Humans are creatures of habit. When left to our own devices, we will more often than not fall back into our old habits, no matter how good our intentions. Setting up external nudges for ourselves can help us gain new and better habits. For example, you can set up a savings account connected to your checking. Then the checking account can “pay” your savings account a certain amount every month. This builds up your savings, which then can be used as an emergency fund or to invest in the stock market.
Another way you might nudge yourself is to make to-do lists, both a daily list and a separate list for long-term projects. These lists should be numbered by priority, but keep in mind that it will only work if you look at them regularly. Usually, when we try to consider what task to do next, we will be subject to availability bias. Instead of focusing on the highest priority, we will work on the first thing that comes to mind. This first thing is often the easiest. Unfortunately, we have to do the hard things in life. Setting an alarm with a snooze function or, even better, two alarms fifteen minutes apart recognizes that we’d all prefer to turn off the alarm and sleep another hour in the morning. It will nudge us to eventually get up around the right time.