April 22nd, 2019

Why You Should Create A Reminder Every Day

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Have you ever double-booked an appointment, forgot to make a call or left something important behind at home or the office?

If so, congratulations, you are not a robot!

People are not infallible. We make mistakes and fall short of our own expectations. We can easily neglect our obligations and responsibilities, especially if we are feeling overwhelmed.

Don’t be so hard on yourself if your memory keeps letting you down. We could all use a little help managing the many balls we juggle each day. That’s what the Fabulous app is for! It combines technology with behavioral science to support you in planning and following through on all your goals. To see how it works for yourself, try The Fabulous Unexpected Journey. It’s the perfect introduction to the app and all the wonderful habit-building wisdom it offers!

How To Develop Habits That Stick

Your brain likes patterns, so one way to encourage lasting habits is to create a repeated link between a place, time of day, or thing, and particular activities.

The Fabulous app recommends that we drink water every morning, as soon as we wake up. By placing your water bottle right by your bedside you are prompted straight away to follow through on your healthy morning habit. The bottle becomes a powerful visual cue that you link to a specific action, in a specific place, at a specific time! These cues are commonly known as ‘triggers’.

Triggers Help to Remind Us

Triggers are environmental reminders that you can create to intentionally support your new habits. They act like a bell sounding, pulling you out of those automatic old routines and reminding you of your new plan.

If you walk the same route to work every day the scenery begins to become invisible. The steps you take are automatic and you don’t think about the journey at all.

In order to make a habit change, you need to interrupt your current route and create obstacles to your old behavior.

Here are some examples of triggers that encourage positive habits:

  • Hang your dog’s leash by the front door to remind you to walk them before you go to work.
  • Put your gym bag on the passenger seat of your car to give you a visual push to workout.
  • Leave your vitamins out on the kitchen counter to remind you to take them before your breakfast.
  • Put a post-it note on your phone so you don’t forget to call your mom.

The Fabulous app understands the importance of shaping your environment to trigger new healthy behaviors. With every new habit you create in the app you’re crafting those powerful visual cues.

Digital Reminders

You likely spend a lot of time with your smartphone anyway so why not put it to good practical use?

Automating your unique triggers makes them more intuitive. Creating digital reminders is easy and ensures you remember all your appointments, deadlines and duties wherever you go.

Here are some suggestions for using technology to remind you of your most important daily tasks.

  • Set up an alarm on your phone to remind you to focus, turn off social media or to check your to-do list throughout the day.
  • When someone sends you an email requesting a meeting enter the information into your online calendar immediately and select an alert to remind you of the appointment days or hours before it happens.
  • While you have your calendar handy input all your family and friends’ important birthdays and anniversaries and select to be reminded of the event with enough time to send a card, buy a gift, or to give them a call.
  • Set an alarm to remind you to drink water and to take regular breaks from your desk to walk around or exercise.
  • You could also try adding reminders for less essential but still important activities like meditation, self-care time or socializing with your friends.

Changing your behavior and adopting new habits can be a challenge. It helps to have someone or something to hold you accountable. If you’re aiming to work out every day, for example, sign up for Fabulous’s Morning Exercise Challenge. We’ll send you daily reminders and encouragement to keep you on task!

By setting up triggers that encourage good habits and creating reminders of what you want to accomplish each day you’ll banish past unhealthy behaviors for good.