5 Actionable Ways To Make Your Environment Support Your Goals

Simple tweaks to your surroundings that remove friction, boost focus, and make progress effortless.

Your room, especially your desk, is the most accurate mirror in your home. Your environment shapes you, you shape your environment.

Every environment helps form habits and either encourages or discourages daily behaviors. It’s a double-edged sword. It either makes you or breaks you.

Learn how to utilize your environment and make it support your goal(s).

1. Declutter

Simplest one first. A cluttered environment is a cluttered mind. Get rid of the stuff you don’t need. Don’t give your brain too many open tabs to handle.

• Clear your desk: Only keep what you use daily. Computer, notebook, pen, maybe a lamp. Everything else? Move it.

• Designate a dump zone: Use a box or drawer for random items instead of leaving them scattered. Keep whatever there, just get it out of sight.

• Remove visual noise: Take down posters you no longer like, file loose papers, remove unnecessary gadgets.

2. Reminders everywhere

Keep important info in plain sight. Let it stare at you.

I have my goals and some frameworks taped right above my monitor.

Sticky notes will do, whiteboard will do, wallpaper will do, to-do list as a starting page in your browser will do.

3. Place friction in the way of bad habits

Don’t just make good behaviors easier, make bad behaviors harder. Increasing the friction required to engage in distracting behaviors. What is friction?.

• Log out of distracting apps. Or even better: uninstall the apps and use social media in the browser. That’s a way worse experience, and that’s the point.

• Unplug your PS5, store the controllers out of sight. Or get a VA monitor—this shit sucks.

• Put your phone in your car during work sessions. If you have to physically get up and leave not only your room but your house to check it, that’s a lot of friction.

Make good habits frictionless. Make bad habits frustrating.

4. Set up your digital space

It’s easy to be defeated by the 6-inch screen in your pocket. No wonder, great minds worked on infinity pools to suck you in and not let go.

It’s not your fault that you fall for those traps. That’s very advanced behaviour engineering.

You fall for them because you are human, which also means you are able to adapt and change.

The most tangible step. Instead of explaining why it’s important, I will give you specific tools and you will decide on them.

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