Katy Milkman wasn’t always the celebrated scientist reshaping how we think about change—her journey began with a simple, personal struggle.
Before that, she was a graduate student facing a very familiar dilemma: the battle between what she wanted to do and what she knew she should do.
Long days spent in classrooms and labs left her drained by the time she returned home.
She’d collapse onto the couch, craving nothing more than an escape—an hour or two immersed in the twists and turns of a lowbrow novel like The Hunger Games or Twilight.
These stories were her guilty pleasures, little indulgences that felt justifiable after a hard day.
But guilt came with the indulgence.
Katy knew she had other priorities.
Her coursework demanded attention, her fitness goals languished unmet, and she recognized that skipping workouts wasn’t just impacting her health but her happiness, too.
A lifelong athlete, Katy thrived when she moved her body regularly.
Yet even that knowledge wasn’t enough to get her out the door.
One evening, an idea struck—a small, almost too-simple idea that would become the foundation of her future work.
What if she could pair the thing she craved—her audiobooks—with the thing she dreaded—exercise?
What if she could only listen to those novels she loved so much while she was on the treadmill or the elliptical?
Katy tried it.
The rules were clear: no indulging in those gripping audiobooks unless she was working out.
No exceptions.
And to her surprise, the experiment worked.
She began to look forward to the gym.
She didn’t think about the sweat or the exertion or the sometimes monotonous repetition of running in place.
All that mattered was the unfolding drama of her latest audiobook.
Time passed quickly, and when the workout ended, she left feeling energized and accomplished, ready to tackle her academic workload with new clarity.
Bit by bit, her grades improved, her mood lifted, and the gym became not a chore but a haven.
Katy had stumbled upon something much bigger than she realized at the time:
A way to bridge the gap between immediate desires and long-term goals.
Years later, now a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Katy revisited that personal experiment through the lens of her research.
She gave it a name: temptation bundling.
The brilliance of temptation bundling lies in linking two activities.
By pairing a pleasurable activity with a necessary one, it creates a win-win situation.
The enjoyable activity motivates you to tackle the less appealing one, and you get to indulge guilt-free because it’s tied to productivity.
Experiment: Temptation Bundling at the Gym
To test this idea, Katy along with other researchers designed an experiment targeting gym-goers who wanted to work out more consistently.
Participants were divided into two groups:
1. Temptation Bundling Group:
- Each participant was loaned an iPod preloaded with their choice of gripping audiobooks like The Hunger Games or The Da Vinci Code.
- The catch? They could only listen to these audiobooks while working out at the gym.
2. Control Group:
- Participants in this group received a Barnes & Noble gift card instead of an iPod.
Both groups began with a 30-minute workout, but only the temptation bundling group had the added incentive of the audiobook to make their gym time enjoyable.
The Results
For the first seven weeks, the temptation bundling group showed a significant increase in gym attendance compared to the control group.
Participants were eager to return to the gym, not just to exercise but to find out what happened next in their stories.
The iPods acted as both a motivator and a reward, transforming exercise from a chore into a time they looked forward to.
However, when Thanksgiving break arrived and the gym closed, the effect diminished.
Without access to their audiobooks, participants lost the incentive to work out.
This highlighted both the power and the limitations of temptation bundling—it works brilliantly in the short term but needs additional strategies to sustain long-term behavior change.
The Unexpected Discovery
At the end of the study, participants were asked a surprising question:
Would they be willing to pay for a service that restricted their access to tempting content?
Over 60% of participants eagerly agreed, demonstrating that people recognize the value of temptation bundling and are even willing to invest in it.
The beauty of temptation bundling lies in its simplicity.
It doesn’t require willpower alone, nor does it depend on lofty motivation.
Instead, it works with human nature, offering an immediate reward for doing something that might otherwise feel like a chore.
For Katy, the concept became more than just an academic discovery.
It was a reminder of the power of small, creative adjustments to change the trajectory of a life.
What began as a way to solve her own struggles has since helped countless others do the same.
The lesson Katy Milkman teaches is a simple one: even the toughest habits can be made easier when joy and purpose walk hand in hand.
This post was inspired by Katy Milkman's Ted Talk, Why we fail and how we stand up afterwards and Charles Duhigg's interview with Katy Milkman.
