One of my friends spends too much time on Twitter, and he’s been trying to cut that down. A valiant goal, and one I’m happy to hear about.

I was disappointed to hear that two weeks in, it’s still pretty hard on him.

So I asked him what his system is – how he’s approaching the problem.

“Uh, I mean, just trying to use Twitter less.”

And just like that, my disappointment was gone, replaced with a sly smile, which he didn’t seem to appreciate. So I quickly explained that I was happy – this is good news. I knew exactly why his attempt at self-improvement wasn’t going well, and that meant I could help.

It wasn’t going well because his system sucked. He didn’t set any sort of objective metric, and he was depending heavily on willpower. That’s two strikes against you right out of the gate.

I’m happy to say that a month later, my friend is totally cured. He reports no desire to go on Twitter, and he’s been enjoying all of his extra time. The system I recommended really worked, he says.

And even better – it was actually EASIER than his crappy system that didn’t work.

My system?

I grabbed his phone and deleted the Twitter app. Then I told him he owed me $100 if he failed (meaning he reinstalled the app).

I know, it sounds stupid simple (and a little mean), but here’s why it worked so well.

First, we made pass/fail objective. It was no longer “more” or “less”. Every day he went without reinstalling the app was a 1005, unquestioned success.

Second, we threw down some stakes (potential loss is a better motivator then potential gain), in that he’d lose $100 if he failed.

And finally, here in bold to communicate that this one is most important, we moved the decision upstream.

We gave his willpower one big fight instead of a bunch of little ones. Willpower can be strong, but it gets tired. So it works better as a weightlifter than a marathon runner. In his crappy system, his willpower was forced to act every time he saw that little blue bird on his home screen, every time he opened the app, every time he had been on for 5 minutes and didn’t want it to become 6.

In the awesome new system, his willpower faced one simple task: don’t reinstall that app.

Move your decisions upstream and you give your willpower fights it can win. Bonus points for objective measures of success and stakes.

PS – please don’t tweet this article to my friend.