for reading, I always carry a book with me, current book I am reading will be on my work desk, night table and in flight while travelling, something that is always accessible to me.
Working out gives me desired outcomes, procrastination and lazing around gives me undesired outcomes. I reduce the resistance picking a gym that's less than 5 minutes away from my place (currently 1 minute away). I wear my workout clothes before my last meeting or last stretch of work for the day so that naturally the next step is to go to gym.
Eating healthy results in desired outcomes, eating unhealthy results in undesired outcomes. I increase the resistance by not storing junk food at home or near night table, if I want to have a cheat meal, I will eat outside, home is where I spend most of my time, so I do healthy habits more here.
I apply this for my team too. I run a remote team, the most important habit as part of remote culture is proactive writing, documentation and communication. Here I set the resistance knob to minimum by having simple chat channels instead of 15 different channels, so that people don't have to think before posting things right away, ask questions then and there.
The documentation methods we use is write first and structure later. The tools we use are simple, you don't have to think before acting. This enables faster habit formation as one doesn't have to think too much to act, when you make people think, you add resistance. In a busy schedule they put that action off for later though that action is important.
Fine tuning the resistance knob and hacking the environment is part of putting deliberate effort to keep seeing the desired outcomes and slowly moving away from undesired outcomes in life. Next time you want to double down or get rid of some behaviour, don't forget the resistance knob.