Concept
Friction
Friction is every step, delay or effort that sits between you and a behaviour, and it decides what you actually do far more reliably than what you intend to do.
Wendy Wood's research at the University of Southern California, summarised in Good Habits, Bad Habits, found that around forty-three percent of daily actions are performed out of habit in a stable context, without a decision. That makes the context the real lever. Every obstacle between you and a behaviour, a drawer to open, a room to cross, an app to find, is friction, and small amounts of it change behaviour dramatically because habits run on the path of least resistance. What people get wrong is fighting the environment with willpower. The people who look disciplined have mostly arranged their surroundings so the good behaviour is the easy one and the bad behaviour takes effort.
A real-life example
Cem wants to read in the evenings and stop scrolling. He moves the phone charger to the hallway and leaves the book on his pillow. Nothing else changes. Within a week the book gets opened most nights, because reaching the phone now means getting up while the book is already in his hand.
How to use it
- 1Remove one step between you and the habit you want: lay out the gear, open the document, put the book where you sit.
- 2Add two steps to the habit you want less of: another room, a drawer, a logged-out app.
- 3Judge your setup by what happens on a tired evening, not on a motivated morning.