Attach the habit to an anchor moment

Use an existing routine as the prompt: “After I [anchor], I will [tiny behavior].”

Why it works

An existing habit already fires reliably at a stable point in your day, so it makes a far better prompt than a clock or an app reminder. Anchoring borrows that established trigger — the hardest part of habit formation — instead of trying to build a new cue from nothing. The completion of the anchor becomes the natural starting line for the new behavior.

How to do it

1. List routines you already do without fail (pour coffee, sit at desk, brush teeth).
2. Write the recipe: "After I [existing routine], I will [tiny behavior]."
3. Place the new behavior immediately after the anchor, in the same location, so the sequence is seamless.

Evidence

A practical application of cue-based habit formation: foundational work shows habits form through repetition in a stable context, and an existing routine supplies a ready-made, reliable cue. (mechanistic)

The "anchor recipe" framing is practitioner advice; the studied mechanism is context-cue repetition, not the recipe wording.

Sources

• Lally et al. (2010), "How are habits formed", European Journal of Social Psychology

Common mistake

Choosing an anchor that isn’t truly consistent, or one whose ending is fuzzy, so the prompt never reliably fires.