Victim or architect

THE RUB

My kids were surprised by my solution. My 32 oz Owala FreeSip insulated stainless steel water bottle with straw that I used for daily hydration didn't fit into the cup holder of my new-to-me 2021 Toyota Tacoma. They thought the logical solution was for me to get a smaller water bottle. Instead, I chose to change out the cup holders in my truck.

I found an oversized cup holder that was easy to install. I removed the center console, flipped it upside down, unscrewed the old factory-installed cup holder, and replaced it with this new larger one developed by AJT design. It's perfect! It holds my Owala water bottle, my coffee cup, and even a bottle a gin that I was given as a gift at dinner.

My kids were right, changing my water bottle (my tool) would have been easier, but I liked the size of that water bottle. Big enough that I only needed to fill it a couple of times each day, yet small enough to carry with ease. The heft and feel of it felt ideal. Changing the cup holder (my environment) removed daily friction and made drinking water on my daily commute simple and natural.

THE FRAMEWORK

I’m fascinated by how humans change their environments to adapt our needs, from cutting down trees to build a homestead, to something as simple as buying a backlit keyboard. It’s amazing how environment design can have an upstream effect on desired behavior.  One of my favorite chapters from James Clear’s Atomic Habits is Motivation is Overrated: Environment Often Matters More. Clear talks about how to make your habit obvious by adding cues to your environment. He taught me to lay out my workout clothes the night before, so in the morning there’s less friction to put them on and go for a run.

“You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.”

There was a time in my life when I was much more deliberate about crafting my personal space. When I had a corporate office, my family helped me create a set of large prints that hung on the wall. Each depicted a primary function of how I framed my job: plan, design, build, and grow.

What I loved was each picture wove in elements of the other three areas, and most importantly, each picture showed one of the hands of each of my four kids.

I thought I was so clever. The set was a nice conversation starter, it reminded me of what was important, and it brought joy even on the most stressful of days.

I used to dedicate more time and energy to refining my environments, and the cup holder modification to my truck has awakened the desire to quit being the victim of my various environments and return to being the architect of them. In fact, I’ve headed down the path of several more truck mods: red LED dome light, dash phone mount, smooth tailgate liner, and front hood struts.

THE PRACTICE

My next environment to modify is my big comfy chair. It already has the bones of good environment design. It’s an inviting space with a footstool and two books are always within reach — one fiction, one non-fiction — so there’s no excuse of not knowing what to read next. But there are two friction points: my phone gets more time than the books, and I often only make it to the chair at the end of the day after I've done everything else, exhausted and ready to go to bed.

The first design change is simple. The chair becomes a bubble with no phone allowed inside the bubble. The second element to update is to treat the chair as a destination rather than a crashing point at the end of the day. I want it to be a place I move toward, a transition point not a landing spot.

Here's the challenge I'm giving myself: Use the chair as a decompression chamber between work and evening. Close the laptop. Leave the phone on the desk and spend 20 minutes in the chair before the night begins. Let it become a ritual for switching modes and dedicated time for reading.

On days when I work from home, there is a second window midday when focus starts to fray and the temptation to scroll replaces the ability to think. A book and a cup of coffee beat doom scrolling every time, but only if the environment makes the book easier to reach than the phone.

What can I do on the days when I go into the office? Is there a big chair equivalent somewhere in the building or nearby? A coffee shop, park bench, or quiet corner in the lunch room. Somewhere I can take 20 minutes with a book away from my screens?

The chair isn't a piece of furniture. It's a design principle. It can exist anywhere I'm intentional enough to find it. The cup holder took 30 minutes to install. The chair already exists. The work is just deciding to use it differently.