The 'Tiny Habits' method and why it could change the way we live

I have a friend who is ridiculously house-proud. Her beautiful house is always home-show level immaculate. It’s the sort of tidy where the Queen (or her mother-in-law) could drop in for a surprise visit and everyone would think a team of industrial cleaners had just left.

My home is not like this. In fact, my home is the polar opposite. When unexpected visitors drop into my house, they are generally treated to three choruses of, “Sorry about the mess”.

But as a person who works from home, I am starting to get fed up with the clutter. I want to take a leaf out of my friend’s book and learn how to be house-proud. I also want to recruit my whole family because unlike my tidy friend, I loathe housework. Plus, it’s their mess too.

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As anyone who has already given up on their New Year’s resolutions will know, making big changes, especially ones that you’re resistant to, is hard. We all cleaned together. The house looked great until approximately 2pm on January 3.

Perhaps I’ve gone about this the wrong way. BJ Fogg is the founder of the Behaviour Design Lab at Stanford University and the author of a new book, Tiny Habits, The Small Changes That Change Everything.

The main principle behind Tiny Habits is that the key to changing behaviour is about starting small and making it feel good. So rather than trying to make big sweeping changes, could instilling a few tiny habits could be the answer I’ve been looking for?

Fogg’s Tiny Habits system isn’t guesswork. He has more than 20 years of research under his belt and has tested the approach on more than 40,000 people. “I know that the Tiny Habits method works,” he writes.

“The essence of Tiny Habits is this: Take a behaviour you want, make it tiny, find where it fits naturally in your life, and nurture it’s growth. If you want to create long-term change, it’s best to start small.”

In practice, it works like this. You take an “Anchor Moment”, a moment that already exists, like brushing your teeth. The anchor is important because it will remind you about the new tiny change that you want to make.

You then insert a simple version of the new behaviour that you’re trying to create. It could be flossing one tooth, for example, Fogg says. “You do the Tiny Behaviour immediately after the Anchor Moment.”

Next you celebrate. “Do something to create positive emotions, such as saying ‘I did a good job’,” he says.

Over time, the Tiny Behaviour grows and before you know it the habit that started small is that same habit that you’ve been trying to instil for years.

I decided to test out the Tiny Habits system to see if it could help me and my family deal with our messy house. The behaviour that I want to develop is that all four of us tidy the house as we go so that it doesn’t only look nice once a week.

I start with an anchor – walking in the door after school pick-up. Next I introduce a tiny behaviour – the kids put their lunchboxes in the kitchen. On the first day we celebrate with fist pumps, although, for the record, this made my children very suspicions.

Look, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Dealing with lunchboxes may be a really minor thing. But it is a start to us all being more accountable for our own mess. And as Fogg writes, “It’s about starting small.”

I am optimistic that over the coming months we can add more of the Tiny Habits method into our daily routine. Perhaps, at some point down the track, I too will have a home worthy of a surprise visit from the Queen. Or at least, one that I no longer feel the need to apologise for.