Atomic Habits - James Clear
This book gives a framework to develop new habits and stop bad ones. Written by James Clear a productivity coach and speaker.
Why Tiny Changes make a Big Difference
Story of Dave Braisfolrd, a cycling performance director who transformed british cycling from ridiculous to top performers on Olympics and Tour de France. He decided to improve everything by 1%: the heater in the cyclists shirts, the color of the garage walls to see dust more easily, the food of cyclists etc.
Habits are compound interests of self-improvement.
Focusing on goals is hard and inefficient: the result of our efforts are delayed and the results have little to do with the goal we set and nearly everything to do with the system we follow. Also, achieving a goal only changes our life for the moment not in the long run.
You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.
The ultimate form of motivation comes when a habit become part of our identity. Ex: thinking like a healthy person helps taking healthy decisions. To change something about ourselves, we should from the beginning play like we already did the change and make it part of our identity.
Becoming the best version of ourself is about constantly improving/re-defining our identity.
Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you want to be.
Framework to Create a Good Habit
| Law | Action |
|---|---|
| Obvious | |
| Write down your current habits to become aware of them | |
| Define intentions: “I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]” | |
| Habit stacking: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT]” | |
| Shape your env, make the cues of good habits obvious and visible | |
| Attractive | |
| Pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do | |
| Join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal one | |
| Motivation Ritual: Do something you enjoy just before a hard habit | |
| Easy | |
| Reduce Friction between you and your good habits | |
| Prepare your env to make future actions easier | |
| Optimize the small changes that deliver outsized impact | |
| 2 minutes rule: fit your new habit in 2min (ex: 10 push-ups) | |
| Automate your habits, invest in tech to lock in future behaviors | |
| Satisfying | |
| Use reinforcement, give yourself a rewards after habit completion | |
| Make “doing nothing” enjoyable as long as no bad habits are involved | |
| Habit tracker: keep track of your streak | |
| Never miss twice |
Framework to Eliminate a Bad Habit
| Law | Action |
|---|---|
| Invisible | |
| Reduce exposure, remove the cues of bad habits in env (ex: put the remote in another room) | |
| Unattractive | |
| Reframe mindset, highlight the benefits of avoiding bad habits | |
| Difficult | |
| Increase friction / the number of steps between you and your bad habit | |
| Restrict the future choices to the ones that benefit you | |
| Unsatisfying | |
| Get an accountability partner, ask someone to watch your behavior on a particular habit | |
| Create a habit contract, make the costs of your bad habit public and painful |