Atomic Habits
James Clear
Habits are automatic choices that influence the conscious decisions that follow
What I like
- Short, easily-digestible chapters with excellent line height. Reading this book felt easy
- Use of stories to illustrate concepts such as habit stacking, great context
- The book reads very fluidly, each chapter carries over to the next
- Good balance of theory along with practical advice to build/break habits
- Frankly I think that everyone should read this book
- Minor critiques
- At times the book comes off as idealistic and pragmatic
- Some content might seem painfully obvious to those familiar with behavioral design
Key Topics
All, Psychology, Strategy
Review
Atomic Habits is one part behavioral design, and another part self-help. I’ve heard about it all over the place, from book-stores, to a chiropractor of mine, to my brother-in-law. It’s no surprise that this book has gotten so many reviews on Amazon (almost 100,000). I think it has the power to impact a lot of people. What I find more interesting, however, is how this book can be paired with books like Measure What Matters to create a system that allows both individuals and businesses alike set goals, build habits, and measure success. This is why I bought both books at the same time (I’m sure I’m not alone).
James Clear does a wonderful job blending real stories with theories from behavioral psychology, and ties the two together to create a practical system that anyone can use to create change. What I really liked about this book and what will stick with me the most is the interplay between habits and identity- where the habits we have in our life shape who we are as a person. This book also helped simplify what a “goal” is and how habits can be used to help us reach them. Clear also did a fantastic job of weaving in scientific evidence without ever coming off as overly-academic. The tone in the book is friendly. It’s written like a self-help book but it provides a lot more to those looking for proof in the pudding, which is why I think it’s so successful.
So, if you’re looking for a book about building or breaking habits, whether for yourself, a child, a user group, or a business, I’d recommend this book.
Learnings
- A goal is a north-star, what we want to achieve. A system is a collection of habits that helps us achieve that goal.
- Habits are unconscious actions and behaviors we take, often times in pursuit of predicting the future, and begins with awareness.
- If you want to make a habit a bit part of your life, then make a cue a big part of your environment.
- Cues need to be made stupidly obvious in order for them to be successfully invoked.
- We can make cues invisible or change environments to reduce bad habits.
- Desire drives behavior, specifically desire for reward.
- People generally imitate the habits of three groups: those that are close to them, their culture or social groups, and those of powerful people.
- With habit development, it’s not so much about how long you have been doing something for, but how frequently, that determines how long it takes for a habit to become automatic.
- People will naturally gravitate towards what’s easy, and away from things where there’s enough friction.
- “Habits are automatic choices that influence the conscious decisions that follow”.
- The third way to make a habit stick is to make habits easy to do.
- The cardinal rule of behavior change is that what is rewarded is repeated.
- Habit tracking is the process of measuring how well you are keeping up with your habits, and it is obvious, attractive, and satisfying.
- If we wish to break a bad habit, one of the best ways to do that is to make a habit contract either with yourself or someone else.
- Personality is the set of personal characteristics that are consistent from situation to situation.
- The Goldilocks rule in habit development suggests that we hit a flow state when we are doing an activity that is about 4% more difficult than our current skills.
- Reflection and review is the best way to prevent our good habits from degrading over time.