How are your 2023 resolutions going so far?
There are loads of strategies that you could adopt to hit your goals:
- Establish a habit, tagging a behaviour to a certain trigger
- Stay accountable to a family member or a friend
- Gamify it, like what LumiHealth does (btw, LumiHealth is probably the first game in my life that I “play” consistently – all for the prospect of earning a couple of bucks for clocking my steps. Incentives are powerful.)
But now that we’re two weeks into 2023, some of your especially tricky goals might be starting to feel a little shaky. For example, I had a goal of going to sleep by 10.30pm – which I had achieved approximately zero times. There was always something else: Drinks with friends that ran late, an errand that took longer than expected, or (if I’m being honest) because I was scrolling through Instagram and YouTube.
We set up goals with good intentions, but life gets in the way.
However, I noticed that the goals that I did stick manage to stick with so far had some sort of forcing function. What’s that? Well, I’m glad you asked, because I’m obviously way too excited to tell you.
In interaction design, a forcing function is a technique used to prevent the user from making common mistakes. You see it everywhere in your daily life:
- ATMs force you to take your card before you take your cash
- Microwaves make it impossible to switch on unless the door is completely shut, and shut off automatically once you open the door
- Some cars won’t allow you to start the ignition unless the driver and front-seat passenger both have their seatbelts fastened.
With that in mind, I started to wonder how I could incorporate forcing functions into my routine to help me achieve my goals. Here are some examples I’m testing out:
Pre-Booking All My Travel For The Year
One of our joint goals as a married couple was to travel more often together. So last year, we blocked off an afternoon to plan out the entire year’s worth of trips, and booked them all at once.
This is actually a pretty common behaviour in other countries. For example, Travel Insights with Google shows that international flight searches from the UK spiked by more than 60% in January this year compared to December:
I’ve been told that Europeans in particular tend to book all their flights for the entire year once they return from their December holidays. At first, I thought it was ridiculous: I don’t even know what I’m going to eat for lunch tomorrow, let alone plan out a year’s worth of trips.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realised how booking your year’s worth of travel makes a lot of sense: 1) You lock in cheaper flight prices even for popular long weekends, 2) Miles redemption seats are still available for most flights, 3) it makes it easier to say no to other commitments, and 4) it always gives you something to look forward to.
Of course, something urgent might come up at the last minute and force you to change your travel plans. But from my (very limited) experience, this almost never happens. Instead, people will usually try to move their schedules if they realise that you already have flights booked.
Leaving The Office On Time
Another goal I had this year was to leave the office on time and prioritise mental health after office hours.
Last year, I tried doing this by scheduling gym time in the evenings, but that didn’t work. There was always another last minute meeting, or another urgent report, which made it too easy to cancel my gym session.
This year, I’m experimenting with catching the office bus shuttle. My office provides a shuttle service to a drop-off point that’s closer to the MRT. Catching it saves me a couple of minutes on my commute home, and has the added bonus of preventing any additional work from creeping into my evening schedule.
It’s worked so far, and I’ve managed to leave the office on time every workday this year. Let’s see if I can keep this up!
Other forcing functions you could test to leave work on time: 1) schedule to pick your kids up from school, 2) book an appointment or class that you can’t miss, 3) make a pact with your friends to hit happy hour before it ends.
What Will You Force Yourself To Do This Year?
Being forced to do something sucks. But sometimes, it’s the only way we can get ourselves to achieve what we want.
Ulysses understood this when he tied himself to the mast of his ship so that he could listen to the Sirens. Sometimes, it’s worth acknowledging that we’re weak, flip-floppy, and indecisive. And so we need to create mechanisms to force ourselves to do certain things.
What will you force yourself to do this year?
