My wife, being the observant person as all spouses are, noticed an eating habit of mine: I always saved the best bite for last.

Whatever I wanted most on my plate was what I ate around until it was the only thing left. In response, she gradually crowded out my “best bite” with increasing amounts of vegetables.

I barely noticed it happening until nine months later when I was feeling a whole lot healthier.

It only occurred to me recently this is a brilliant way to get rid of bad habits and acquire better ones as it’s not always practical to go full tilt on something new. Eventually the excitement wanes and a person is right back to where they started (as exhibited by the countless yo-yo dieters).

Crowding out habits is a great way to gradually get rid of bad habits and replace them with better ones. Although I will be excited to see BJ Fogg’s new book on tiny habits (I’ve preordered it), this is what I’ve been doing the past few years to help me out.

I am not immune, for instance, to spending an inordinate amount of time playing a videogame. For whatever reason, I always seem to search for a game that will keep me hooked. Then, once I find that game, lo and behold — I’m hooked and ignoring other things I want to do.

Then there’s the usual distractions that can keep any person away from the priorities they want to commit: TV shows, social media, 36 sports channels, etc.

Crowding these out required me to fill my schedule with the other “necessities.” Every night I spend a few minutes to update my budget, write a few lines of fiction, cleanup, clear one piece of clutter, mark student work, prepare the next day and try to meet my reading goal of 100 pages.

All of those little tasks add up to not having enough time for distractions. eventually, my goal is to fill the day with nothing but good habits.

In the meantime I’m content knowing that crowding out bad habits is working in the same way that crowding my plate with good food got me healthier.

It’s a pretty good option.