Temptation bundling: Katy Milkman's trick for dull tasks

On Speaking of Psychology (episode 159, 2021), Wharton professor Katy Milkman told host Kim Mills how a problem from her own graduate school years turned into a research program. Tired after long days of engineering classes, she wanted to curl up with a thriller or a TV series when she should have been doing problem sets, and she couldn't drag herself to the gym. So she tied the two together.

I made a new rule that I was only allowed to indulge in entertainment while I was exercising.

Katy Milkman, Speaking of Psychology, 2021

The effect surprised her. After a long day she wanted to rush to the gym to find out what happened next in her audiobook, and she came home ready to work, with nothing left to distract her at the desk. She later named the idea temptation bundling: linking something you enjoy with something that feels like a chore, so the chore becomes easier to face.

What the trial found

Milkman then tested the idea with other people. In the study she describes in that conversation, gym members got gripping audio novels that they could only hear while working out, with the players kept in a locker at the gym. A review she later co-wrote with Angela Duckworth and David Laibson reports that in the first week, that group exercised 55% more than a comparison group. The benefit lasted several weeks and then vanished when the gym closed over Thanksgiving (Duckworth, Milkman & Laibson, 2018).

Two cautions come with that result. The review says only one field study had tested temptation bundling directly, and that study was about exercise, not the paperwork, essays or emails people usually put off. And as Milkman said herself, a break in the routine can wipe the effect out. Her own suggestion is that it should apply to other chores, such as saving a favorite podcast for housework, or a favorite snack for the walk to the library.

Why it fits procrastination

Procrastination is often about how a task feels right now. A boring task offers nothing in the next ten minutes, while your phone or the sofa offers plenty. Temptation bundling changes the trade. It doesn't ask you to resist the treat. It moves the treat next to the task, so starting the task is how you get it.

The pairing works best when the treat is something you really want, and when you can't get it any other way. A podcast you also play in the car is a weak bundle.

How this fits the Stop procrastinating program

In the 1h Protocol to Stop Procrastinating, learners whose answers point to the Bored pattern (nothing in the task draws them in) start by making the task worth starting. In the chapter on choosing changes for your pattern, one option is exactly this pairing: you name your own treat and decide whether it comes while you work or straight after, and it goes into your protocol in your own words. The first chapter is free, so you can see your pattern before you decide.

Source: Speaking of Psychology, episode 159: How science can help you change your behavior for the better, with Katy Milkman (2021) Research: Duckworth, Milkman & Laibson, Beyond willpower (2018)