How (yet another book on) Atomic Habits made me think

“Atomic Habits” by James Clear was on my huge books list since at least a couple of years, but I started reading only when a friend of mine asked me an opinion (it’s not that I am more intelligent than others, but I do spend quite a little bit of time in reading and studying, so this could be the reason why friends ask me). By the way, for the reason you’ll quicly read below, I want to thank this friend (it’s a honor to be your friend, A.), since having such friends help me to stay motivated: the (social) environment can make a huge difference.

I have read tons of books on habits and time/energy/project management, from both a scientific (e.g.: neuroscience) and a practical (tips like in a manual) point of view. This one is more of the 2nd kind: even if with solid foundation from biology, psychology, and neuroscience (and experience of the author with just a very little bit of speculations), Atomic Habits is a practical and proven guide that can teach you how to master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. You will learn how to create a system that works for you, not against you. You will discover how to make good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible (or at least to work in that direction). You will find out how to apply the science of small habits to your personal and professional life, and achieve any (reasonable) goal you set for yourself. Obviously I knew almost any experiment, study and story written in the book, but this is exactly why I read it all, including small notes and appendix: as I already wrote in my previous post Summaries and extracts: useful resources or useless shortcuts to nowhere?, once you read a lot about a topic, it’s the details that count! Reading a summary of the book would give me nothing more than I already knew; reading the whole book, on the other hand, made me reflect further on some points, re-presented in a different way and enriched by the author.

Content of the book

I will not spend too many words, since you will already find a lot of summaries of this well-known book, I’m more interested in writing the notes and my “extra” thoughts, but I think it’s a good idea to write at least the concepts behind the book.

Part 1: The Fundamentals
In this part, the author explains why habits are so important and powerful, and how they can help you achieve your goals and improve your life. He also introduces the concept of an atomic habit, which is a tiny behavior that is easy to do and has a huge impact over time. He then presents the Four Laws of Behavior Change, which are a simple set of rules for creating good habits and breaking bad ones. They are:

• Make it obvious: Design your environment and use cues to make your desired habits more visible and obvious.
• Make it attractive: Use rewards, temptation bundling, and social influence to make your desired habits more appealing and motivating.
• Make it easy: Reduce friction, simplify, and use the two-minute rule to make your desired habits more convenient and effortless.
• Make it satisfying: Use reinforcement, tracking, and accountability to make your desired habits more rewarding and satisfying.

Part 2: How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa)
In this part, the author explains how your habits are a reflection of your identity, and how you can change your identity by changing your habits. He argues that the most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become. He suggests that you should decide the type of person you want to be, and then prove it to yourself with small wins. He also warns against the dangers of having a fixed mindset and a false identity.

Part 3: How to Build Better Habits in Four Simple Steps
In this part, the author goes deeper into each of the Four Laws of Behavior Change, and provides practical tips and tools for applying them to your habits. He also explains how to reverse the laws for breaking bad habits. Some of the strategies he recommends are:

• Make it obvious: Use implementation intentions, habit stacking, and habit scorecards to plan when and where you will perform your habits.
• Make it attractive: Use the inversion of the second law, habit contracts, and precommitments to make bad habits unattractive and difficult.
• Make it easy: Use habit shaping, automation, batching, and habit tracking to make good habits easier and more consistent.
• Make it satisfying: Use habit journals, habit trackers, loyalty programs, and habit stacking to make good habits more satisfying and rewarding.

Part 4: The Laws of Behavior Change
In this part, the author explores some of the advanced topics and nuances of habit formation, such as:

• How to find the optimal balance between boredom and novelty for maintaining your habits.
• How to use the Goldilocks rule and deliberate practice to master your skills and achieve peak performance.
• How to use habit stacking and context cues to create a habit menu for different situations.
• How to use the downside of creating good habits as motivation for sticking with them.
• How to avoid the common pitfalls and mistakes that people make when changing their habits.

Part 5: The Secret to Results That Last
In this part, the author summarizes the main points of the book and shares some final thoughts on how to make your habits stick for life. He emphasizes that habits are not a finish line to be crossed, but a lifestyle to be lived. He also reminds you that habits are not about having something, but about becoming someone. He encourages you to keep improving by 1% every day, and enjoy the process of becoming who you want to be.

To summarize everything in a couple of tables (from author’s website):

And the concept of the compound interests on improving (or not):

Here you can find also a speaking from the author himself:

My notes and thoughts

The good ol’ Charlie Brown said that the secret to life is replacing one worry with another; similarly, some think it might be a good idea to replace one habit with another (possibly, a good habit to replace a bad one), this is an approach you can find useful, for example, when you want to reduce social media scrolling in favor of something more uplifting, like reading a good book.

But actually the book go deeper, at first, in taking apart the various parts of habits.
The book begins with a heartbreaking story of the author’s childhood, an accident that caused health problems and broken dreams, so one thing immediately comes to mind: the frustration and the sunk cost feeling when you realize that you spent a lifetime of effort and time (and other resources) when suddenly you cannot (or you will not) apply for the position you think you deserve (in the specific case, it was playing in a major baseball team and instead go for a minor one, but same apply more frequently for career options, for several reasons). Then, James Clear wrote about his first experiments and tracking habits: this reminded me of when, for a long time, I experimented with different routines (especially morning and evening) and, along with tracking my time, I also tracked my habits.
In the notes of Imagine, I could sing:
🎼”You can say I am obsessed (with tracking), but I’m not the only one”. You can see here:

• Reddit: r/QuantifiedSelf
• Github: awesome-quantified-self (for those not familiar with the “awesome series” in Github: they’re basically curated list of everything on a specific topic)
• Tableau: #QuantifiedSelf (several dataviz by users tracking themselves)
• Quantified Self community
• “The Quantified Self”, book by Deborah Lupton – not read (yet)

…and many, many others. And talking about metrics, a variation I can suggest on tracking positive and negative (for us, probably different for everyone) habits, is to also add a value/weight for each of them, so we can also calculate a score.

Wise monks and philosphers say that the quality of our lives depends on the quality of our questions; the author claims that it (also) depends on the quality of our habits.
The book has very good quotes, like (to prove his commitment): “To write a great book, you must first become the book” (Naval Ravikant); it’s kind of corollary of “Be the change you want to see in the world” (probably NOT the exact words of Mahatma Gandhi). Then the author mention the concept of the aggregation of marginal gains, that it’s similar to the concept of Kaizen (if you, like me, studied business economics, you should remember this japanese word when studying the Toyota case study).

The plateau of latent potential, instead, made me think of all those people who put a lot of effort into it, but leave after a while because they don’t see results consistent with their expectations (specially because some skills have a really hard learning curve).

Then, the author reminds us how goals are overrated, unless they’re used to give us direction, since achieving goals are only temporary changes (as one former colleague of mine used to say: “We arrive at a certain point only to leave again”) and often we grow up thinking that we can miserable now, but when we’ll achieve that goal (in relationships, career, money, status, and so on) we’ll be happy! It reminded me of the rat race of many, that at the end, to me, seems like the truth on the “Xultation moment” in “Cloud Atlas” (spoiler alert). Moreover, we sometimes set the wrong goals, like the phrase that someone think it’s a chinese curse: “May you get what you want!”. Much better focus on the process, on the system, to get to the goal. Maybe we’ll miss our goal, for several reasons (depending on us or not), but “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars” (probably from Norman Vincent Peale).

Habits shape our identity and viceversa, the author wrote, but I can say more in geral with time: we’re made of time, how we spend our time defines us (that’s why I think that the ultimate “flex” is not having money, but rather having time).
When the author say that costance is better than motivation, I think of glucose spikes, that are unhealthy: better low but constant level of glycemia.

[Outcome – process – identities] is a chain that can be followed right to the left or viceversa: the best way is usually starting with definying our identity (or, in the words of David Allen in his “GTD”, focus on the higher level like mission/vision, before setting goals). Think about who you wish to become – as Nietzsche said: “Werde, der du bist“.

While keep reading, lot of examples and references came to my mind: when thinking about be consistent in our system, I thought about the broken windows theory (with the experiment by Zimbardo in 1969), the importance of just starting doing a thing, even if only for 2 minutes (like the 2mins David Allen suggest as an upper limit to do a task when processing a to-do list), that is more or less like the concept: “appetite comes with eating” or “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” (from Chapter 64 of the “Tao Te Ching“). I am also glad to read that the author doesn’t try to convince to use some “life hacks”, usually less effective than habits.

All the part about our spoiled brain, built and slightly changed/developed in the last thousands years, so not “naturally” intended to deal with our current environment, recalled in my mind books like “The happiness trap”, “Loneliness”, “Dopamine nation”, “The molecule of more”, “Why zebras don’t get ulcera”, “Digital minimalism”, “Willpower”, “Grit” and many others, as well as the Maslow pyramid and the usage of the 2 levers of pain and pleasure. The mentioned Diderot Effect lead my brain thinking of the Veblen good, since I also found that, specially in lifestyle habits, the Diderot effect in creating a huge and complete morning routine sometimes goes hand in hand with what is more “valuable” in the sense of more “shareable” and “likeable” on social media, see also the people loving the 5am Club.

The importance of the environment described in the book is crucial also when talking about IQ development during the first years and lifestyle psychiatry. System/environment is key also to get the most from our genes (see: epigenetics, one of the field I find more interesting, linked somehow to the homo faber and the growth mindset).
Reading the latest chapters, lot of other “consumed resources” came to my mind, but mainly some concepts from the Buddhism, like the importance to be aware (or “mindful”, if you prefer), don’t judging ourselves in case we miss a practice once, get rid of too ambitious desires (especially if external to our values) to minimize sufference.
The author also suggest to explore, researching a broad range of ideas, specially at a young age (see also: “Range” and “Designing your life”), but finding a good mix between explore/exploit (see also: “So good they can’t ignore you” and “The dip”). And he “resonates” with me, since I always suggested everyone to be “n-dimensional”: don’t focus on just one skill, try to develop more at once, with your unique mix of “flavours”, it’s more interesting/enjoyable and provide much more value also to others.

On the Goldilocks zone and the manageable difficulty, I think everybody knows about the proximity zone between comfort zone and panic/stress zone, with the “stretch zone” in the middle (and please stop telling “get out of the comfort zone” without understanding the concept of those zones, same for “resilience” and other annoying buzzwords). The challenge is to find the perfect mix between exciting novelty and reassuring routine, between something we can really do well and something we don’t master (yet).

And, finally, don’t define yourself in a fixed way, specially if anchored at your job title. You are neither your past nor your profession, you are much more than those sterile description: the fact that you work as a cashier doesn’t define you more than just saying “Stalin was a father of 5” (and anything else). It’s only a part, sometimes the least interesting. This is something that will need a new separate post, since I feel you’ve had enough in this post 🙂

Build the habit to read, so to become a reader, maybe starting with this book!