Emily Marrison explains how small nudges can help us make better choices vs. easy choices

We can implement nudges in our personal lives on our own. But there are also lots of companies trying to implement nudges in our lives for us. Any time a business or brand encourages us to do something automatically, they help us to incorporate a habit into our lives. They call this choice architecture.

The Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the University of Pennsylvania put together a list of some of the best and worst nudges. One person suggested the urinal fly. They must have been having some problems with clean restrooms at an Amsterdam airport, so someone came up with a great plan. Make using the urinal a game. They put a picture of a fly in the urinal and apparently there is just an inner instinct to aim for the fly.

Another example is leveraging social norms to encourage a change in behavior. An example of this is utility bills that include how much energy your household uses compared to other households in the area. There is a human desire to want to be closer to the average or below on expenditures.