Audit your wants and shoulds to find bundle candidates

List the things you want to do but feel guilty about alongside the things you know you should do but avoid.

Why it works

Bundling only works when the "want" is genuinely desired and the "should" genuinely avoided. Without an explicit audit most people underestimate how many compatible pairs exist. The audit also surfaces whether the guilt attached to the "want" is strong enough to make it feel like a real reward when paired, rather than something freely accessible anyway.

How to do it

1. Write two lists: "Things I want but feel I shouldn’t indulge in freely" and "Behaviors I know I should do but reliably skip."
2. Match items where the want can be enjoyed during the should — the want must be co-present, not sequential.
3. Discard pairings where the want requires attention that conflicts with the should (e.g., a want that requires screen focus paired with a should that also requires screen focus).

Evidence

The want-should framework is the conceptual foundation of Milkman’s temptation bundling research, grounded in behavioral economics research on present bias and self-control. The audit step itself is a practical extension of the framework rather than a separately tested technique. O’Donoghue & Rabin (1999) formalize why present-biased people chronically avoid the "should," clarifying exactly which behaviors the audit is meant to surface as bundle candidates. (mechanistic)

The structured audit is practitioner advice; the underlying present-bias framing is well supported in behavioral economics but the specific audit procedure is not independently trialed.

Sources

• Milkman, K. L., Minson, J. A., & Volpp, K. G. M. (2014). Holding the Hunger Games Hostage at the Gym: An Evaluation of Temptation Bundling. Management Science, 60(2), 283-299.
• O’Donoghue, T., & Rabin, M. (1999). Doing It Now or Later. American Economic Review, 89(1), 103-124.

Common mistake

Choosing a "want" that you already let yourself have freely — if there is no withholding, there is no bundled incentive and no habit effect.