Written by James Clear

Reviews

1. A good review that resonated with me. https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RGAVUWKBZKTQ1/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B07D23CFGR

   1. #todo reread ths review
   

TODO

1. Write down my highlights in this page.
2. Atomic Habits - Chapter summaries by James Clear

My Highlights

The four laws of making a good habit

1. Make it obvious
2. Make it attractive
3. Make it easy
4. Make it satisfying

Introduction

1. But with better habits, anything is possible.
2. The only way I made progress - the only choice I had - was to start small.
3. it is about the fundamentals of human behavior
4. the lasting principles you can rely on year after year. the ideas you can build a business around, build a family around, build a life around

Chapter 1 - The surprising power of atomic habits

1. The aggregation of marginal gains
   1. the philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everthing you do.
2. Why small habits make a big difference
   1. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment to and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis.
   2. Habits are the compound interest of self improvement.
   3. It is only when looking back two, five or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.
   4. But when we 1% errors, day after day, by replicating poor decisions, duplicating tiny mistakes, and rationalising little excuses, our small choices compound into toxic results. It is the accumulation of many missteps-A 1% decline here and there -that eventually leads to your problem.
   5. Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging indicator of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.
   6. Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.
3. What progress is really like
   1. Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change. This pattern shows up everywhere.
   2. habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance. In the early and middle stages of any request there is often a valley of disappointment.
   3. you expect to make progress in a linear fashion and it is frustrating how ineffective changes can seem during the first days, weeks and even months. it does not feel like you are going anywhere. it is a hall make of any compounding process.
   4. the most powerful outcomes are delayed.
   5. plateau of latent potential.
   6. change can take years before it all happens at once.
   7. all big things come from small beginnings. the seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision.but as the decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. roots entrench themselves and branches grow.
4. Forget about goals, focus on systems instead
   1. Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the process that lead to those results.
   2. achieving a goal is only a momentary change
      1. you treated a symptom without addressing the cause.
      2. achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. that is the counter intuitive thing about improvement.
      3. a system first mentality provides the antidote. when you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you do not have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy, you can be satisfied anytime your system is running, and a system can be successful in many different forms, not just the one you first envision
      4. the purposde of settings goals is to win the game. the purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. true long term thinking is goal less thinking
5. A system of atomic habits
   1. you do not rise to the level of your goals. you fall to the level of your systems.
   2. habits are like the atoms of your lives. each one is a fundamental unit that contributes to your overall improvement.
   3. they are both small and mighty

Chapter 2 - how your habits shape your identity

1. Three layers of behavior change
   1. List
      1. the first layer is changing your outcomes
      2. the second layer is changing your process
      3. the third layer is changing your identity
   2. outcomes are about what you get, processes are about what you do and identity is about what you believe.
   3. behind every system of actions are a system of beliefs.
   4. behavior that is incongruent with self will not last.

Chapter 3 - how to build better habits in 4 simple steps

Chapter 4 - The man who didn't look right

Chapter 5 - The best way to start a new habit

Chapter 6 - Motivation is overrated, environment often matters more

Chapter 7 - The secret to self control

Chapter 8 - How to make a habit irresistable

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

Chapter 10 - How to find and fix the cause of your bad habits

Chapter 11 - Walk slowly but never backward

Chapter 12 - The law of least effort

1. But the truth is, our real motivation is to be lazy and to do what is convenient.
2. Energy is precious, and the brain is wired to conserve it whenever possible.
3. Out of all the possible actions we could take, the one that is realized is the one that delivers the most value for the least effort. We are motivated to do what is easy.
4. The more energy required, the less likely it is to occur.
5. Habits like scrolling on our phones, checking email, and watching television steal so much of our time because they can be performed almost without effort. They are remarkably convenient.
6. If you can more your good habits more convenient, you rill be more likely to follow through on them.
7. If we are all so lazy, then how do you explain people accomplishing hard things like raising a child or starting a business or climbing mount everest?
   1. The less friction you face, the easier it is for your stronger self to emerge.
8. Rather than trying to overcome the friction in your life, you reduce it.
9. One of the most effective ways to reduce friction associated your habit is to practice environment design.
10. Habits are easier to build when they fit into the flow of your life.
11. Business is a never ending quest to deliver the same result in an easier fashion.
12. The central idea is to create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.
13. The purpose of resetting each room is not simply to clean up after the last action, but to prepare for the next action.
14. I am just proactively lazy. It gives you so much time back.
15. These are simple ways to make the good habit the path of least resistance.
16. The greater the friction, the less likely the habit.
17. Imagine the cumulative impact of making dozens of these changes and living in an environment designed to make the good behaviours easier and the bad behaviour hader.
18. How can we design a world where it is easy to what is right? Redesign your life so the actions that matter the most are also the actions that are easiest to do.

Chapter 13 - How to stop procrastinating by u7sing the two minute rule

1. In this way, the habits you follow without thinking often determine the choices you make when you are thinking.

Chapter 14 - How to make good habits inveitable and bad habits impossible

Chapter 15 - The cardinal rule of behaviour change

1. The problem wasn't knowledge. The problem was Consistency
2. We are more likely repeat a behaviour when the experience is satisfying. This is entirely logical.
3. Pleasure teaches your brain that a behaviour is worth remembering and repeating.
4. What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided.
5. Positive emotions cultivate habits. Negative emotions destroy them.
6. You like in what scientists call an immediate-return environment.
7. You are walking around with the same hardware as your Paleolithic ancestors.
   1. Be aware of it and plan.
8. Compared to the age of the brain, modern society is brand-new.
9. You value the present more than furniture. Usually, this tendency serves us well. A reward that is certain right now is typically worth more than one that is merely possible in the future. But occasionally, our bias toward instant gratification causes problems.
10. Once you understand how the brain prioritizes rewards, the answers become clear: the consequences of bad habits are delayed while the rewards are immediate.
11. Every habit produces multiple outcomes across time.
12. With good habits, it is the reverse: the immediate outcome is un-enjoyable, but the ultimate outcome feels good.
13. Put another way, the costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.
14. We all want better lives for our future selves. However when the moment of decision arrives, instant gratification usually wins.
15. As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should questions whether it aligns with your long term goals.
16. What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished in avoided.
17. The road less traveled is the road of delayed gratification.
18. If you are willing to wait for the rewards, you will face less competition and often get a bigger pay off. As the saying goes the last mile is always the least crowded.
19. It is possible to train yourself to delay gratification- but you need to work with the grain of human nature, not against it
20. The best way to do this is to add a little bit of immediate pleasure to the habits that pay off in the long-run and a little bit of immediate pain to ones that don't.
21. In a perfect world, the reward for a good habit is the habit itself.
22. It can bve hard to feel satisfied when there is no action in the first place.
23. The identity itself becomes the reinforcer.
24. Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit.

Chapter 16 - How to stick with good habits every day

1. Don't break the chain is a powerful mantra
2. Most of us have a distorted view of our own behaviour. We think we act better than we do.
3. When the evidence is right in front of you, you are less likely to lie to yourself.
4. I can't be perfect, but I can avoid a second lapse. - When we fail
5. But when successful people fail, they rebound quickly.
6. As Charlie Munger says "The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily."
7. Going to the gym for five minutes may not improve your performance, but it reaffirms your identity.
8. The dark side of tracking a particular number is that we become driven by the number rather than the purpose behind it.
9. The human mind wants to win whatever game is being played.
10. We teach for standarized tests instead of emphasizing learning, curiosity and critical thinking. In short, we optimze for what we measure. When we choose wrong measurement, we get the wrong behaviour.
11. Charles Goodhart's law : When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
12. Focus on a different measurement : The one that gives you more signals of progress.

Chapter 17 - How an accountability partner can change everything

Chapter 18 - The truth about talent

Chapter 19 - The Goldilocks Rule : How to stay motivated in life and work

Chapter 20 - The downside of creating good habits

Referenced in:

• you-need-to-work-with-the-grain-of-human-nature-not-against-it
• Atomic-Habits-Chapter-summaries-by-James-Clear
• Book-Recommendations
• Physical-Fitness
• Was-it-just-a-one-day-thing
• Mentoring-Starter-Kit
• Being-versus-Doing