Rocket ships are marvelous objects of engineering. They are perfectly crafted to have absolutely aero-dynamic to have minimal friction as they shoot up into the sky, to carry enough fuel whose containers fall off in stages so that there is no dead weight dragging down the part of the rocket that needs to escape the Earth's gravitational pull. All this allows the payload to be successfully delivered at a minimal cost.

Dan Ariely, in his TEDTalk, compares this to habit building and for adopting change, and makes the point that we need to design our environment with minimal friction and burn enough fuel behind it to get the habit going.

This, of course, is a very common advice and one I've personally found very effective and have written about before as well. My approach to planning my weeks is essentially designing my environment for minimal friction and to burn enough fuel behind my goals.

However, I had never thought about it in this analogy before. And that's what analogies are for. They make simple points seem profound and powerful and memorable.

Now, I will never forget the analogy of the rocket ship.