February 2025
Service Design
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During the Covid-19 pandemic when much of the world was forced to retreat to their homes for work, a hot topic in the world of professionalism was learning how to get the most out of your day. The professional workforce and students alike (myself included) wanted to integrate more self-discipline at home in order to spur productivity. Books like ‘Atomic Habits’ and ‘The Power of Habit’ started to appear even more frequently in my professional social media feeds. But why? What do they offer? Along with the recommendation of one of my design mentors, I decided to give Charles Duhigg’s ‘The Power of Habit’ a read.
Before going into specific professional case studies, Charles Duhigg talks about the neuroscience that substantiates why certain programs in the workplace and in people’s personal lives have been so successful. He tells the story of Eugene Pauly (“E.P.”) and how scientists discovered that an area of the brain known as the ‘basal ganglia’ are responsible for the storage of less conscious actions - habits. Our brains convert sequences of actions into more automatic routines; this is known as “chunking.”
It is hypothesized that our brains form habits to reduce cognitive load.
“Without habit loops, our brains would shut down, overwhelmed by the minutiae of daily life.”
The basic premise of Duhigg’s ‘The Habit Loop’ is made up of three parts:
1) Cue
2) Routine
3) Reward
Several case studies are discussed with the consensus being: there MUST be a reward to make a habit repeatable. Febreze started to scent air fresheners (reward) in order to entice users to use them again (cue).
Duhigg discusses the success of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers: their coach mandated that the players would rehearse plays so much that they wouldn’t have to think about what they were doing. In other words, he turned plays into habits - from conscious to subconscious. The team ended up winning the Super Bowl.
“The Golden Rule is to: use the same cue, provide the same reward, but change the routine.”
The main caveat to the ‘Golden Rule’ is that one must be self-aware enough to notice the cue in order to change the routine that typically follows.
An example is picking/biting one’s nails; this is typically induced by stress or boredom so a person must be able to recognize that negative cue in order to change the routine: giving oneself a manicure or preventing the behavior altogether.
The concept of ‘small wins’ is introduced while talking about Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps; ‘small wins’ could be something as simple as just showing up to the gym daily for a week. The overall idea of these ‘small wins’ is that they build momentum/success in order to make larger, more ambitious goals feel more attainable. These ‘small wins’ also help encode habits in our brains thus making it easier for our brains to focus on other important things that require conscious attention.
When applied to my own life, a keystone habit in my workflow is keeping a work/productivity journal. I was highly resistant to it at first but when I can see a cohesive list of what I’ve done in a day, it helps to build momentum for the future thus making me more productive - all because of documentation. This in turn has encouraged me to use the same method (journaling) to document my professional growth - this blog.
A case study about Starbucks and employee training reveals that:
“Willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success.”
Starbucks strives to turn individual willpower/self-discipline into an organizational habit; in other words, higher willpower will produce effects associated with success: higher grades, better performance, etc and be all around better for everyone. The effects tend to spill over into other aspects of life as well:
“As willpower was strengthened in one aspect, it strengthened in all other aspects.”
Duhigg uses exercise as an example: people who exercised more (followed the habit loop: cue, routine, reward) also tended to drink less alcohol, eat a healthier diet, smoke less, etc.
Thoroughly researched subconscious buying habits exist and include:
1) Most people turn right upon entering a store - retailers put most profitable products to the right
2) Bountiful piles of healthy produce are placed at the front of stores - people are less likely to buy less healthier options when they’ve already selected healthy items.
Additionally, after thorough research, Target found that pregnant women make up one of the most valuable demographics; pregnant women are more vulnerable to buying things and add millions in profit.
My immediate thoughts after reading this book centered around applying the principles in my professional life; I spoke above about starting to use a journal in a professional setting and how that has helped spur other positive habits. I felt inspired to make small changes in order to facilitate larger changes - and I still do. However, it took me longer to sit with the implications that this book and the science of influencing habits has on people. The term ‘addictive’ tends to be thrown around pretty frequently when talking about all kinds of digital products ranging from video games to social media. This book helped shed more light on what that means to me. When applied to user experience/product design, this knowledge can me extremely manipulative and “Hook” (Nir Eyal terminology) people on products. Since reading this book and ‘Atomic Habits,’ I’ve noted cues that spur me to open social media; they can range from notifications to some unknown urge/habit. These cues then spur a routine and most importantly a reward - a sense of human connection via messages/likes/etc. or even something simpler like maintaining a 350+ day streak on Duolingo.
Overall, this is a book that I still think about constantly. As a UX Designer, I’m constantly told to ‘advocate for users’ but what does that look like when the business side of adoption could be pushing against that? I’m sure this is something designers in all industries experience on a daily basis and there isn’t a perfect answer to this question. Rather, it is something to be aware of and keep in mind when designing products.
Simply put: I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and love how deeply it has continuously made me think - both personally and professionally.
10/10.
