If-then plans

Deciding what to do in the moment is the worst time to decide. Under craving, your reasoning gets narrow and short-horizoned, and whatever's easiest wins.

So decide in advance, in a specific format that's been tested repeatedly across health behaviours: "If [specific situation], then I will [specific action]."

The specificity is doing the work. "I'll resist when I get urges" is not a plan — it names no situation and no action. "If I'm still on my phone in bed after 11pm, then I'll put it on the desk and read the paperback that's on the nightstand" is a plan. It has a detectable trigger and a physical action.

Why it works: you're pre-loading the response so the cue itself retrieves it, rather than requiring you to generate a new decision under pressure. It shifts effort from the hard moment to an easy one.

Build three, mapped to your top three trigger patterns. Not ten. Three you'll remember.

Some worked examples:

• If I get in from work and the flat is empty and I feel that specific flatness, then I'll put trainers on and walk for fifteen minutes before I sit down.
• If I've had an argument with my partner and I'm alone afterwards, then I'll text someone rather than open my laptop.
• If it's a Sunday afternoon and I've got nothing scheduled, then I'll go to the café with a book. Out of the flat.

Note the pattern: each then is a concrete physical action, not an internal state. "I'll calm down" isn't an action. "I'll leave the room" is.

Takeaways

• "If [situation], then I will [action]" — the specificity is the mechanism.
• Three, mapped to your three patterns. Not ten.
• Every then is a physical action. "I'll calm down" isn't one.