96 women were given fitness trackers and asked to either walk 10,000 steps per day or walk a bit more each day than the average of their own last 9 days. This equated to a lower number of steps than the 10,000 group but had the benefit of adapting to each person’s own step count.

Results showed that over 4 months, those with a smaller, adaptive goal walked far more than the 10,000 group.

Start very small.

‍We’re time and attention-poor, wanting results now. As one step up from Endowed Progress, what is the smallest, valuable task you can design for that affords a fast, positive Feedback Loop?

To increase long-term success, Tiny Habits creator BJ Fogg suggests using an existing behavior to trigger a new one by 'chaining' new tiny behaviors onto existing habits. 

Keep the bigger goal front of mind.

‍People who’d completed a small exercise task were less likely to eat healthy food after, due to a short-term feeling of success (Fishbach et al., 2006). However, prompting a reminder of the larger Goal Prime of becoming fit removed this problem.

Time the reminder after tiny task success.

Make it adaptive.

‍A system that flexes with our fluctuating capacity (i.e. time or energy) will always work best. Understand users’ habitual patterns & weak points and design empathic experiences around these.