Atomic Habits, James Clear

Chapter 1: The fundamentals: why tiny changes make a big difference

• Good, and bad, habits compound. Good habits gain exponentially, though there is a period of ramp up where little improvements can be seen. Persistency is required to reach the larger gradient, i.e., when your marginal habits start to pay off
• Systems are more important than goals. Focusing on lifting a specific weight is less important than improving technique and making sure you don’t miss a day at the gym. Use goals for setting a general direction and use systems for making progress
• You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems

  Chapter 2: How your habits shape your identity

• Focus on changing your identity rather than your outcomes, e.g., the goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader
• “I’m terrible with directions; I’m not a morning person; I’m always late” are all repeated stories we tell ourselves that act as barriers to positive change. This is identity conflict, where attachment to a particular version of your identity hinders change. Identity is transient, not static.
• “Each action you take is a vote for the person you wish to become”
• “Are you becoming the person you want to become?”

  Chapter 3: Build better habits in 4 steps

• Habits proceed in 4 steps: cue, craving, response, and reward
• If a behaviour is insufficient in any of these stages, it will not become a habit. No cue means the habit never starts. No craving means no motivation to act. A difficult behaviour means you won’t be able to respond to it. No satisfaction of desire, i.e., reward, then there’s no reason to do it again
• How to create a good habit:
  • Make it obvious (cue)
  • Make it attractive (craving)
  • Make it easy (response)
  • Make it satisfying (reward)
• How to break a bad habit:
  • Make it invisible (cue)
  • Make it unattractive (craving)
  • Make it difficult (response)
  • Make it unsatisfying (reward)

    The 1st law: Make it obvious

    Chaper 5: The best way to start a new habit

• People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through. This is known as implementation intention
• I will [BEHAVIOUR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]. The most important cues are time and location.
• Diderot effect: obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases. Diderot was a French philosopher that suddenly became rich due to a generous donation. He bought a elegant robe, but nothing else matched it so he had to spend more and more money upgrading the rest of his belongings
• Habit stacking is a positive version of the Diderot effect: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
• Be specific with your habit stacking directions, e.g., “After I finish my morning tea, I will meditate.”

  Chapter 6: Motivation is overrated; environment often matters more

• It is easier to build new habits in new environments where you don’t have to fight against old cues
• Make good cues obvious in your environment, and hide bad cues
• Delegate specific spaces in your home to specific habits. This chair for reading, the kitchen for cooking, the bed for sleeping, etc.

  Chapter 7: The secret of self control

• Self control is a short term strategy, not a long one. Modify your environment such that you don’t need to exercise self control in the first place
• To break bad habits, reduce your exposure to their cues. Remove the cues from your environment

The 2nd law: Make it attractive

Chapter 8: How to make a habit irresistible

• We have the brains of our ancestors but temptations they never had to face
• We are faced with supernormal stimuli that sends us into a frenzy, whether it be processed foods, colourful and over-edited advertisements, and more. Like a goose that rolls a volleyball back to its nest because it is a big round object, we are doing much the same with consumerist products
• Temptation bundling: pair a habit you “need” to do with a habit you “want” to do, e.g., only drink hot cocoa when you’re reading
• The habit stacking + temptation bundling formula is:
  1. After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED].
  2. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].

     Chapter 9: The role of family and friends in shaping your habits

• We tend to initiate the habits of three social groups: the close (family and friends), the many (the tribe), and the powerful (those with status and prestige)
• Join a culture where your desired behaviour is the normal behaviour and you have something in common with the group
• We’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves. Studies have found that a chimpanzee with a superior but cracking method resorts to an inferior method used by a new group that he’s joining
• Behaviours that get us approval, respect, and praise are attractive

  Chapter 10: How to find and fix the causes of your bad habits

• Identify the causes of your bad habits (what ancient fundamental desire is this behaviour satisfying?), and highlight the benefits of stopping it. Likewise, with difficult habits, highlight the benefits of them, e.g., instead of “I need to run today” say “I get to improve my speed and endurance today”

  The 3rd law: Make it easy

  Chapter 11: Walk slowly, but never backward

• When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t want to merely be planning. You want to be practicing
• The key to start mastering a habit is with repetition, not perfection. You don’t need to map out every feature of a new habit, you just need to practice it
• How long does it take to form a habit? A new habit is more dependent on the frequency of attempts than the time, the brain requires enough repetitions to develop automaticity

  Chapter 13: How to stop procrastinating using the two minute rule

• When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do. Standardize before you optimize, you can’t improve a habit that doesn’t exist

  The 4th law: Make it satisfying

  Chapter 15: The cardinal rule of behaviour change

• The more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns with your future goals
• Find a way to incorporate a rewarding feeling of immediate success when completing a habit, e.g., allocating the money saved by not eating out to a vacation fund

  Chapter 16: How to stick with good habits everyday

• Habit tracking:
  • Creates an obvious visual cue and keeps you honest with yourself by quantifying your progress
  • Creates a signal that you’re moving forward and motivates you to continue that streak
  • It’s satisfying to cross off an item on the to do list, and focuses you on the process rather than the result

    Advanced tactics

    Chapter 18: The truth about talent (when genes matter and when they don’t)

• Genes do not determine your destiny, they determine your areas of opportunity. “Genes can predispose, but they don’t predetermine.”
• Choose a game that favours your strengths; if you can’t find one, create one
• Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work, they clarify it. They tell us what to work hard on

  Chapter 19: The goldilocks rule: how to stay motivated in life and work

• Maximum motivation occurs when working on tasks that are right at the edge of one’s current abilities; if it’s too easy you get bored, if it’s too hard you get anxious
• The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom

  Chapter 20: The downside of creating good habits

• Take an annual review, tallying up habits for the year by counting achievements, gym frequency, meditation frequency, etc.
• Modes of reflection and review for end of year (December):
  1. What went well this year?
  2. What didn’t go so well this year?
  3. What did I learn?
• To reflect on core values, identity, and how to work on being the person you wish to become, take an integrity report (June)
  1. What are the core values that drive my life and work?
  2. How am I living and working with integrity right now?
  3. How can I set a higher standard in the future?
• Don’t cling to habits and their associated identity. Be adaptable. Be soft and pliable, like a disciple of life; not brittle and inflexible, like a disciple of death.