Write When and Where to Stick to a Habit

Yesterday I wrote about using habit stacking to help your customers read to their kids regularly. There was another thing James Clear mentioned in his book Atomic Habits that’s very applicable to help library customers (patrons) solve this same problem.

In the book, Clear shares a study where three groups of people were asked to exercise regularly. The first group was just told to exercise regularly and track when they did. The second group was also told to exercise and track, but given a bunch of info about how exercise is good for heart health and other motivational info. Both those groups were around 38% successful.

The third group was given everything the second group got, but was asked to write down when and where they were going to exercise (“I will run on the treadmill Tuesday at 7:30a.m in the gym on Main Street.”) They were 91% successful in exercising regularly.

So how to apply this in library marketing?

In libraries we know that parents reading to/with their children is huge in early learning. The problem isn’t that the parents don’t know how to read to their kids, it’s all the distractions that nudge it off the priority list.

How about creating bookmarks or half-sheet flyers with spaces for parents to write when and where they’ll read to their kids. Make it so it’s made for posting on the fridge or stick it to the mirror. Parents will think of how you helped them solve that problem, and think of you next time they have something to solve.

Atomic Habits Does a great job of making habit forming and building achievable. One percent improvements equal huge gains before you even realize it.

Thanks for reading!