Title: Atomic Habits
Author: James Clear
Year Published 2018
Kind of Book: Productivy/Habit
Personal Rating: 10/10
My Review: This is by far the best book on habit breaking and habit formation I've read. He clearly lays out all of the principles to forming good habits and breaking bad ones in a detailed way, with graphs and charts. The book incorporates pretty much everything I've learned about habit formation elsewhere. I'm annoyed that everyone cites The Power of Habit, when this book is so much better.
Date Read March 2020
Practical Takeaways
Learn how to wash your hands properly (avoid getting sick and missing out on training)-English Cycling Coach
Use goals to set your direction. Use systems to make progress
Don't wait to be happy until after you've reached your goal
Fall in love with the process rather than the product
Say "I'm the kind of person who is…" when trying to form a new habit or identity
Make your goal an identify goal (eg. To be a writer. Not to write a book.)
Stop labeling your identity in negative ways
Don't say "I'm terrible with directions"
Don't say "I'm not a morning person"
Don't say "I'm bad at remembering people's names"
Don't say "I'm always late"
Don't say "I'm not good with technology"
Don't say "I'm horrible at math"
Don't get too attached to one version of your identity (eg. A drummer, a writer etc.)
Decide the type of person you want to be
Ask yourself "What would a healthy person do?"
Make a list of all of your daily habits and put a + next to good habits, - next to bad habits, and = next to neutral habits
Before you're about to do a bad habit, say out loud the action that you are thinking of taking and what the outcome will be (eg. I'm about to eat this cookie, I will feel sick to my stomach and hate myself)
Make time or location cues for your habits ie. State when and where you will do each habit (eg. At 8pm every day I will put on my blue light blocking glasses. As soon as I step in the shower I will turn the water on cold)
Fill out this sentence for each habit I will [behavior] at [time] in [location] or Habit stack After [current habit], I will [New Habit]
Start your new habit the first day of the week, month, or year
Identify a current habit you do everyday and then stack your new behavior on top (eg. Journal, then take a cold shower)
Make your trigger super clear for habits (eg. When I close my laptop for lunch NOT when I take a break for lunch)
Whenever you see a set of stairs, take them instead of using the elevator/escalator
Whenever you walk into a party, introduce yourself to someone you don't know yet
Whenever you want to buy something over $100, wait 24hrs hours before purchasing it
Whenever you buy a new item, give something away (one in one out)
Whenever your phone rings, take a deep breath and smile before answering
Whenever you leave a public place, do a quick idiot check to make sure you have everything with you
Design your environment for success
Create obvious visual cues for the habits you're trying to implement ie. Put the thing you're trying to do more of in plain sight (eg. Put guitar in the middle of where you walk every day, not in the closet)
Put fruit in a large display bowl where you will see it in the kitchen
Chop up veggies and put them where you'll see them when you open the fridge
Keep a stack of thank you card stationary at your desk
Create separate spaces in your home for work, study, exercise, entertainment, and cooking. "One space one use". If space is limited, divide your room into activity zones: a chair for reading, a desk for writing, a table for eating, a bed for sleep/sex
To think more creatively and expansively, work outside or on a patio or in a large room with high ceilings
Have one computer only for writing and one only for other things.
Structure your life in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control
Spend less time in tempting situations
Create a more disciplined environment
Stop following social media accounts which trigger jealousy and envy
Leave your phone in another room while you work
Make your bad habits cues invisible
Make your good habits cues obvious
Use temptation bundling ie grannies rules with habits
After [current habit] I will [Habit I need]
After [habit I need] I will [Habit I want]
Surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself
Word swap: say "I'm liberated by my wheelchair, not confined to it (otherwise I would be confined to my bed)-
Put headphones on while writing (helps concentration)
Don't let preparation turn into procrastination
Make your habits so easy that you'll do them even when you don't feel like it //mini habits
Make your new habit something that is easy/mindless for the first 2mins (the following actions can be challenging)
Clean the toilet right before you take a shower while the water is warming up
Whenever use finish using something organize it so that it is easy to use the next time you want to use it (eg. Cleaning dishes, setting up drums after a gig)
Master the habit of showing up/ do the work
Buy good shoes (to avoid back pain)
Get a dog (to be happy)
Use technology to remind yourself to do things that happen too infrequently to become habitual. Ie. Things that occur once a week or once a month (eg. Manscape, call Grandma etc.)
Make good habits easy
Chop your vegetables as soon as you get them and put them in containers in the fridge so you'll eat them
Make bad habits difficult
Unplug the television and take the batteries out of the remote after each use
Leave your phone in a different room until lunch
Ask the waiter to put half of your meal in a to-go box so you are not inclined to overeat
Pay for something ahead of time that you think you might back out of, but know you should do (eg. Yoga class, speed dating)
Remove your television set from your bedroom
Use website blocking apps
Add immediate satisfaction to good habits you want to implement
The more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns with your long-term goals
Add immediate pleasure to the good habits you're trying to implement
Make the ending of your habit satisfying
Open a savings account (on qapital goal) and label it something you want to buy (books, trip to Europe etc.). Every time you resist spending money on something (eating out, buying candy etc.) put the amount you would've spent in the account right then
Make your reward for doing your habit something that is pleasurable but still in alignment with your long term goals (a massage, a nap, a hot shower, trashy reality show)
Get a calendar and cross off each day you stick with your routine
Consistently track one habit (don't sporadically track 10)
Track your habit immediately after you do it (The completion of the behavior becomes the cue to write it down)
Never miss twice
Just show up on your bad or busy days (Going to the gym for five minutes may not improve your performance, but it reaffirms your identity)
Never interrupt compounding unnecessarily-Charlie Munger
Create a habit contract (a written agreement which states your commitment to a particular habit and the punishment that will happen if you don't follow through) and sign it
Choose a career that feels like fun to you, but work to others
Choose a career that makes you lose track of time
Until you work as hard as those you admire, don't explain away their success as luck
Weather the boredom on doing the same habit every day. Don't jump from habit to habit (ie. fall in love with boredom)
Do the work even when it is not convenient or exciting
Don't be a fair weather writer or athlete
Publish on schedule
Keep a decision journal: record every important decision you made, why you made it, what you expected the outcome to be. Review it quarterly
Do an annual review in December: tally all your habits for the year (workouts, eating, writing etc.) Ask three questions:
What went well this year?
What didn't go so well this year?
What did I learn?
Avoid making any single aspect of your identity an overwhelming portion of who you are (drummer, writer, teacher etc.) ie. keep your identity small
Good habits
Make it
Obvious
Attractive
Easy
Satisfying
Bad habits
Make it
Invisible
Unattractive
Hard
Unsatisfying
Big Ideas
Every action you take shapes the way you view yourself and who you are
The people with the best self-control are typically the ones who need to use it the least.
For repeated behaviors we experience dopamine Before we experience the pleasure (not after)
We have a competing needs to be the same and different than everyone else
We don't look for ways to stand out until we fit in
For a habit to stick, It matters the rate at which the habit has been performed, not how many DAYS it has been
We repeat behaviors we receive an immediate reward for
We avoid behaviors we receive an immediate punishment for
Boredom is the biggest enemy to mastery
The most motivating force for a person is seeing their progress
Surprising Facts
Research estimates 40-50% of our actions on any given day are done out of habit
To achieve a state of flow, a task must be roughly 4% beyond your current ability
When dopamine was blocked in rats brains they lost all will to live. They wouldn't eat. They wouldn't have sex. They didn't crave anything. Within a few days, the animals died of thirst. Pg105
Victor Hugo had an assistant lock all his clothes away so he couldn't leave his house and was forced to write. He wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Unknown Terms
Ulysses pact/Ulysses contract (Commitment device): a choice you make in the present that controls your actions in the future ie. Automating good decisions for the future (eg. Packing healthy lunches for the week, using cold turkey to block you from the internet at certain times, or Ulysses bounding himself to the mast of the shit so he wouldn't be tempted by the sirens)
Orosensation: How a food feels in your mouth (ie. mouth feel)
Taking an Action: James Clear's term for behaviors where there is risk of failure or the type of behavior that will deliver an outcome (eg. Approaching a girl, doing stand up comedy, interviewing for a job, showing someone your writing)
Being in Motion: James Clear's term for behaviors where there is no risk of failure (eg. Organizing notes, doing research, reading)
Premack's Principle (Temptation Bundling, Grannies Rule): The principle that states that "more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors." (eg. Eating your vegetables before your dessert)
The Law of Least Effort: the law which states that when deciding between two similar options, people will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work
The Principle of Least Action: a foundational principle in physics which states that the path followed between any two points will always be the path requiring the least energy.
Habits: reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment-Jason Hreha
Implementation Intention: the plan you make beforehand about when and where to act
Automaticity: the ability to perform a behavior without thinking about each step, which occurs when the nonconscious mind takes over. automatic behavior. System 1
Yerkes-Dodson law: law in psychology which describes the optimal level of arousal as the midpoint between boredom an anxiety
Diderot Effect: This cognitive bias is the tendency for one purchase to lead to another purchase which leads to another and so on.
Variable Reward: a term for when a behavior is rewarded at random instead of every time or never. This has been shown to be the most powerful way to increasing an agent to perform the behavior (eg. Slot machines operate according to this algorithm)
Habit Stacking: This is the process of making an existing habit be the cue for a new habit you want to implement (for example. My cold shower will be the cue for me to do 10 push-ups in the morning)