Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything(39)

I call this type of habit a Meanwhile Habit.

As I wait for warm water to emerge, I think of one thing about my body that I’m grateful for. I search for something new to appreciate every day, from the flexibility in my shoulders to my body’s ability to heal a scratch.

We all have these tiny pockets of time: after we stop for a red light, after we get in line at the grocery store, after we start watering the plants on the porch. We have a choice. We could use these moments to be annoyed or distracted, or we could use these waiting periods as Anchors for new habits.

These new habits will start tiny and stay tiny—I have twenty seconds to wait for warm water. But don’t underestimate the power of Meanwhile Habits. A tiny behavior done consistently can made a big difference. As you find a new way to appreciate your body each day, you’ll likely be more motivated to take better care of the magnificent creation that is your physical self.

While most Meanwhile Habits will stay tiny, you may find bigger time pockets for habits you want to grow. Brittany, a working mom with five kids, always seemed to have ten or more books stacked by her bedside. Seeing this pile get bigger and bigger created stress. A certified Tiny Habits coach, she had designed a solid reading habit at night; however, this wasn’t enough for all she wanted to learn. Brittany looked for a spot where audiobooks would fit naturally into her life. After some exploration, she created a Meanwhile Habit with this recipe: “After I buckle my seatbelt, I will push ‘play’ on my audiobook.” So now, while she commutes to work, she listens to books. Lots of them. Thanks to her Meanwhile Habit, Brittany gets through at least five books a month, and the reading stack by her bed is no longer a source of stress.





The Best Prompts for Your Customers


Whether you are creating an app or asking people to donate or helping people take magnesium supplements, a well-designed prompt is vital for most businesses. In fact, it’s difficult to think of any product or service that doesn’t rely on getting customers to take action. No prompt means no action. To succeed with your product or service, you need to figure out what will prompt your customer at the right moment.

In today’s world of apps, e-mail, and social media, we are bombarded with Context Prompts from businesses. In addition, we still get postal mail and phone calls that are designed to prompt us. That’s not news to you. But I am going to make a prediction right now that will be news to many people. I predict that Context Prompts will be less and less effective over time. Businesses will pay more to get in front of their customers, but they will get a lot less in return. Why? In the future, Context Prompts won’t reach customers at the right moment, or they will be filtered out and not noticed. And if Context Prompts do reach people, they will increasingly be able to skip them, much like we fast-forwarded through commercials on TiVo. (What’s TiVo? my students wonder.)

For your business to succeed, I predict that you will need to find a better way to prompt your customer since Context Prompts are losing their effectiveness. The good news is that there are Action Prompts. Businesses rarely employ Action Prompts today, but I believe they will be the gold standard in the future. Many products and services will succeed by helping customers create Action Prompts. Here’s how it might work.

Let’s suppose your organization needs patients to measure their blood pressure once a day. In the past, you relied on Person Prompts—having the patients remind themselves to do this every day—and you found that this didn’t work very well. So you started using Context Prompts: You sent text messages, your app popped up a red reminder, or you had nurses call patients at home. But these prompts worked less well over time because your patients were bombarded with too many competing prompts. Instead of ramping up on Context Prompts, you turn to Action Prompts.

To discover good Action Prompts, start with a bit of research. Reach out to your two hundred best patients, those people who reliably measure and report their blood pressure. Ask them, “At what point in your daily routine do you typically take your blood pressure?”

Analyze their answers and look for trends. Let’s suppose that 26 percent of people say they measure their blood pressure after they sit down with coffee to read the morning newspaper. Another 21 percent report they measure right after feeding their pet. Then you find that 17 percent of patients take a measurement at the start of their favorite morning show on TV. But the remaining 36 percent of patients have a wide variety of answers with no clear trends.

You now have insights about what works with real people; you have data on what daily routines could serve as Anchors for the habit of measuring blood pressure. As you try to increase adherence, explain that many successful patients do this daily habit at one of three times.

Ask them, “Which one of these times would work best for you?”

In this way, you help your patients find where the new habit fits naturally in their lives.

This customizes the prompt for each person’s daily routine. You aren’t relying on patients to remember to check their blood pressure. You aren’t annoying them with notifications. And you aren’t hoping that they can figure this out on their own. You are using Behavior Design and the power of Action Prompts to help your patients to be successful.

The scenario above may sound strange to you today, but I predict that this will be commonplace and essential in the future. Businesses that help customers create habits will have a huge advantage over those that don’t.