Productivity: making undesired behavior inconvenient

Just watched the excerpts of Scoble’s interview with Tim Ferris (the 4-hour-workweek guy), and one thing he said really resonated with me …

Control the environment, not the behavior

He said it in the context of finding a PDA for himself that had email but no wireless access, and not having a particular brand of dark chocolate in the house. Reasons: he knows himself, and he knows he’d be breaking his own rules about email access and healthy diet.

That’s a powerful insight: engineer your environment to make undesired behavior inconvenient. I’ll be finding some ways of implementing that in my own life and work.

1 CommentLeave a comment

  • Hmmm. Sounds like a good idea to me. Now I just need to find a way to make going to bed late in the holidays inconvenient… I spose the earlier rising sun now it’s Summer wakes me up earlier. Perhaps I should open a set of curtains in my room before I go to bed, or just leave them open, and see if the light wakes me up earlier, making me need to go to bed earlier the next night… Sounds like a plan! 🙂