When it comes to building better habits, we often think motivation and willpower are the answers. But as James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, has shown, lasting change rarely begins with a motivational speech—it starts in your environment. The secret isn’t to work harder, but to work smarter by setting up your world so that good choices are effortless, and bad ones are inconvenient.
One of the most memorable examples of this principle comes from a story Clear shares in his book. It’s about Oswald Nuckols, a seemingly ordinary IT developer from Natchez, Mississippi, who discovered an extraordinary way to shape his future actions—by simply resetting his surroundings.
Reset the Room: A Simple Habit with Powerful Results
After finishing a task, whether it’s watching TV or taking a shower, Nuckols doesn’t just walk away. He resets the room: puts the remote back, fluffs the pillows, folds the blanket, tosses the trash, or wipes down the bathroom. At a glance, it may seem like basic tidying. But his intention runs deeper—he’s not cleaning up the past, he’s preparing for the future.
By always returning a space to its ideal state, Nuckols eliminates friction for his future self. “People think I work hard,” he says. “But I’m actually really lazy. I’m just proactively lazy. It gives you so much time back.”
That’s the genius of his system. He isn’t relying on self-control—he’s designing his environment so that good behavior is the obvious, easy next step.
Priming Your Environment for Success
This concept, called priming the environment, is one of the most actionable and transformative strategies in behavior design. It’s about aligning your surroundings with your goals so that taking the right action becomes nearly automatic.
Consider these examples:
- Want to send more birthday cards? Keep a box of them organized by occasion, ready to go at a moment’s notice.
- Want to eat healthier breakfasts? Set out the pan, plate, and utensils the night before. When morning comes, you’ll breeze through meal prep.
- Want to draw more? Keep your sketchpad and pencils out in plain sight—your creative tools should be as accessible as your TV remote.
The principle is simple: reduce the steps between intention and action. When you design your environment to make the right choice easy, you’re more likely to follow through. Small adjustments today can remove big barriers tomorrow.
Making Bad Habits Harder to Reach
Just as you can design your space to encourage good habits, you can also make bad habits less tempting by increasing friction. That same principle, flipped on its head, can be remarkably effective.
Do you find yourself zoning out in front of the TV too often? Unplug it after use. Want to make it even harder? Remove the batteries from the remote. Still not enough? Move the TV to a closet. These small inconveniences might seem silly, but they raise the activation energy high enough that you’ll think twice before giving in to impulsive behavior.
James Clear himself admits to keeping his phone in another room during work hours to avoid constant distractions. Out of sight, out of mind—literally. That small boundary gives him a block of undistracted time to focus. If that’s not enough for you, hand your phone to a friend or coworker and ask for it back later. You’ll be amazed how much mental clarity you gain by adding just a bit of resistance.
These subtle shifts can apply to anything:
- Want to drink less? Store beer at the back of the fridge.
- Want to quit social media? Delete the apps from your phone.
- Want to stop snacking? Keep the junk food off the counter—or out of the house.
In each case, the goal isn’t to eliminate temptation entirely (though that’s ideal), but to make the wrong choice slightly more difficult to act on.
Habits Are Easier When Preparation Is Automatic
Whether you’re trying to read more books, exercise regularly, or eat better, success begins long before the action. It starts with preparation.
In Clear’s words: “When you master habits of preparation, habits of execution become easy.” And that’s the key takeaway. We often focus on the visible part of a habit—the workout, the salad, the meditation. But what happens before those moments is what truly determines whether they stick.
Instead of pushing yourself to change through brute force, build a world around you that makes doing the right thing feel effortless. Lay out your running shoes. Pre-cut your veggies. Put the book on your pillow. Your environment can be either a silent saboteur or your most powerful ally.
Build a World Where Good Habits Are the Default
So the next time you wonder how to become more disciplined, don’t look inward—look around. What does your environment encourage you to do? What does it make difficult?
Whether you’re a parent, teacher, manager, or simply someone trying to improve your own life, one question can guide you: How can I design a world where it’s easy to do what’s right?
Because in the end, lasting change doesn’t require heroic effort. It requires a series of small, smart choices, repeated over time—starting with the room you’re standing in.
Reset the room. Prime your environment. Make your future habits easy.
