Throughout the EcoHome LO certification process, your progress will be largely guided by the certification checklist. While useful in getting residents to rethink their approach to sustainability, the certification checklist is only one part of the holistic picture. Larger one-time actions (like buying a water-saving showerhead) are important and impactful, but we can’t overstate the unique value in committing to completing a series of smaller actions (like turning off your faucet while brushing your teeth) every day! So, how do you incorporate daily, eco-friendly habits into your schedule?
According to the most commonly-cited study on human habit formation, it can take a person anywhere from 18 to 254 days to form a new habit. The average time frame is a little over 2 months. Thus, long-term commitment, motivation, and accountability are vital when trying to implement eco-friendly habits into your daily routine.
To help participants form these difficult habits, we’ve created the EcoDay Challenge as an optional tool and behavioral research project. The goal of the EcoDay Challenge is to help participants train themselves to take sustainability into account as they go about their daily lives.
If you are interested in opting into the EcoDay Challenge, simply log your EcoDay progress in your personal EcoHome LO portal whenever you can. Click here to access a provisional version of the EcoDay checklist!
Once the EcoDay challenge begins, you’ll need to learn how to participate. Every month, you will select 4 new habits from the EcoDay checklist that you hope to implement into your daily life. Every week, you will select a supplemental fifth habit you want to “sample” or “test run.”
You should be aiming to complete the 4 monthly habits as often as you can within the month-long period. Meanwhile, the 1 weekly habit allows you to experiment with a new habit every week in a low-commitment manner; this process will help you decide if a given habit is realistic to implement in the future.
An EcoDay is any day that you complete all of the habits you selected for yourself. As you work on implementing your habits, be sure to log your EcoDays in your personal EcoHome LO portal whenever possible.
Once the month-long period is over, evaluate whether the habits you selected for yourself have become an automatic part of your daily life. If so, select new habits you want to implement. If not, re-select those same habits for the following month; repeat until you’ve implemented habits to your satisfaction!