Reset the Room

Affirmation: I am grateful for my body, mind and soul. God made me.

Excerpt from Atomic Habits by James Clear

Oswald Nuckols is an IT developer from Mississippi. Nuckols dialed in his cleaning habits by following the strategy he refers to as “resetting the room”. For instance, when he finishes watching television, he places the remote back on the TV stand, arranges the pillows on the couch, and folds the blanket. When he leaves his car, he throws any trash away. Whenever he takes a shower, he wipes down the toilet while the shower is warming up. As he note, “the perfect time to clean the toilet is right before you wash yourself in the shower anyway”. 

The purpose of resetting each room is not simply to clean up after the last action,  but to prepare for the next action. “When I walk into a room everything is in its place,” Nuckols wrote. “Because I do this every day in every room, stuff always stays in good shape…People think I work hard but I’m actually really lazy. I’m just proactively lazy. It gives you so much time back.”

Whenever you organize a space for its intended purpose, you are priming it to make the next action easy. For instance, my wife keeps a box of greeting cards that are pre-sorted by occasion birthday, sympathy, wedding, graduation, and more. Whenever necessary, she grabs up the appropriate card and sends it off. She’s incredibly good at remembering to send cards because she has reduced the friction of doing so. For years, l would think “I should send a card”. But then weeks would pass by and by the time I remember to pick one up at the store it was too late. The habit wasn’t easy.

There are many ways to prime your environment so it’s ready for immediate use. If you want to cook a healthy breakfast, place the skillet on the stove, set the cooking spray on the counter, and lay out any plates and utensils you’ll need the night before. When you wake up, make him breakfast will be easy.

• Want to draw more? Put your pencils, pens, notebooks, and drawing tools on the top of your desk within easy reach.
  
• Want to exercise? Set out your workout clothes, shoes, gym bag, and water bottle ahead of time.
  
• Want to improve your diet? Chop up a ton of fruits and vegetables on WIC cans and pack them in containers, so you have easy access to healthy, ready to eat options during the week.
  

These are simple ways to make the good habits the path of least resistance. If you want to lose a habit create resistance…less TV? Hide the remote or unplug the TV. Less phone interruptions? Leave your phone in another room. 

Prime your environment to make future actions easy.