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Author -> James Clear

“Real change comes from the compound effects of hundreds of small decisions or small habits that over time accumulate to produce remarkable results, changing our life styles, behaviour and identities.”

What do the words ATOMIC and HABIT mean? - atomic - it means the smallest unit of anything - Source of immense/pure energy - habit - A routine or practice performed regularly - A behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic

This book portrays a system to form habits in four parts i.e - The Four laws 1. Make it obvious 2. Make it attractive 3. Make it easy 4. Make it satisfying

Before we get into the four laws, I would like to talk about the first part of the book, which is Why the tiny habits matter so much

  • Success is the product of daily habits, not once-in a life time transformations

    • This can be explained as, success is basically you working on something steadily but consistently, than just thinking you can do it in one day.
    • Working on your assignments, one assignment per day for 30 days is better than doing 30 assignments in one night, a lot of you might say that working in a night would be much quicker, but again, ‘Productivity is not efficiency, it is effectiveness.’
    • Doing things in last moment doesn’t help in self discipline, it is right that ‘work expands with time’ but also we get to understand it better when we are doing it steadily, you wouldn’t waste time trying to understand why this maths problem, or piece of code works this way, you barely have a few hours before you turn the assignments in, heck you won’t try to understand.

  • Habits are double edged sword, they can act for you as well as against you.

    • We humans are pretty well at forming habits, this happens mostly without consent though.
    • People say bad habits are easier to catch than good ones, but there are no good habits and no bad habits, there are habits which provide us more instant gratification, and habits which serve for our long term goals.
    • Watching tv, or a prank video on youtube gives you instant pleasure, its an easy reward for our brain, many of us have the habit of eating while watching tv, and they say it’s a bad habit,
      • but it can be seen as merely a habit formed by us because someday we disliked the food and decided to watch TV to distract ourselves.
      • But our brain found out that TV was more satisfying, and gradually it became a habit to watch tv while eating food.
      • It happens to us many times that we can’t even remember what food we ate in the morning, because we were watching TV.
    • So is our brain here at fault? Well not totally, Agreed that bastard is somewhat a pesky little one, but he is all the intelligent one too.
    • It’s more our responsibility to tame ourselves, if we let ourselves slip, it’s easier to get addicted to things that give us instant pleasure than it is to to get in a habit of doing things that will help in our long term goals.

If you want to find out if the current habit helps in making you the person you want to be, just think about the person you want to be, and would they be spending that much time on TV, youtube or anything.

“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.”

Whenever you want to change any behaviour that you have you can do that by asking yourself these four simple questions:

  1. How can I make it obvious?
  2. How can I make it attractive?
  3. How can I make it easy?
  4. How can I make it satisfying?

Make it Obvious

  • The habit needs to be effortless for us and it should not require us any active thinking
    • If you have a hard time studying and procrastinate on the phone, which happens with me a lottt, a lotttttttt, so what i do is prepare my table for the study session of the next day a day earlier and well toss my phone (Do this at your own risk and I suggest on the bed, phone breaks you break, courtsey of parents).
    • Make it obvious that there is nothing that you can do in that space

Make it Attractive

  • If the habit is unattractive, we won’t likely have the willpower to do it long enough
  • There will certainly come a point where you would say, it’s too hard let’s take a break this time, and then there will be the chaser effect, where you would keep relapsing, or redoing the habit, because that’s what is easy.
  • For example, to make a habit attractive, like working out, you can add rule that you listen to the music only when you are working out.

Make it Easy

  • The less friction there is between you and the habit the more chances are there that you will do it.
  • For example, if you have mobile on your study table, the first thing you are gonna do next day when you think of studying is pick the phone, and if you have any messages on social apps, you will get lost in the infinity pools of these apps
  • On the other hand, if you had the book of the subject or notes and a copy, pen or whatever you needed ready on the table, and your mobile somewhere you wouldn’t see, that would make the process a whole lot easier.

Make it immediately satisfying

  • Our brain loves being satisfied, and if you notice, that’s what are the so called ‘bad habits’ good at, immediate satisfaction. Our brain does not care about the consequences if it’s getting satisfaction.
  • I have made it a ritual to have breakfast only after I’ve showered, after shower a warm breakfast is satisfaction. Thus I can go shower even if it’s a bit cold, because I know breakfast is next!

Habit Stacking

What We did in the Making it satisfying part can be said to one of the examples of habit stacking, in habit stacking what we usually do is after something obvious, we add a task we want to do

For example

After I wake up, I will drink water.

After I take off my school clothes, I would change into workout clothes.

Motivation is overrated - environment often matters more

This is something to which I agree totally, Motivation is temporary, there’s gonna be only so long till motivation lasts, But environment we create for ourselves is gonna be with us for a longer time!

Have a specific place for a specific routine, habits tend to formulate easier in a newer environment.

Secret to self control

It is easier to practice self control when you don’t have to use it often.

The best way to gain self control is by making the cues or triggers for your bad habits invisible, and making the cues for the good habits obvious.

For example, if you are going for a study session, but your phone disturbs you, you can turn the data and wifi off and toss it somewhere behind, or hide it under pillow or something, just so that you don’t keep looking at it.

How to make habit irresistible?

Temptation building

  • We need to make our habits attractive because it is the expectation of a rewarding experience that motivates us to act in the first place.

  • Temptation building works by bundling the habits we need to do, with something you want to do.

    For example, You want to wish Anime edits, or movie edits, or some youtube videos, but you also want to run and improve your endurance, you can make a rule that you will watch videos only when you are on the treadmill , running.

    That would automatically make jogging tempting for you!

The role of family and friends is shaping your habits

  • We tend to imitate the habits of three social groups :
    • The close (family and friends)
    • The many(the tribe)
    • the powerful(with status and practice)
  • One of the most effective things which you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where
    1. Your desired behavior is normal behavior
    2. You already have something in common with the group

Making it easy?

We are so focused on figuring out the best approach that we never get around to taking action.

“The best is the enemy of the good.” — Voltaire

Repetition > Perfection

  • If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition, not perfection.
  • You don’t need to map out every feature of a new habit. You just need to practice it.
  • Each time you repeat an action, you are activating a particular neural circuit associated with that habit.

How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day

If I miss one day, I try to get back into it as quickly as possible.

“The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.” — Charlie Munger

This is why “bad” workouts are often the most important ones. Sluggish days and bad workouts maintain the compound gains you accrued from previous good days.

Simply doing something — ten squats, five sprints, a push-up, anything really — is huge. Don’t put up a zero. Don’t let losses eat into your compounding.