🏃 Only While You're on the Treadmill

The Audiobooks Locked Inside the Gym

In a 2014 study, Wharton professor Katy Milkman and colleagues wanted to see if pairing something people already want to do with something they should do would actually change behavior. They gave one group of gym members iPods loaded with tempting audiobooks — best-selling page-turners people struggle to put down — but locked those audiobooks so they'd only play at the gym.

Researchers call this temptation bundling: deliberately chaining something you want — a show, a podcast, a favorite audiobook — to something you should do but keep avoiding, so the "want" pulls the "should" along with it.

🏃 Build Your Bundle

1. Pick an indulgence you already reach for often — a show, a podcast, a favorite playlist.
2. Make it available only during the activity you're avoiding — not before, not after.
3. Choose a should-do that's genuinely compatible with the reward's timing — an audiobook works mid-workout; a movie doesn't.
4. Protect the restriction. The bundle only works if the treat stays locked behind the habit, every time.