In the New Year, Try Priming Your Environment

Love 'em or hate 'em, News Year's Resolutions (or NYR's as I'll call them here) are a hot topic the first week of every year. Some people find them too artificial, feeling that it’s not what you do on January 1st, but what you do all year round. Some people welcome the feeling of a blank canvas, a chance to begin again. 

Personally, I’m a fan of NYR's. I always make some sort of NYR. Usually, it involves a theme with two or three goals for the upcoming year.

Last year my goals fell into the theme of "subtraction" and resulted in subtractive behaviors. I did things like eliminating clothing I hadn’t worn in a while yet still occupied a hanger in my closet. I deleted social media accounts that robbed me of my time, focus, and personal data but gave back almost nothing in return. I walked away from relationships that sapped my energy rather than fueling it. 

Overall, 2022 went really well. The more I subtracted, the more I was able to focus on things that felt important. Personal fitness, quality time with family and friends, reading, sleeping.

Now it's 2023 and I'm really excited about my new theme.

James Clear calls it “Priming the Environment” in his book, Atomic Habits.

He sums it up this way,

“Whenever you organize a space for its intended purpose, you are priming it to make the next action easy.” 

I love the power and simplicity of this concept. 

• If I want to give myself a good chance of making blueberry pancakes for the kids in the morning, I will make sure the kitchen is clean and organized the night before. I will set out the ingredients and equipment the night before. That way, I can get right to the pancake-making in the morning, without any unnecessary friction that might tempt me to reach for the Cocoa Puffs.
• If I want to give myself a good chance of working on a client proposal after lunch, then before lunch I’ll clean up my desk and close any programs and tabs that don’t support that activity. I’ll remove the friction and give myself a better chance of tackling the proposal right after lunch instead of getting sucked into the quicksand of email and Slack responses.
• If I need a really good night's sleep, then before dinner, I'll turn down the covers hotel style, lower the lights, and set out some comfortable sleeping clothes so I don't get tempted to dive into a task that will keep my brain occupied far into the night.

This concept feels so simple and obvious. One of those "what was I doing???" head-scratchers. Just Prime the Environment! Of course! 🤦🏻

At first, I thought it would require constant cleaning up, but it's more nuanced than that. Yes, there's some cleanup involved, but it's more "set up". Many times you may be taking things out (ie: pancake mix), not putting them away.

After priming many of the environments of my life recently, I’ve realized that it’s just a “pay now or pay later” situation. You are doing the cleanup/setup either way. If you want to make pancakes you will need to get the ingredients and equipment out at some point. You may end up with pancakes even without any priming.

But... if you prime the environment in advance, you greatly increase the odds that you will actually make pancakes because you will have removed the friction.

And that friction can stop us from doing even the most well-intentioned of tasks. 

But wait, there's more!

On top of feeling more focused and productive, this new outlook on things is clearly lowering my stress levels. I stress about clutter. If my desk is a mess, I have a very hard time focusing. If the sink is full of dishes, I have a hard time thinking about what to make for dinner. Along with friction removal, priming my environment has the added bonus of stress removal, at least for me.

If you're still reading that means you are either convinced or curious, but may still be at a loss for how to apply this secret sauce to your life.

The answer is: Start small.

1. Pick something you want to do tomorrow. Maybe you want to start a book, go for a run, organize the junk drawer, anything that is important to you.
2. Now, in advance, create at least one condition in the environment that will make it easier for you to do this thing when the time comes. Leave the book on your bedside table, set out your running clothes the night before, place a garbage bag inside the junk drawer.

Give it a try on the smallest possible thing you can think of!

And now that I think of it, maybe, just maybe... all that subtraction I did in 2022 was me priming my environment for 2023! 🤯

Have a happy, healthy and focused New Year! 🎉