An interview with behavioral scientist, author, & habits expert Samuel Salzer

Habits are a central feature of successfully navigating the world. They enable us to operate on “auto-pilot”: exporting well-learned routines to a lower bandwidth, and freeing up our other mental faculties to focus on tasks which require more deliberate attention and resources.

While these advantages are clear, the psychology of habits also teaches us that they also come with trade-offs: When we outsource our behavior to a habitual state of mind, we lower our perception of novelty, deplete the richness of the experience, and render it far less meaningful and memorable.

How should we think about these tradeoffs between results-oriented habits and experiential richness? To help explore this question, we speak with behavioral scientist and habit expert Samuel Salzer. In this interview, we dive into this fundamental tension.

At this point, you’ve helped hundreds, maybe thousands of people form better habits. What do people think about when they’re thinking about changing their habits? What are they trying to do?

People generally see habits as a means to an end—a way to become healthier, happier, or more fulfilled. It’s rarely about the habits themselves, but rather about what those habits could lead to. They’re trying to enhance their lives, whether that’s by feeling more present, experiencing more joy, or achieving personal goals. However, it’s interesting to reflect on the nature of habits; sometimes, people may pursue habits without fully understanding what they’re truly aiming for or why they want to change in the first place.

The objective of habits is to place your mind on autopilot so that you naturally engage in behaviors that contribute to your success or well-being. You seek to streamline these actions and eliminate the conscious effort involved. It's a bit like trying to outsource or automate a task to your subconscious mind.

What might surprise people is that their goal is probably not to fully automate every part of an activity, but rather to automate the start of doing something—like getting to the gym or sitting down to meditate. The real work, whether it’s exercising or meditating, still requires a conscious effort and is difficult to fully automate. And that’s ok.

In your mind, are there downsides to this aspect of habits as auto-pilot? If we put so much into habits, do we miss out on experiential richness? 

One thing it makes me think about is this old Adam Sandler comedy-drama called “Click”. Adam Sandler’s character stumbles upon a remote control that grants him control over his reality, much like a VCR or DVD player. With this remote, he can pause, fast forward, and rewind through his life's experiences. 

At first, he views his life with disdain, longing to fast forward through the difficult moments to find happiness. However, he inadvertently fast-forwards too much and realizes that he has missed out on crucial moments, including watching his daughters grow up. 

This realization dawns on him that putting his entire life on autopilot - reducing it to mere habits, was not what he truly desired. It's an interesting exploration of the consequences of living life without being fully present, culminating in profound regret for the missed opportunities and experiences. Again, trying to automate everything would ultimately make life pretty dull and unfulfilling.

This makes me think of the show, Severance, on AppleTV, where the characters who work in the office are “split in half”, and their memories for their work life are totally divorced from their personal life in evenings and weekends. 

That’s almost exactly what habits are like. Habit essentially serves as a form of cognitive outsourcing, allowing the brain to allocate less cognitive effort to repetitive tasks, thus optimizing awareness for more crucial matters. 

It really is like the concept of “Severance”, where these mundane activities are automated to conserve cognitive capacity for more important pursuits. In real life, this optimization enables individuals to focus on higher-priority tasks and benefit from increased efficiency. And this ultimately shapes how we allocate our cognitive resources and engage with the world around us.

There’s all kinds of work in psychology on the psychology of novelty perception. Novelty perception influences the strength of our memories, the richness of a given experience, and in much detail it will be remembered later. How have you come to think about this connection between novelty and habits, and these other aspects of our lives?

I think about this a lot, especially when it comes to food. There was a time when I got really into meal prepping—every weekend, I’d prepare meals for the whole week, so I’d have the same lunch ready to go every day. It made things super easy. But some people would ask, ‘Don’t you get bored eating the same thing every day?’

I even tried a meal replacement drink like Huel, and people wondered if it wasn’t too repetitive. But for me, sticking to these routines just simplified my life.

There's been some interesting research floating around about how people approach meal choices throughout the day. It's like this: while most folks are cool with having the same breakfast every day, they start itching for something different by the time lunch and especially dinner roll around. In general, it seems like some people (like me) are fine sticking to their usual dish, while others need a bit more variety on their plate. 

Interestingly, a lot of those same folks who swear they couldn't stomach the same meal every day are the ones hitting me up, asking for tips on how to build more eating habits. And I’m happy to help, but I remind them that more habits might mean less variety—which could defeat the purpose for those who thrive on novelty.

How should we think about the trade-offs between habits and the richness of the experience? When should we automate a task, and when should we try to savor it and make it memorable?

That’s a great question, and it’s really about balance. When it comes to tasks that are frequent, consistent (same time or place), and don’t require much conscious thought, these are good candidates for automation and building into habits.

An important point to remember is that you don’t have to make the entire sequence of behaviors habitual. Sometimes, just focusing on the initial steps—what I call ‘domino habits’—can be enough. For example, making a habit of putting on your workout clothes or sitting down at your meditation space can be all you need for the rest to fall into place.

For the activities themselves, like exercising, meditating, or reading, focus on making them enjoyable and fun rather than habitual (or look for a more fun alternative activity). So, in summary, try to habituate tasks that are frequent, consistent, and repetitive, as well as the first small steps of your routines, and do your best to try and savor the rest.

More from Samuel Salzer, on The Psychology of Habits and how we can reconcile The Paradox of Habit Psychology

Photo by Hector Reyes via UnSplash