Atomic Habits by James Clear

This book came highly recommended in a podcast I listened to. It was even suggested I need to reread it every 6 months. I'm not really sure about that. I am a huge fan of incrementalism when it comes to life, and this book is incrementalism on steroids. The crux of the book is how tiny changes in habits over time can compound. To accomplish this, he presents 4 laws with associated steps, these are:

• Make It Obvious
  • Perform the task at a specific time and at a specific location
  • Perform the task after other tasks
  • Create cues
• Make It Attractive
  • Bundle more attractive tasks with less attractive tasks
  • Join cultures and create rituals that reinforce the task
• Make It Easy
  • Reduce friction, or the number of steps required to get to the task
  • Prepare your environment to facilitate the task
  • Scale your habits so they can be performed in 2 minutes or less
  • Automate your habits
• Make It Satisfying
  • Use reinforcement; reward yourself for completing tasks
  • Track your habits
  • Never miss two in a row

He also explains that you can break bad habits by doing the exact opposite.

I'm not sure any of these ideas are truly groundbreaking. If you'd think deeply about planning your daily tasks, you'd probably arrive at the same conclusions. The entire book could have been compressed down to a pamphlet--lots of fluff. If you are at a complete loss as to how to incrementally improve your productivity, this book could be very useful. For me it was preaching to the choir. There are other books that cover similar concepts, such as Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg, Mini Habits by Stephen Guise, and I'm sure there are others.

I could sum all these books up with a single anecdote: If you wrote one sentence per day, you'd eventually create a novel. I'm not going to say this book was a waste of time, because it wasn't. I just regret not waiting until I found it at the second hand bookstore. I may get around to reading it again, but certainly not every six months. Take that as you will.

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