Hello and welcome to this week’s tip. Change is hard, so today, we’re giving your four tips for building the good habits you need to make your improvements stick. Want to watch this tip instead?

Last week, Karen talked to you about pruning the puffery in your legal writing. That’s one small improvement you can make in your communications. But how do you make a change really stick? You need to create a habit. Today I’m talking about making other little changes…and building the habits to support them.

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Over the holidays, I heard an interview with James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. James talks about building better habits, and the impact of those small habit changes over time. It’s something we’ve blogged about before, here and here.

Making small changes, saving yourself a minute of time here or there on something you do regularly, really adds up. So James’s approach to incremental change and habit-building really spoke to me. I’m sure it will help you as you make changes to the way you work.

Small Changes are Like Compound Interest

James advocates trying to improve by just 1% at a time. He believes small habit changes pay huge dividends if you stick to them, and if you are patient enough to wait for the results. Like compound interest in your bank account, every little increment might add only a tiny bit to your bottom line, but over a year, you really see a difference.

We suggest the same: Pick a little thing about your work that you can improve, make it better, and stick to it! That’s where design—and James’s four tips for habit-building—kick in.

When we redesign a process in a law firm, we design the change so it’s easier to adopt the new process than stick with the old one. When I heard James talking about building good habits, I saw the parallels.

Four Design Elements to Build Good Habits

James describes four elements for building a good habit. I’m going to run through them quickly, as I see them applying to change in your practice:

1.  Make the new behaviour obvious
   • You need to know exactly what you have to do
   • Make sure there’s a clear guide for the new process, or that’s it’s easy to access by clicking a clearly labelled link on the computer screen
2.  Make it attractive
   • Ensure everyone knows the benefit they’ll get
   • Show people exactly what’s in it for them
3.  Make it easy
   • Reduce the friction people feel when using your new process.
   • If people need to follow a new guide or use a new checklist, make sure that document is front and centre on their dashboard, that they can find it with minimal clicks…and that it’s easier to complete than the old one
   • Your new way should take less energy and effort than the old way
4.  Make it satisfying
   • Get creative here. Although your new process delivers a benefit, that may not be enough.
   • Consider building in a reward.
   • It could even be a badge for compliance or adoption. Remember, lawyers are competitive!

Putting the Ideas into Action

So look around your practice and identify a small thing you can improve. Use our FREE Eight Wastes Workbook to get you started. Focus on small changes, and on the four things you need to do to build good habits that stick.

Join us next week for more on building a profitable and productive law practice. Sign up, you won’t want to miss it!

Thanks a lot everybody! See you next week.