Atomic Habits by James Clear

The Book in Three Sentences

Small changes make a big difference. Habits provide compounding returns over time, but until you cross a critical threshold they appear to make no difference. To form or remove a habit make it obvious, make the positive action attractive, make it easy to start and finally make it satisfying to do.

Summary

• Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. Getting 1% every day counts for a lot in the long run.
• Habits are a double-edged sword, they can both work for you and against you.
• Small changes often appear to make no difference, until you cross a critical threshold. The most powerful outputs of a compounding process are delayed, so you need to be patient.
• If you want better results, forget about setting goals, focus on creating a system.
• There are three levels of change: Outcome change, Process Change and Identity Change.
• The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but who you want to become. Your identity emerges from your habits.
• The real reasons habits are important is they change your beliefs about yourself.
• A habit can be broken down into a loop with four steps: cue, craving, response and reward.
• The four laws of behaviour change are: make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy and make it satisfying.
• The process of behaviour change starts with awareness, you need to be aware of your habits before you can change them.
• Every habit is initiated by a cue, try to make the cues for good habits obvious and hide cues for bad ones.
• The two most common cues are time and location.
• The best way to show self-control is to spend less time in tempting situations.
• The culture we live in determines which habits are attractive to us, we tend to adopt those habits praised and approved by others because of our desire to fit in.
• One of the most effective ways to start a habit is to join a culture where your desired behaviour is normal.
• To remove a bad habit, highlight the benefits of avoiding it, to make it less attractive.
• The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning.
• The amount of times you perform a habit is the key to making it stick.
• Humans behaviour follows the law of least effort. We naturally gravitate toward the option that takes the least effort.
• Create an environment that reduces the friction for good habits and increases the friction for bad ones.
• Habits require decisive moments, make these easier using the two-minute rule – All new habits should take less than two minutes to complete – we can all give two mins.
• What is immediately rewarded is repeated, what is immediately punished is avoided. To make habits stick, you need to feel immediately successful when you complete it.
• Habit trackers are a simple way to visualise progress and maintaining the streak becomes the motivation. Make a rule to never miss twice in a row.
• Accountability partners can create an immediate cost to inaction. Knowing that someone else is watching and not wanting them to have a lesser opinion of us is a powerful motivator.
• The Goldilocks Rule: Humans have peak motivation when they are working on a task right on the edge of their current abilities.
• “Professionals stick to schedules, amateurs let life get in the way”
• Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery
• Reflection and review is key to improving performance over time.