Adding Friction To Your Environment

There’s a saying that’s probably a bit too aggressive for our purposes but gets the point across: You can’t heal in the same place you got sick. The “person working on their startup on the side” version is “you can’t start a startup in a place specifically designed for you to not start a startup.”

Luckily, a little friction can make all the difference. 

Whenever you’re designing systems for your life you want to remove friction from the uncomfortable but useful stuff and add friction to the comfortable but useless stuff.

Step one is noticing the behaviors your current environment encourages. 

The classic, James Clear-y example here is your living room. If your couches and chairs are set up around a tv, that room is designed to encourage watching tv. If you shift the couches around so that they face each other, and put the tv on the far wall behind you, the room is now designed for talking. And, the behavior of the people in the room will immediately shift. The fastest way to change behavior is to change the environment.

For your startup, there are three environments to keep an eye on:

1. Physical Work Environment

2. Digital Work Environment

3. Phone

Start with the question: What’s behavior is this environment encouraging, and is this the behavior I want?

Here are how our members have added or removed friction to change their environments:

1. Physical Work Environment: One of our founders worked at the coffee table in their living room after their family went to sleep each night. The TV would be on in the background and the founder would always catch themselves watching it, and this was the only room they could work in without waking up any toddlers. So, when the founder started working each night, they'd start by unplugging the Apple TV and putting it in a drawer. Now, they couldn't watch TV. Problem solved. The cleanest approach is nearly always to remove the entire distraction - rules about moderation or reliance on willpower won't work. 

2. Digital Work Environment: Tools like Freedom will block distracting websites and that's definitely useful. But, humans with distraction blockers are like raccoons trying to break into your garbage - we’re resourceful and driven. You’ll find yourself reading articles on shark migratory patterns if that’s the one thing the software doesn’t block. So, one of our founders started each work session by pulling up whatever they needed from the internet - reference sites, emails to respond to, whatever - and then unplugging the router. They’d then work for 90 minutes, keeping a log of things they needed to check once they got the internet back.
   
   Another part of your Digital Environment are your “patterns” - the loop of social apps, email, Reddit, Youtube you'll check 15x a day like you're a prison guard making the rounds. This loop is a massive distraction and. worse, the repetitive checking signals to your subconscious that it's important.

3. Phone Environment: The obvious one here that all our founders should do is just leave your phone in the other room while you work. If you need your phone for something work related, write it on a post-it and move on. Then, build a workaround. You cannot be trusted with your phone - the smartest people you went to college with are likely working at the companies trying monetize your attention. You don’t stand a chance.

   The other Phone Environment piece is the apps. If you see apps, you’ll use them. If you delete them, or even hide them, you’re less likely to. If you go a step further and have to download Instagram every time you want to check it, you’re even less likely to. One more step is to give your Mom the password and tell her not to give it to you unless you Venmo her $10. 

You'll Be Fine

Removing the big things from your environment will make the biggest difference and carry the highest perceived risk. It’ll seems ridiculous to pull your TV off the wall or get rid of your phone. But it’s the risk equation again – what’ll someone say when they come over and you don’t have a TV on the wall? Daniel Tiger SOP it – what’s worst and best case?

The biggest human superpower is our adaptability. You can remove just about anything from your life and you’ll be just fine.

Here are the general rules for Environment Design:

• Notice the places you spend most of your time and ask: what is this environment designed to encourage?

• Change the environment to add friction to discourage the undesirable behavior and remove friction to encourage the desired behavior, and

• Swim upstream. Instead of blocking one website, turn off the internet. Instead of hiding an app, leave your phone in the other room. Or get rid of your phone altogether. Humans are adaptable - you can handle nearly any environmental change you want to make.