Chapter 6: Designing the Rooms You Live In

Books in Boxes

Teresa is forty-four and works as a manager in a company that organizes events. She loves books. As a young woman, she read every evening and on every journey. But in recent years, she has hardly read at all. When she gets home in the evening, she ends up watching television or scrolling on her phone until bedtime. She keeps telling herself that she will start reading again, and every few months she buys a new book. The new books pile up, unread.

One weekend, Teresa decided to tidy her flat. As she moved from room to room, she noticed something she had never really seen before. In her living room, the largest object was the television, mounted on the wall opposite the sofa. The remote control sat on the arm of the sofa. Her phone charger was on the side table, within easy reach. Her books, meanwhile, were in boxes in a cupboard in the hallway, where she had put them two years ago when she redecorated. The new books she had bought were stacked on a shelf in the bedroom, behind a lamp.

Teresa sat on the sofa and looked around. She realized that her flat had been designed, without her ever meaning it, for watching television and using her phone. Everything she needed for those activities was visible, close and easy. Everything she needed for reading was hidden, distant and awkward. Every evening, she came home tired and sat on the sofa, and her flat quietly guided her toward the screen.

Teresa laughed. She had spent two years blaming herself for not reading, when her flat had been working against her the whole time. She decided to try an experiment. That afternoon, she took her favourite books out of the boxes and put them on a small bookshelf right next to the sofa. She placed the book she most wanted to read on the arm of the sofa, where the remote control used to be. She put the remote control in a drawer and moved her phone charger to the kitchen.

That evening, Teresa came home, sat on the sofa and, almost without thinking, picked up the book. She read for an hour. Teresa's discovery is one of the most practical ideas in the science of habits: our surroundings shape our behaviour far more than we usually realize, and changing our surroundings can change our habits with very little willpower.

How Surroundings Shape Behaviour

In the previous chapters, we saw that habits are triggered by cues in our environment, and that people with good self-control may arrange their lives to avoid temptation. This chapter takes these ideas further. It looks at how the design of our physical surroundings, our rooms, desks, kitchens, bags and screens, makes some behaviours easier and others harder, and how we can use this deliberately.

One important idea is friction. Friction, in this sense, means any small obstacle that makes a behaviour harder to do: an extra step, a short distance, a moment of effort, a decision. Even very small amounts of friction can sometimes have surprisingly large effects on what we do, especially when we are tired or acting automatically. Teresa's books in a hallway cupboard had a lot of friction: she had to get up, open the cupboard, open a box and choose a book. The remote control on the sofa had almost none.

The opposite of friction is ease. When a behaviour is easy, with few steps and little effort, we are much more likely to do it. When it is visible and close at hand, it acts as a cue, reminding us that it is possible. Teresa's book on the arm of the sofa was both easy and visible. It cued reading, and it removed the friction that had stood in the way.

A related idea is the power of defaults. A default is what happens if we do not make an active choice. Research in many areas has found that people tend to stick with default options, whatever they are. When a choice is set up so that one option happens automatically unless people actively choose another, many more people end up with that option. This effect is well established, and it has been studied in areas such as savings plans and other forms of enrolment. In our homes, defaults are everywhere: the channel the television starts on, the food that is already on the table, the route we take when we do not think about it.

Researchers have also studied how the placement and visibility of things affects what people choose. Studies in places such as workplaces and canteens have suggested that making certain foods more visible or easier to reach can change what people choose, and that making others less visible can reduce how often they are chosen. It must be said that the size of these effects varies a great deal between studies, and that some well-publicized studies in this area were later withdrawn because of problems with how they were done. But the general principle, that what is easy and visible tends to be chosen more often, is widely supported and fits everyday experience.

Making the Good Easy and the Unhelpful Hard

Putting these ideas together suggests a simple strategy for working with habits: make the behaviours you want easy, visible and close at hand, and make the behaviours you want to reduce harder, less visible and further away. This strategy works with the automatic system of the brain rather than against it. It does not require you to win battles in the moment. It changes the ground on which the battles are fought.

For a habit you want to build, ask: how can I reduce the steps? Can I prepare things in advance, so that starting takes no effort? Can I put what I need where I will see it at the right moment? Can I make this the default, so that it happens unless I choose otherwise? Teresa put her book on the sofa. Thabo, in Chapter 5, kept his gym bag in the car. These are small changes that remove friction from a good habit.

For a habit you want to reduce, ask the opposite questions: how can I add steps? Can I put the temptation out of sight, further away or behind a small barrier? Can I make the unhelpful behaviour require a deliberate choice rather than happening by default? Teresa put the remote in a drawer and her phone charger in the kitchen. Ollie's family, in Chapter 5, charged their phones outside the bedrooms. These changes added friction to unhelpful habits.

Friction can also be added in time rather than in space. Some people find it helpful to build in a short pause before an unhelpful habit: a rule that they wait five minutes before buying something online, or that they must stand up and walk to another room before opening a particular app. The pause is small, but it gives the deliberate system a chance to catch up with the automatic one. Often, after five minutes, the urge has passed. This is a form of friction that costs nothing and can be used almost anywhere.

The changes do not need to be large. Often, the smallest changes are the most effective, because they are easy to make and easy to keep. Moving an object a few metres, putting something in a drawer, changing what is on a table or rearranging a shelf can shift a habit noticeably. The goal is not to make unhelpful behaviours impossible, but to make the helpful ones slightly easier and the unhelpful ones slightly harder, so that the automatic system tips in the right direction.

This strategy has another advantage: it keeps working when we are tired, stressed or distracted. Willpower tends to fail at exactly those moments. A well-designed environment does not. Teresa's book on the sofa will be there on her most tiring evening, inviting her to read, while the remote in the drawer quietly asks for a little effort she may not feel like making.

Chinwe's Kitchen

Chinwe is fifty and works as a supervisor in a laundry that cleans uniforms for hospitals. After a check-up, her doctor encouraged her to eat more fruit and vegetables and to drink more water, and less of the sweet fizzy drinks she enjoyed. Chinwe agreed that this made sense, but she found it hard to change. When she was hungry or thirsty at home, she reached for whatever was easiest.

Chinwe walked around her kitchen and looked at it as if she were seeing it for the first time. The fizzy drinks were in the fridge door, at eye level, cold and ready. The fruit was in a bag at the bottom of a cupboard. Water came from the tap, which meant finding a glass and running the water until it was cold. Snacks were in a basket on the counter. Vegetables were in the drawer at the bottom of the fridge, where she often forgot about them until they went soft.

Chinwe decided to redesign her kitchen. She put a large bowl of fruit on the counter where the snack basket had been, and moved the snacks into a high cupboard. She filled a jug of water every morning and kept it in the fridge door, where the fizzy drinks had been. She moved the fizzy drinks to the back of a lower shelf. She washed and cut some vegetables on Sunday evenings and kept them in a clear container at the front of the fridge, where she would see them when she opened the door.

The effect was gradual but clear. When Chinwe came home hungry, the first thing she saw was the fruit bowl, and she often took a piece of fruit without thinking. When she opened the fridge for a drink, the water jug was in front of her. She still drank fizzy drinks sometimes, but less often, because reaching to the back of a shelf required a small extra decision. Over a few months, her eating and drinking habits shifted noticeably in the direction her doctor had suggested.

"I did not change my willpower," Chinwe says. "I changed my kitchen." Her story shows how a few simple changes in placement and visibility can shift everyday habits. It is worth adding that changes to diet related to health are best made with guidance from a doctor or another qualified professional, as Chinwe did, especially if you have any health condition.

Bram's Desk

Bram is twenty-nine and works from home three days a week as a software tester. On those days, he finds it very hard to concentrate. He works at the kitchen table, with his phone beside him, the television visible in the next room, dishes in the sink and a window looking out onto the street. He is constantly interrupted, by himself more than by anyone else: checking his phone, getting a snack, tidying the dishes, watching people outside.

Bram realized that his work environment was full of cues for things other than work, and full of friction for work itself. Every time he sat down, he had to set up his laptop, find his notebook and clear space on the table. Every distraction was within easy reach. So he redesigned his working space, within the limits of a small flat.

He turned a corner of his bedroom into a small work area, with a narrow desk facing a wall rather than a window. He kept his laptop, notebook and pens on the desk permanently, so that starting work required no setup. He put his phone in another room during work periods, using a simple timer instead of his phone to keep track of time. He kept a glass of water and a small snack on the desk, so that he did not need to go to the kitchen. And he used this desk only for work, never for leisure, so that it became linked with concentration.

Within a few weeks, Bram noticed a big difference. When he sat at the desk, his mind seemed to switch into work mode more easily. He was interrupted less often. He finished his tasks faster and felt less tired at the end of the day, because he was no longer fighting distractions constantly. "I thought I was bad at working from home," he says. "Actually, my kitchen table was terrible for working. My desk is good for it."

Bram's story connects with the idea of context from Chapter 2. By using a particular place only for work, he made it a strong cue for working. By removing distractions and setting up his materials in advance, he reduced friction for work and increased it for everything else. Many people who work or study at home find that even a small, dedicated space can help.

Bram also discovered the importance of ending the working day clearly. At first, he left his laptop open on the desk in the evening, and sometimes drifted back to check something. This blurred the line between work and rest, and his evenings became less relaxing. He began closing the laptop and placing a cloth over the desk at the end of each working day. It was a small, almost silly gesture, but it worked as a cue that work was over. His evenings became calmer, and his mornings at the desk felt fresher.

Pilar's House

Pilar is sixty-six and recently retired from her job as a librarian. Her doctor suggested that she do some gentle exercises each day to keep her joints flexible and her balance steady, and gave her a sheet of simple movements to follow. Pilar wanted to do them, but she kept forgetting, or finding reasons to put them off.

Pilar noticed that her exercise mat was rolled up in a wardrobe, and the sheet of exercises was in a drawer. To exercise, she had to remember, fetch the mat, unroll it, find the sheet and clear a space on the floor. By the time she had thought about all this, she often decided to do it later, and later never came.

Pilar's daughter helped her redesign the living room. They moved a small table to make a permanent space by the window, and left the exercise mat unrolled there. They stuck the sheet of exercises on the wall at eye level, next to the mat. They placed the mat where Pilar would walk past it every morning on her way to the kitchen. Now, exercising required no preparation at all. Pilar simply stepped onto the mat when she passed it.

The change worked. Pilar began doing her exercises most mornings, usually while the kettle was boiling, as Wanda did in Chapter 4. After a few weeks, it became part of her morning routine. Her daughter also helped her make some other changes to the house for safety, such as moving a loose rug that could cause falls and adding a light on the stairs, following advice from Pilar's doctor.

"When the mat was in the wardrobe, exercise was a project," Pilar says. "When it is on the floor, it is just something I do." Her story shows how removing friction can transform a behaviour from a project into a habit. For older people especially, changes to the home can support both helpful habits and safety, and it is wise to seek advice from a doctor or another qualified professional about what is suitable.

Practical Steps: Redesigning Your Surroundings

The first step is to walk through your surroundings with fresh eyes. Choose one place where an important habit happens: your living room, kitchen, desk, bedroom or bag. Look at it as if you were a visitor. What does this place make easy? What does it make hard? What is visible, and what is hidden?

The second step is to make good habits easy and visible. For a habit you want to build, put what you need where you will see it at the right moment, and remove as many steps as possible. Leave the book on the sofa, the mat on the floor, the water jug at the front of the fridge, the work materials on the desk.

The third step is to make unhelpful habits harder and less visible. For a habit you want to reduce, put the cues out of sight, further away or behind a small barrier. Put the remote in a drawer, the snacks in a high cupboard, the phone in another room. You do not need to make them impossible, only a little less easy.

The fourth step is to give places a single purpose where you can. Like Bram's desk, a place used for only one activity can become a strong cue for that activity. If you can, keep your bed for sleep, a particular chair for reading or a particular table for work. In small homes this is harder, but even small changes, such as a particular cushion or lamp, can help.

The fifth step is to change defaults. Look for the things that happen automatically in your home, and ask whether they serve you. What is the first thing you see when you come home? What is on the table at dinner? What is the first screen on your phone? Small changes to defaults can shift many small daily choices.

The sixth step is to make one change at a time, and notice its effect. Redesigning everything at once can be overwhelming. Choose one or two changes, try them for a couple of weeks and notice what happens. Then make another change. Small, steady adjustments tend to be more lasting than large overhauls.

Design Is Powerful, but Not Magic

It is important to be balanced about the power of environmental design. Changing our surroundings can have real effects on our habits, as the examples in this chapter show. But it is not magic. Some studies of such changes have found only small effects, and some well-known studies in this area were withdrawn after problems were discovered. People also differ: a change that helps one person may make little difference to another. The best approach is to experiment, notice what works for you and adjust.

It is also worth recognizing that not everyone has the same freedom to redesign their surroundings. A person living in a shared house, a small flat or a home they do not control may have limited options. A person whose workplace is designed by others may not be able to change it. Even so, there are usually some small changes that are possible: what is in your bag, what is on your phone's first screen, what you keep on a bedside table.

There is also an ethical side to this topic. Many products and services are deliberately designed to make certain behaviours, such as spending, scrolling or eating, as easy and tempting as possible. Being aware of this can help us notice when our surroundings are being designed by others for their purposes rather than ours, and can encourage us to redesign the parts we control for our own purposes.

Finally, design is most helpful when it is combined with the other ideas in this book. A well-placed book helps, but it helps more if reading is linked to a consistent cue, rewarded by enjoyment and given enough time to become automatic. A fruit bowl on the counter helps, but it helps more alongside a plan for what to eat when hungry. Surroundings are one powerful tool among several, and they work best together.

A Short Exercise: A Room Walk

This exercise helps you redesign one space to support a habit you want to build or change. It takes about thirty minutes.

Choose one habit and the space where it usually happens. Stand in the doorway of that space, or sit where you usually sit there, and look slowly around. On a page, make two lists. In the first, write everything you can see that makes the habit you want easier. In the second, write everything you can see that makes it harder, or that cues an unhelpful habit instead.

Then write down three changes you could make. At least one should make the good habit easier or more visible. At least one should make an unhelpful habit harder or less visible. Keep the changes small and practical: moving an object, putting something away, preparing something in advance, changing what is in your line of sight.

Make the three changes now, if you can. Then, over the following two weeks, notice what happens. Does the good habit happen more often? Does the unhelpful one happen less? Write a short note at the end of each week.

Finally, decide whether to keep, adjust or reverse each change. Then, if you wish, choose another space and another habit. Teresa did this exercise for her living room. Her first list had only one item: "the sofa, which is comfortable for reading". Her second list had six items, including "the television", "the remote", "the phone charger" and "no books anywhere". Her three changes were "books on a shelf by the sofa", "remote in a drawer" and "phone charger in the kitchen". Two weeks later, she had finished one book and started another.

Chapter Summary

Our physical surroundings shape our behaviour more than we usually realize. Friction, small obstacles such as extra steps or distance, makes behaviours less likely, while ease and visibility make them more likely. People tend to stick with defaults, an effect that is well established. Studies of placement and visibility in places such as canteens suggest that what is easy and visible tends to be chosen more often, although effects vary and some well-known studies in this area were withdrawn. The practical strategy is to make helpful behaviours easy, visible and close, and unhelpful ones a little harder and less visible.

Teresa and her books in boxes, Chinwe and her kitchen, Bram and his desk and Pilar and her exercise mat all found that small changes to their surroundings changed their habits with little need for willpower. Environmental design is powerful but not magic, and not everyone has the same freedom to change their surroundings. Being aware that others often design our environments for their own purposes can help us redesign the parts we control for ours.

In the next chapter, we will look at another practical tool that is supported by a large body of research: deciding in advance what you will do when a particular situation arises.