Habit stacking: when your mental load is maxed out

Busy seasons of life can feel like the hardest time to make changes to our routines or improve our health.

Becoming a new parent, changing careers, starting a new job or experiencing another big life event can make creating new habits seem almost impossible. At the same time, these are often the periods when feeling our best and looking after ourselves is most needed.

When your days already feel full, adding a new workout routine, meditation practice, or morning ritual can quickly become another thing on the to-do list.

This is where the magic of habit stacking can come in really handy.

What is habit stacking?

Put simply, habit stacking is adding a new habit on top of a well-established habit in your daily routine. Instead of trying to create an entirely new routine from scratch, you use something you already do consistently as the prompt for your new habit.

The key is that your anchor habit, the established habit, must be something you do consistently without really thinking about it. Brushing your teeth, making your morning coffee, putting the baby down for their first nap or getting into bed at night are all good examples.

These habits are already embedded into your daily life, which makes them a useful foundation for introducing something new.

Weaving new actions into your life in this way removes some of the mental burden of having to remember yet another thing on your already overspilling to-do list.

Rather than thinking, “I need to remember to drink more water today,” your existing routine becomes the reminder. For example, every time you make a coffee, you drink a glass of water first.

It also means you don’t necessarily have to create lots of extra time in your schedule, as the habit should slot naturally into something you’re already doing. Which is a big win if you’re extra busy.

Over time, repeating the two behaviours together can help the new habit feel more automatic too.

A few tips if you want to give habit stacking a try

Choose habits that naturally work together

Your anchor habit and your new habit should be complementary. What I mean by this is, don’t use brushing your teeth before bed as your reminder to do a 45-minute home workout.

Think about habits that can happen in the same space or naturally follow one another.

Your morning coffee could become a reminder for a short gratitude practice. You could add some gentle stretching to your bedtime routine, use bathroom breaks as a prompt to hydrate, or take a few deep breaths before opening your laptop in the morning.

Make it as easy as possible

Remove anything that might cause resistance and set up what you need ahead of time.

For example, if you want to journal as part of your bedtime routine, leave your journal and pen by your bedside and put your phone on 'Do Not Disturb' so you’re not tempted into a pre-bedtime scroll.

If you want to go for a walk after lunch, leave your trainers somewhere visible rather than hidden at the back of a cupboard.

The easier you can make the action, the more likely you are to follow through.

Leave yourself reminders

Even though habit stacking makes it more likely you’ll remember your new habit, there’s still an element of conscious effort at the beginning.

Leaving yourself reminders increases the likelihood of following through and means less information needs to be stored in your mind.

Some people like calendar reminders or Post-it notes. It could also be something as simple as leaving your running trainers at the foot of your bed to remind you to get outside in the morning.

As always, start small

This is one of those slightly annoying pieces of advice, but it’s at the core of all of my coaching programmes for a reason.

Our vision and ambition can be as big and lofty as we like, but the consistent actions that move us towards them should be small and achievable.

If your ultimate goal is to meditate for 20 minutes every morning, perhaps your first habit stack is simply taking three slow breaths while your coffee brews.

You can always build from there.

We often underestimate what small actions can achieve when we repeat them consistently. You don’t need to overhaul your entire routine overnight to start feeling better.

Especially during busy seasons of life, finding small ways to weave wellbeing into the life you already have can be far more realistic than waiting for life to become less busy.

Give it a go. You’ve got this!

If you’re in a busy season of life and struggling to fit wellness into your schedule, coaching can help you take a pause and break things down into manageable steps that feel achievable rather than overwhelming.