Temptation Bundling

As level 4 lockdown persists in NZ, the minutes, hours and days can seem to blur together.  With so much “empty time” we may have had high hopes of doing tasks like cleaning out the pantry or partaking in a daily online exercise class.  But many of us have found we actually have less motivation to do these tasks which, let’s face it, can be painful at the time but will benefit us later.

Maybe that’s because we’re already doing something (lockdown) that’s painful now but will benefit us later.  In fact, studies show that our willpower is a limited resource.  Think about it like this:  We might start the day with a bucketful of willpower. Then each time we use some willpower, it takes from our bucket.  For many of us, there’s a lot of willpower needed for daily lockdown life - resisting temptations from the kitchen, motivating ourselves to work from home, crossing the road rather than hugging a friend, parenting 24/7…..

So it’s not surprising if come the end of the day, your willpower bucket is empty.  This helps explain why it can be harder in the evening to resist a glass of wine, bag of chips or to turn off a Netflix show when we know we should go to bed. 

If your willpower is at risk of being maxed out, you might struggle to muster up the extra motivation needed to clean the pantry or exercise online. So, those remain on the ‘should do’ list, waiting for tomorrow.

What we really need is a hack to get these not so fun tasks over the line – and luckily there is one.  It’s called temptation bundling.  This is a clever concept where you pair something that’s hard or not instantly fun (like cleaning the pantry) with something you enjoy that has an instant reward (like listening to a favorite podcast or eating a favorite food).  You do these two activities at the same time. So instead of relying on willpower, we tap into our reward system for the enjoyable stuff.  Since rewards make everything way more fun, temptation bundling is an effective and sustainable way to get tasks done.

You might intuitively use some temptation bundling already e.g. listening to your favourite music or podcast while exercising.  But there could be other items on your 'should do’ list that could be tweaked to include some temptation bundling.  It helps to get creative when using this strategy.  Yesterday I temptation bundled a walk (which I didn’t feel motivated to do) with taking photos of the spring flowers (something I love doing).

Now, I just need to come up with something fun for my husband to do while he cleans out the pantry!