Atomic Habits

Created: Dec 29 2024, 13:06 UTC
Last modified: Jan 19 2025, 21:49 UTC
  • Basically, focus on the process, or the direction, not the destination.
  • You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.
  • Pointing and calling as a way to explicitly name habits, good or bad.
  • 1st law of behaviour change: make it obvious
    • Can schedule a time and a place. Or you can stack the habit on another habit if that habit is consistent.
    • Environment matters. Make the cues of good habits obvious in your environment.
    • Easier to build new habits in a new environment.
    • The secret to self-control is to not be in tempting situations in the first place.
  • 2nd law of behaviour change: make it attractive
    • Habits are dopamine driven
    • Anticipating a reward causes the dopamine spike, not the getting of it.
    • Try temptation bundling. Combine a needed task with a wanted task.
    • We emulate habits of family, friends, the powerful.
    • Join a culture where the normal behaviour is your desired behaviour. You’ll want to do the right thing just to fit in.
    • Habits are modern day solution to ancient desires (Facebook isn’t about likes, it’s about social acceptance).
    • Create a motivation ritual by doing something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.
  • 3rd law of behaviour change is make it easy.
    • Practice not planning
    • Number of repetitions is more important than length of time (which is possibly why my Spanish is still really bad, despite the DuoLingo)
    • We naturally to the option that requires the least effort
    • Create environment where the right thing is the easy thing (unplug TV when you don’t want to watch it, sprinkle books around your house so you can read without effort
    • Small habits (decisions) shape your day.
    • Two minute rule: when you start a new habit it should take less than two minutes, and you should ritualize the start of it (i.e. putting on exercise clothes to work out). Start by just reading a single page a day if you want to be a good reader.
    • Inversion: make bad habits difficult
    • Use commitment devices, which lock in your future behaviour (Victor Hugo told his maid to hide all his clothes so he couldn’t go out, only write)
    • Automating habits is the best way (automatic savings plan)
  • 4th law of behaviour change: make it satisfying
    • Make it immediately satisfying, since this is how our brains work.
    • Use habit tracking, maybe by marking an X on a calendar each time you exercise.
    • Don’t break the chain. Keep your streak alive.
      • Desmond: As an aside, not sure how effective this is at learning Spanish on DuoLingo.
    • Be very careful of letting the number become the goal.
    • Inversion: make bad habit unsatisfying.
    • Use an accountability to shame you into keeping you on track.
    • Use a habit contract, signed by people you know, to add a social cost to breaking the habit.
    • Knowing that someone is watching you can motivate.

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