How My Coffee Maker Helped Me Stick to This Morning Habit

Find practical ways to tweak your habits and make every day a little easier and joy-filled with Routines, Simplified! from Apartment Therapy, The Kitchn, and Cubby. This content is presented by Amazon; it was created independently by our editorial team.

I’m a new mom, and as soon as the baby came into my life, many of the healthy habits I followed during my pregnancy disappeared. Reading after waking up was replaced by feeding the baby. Stretching at night? Now it’s bath time and lullabies (which is its own form of self-care). But one habit you’ll never catch me breaking is my morning coffee with breakfast. So when I learned about “breakfast habit stacking” as a way to bake in other beneficial routines, I was intrigued. 

I’m constantly forgetting to take my vitamins, so I adopted the breakfast habit stack to help. I’ve now been doing it for over a week and can report: It works. 

The concept of “habit stacking” comes from a 2014 book by S. J. Scott called Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes That Take Five Minutes or Less. The idea is that by attaching a new habit to an existing one, you’re better able to make it stick. Instead of relying entirely on motivation to, say, meditate daily, you meditate for five minutes after brushing your teeth. 

With the breakfast stack, which I learned about from Micki Wagner, shopping writer at The Kitchn, you attach a new habit to your breakfast routine, something most of us do every day. Wagner uses it to take her supplements when she makes eggs every morning. 

I also eat some breakfast with my coffee every morning. What I don’t do, though, is remember to take my vitamins every day. So this sounded like a great way to experiment with habits that might make vitamin-taking a more regular occurrence for me.

Previously, I kept my vitamins on the bottom shelf of a kitchen cabinet, where I had to sift through various supplement canisters and powder sachets to find the right ones. The night before starting my new routine, I moved my postpartum supplements to a can’t-miss location right next to my coffee machine. 

My postpartum supplement comes in pre-packaged sachets, so the box doesn’t demand a ton of space. If I had a larger collection of pills, or if my husband catches on and wants in on the new routine, I wouldn’t be wild about leaving out a bunch of pill containers. I will probably divvy them up into a cute pill holder to keep back clutter. 

On the first day, since I don’t like to drink coffee or take supplements on an empty stomach, after my typical morning activities like emptying the dishwasher, snuggling a baby, and doing a little tidy-up of the house, I put together my usual breakfast of yogurt and fruit. Then I brewed my coffee, and hey, there were my vitamins! I grabbed a packet while my milk frother did its thing, and took them after eating. Box, checked!

I’m happy to report that the simple act of moving my vitamins from an out-of-the-way spot to somewhere prominent has completely changed the game. It’s one less step I have to take in the morning and requires a little less mental energy (which, these days, is at a premium). My vitamins have earned their spot next to the coffee maker, and I don’t see them going anywhere soon.