What it is
ADHD brains follow the path of least resistance, often before consciously deciding. Friction design is the practice of deliberately changing the resistance on different behaviours: making the good thing slightly easier than it currently is, and the bad thing slightly harder.
You're not relying on willpower. You're shaping the gradient.
When to use it
- You keep choosing the easy bad thing over the easy good thing
- "Just one more episode" / "just one quick scroll" keeps winning
- The healthy option requires effort you don't have at the relevant moment
- You can spot the moment of the bad decision, but not stop it
How to do it
The two moves are: reduce friction on what you want, add friction to what you don't.
For ADHD brains, small changes in friction make outsized differences. You don't need huge barriers. Five extra seconds of difficulty is often enough to break a habit.
Examples:
- Phone scrolling: Move social apps off the home screen, into a folder, on the second page. Five seconds of extra friction breaks the autopilot reach. Logging out adds another layer. Removing the app entirely (and using mobile web) adds another.
- Healthy eating: Pre-chop vegetables on Sunday so they're as fast to grab as crisps. Put fruit at eye level on the counter. Put crisps in a high cupboard.
- Exercise: Sleep in your workout clothes. Put your shoes by the door. Pre-pack the gym bag.
- Reading vs scrolling at night: Put a physical book on your pillow. Charge your phone in a different room.
- Writing: Open the document last thing before bed so it's already open in the morning. Disable internet in the writing app.
An example
I had a phone-in-bed problem for years. Tried willpower. Failed for years.
What worked: a single physical change. Put a wireless charger on the kitchen counter, removed the bedside charger entirely. The phone now charges on the kitchen counter, not next to my bed.
That's ~four metres of extra friction. Four metres was enough. I haven't scrolled in bed in eighteen months. Not from discipline. From logistics.
When this fails
- You add friction but leave the easier alternative right there. Move the chips to a high shelf but leave the fast snack in the cupboard, and you'll just eat the alternative.
- You design once and let it drift. Friction designs decay. The phone migrates back to the bedside. The chips return. Re-set monthly.
- You only add friction, never reduce it. If the good behaviour is also hard, you're just making everything hard. The lift is in shifting the gradient, not raising the floor.
Try it this week
Pick one habit you'd like to do less of, and one you'd like to do more of. Identify one small friction change for each (a 5-second tweak, not a life overhaul). Implement both this week. See what shifts without willpower.