Engineer your home environment to promote healthy habits

Take a peek at how we've been creative with space in our home to build a great environment for getting stuff done--and how you can do the same. The notion of "one space, one use" has helped me and my teens--and the teens I work with--stay productive and on task when we're trying to do work/schoolwork!

Our environment is full of cues that trigger in us certain behaviors. Think about it: when you're in a dimly lit bar, what do you crave? When you're in the line at the grocery store, do you reach for your phone? Our homes, too, are full of cues. Most spaces in our house carry some association with the activities we normally we perform in those spaces. 

This can both work for us, and against us. 

Let's talk first about how it can work against us. For this, I'm thinking back to early in the pandemic, when I was working with a lot of teenagers who were doing online schooling. This meant they were doing all their schooling from a space--for most of them, their bedrooms--that they had always associated with sleep or leisure. And the cue for them to rest and play on their phone was therefore strong. They really struggled to be productive and get schoolwork done in that space.

So let's talk about how this phenomenon can work for us, then. 

If we are triggered to perform certain behaviors given the environment that we are in, that means that we can create environments that cue us to perform our desired behaviors. To go back to our earlier example, by having your teen do work in a space that they don't associate with sleep or leisure, you can create a new environmental cue for them. 

Now, you might be asking, "Okay, but what space is that? We don't have a home office in our home." 

Me, either! And in the video you can see how we got creative in creating a little home "office" out of the nook at the top of my stairs. But maybe you don't have a little nook to squeeze a desk in, either. That's okay! Here's some other ideas for creating spaces for your teenager to work in:

• Have them work at the local library or stay after school and work in the school library.
• Have them work at the dining room or kitchen table. 
• Have a piece of furniture in the house that is just for them to read or complete schoolwork in (discourage them from bringing their phone to this space so as not to create associations with playing on their phone in that space).

This can be a really effective strategy, and you don't need a ton of extra space to be able to employ it!