#nuding

THX 2 CGcookie https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=y2D7MwaeFq0&feature=youtu.be&utm_content=buffer2f818&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=twitter

I live in an apartment with 3 roommates, while I share the bathroom with one of them. About 3 weeks ago, there has been a problem with the bathroom. Every time after I take a shower, there will be a lot of water on the floor. At the beginning I didn’t notice it too much, until my neighbour complained about it. Since then, every time when I finish shower, I have to use the mop to clean the floor before leave. After about one week, I gradually realised a problem. The mop was usually placed next to the big sink in the bathroom, which is in the corner. However, after we need to clean the floor every time when we finish shower, we need to use the mop every day. The process is to wipe the floor first, and then squeeze the water into the sink. Since the shower place is closer to the toilet bowl than the big sink. Every time after I wipe the floor, I will squeeze the water into the toilet bowl. Then after several times the floor is dried, I place the mop in its original place (the corner near the big sink).

However, from the last week, every time when I go to the bathroom to use the toilet bowl, I find that the mop is just placed next to it, which makes it inconvenient to use the toilet directly. So I have to move the mop to another place every time I want to use the toilet. I thought about this problem and asked my roommate that share the same bathroom with me. I realised that since we need to swipe the floor every time after shower, usually every evening, he just simply leave the mop next to the toilet bowel after cleaning the water. Then, I asked him to place the mop in its original place, since otherwise it will be inconvenient for me to use the toilet. He understood and agreed. But until this week, I still found that more than half of the times he just left the mop next to the toilet bowl.

Since we have this nudge experiment, I came up with the idea to test it with this problem. Since this Tuesday, every time when I go to the bathroom, I closed the cap of the toilet bowl, so in this way, my roommate cannot directly squeeze the water on the mop into the bowl. Then, as he is lazy to place the mop in the right position, he will be the same lazy to open the bowl cap. So after he swipes the floor and needs to squeeze the water, there is only the easiest place left to do it, the big sink. So after finishing cleaning the floor, as the last step is to squeeze the water into the sink, he will simply leave the mop in its original place, the corner.

After just two days experiment, I was surprised honestly because I found that the mop is never placed next to the toilet bowl again. Today evening, just 40 minutes ago, I asked him about this micro behaviour. And definitely he confirmed my guess. I am totally surprised by the power of nudging. I think it changes people’s behaviour very unconsciously. Now, I am more interested in nudging and start to think about more examples or experiments that I can do through nudging.