the outcome-first way to build a habit stack.

Start with what you want. It works better.

If you’ve built a habit stack before and watched it fall apart within a few weeks, the stacking might not have been the problem. Most of the guidance takes you straight into picking a habit and attaching it to something that’s already automatic. That’s only part of it. What gets skipped is deciding, before any of that, whether the habit is worth building.

© Peter W Harrison 2026. All Rights Reserved.

begin with the outcome.

Before choosing a single action, get clear on what you want. Not the habit itself, the thing having it would give you. What changes. What you’d notice first. This gets rushed constantly, people jump straight to the doing and end up with a habit that technically runs but doesn’t move them anywhere they wanted to go. Think about that before writing anything down.

I wanted to be more productive and had read that setting three priorities at the start of the day was a good solution. I wrote three things and paired them with opening my laptop. Opening my laptop was my automatic, existing action. Then I was going to work on the first of the three things. But I hadn’t thought them through. How and why are they my priorities, what would they deliver for me if I did them, when did I write them down. So many steps I completely skipped. It worked on the first couple of days, then I wrote them but didn’t do them, then I stopped writing them. The plan didn’t even last a week.

the method, step by step.

1. Write the outcome in one sentence. Specific enough you’d know if you’d got there.

2. List at least ten actions that could get you there. Don’t filter as you go, ten forces you past the obvious few into ones you’d only find by pushing further. If you are still easily thinking of actions at ten, keep going to twenty.

3. Choose three, either because they group naturally or because they’re the most likely to achieve your outcome.

4. Pick one to start with. The usual guidance is no more than three new habits a month, but that’s once the method’s proven itself. This first one takes as long as it needs and should have your full focus.

5. Shrink it. Smaller than feels reasonable. ‘Read more’ starts as opening the book, not a chapter. ‘Get stronger’ starts as shoes by the door, not a session. Small enough that skipping it takes more effort than doing it.

6. Attach it to something you already do without thinking, straight after, not ‘sometime in the morning.’

7. Make it visible. Whatever the habit needs for you to do it, have it ready before you start. If you have to go and find something, that’s where the habit breaks.

8. Decide how you’ll mark it happening. A tick, a note, telling someone. Nothing elaborate, just an acknowledgement.

9. Write it down. Anchor, new habit, how it happens. Put it somewhere you’ll see it.

Give it a week before adding anything else. Some days it won’t happen, that’s not failure. Don’t compound it by missing two days together. Once it’s happening regularly, with no thought involved, introduce the next of the three actions from step three. This will feel slower than you think it should be. A habit that’s rushed in tends to be the first one dropped.

If your last stack didn’t hold, book a free introductory call and we’ll find the step that slipped.

I’m Fiona, a habit coach and the founder of The Habit Hacker. I work with people who know what they want but can’t make themselves do it. Together we build habits that are unique to you and your life. My 90-day programme, Brick by Brick, is built on my philosophy that personalised habits change lives. Find out more at thehabithacker.co.uk