Use Laziness To Your Advantage | The 20 Second Rule
Let’s be honest. We’re all lazy to some extent, and It’s natural. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, most of the time, it’s those exact moments of laziness that make us overindulge in our bad habits.
You see, when we feel motivated, it’s relatively easy to do the things we want to do, even if we find them difficult otherwise. But when we’re feeling stressed, tired, lazy, or have had a long day, we don’t quite possess that enthusiasm to do something that requires effort. This is why we usually do whatever is most convenient or easy on those lazy days, whatever that might be. And generally, that’s our default behavior.
In technology, default means the way something works when you start using it.
For example, when you buy a new phone, the settings are already set for you. You get a default ringtone, a preset wallpaper, etc. And unless you change those settings, default is what you’re stuck with.
Now it’s similar to our habits. We all have certain behaviors that we adapted to that are standard to us. They have become our default, and we tend to perform them almost on auto-pilot. Those behaviors could be positive, like reading or learning new skills. Or they could be something negative like smoking cigarettes and scrolling through social media all day.
Instead of accepting all of our behaviors as defaults, we should re-examine those not serving us. Just like we can change our ringtone, we can also adjust our behavior. The laziness advantage can be used here. All we need to do is
“Utilize The 20 Second Rule.”
In his book “The Happiness Advantage,” Shawn Achor describes his struggle with behavior change. Shawn had an apparent goal. He wanted to practice his guitar more often while reducing the amount of time he spent watching TV.
However, he encountered a problem that many of us do whenever we want to change our behavior. Simply telling himself that he’ll do it wasn’t enough for him to do it. His guitar stayed in the closet, and watching TV remained his default go-to option. Shawn recognized that he needed to disrupt his default behavior somehow; otherwise, nothing would change. So he started looking for a solution.
He realized that he had to first go into the closet. Every time he wanted to play his guitar, get the guitar case out, and only once he got the guitar out of its case could he actually play. This all took roughly 20 seconds, but even this minimal effort that was required seemed to be enough to deter Shawn from playing.
After he became aware of this, he decided to move the guitar out of the closet and put it on a guitar stand in the living room instead. Now, he didn’t have to search around the closet any longer whenever he wanted to play. The guitar was already out of its case, and he was able to pick it up and start practicing without exerting too much effort.
Shawn also applied a similar tweak to his TV habit. This time, he took the batteries out of the remote control and moved them to a drawer in another room. The next few nights, when he got home from work and, by default, jumped on the couch to watch TV. He noticed that something was wrong. He kept pressing the ON button on the remote, forgetting that he removed the batteries.
Now, Shawn feels like getting up and retrieving the other room’s batteries takes extra effort. So instead, he picked up and played his guitar, which was conveniently within arm’s reach. This slight intervention allowed him to disrupt his default behavior.
And as days passed, his urge to watch TV decreased, and playing the guitar started to feel more and more natural.
Shawn decided to call this behavioral approach:
The 20 Second Rule.
Essentially, he made playing the guitar 20 seconds easier while making watching TV 20 seconds harder. And this strategy can be applied to pretty much any behavior you want to change. Of course, 20 seconds is just a suggestion and not an absolute number. More than 20 seconds could be required in some cases, while in other cases, it could be less than 20.
The point is to lessen the barriers between activities you want to do more often by making it more convenient for yourself to do them. While on the flip side, increase the obstacles between activities you want to stop participating in by making them more challenging to start.
I know that this might sound simple and intuitive, but many don’t utilize this, which is a shame Since our surroundings are a huge contributing factor to our behavior. You see, usually, the most challenging part of any action is getting started. And the more activation energy an activity requires, the less likely you are to start, especially if you’re feeling tired or lazy.
When I say activation energy, I mean the amount of effort you need to exert before you can begin something.
So, for example, watching TV usually takes very little activation energy. You have to get the remote, jump on the couch, and you’re set. Not much effort is required. Now when it comes to working out, a little more activation energy is needed to begin. However, if you really think about it, lifting weights isn’t that difficult. Sure, it’s not as easy as laying on the couch, but the activity itself is not really that grueling.
What really turns you off is that you have many steps to go through before you can begin working out. First, you need to get your gym bag ready, put on your shoes, then you need to drive to the gym, change your clothes, and so on. There are so many inconveniences standing in the way. But if you could skip some of those steps, or at least make them more tolerable, working out would become much more comfortable, as there would be less activation energy required. And it’s the same with pretty much any other activity.
Most of the activities aren’t that difficult to do, and they require a little more effort for you to get started. But once you start and get settled in, it’s always effortless to continue, even if you don’t necessarily find the activity as fun.
So if you’re able to lower the activation energy required to begin a certain behavior, your chances of doing what you want to do, increase exponentially. And this is especially important because, even if you enjoy doing something, but there’s a lot of friction in the way before you can begin, you’re more likely to skip it and do something more comfortable instead.
For example, I love going for long bike rides. It’s one activity that always helps me unwind, especially if I’m feeling stressed or anxious. However, there’s one problem I encounter every single time I want to go cycling. And that is the fact that I have to get my bike out of the basement first. The whole process takes me exactly 3 minutes, but sometimes it’s enough to discourage me from going on that ride.
Logically this makes no sense. Why would 3 minutes of preparation deter me from doing something I know I enjoy? But like I said, humans are quite lazy, and we would rather do something easy and convenient instead of what we want to do. For this simple reason, I’m sometimes stressed for the entire day.
This, of course, could easily be avoided by just going on that bike ride, which I know I would enjoy, and it would help me de-stress. But at that moment, I would rather go for the default option, which is to spend my time thinking about all the horrible scenarios that will never happen, instead of choosing a slightly less convenient option, which would solve the problem.
I know all of this might sound silly, but it’s just an example of how inconvenience can dictate our actions.
By now, you probably understand how your surroundings affect your behavior, and you might even have a few ideas about how you can use all this information to your advantage. But just so you can get a better sense of it, people face a few common problems and how The 20 Second Rule can be applied to solve them.
If you want to exercise more often, make sure your gym is as close as possible. Preferably somewhere on your route to work. This way, you can stop there before you start your job or afterward when you’re on your way home.
If you have to drive 1 hour somewhere you want to work out every time, you’ll be more likely to skip it altogether as that’s a huge barrier. Plus, you want to make sure to get your gym bag ready ahead of time or whatever else is necessary for the workout of your choice. This way, when you’re ready to exercise, you don’t have to search and scramble around for all the necessary gear.
Some people also like to sleep in their gym clothes, so they are already set when they wake up. Basically, they skip the dressing up part when they wake up since usually in the morning, and they don’t really feel like exercising. But since they are already geared up, it’s much easier to do so because there’s one less barrier in the way.
If you have trouble eating healthy, throw out all the unhealthy food in your house. This way, all that remains is healthy food. When you’re hungry and you don’t feel like cooking, of course, you will eat whatever is most convenient.
Usually, that’s something unhealthy that’s already been factory prepared. If there isn’t anything unhealthy in your house, you have to go out of your way to get it. And since there’s this additional obstacle in the way, you’re less likely to do so. If you’re the type of person that would still go out and buy junk food, then consider preparing some of your healthy meals in advance on a Sunday, and heat them during the week.
So now, if the cravings hit, there is less activation energy required to eat a healthy meal, as it’s already waiting there for you.
Another common problem that most don’t even realize is a problem: unintentional phone use when working or studying. You most likely always have your phone somewhere near you, and you’re able to start using it whenever you want.
But most of the time, you check the phone only because you’re looking for a way to escape those 5 seconds of boredom, and your phone is conveniently there. For this exact reason, our phones have become anti-focus devices, as they take our attention from whatever we should be doing.
Therefore, you should create a barrier by putting your phone in another room or somewhere where you can’t see or reach it. If you actually need to use it for something important, you’ll have to get up and get it. And you’ll most likely realize that you don’t need to check your phone as often as you do now.
Of course, many people need to use their phones or computer for work. Therefore they aren’t able to hide it somewhere. But they can still modify the software on their devices. If you have trouble with constant social media use, delete all the apps or move them to a folder somewhere so they’re harder to access.
Instead, make your home screen work-related. Again, this creates a barrier between unintentional social media use since you can’t access it with one simple click anymore. And at the same time, it makes your work-related stuff easier to use. The same can be applied to your computer use by separating work from play.
You do this by creating two different users, optimized for work, and another optimized for fun. This way, when it’s time to work, you’re actually working, and you’re not stuck browsing random websites or playing video games.
Likewise, when you want to relax, you don’t have anything to remind you of your work, and you can fully unwind. Ok, these are just a few examples of how you could increase or decrease activation energy, but there are many more options.
You will need to think about your situation and see where you can make some changes. The 20-second rule probably won’t work all the time, but it will make your behavior more intentional rather than default.
Sure, there will be days when you really want to watch TV, so get up and grab the batteries from the other room. Like there will be days when I’ll have no problem getting my bike from the basement. The point is to become aware of your default behaviors and control them, rather than being left at the mercy of whatever is most convenient at the moment.
That is why I encourage you to examine your surroundings and think about where you could add or reduce 20 seconds of activation energy.
Remember, starting is always the most challenging part. So make your desired actions easy to start while making your unwanted activities difficult. This will allow you to become the master of your behavior.
