Overview

• Researchers tracked 105 participants with six daily check-ins for one week, asking whether current actions were habitually triggered or executed and whether they matched intentions.
• Participants reported 65% habit instigation, 88% habit execution, and 76% alignment with intentions.
• The study distinguished between habitually initiating an action and habitually carrying it out, a measurement approach the authors describe as new.
• Exercise emerged as more often habitually triggered but less often habitually executed compared with other behaviors.
• The authors and subsequent commentary recommend reshaping cues and routines—adding prompts and lowering barriers for desired actions, removing triggers or adding friction for unwanted ones—while cautioning that results come from a small, self-reported, one-week sample.