Use Laziness to Your Advantage – the 20 Second Rule - [Cambo Page - ខេមបូ ផេក]

I want to thank Veasna Printer Shop for sponsoring this blog. Let’s be honest. We’re all lazy to some extent. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s natural. However, most of the time, it’s those exact moments of laziness that make us overindulge on our bad habits.

You see, when we feel motivated. It’s quite 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 when we’ve had a long day, we don’t quite posses that enthusiasm to do something that requires effort. This is why on those lazy days; we usually do whatever is most convenient or easy, and 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 with 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. Now, instead of accepting all of our behaviors as defaults, we should re-examine the ones that are not serving us. Just like we can change our ringtone, we can also adjust our behavior. And we can use our lazy nature to our advantage here. All we need to do is utilize The 20 Second Rule. 

In this book “The Happiness Advantage”. Shawn Achor describes his own struggle with behavior change. Shawn had a very clear 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 actually 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 every time he wanted to play his guitar, he had to first go in the closet, 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, second to be enough to deter Shawn from playing. After he become aware of this, he decided to move the guitar out of closet, and put it on a guitar stand in the living room instead. 

Now, whenever he wanted to play, he didn’t have to search around the closet any longer. The guitar was already out of its case, and he was able to pick it up and start practicing without having to exert too much effort. Shawn also applied a similar tweak to his TV habit. This time what he did was, 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 didn’t feel like getting up and retrieving the batteries from the other room, as this would take extra effort. So, instead he picked up and played his guitar, which was conveniently within an 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 natural. Shawn decided to call his behavioral approach: The 20 Second Rule. Essentially what he did was, 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. 

In some cases, more than 20 seconds could be require, 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 difficult to start. I know that this might should simple and intuitive, but many of us don’t utilize this, which is a shame, since our surroundings are a huge contributing factor when it comes to our behavior. 

You see, usually the most difficult part of any behavior is getting started. And the more activities energy and activity require, the less likely you are to start, especially if you’re feeling tired or lazy. When I say activation energy, I meant 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 just 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 the fact that you have so many steps to go through, before you can begin working out. 

First you need to get your gym bag ready, put on your shoes, and then you need to drive to the gym, change your clothes, and so on and so forth. But if you could skip some of those steps or at least make them more tolerable. Working out would become much easier, as there would be less activation energy required. And it’s the same with pretty much any other activity. When it comes down to it, most of the activities aren’t that difficult to do, they just require a little effort for you to get started. But once your start and get settled in, it’s always very easy 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. 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 go do something easier instead. For example, I love going for long time bike rides. It’s one activity 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 that’s easy and convenient, instead of what we actually 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, here’s a few common problems people face 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 possibly, preferably somewhere on your route to work. This way, you can stop there before you start your job, or afterwards when you’re on your way home. 

If you have to drive 1 hour somewhere every time you want to workout, you’ll be more likely to skip it altogether as that’s a huge barrier. Plus you wanna 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 when they wake up they are already set. Basically they skip the dressing up part when they wake up, since usually in the morning. 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, simply 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 feeling like cooking, of course you will eat whatever is most convenient. Usually that’s something unhealthy, that’s already been factory prepared. But if there isn’t anything unhealthy in your house, you now 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. 

But if you’re the type of person that would still go out and buy junk food, then consider another common problem, that most don’t even realize is a problem, is unintentional phone use, when trying to work or study. 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 simply 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 phone has 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 phone or computer for work; therefore they aren’t able to simply hide it somewhere. But they can still modify the software on their devices.

If you have trouble with constant social media use, simply delete all apps or move them to a folder somewhere, so they’re harder to access instead make your homescreen work related. Again, this creates a barrier between unintentional social media use, since you can’t access it with one simple click any more. And at the same time, it makes your work related stuff easier to use. The same can be applied for your computer use, by separating work from play. You do this by creating two different users, one that is optimized work, and one another, one that is optimized for fun. This way 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 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 own situation and ee where you can make some changes. 

The 20 seconds 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. Just like, there 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 be in control of them, rather than being left at the mercy of whatever is most convenient in 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 difficult part. So, make your desired actions easy to start, while making your unwanted actions difficult.

This will allow you to become the master of your own behavior. Now, I want to make one activity easier for you. And that is learning. So, I suggest you check out today’s sponsor: Skillshare is an online learning platform with thousands of different classes. Ranging from business, to software design, all the way to creativity. And your current skill level doesn’t matter. Whether you’re a novice or already experienced, you can definitely find a class that can teach you something new. Of course, with so many different classes to choose from, it can quickly get overwhelming and you don’t know where to start. So, to make decision easier, I suggest you first check out Thomas Frank’s class on habits. There you will learn habit formation something that is necessary to understand in every walk of life. Now, since I want to make it as easy as I can for you to begin. I’ve conveniently placed a link to Skillshare down below. 

And for a limited time, if you can use the link, you will get a free trial of Skillshares. Premium Membership, so you can check out the mentioned class for free. Also to make consistent learning easier, bookmark Skillshare’s page to reduce the activation energy require to start. You could even set it as a homepage, to minimize the friction even further. Remember, you want to simplify your habits, and using the search bar every time is an unnecessary barrier to overcome. 

Anyway, thank you for reading till the very end.