A Simple Strategy to Quickly Break Bad Habits
Use Deliberate Consequences to eliminate unwanted behaviors.
When entrepreneur Thomas Frank decided to start waking up early every morning, he invented a clever strategy to force himself out of bed.
In his work, he uses a social media app called Buffer to prepare tweets and messages to Facebook and LinkedIn ahead of time.
It’s a great tool for scheduling updates that you want people to see later. And, as Frank realized, that also makes it a great tool for scheduling updates that you don’t want people to see later.
Tweeting Himself Out of Bed
Using this insight to his advantage, Frank crafted a tweet in Buffer that he didn’t want his followers to see:
It’s 6:10 and I’m not up because I’m lazy! Reply to this for $5 via Paypal (limit 5), assuming my alarm didn’t malfunction.
Then, he scheduled the tweet to get posted 15 minutes after his desired wake up time. And, just as he had hoped for, this little message immediately became a powerful motivator.
The mild threat of social shame and monetary loss along with the hassle of sending money to five people was…
