Coaching practices for Automatic Enrollment Habits

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Automatic Enrollment Habits, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• Every payday I tell myself I’ll set some aside, and every payday it’s gone before I get around to it
• I keep falling into the easy bad option just because it’s what’s already set up and waiting
• Every single month investing is this fresh little decision I have to talk myself into, and most months I just don’t
• Every month I tell myself I’ll move some money over to savings when I get a chance, and every month the decision just doesn’t happen
• Every time I cancel something and tell myself I’ll save the difference, the money just gets absorbed into other spending and I never actually see it pile up

Practices that may help

1. Automate future-self allocations at a moment of patience
   Set up automatic transfers or pre-blocked time when you’re in a patient state — remove the future-self decision from present-self’s hands.
   Hyperbolic Discounting — Why Future You Always Gets the Short End
2. Change the default to change the outcome
   Set up systems so the right behavior happens automatically unless you actively opt out.
   Nudge Theory, Made Practical
3. Automate the investment so the decision is never repeated
   Set up automatic transfers on payday so investing happens before the money is available to spend.
   Dollar-Cost Averaging, Made Practical
4. Automate the transfer so it happens without a decision
   Move the priority money the day it arrives, automatically, before anything else competes for it.
   Pay Yourself First, Made Practical
5. Automate the cut before you can spend it
   When you cut a recurring expense, redirect the exact dollar amount to savings automatically on the same day.
   The Latte Factor: Small Spending and the Cost of Habit
6. Attach the habit to an anchor moment
   Use an existing routine as the prompt: “After I [anchor], I will [tiny behavior].”
   Tiny Habits, Made Practical
7. Habit stacking
   Anchor a new habit to one you already do: “After [current habit], I will [new habit].”
   Atomic Habits, Made Practical
8. Graduating a question when the behavior becomes automatic
   Retire a question from the list when it scores consistently 8 or above — mastery earned is bandwidth freed.
   The Morning Questions
9. Automate your contribution on payday
   Set a recurring transfer to your investment account the day your paycheck arrives.
   Automatic Investing, Made Practical
10. Single-task with full sensory attention as a beginner
    Choose one ordinary task and perform it attending to each sensation as if doing it for the first time.
    Beginner's Mind (Shoshin), Made Practical

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