Conventional wisdom holds that motivation is the key to habit change. The truth is our motivation is to be lazy. It is human nature to follow the law of least effort. People naturally gravitate towards the path that requires less work. We want the most value for the least effort. Every action requires a certain amount of energy. The less energy that a habit requires, the more likely it is to occur. It is crucial to make your good habits so easy that you can do them when you don't feel like it. Some days you feel like putting in a lot of work and other days you will not. The less friction you engage, the easier it will be for your stronger self to emerge.

Making your habits simple and easy reduces the friction. Environment design is one easy way to reduce friction to make actions easier (in addition to making cues of good habits obvious). Choose a place to perform a habit that already fits in to the flow of your life. Pick a gym that is on the path of your normal commute, for example. Reduce the friction within your home or office. Do not try to write a book in a chaotic household.

Addition by subtraction: remove every point of friction possible. Remove points of friction that sap our time and energy. Successful companies produce products that automate, eliminate, or simplify as many steps as possible. Make creating an account take as few clicks as possible, for example. Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible. Reduce friction to do good habits, and increase the friction required to perform bad ones.

Organizing a space for its intended purpose makes the future actions there easier. Resetting the room every time before you move to the next room is a way to always make sure the environment is primed for immediate use. Set out your workout clothes ahead of time. Chop up fruits and veggies on the weekend and pack them for the week. These are just examples of easy ways to make good habits have less friction. You can also do the opposite with bad habits. Leave your phone in a different room if you don't want to be distracted by it. Just a little friction can be used to stop undesirable behavior. Design the world and your life where the actions that matter most are the actions that are easiest to do.