Atomic habits

A book on habit, you might ask yourself.

You’ve probably read lots of them, so why would you need another one?

I thought the same and honestly I was completely wrong.

“Atomic habits” by James Clear was one of the best books I’ve ever read on habit building. Here’s why.

Most of us want to change but we do struggle. Our habits determine the quality of our lives. “If you want to change, you just need to change your habits” we hear this all the time. But it’s easier said than done. We attempt but we fail to change everything at once. With “Atomic Habits”, James Clear shares an effective system that breaks this pattern.

 

 

Why tiny changes make a big difference

1- The surprising power of atomic habits

In this summary, “Atomic habits” refers to the tiny changes we can make every day, which when compounded, would help us build better habits and finally get rid of the bad ones.

Small improvements accumulated over time produce extraordinary results: it is like an upward spiral. On the contrary, small deterioration every day will lead to disaster.

We overlook this power of tiny things because we believe that huge success requires massive action. But real change takes time. Marginal gains compounded overtime will yield into massive success.

 

Tiny changes or small improvements don’t seem to matter much in the moment. We continue eating junk foods because it won’t instantly kill us. The problem is when cholesterol and bad fat accumulate overtime.

In the same way, we crave instant gratification when we begin a process of change. Tiny adjustments seem unimportant in the moment. When we start learning Chinese Mandarin for example, learning one character doesn’t change anything.

Imagine that a plane’s initial itinerary is from Paris to New York. If the plane leaves Paris CDG and adjusts the heading just 1°, it will land in a completely different country; either Mexico or Canada.

 What progress is really like?

Cancer takes years to develop. According to James Clear in Atomic habits, a cancer can spend 80% of its life undetectable and it takes over the body in months. “Bamboo can barely be seen for the first five years as it builds extensive root systems underground before exploding ninety feet into the air within six weeks.”

This natural pattern is similar to our habits. It looks as if there’s no difference in the beginning. But need to get through a critical point that will “unlock a new level of performance”.

The key here is to start a new habit, stick with it long enough and reap the rewards in the long term.

The main issue is that most of us decide to change, take a new action but get disappointed as there are no immediate results.

Forget about goals, focus on systems instead

In Atomic habits, James Clear argues that his results had very little to do with the goals he set. Instead, he focuses on systems.

“Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results”

For this, choose a project or a habit that will inevitably produce results over time. We must focus on the process, not the results. As long as we focus on the process, the results will show up, sooner or later.

We use goals only to know where we’re heading to. Systems are all about making progress.

The problem with goals

The author later points out major issues when we focus too much on the goals:

• Winners and losers have the same goals: If they share the same goals, there must be something else that differentiates them.
• Achieving a goal is only a momentary change: If your goal is to clean your room but you still keep your old bad habits, nothing will change. We need to change the systems, not the goal.
• Goals restrict your happiness: Fall in love with the process. You can be happy along the way, not only when we reach your goals.
• Goals are at odds with long-term progress: goal-mentality is similar to destination-mentality. We think that we will stop once we reach our goals. On the contrary, a system-mentality embraces life as a journey. It’s a never-ending process, a long term thinking.

 

2- How your habits shape your identity (and vice versa)

Improving our daily habits will drastically change our lives. Creating new habits is challenging at first but once they’re formed, they will stick forever.

James Clear highlights the challenge of changing our habits. There are two reasons for this:

1)      We try to change the wrong thing

2)      We try to change our habits in the wrong way

Oftentimes, we focus on the wrong thing. There are three layer of behavior change developed in the book Atomic habits:

 

 

Outcomes: This can be associated with our goals. It’s the results we want to change: get rid of our belly fat, getting fit etc.

Process: We create new routines and systems that will support our goals.

Identity: This is inner-work. We change our paradigm, our self-image.

Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe.

The direction of change

Most of us begin the process of change by focusing on the outcomes. James Clear calls it “outcome-based habits”. For example we tell ourselves: “I want to lose my belly fat for good”.

An identity based habit however would be: “I am a fit person”. You clearly highlight the type of person you want to become.

Instead of focusing on the results, we focus on the person we want to be.

Here, Jim Rohn would say: “Success is not something we pursue; it’s something we attract by the person we become”.

The majority of people dismiss identity change when they want to improve the quality of their lives.

“They set goals and determine the actions they should take to achieve those goals without considering the beliefs that drive their actions. They never shift the way they look at themselves, and they don’t realize that their old identity can sabotage their new plans for change.”

On a rational level for example, we want to change and decide to hit the gym. We go there once or twice but our actions conflict with our identity, it won’t last.

You will persevere more once you change your identity. Newly formed habits are always congruent with who we think we are.

The two step process to changing your identity

Let me share with you a personal story. I never went to the gym until 2015. Working out was too much of a struggle. But once I accepted it as part of my new lifestyle, I gradually persisted. I started to view myself as a fit person and it’s now deeply ingrained in my self-image.

The more I went to the gym, the fitter I became and the more I liked to exercise because it reinforced my identity. I started as a fat person but I became fitter through my habits.

“The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior”

What we repeatedly do will determine who we are. If you want to change who you are, the first step is to change what you do.

You’ll need to

• Decide exactly what kind of person you want to be
• Accumulate “small wins” to prove it to you

Atomic habits: How to build better habits in 4 steps

Why our brain builds habits

We repeated our behavior multiple times until they became a habit.

It’s impossible to consciously control every activity in your body: breathing, digesting etc. Your conscious mind will quickly become overwhelmed.

Habits are passed onto the unconscious mind so that the conscious mind can focus on other things.

In our lives, we encounter a large variety of problems. A habit aims to solve these recurring problems. Our brain decides on the best automated way to solve them hence the following feedback loop: try, fail, learn, and try differently. To form a habit, the brain dismisses the useless options and reinforces the best ones.

Once a habit is formed, the brain still solves the problems but now uses fewer resources (energy and effort).

The habit loop

When a habit is formed, there are four steps that act as a feedback loop: cue, craving, response and reward.

The following is important:

If we want to change, we must satisfy each step of the feedback loop. So, if we eliminate the cue, the habit will never start. If we have less craving, the motivation disappears. The more difficult a behavior is, the less likely you will persevere. And finally, if there’s no real reward, you won’t be motivated to repeat that behavior in the future.

Atomic habits: The four laws of behavior change

Based on the previous observation, James Clear proposes 4 laws of behavior change to build better habits:

1-     Make it obvious

2-     Make it attractive

3-     Make it easy

4-     Make it satisfying

Yet, if we want to break a bad habit, there are 4 steps based on the habit loop:

1-     Make it invisible

2-     Make it unattractive

3-     Make it difficult

4-     Make it unsatisfying

 

First law – Make it obvious

Maintaining awareness on our habits

Once you develop a habit, you no longer need to be aware of the cue for it to begin. We can take action even unconsciously, without massive conscious efforts.

Subsequently, our habits can also be dangerous because they will lead us to more problems and to a downward spiral. The more we repeat these actions, the less aware we become.

Maybe you make annoying sounds when you’re eating, that’s a bad habit. It can bother others. Because it’s now a habit, you are not even aware unless a person tells you that you’re making annoying sounds.

Overtime, the cues that trigger our habits become so common that they become invisible: your smartphone by your bed, the snacks in your fridge, and the free-internet on your computer. These cues immediately trigger automatic behavior in us. It is as if we’re on autopilot mode: the cues provoke an urge to act.

It is important to raise awareness and identify the good habits that we have and the bad ones that we keep.

Atomic habits: The habit dashboard

To solve something, we must be aware of the problem first. To treat a disease, we first have to recognize its existence.

Our lack of awareness is the main reason for our failures. James Clear highlights that all habits aim to solve problems: there are no good or bad habits. They all serve us in some way and that’s why we repeat them.

“The labels “good habit” and “bad habit” are slightly inaccurate. There are no good habits or bad habits. There are only effective habits. That is, effective at solving problems. All habits serve you in some way —even the bad ones—which is why you repeat them.”

The author proposes an exercise called “habits scorecard”. The scorecard lists your habits and helps identify the ones you need to keep and those you shall get rid of.

The goal here is to raise our awareness.

Take a pen and a sheet of paper and make two columns. List all of your habits, for example when you wake up.

Respectively put “+”, “-“or “=” for the good habit, the bad habit and the neutral one.

To classify your habits, you might use the question: “Will this habit help me become the person I want to become?” “Would this habit help me in the long run?”

Here’s a sample of where your list might start:

•       Wake up
•       Turn off alarm
•       Check my phone
•       Go to the bathroom
•       Take a shower
•       Brush my teeth
•       Get dressed
•       Make a cup of tea . . . and so on.

For example, the list above will look like this:

•       Wake up =
•       Turn off alarm =
•       Check my phone –
•       Go to the bathroom =
•       Take a shower +
•       Brush my teeth +
•       Get dressed =
•       Make a cup of tea +

 

5- The best way to start a new habit

Implementation intention

To achieve your goals, there is an effective method called “implementation method”. You simply declare your intentions.

The implementation intention states a plan in advance which specifies when and where to take action.

The format looks like this:

“When situation X arises, I will perform response Y”.

When we make a specific plan and clarify where and when we will do it, we are more likely to achieve it.

“Hundreds of studies have shown that implementation intentions are effective for sticking to our goals”.

To apply this strategy to your habits, complete the following sentence:

“I will do [ACTION] at [TIME] at [PLACE]“.

Habit stacking: a simple plan to overhaul your habits

The Diderot effect states that a new purchase will lead to another. If you ordered something on Amazon, you are likely to do it consistently, sometimes purchasing things you don’t even need.

The Diderot effect highlights that no action occurs in isolation. Some actions will trigger others.

Based on this observation, James Clear proposes the habit stacking. You “stack” a new habit onto old ones that are already well-established.

The habit stacking formula is:

“After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”

For example, whenever I finish a 10-minute cardio exercise, I always meditate for 20 minutes.

If I want to create a new habit, let’s say reading out loud a positive affirmation, I will insert that new habit between exercise and meditation, which are habits that I already developed.

6 – Motivation is overrated – environment often matters more

When I lived in Germany, I used to watch porn almost every day. I wanted to quit but the easy access to high-speed internet made it difficult. As soon as I went back to Madagascar however, the data are limited and I no longer get access to videos; so I slowly lost interest in porn.

Funny enough, when I went back to Germany again for the holidays, the habit resurged. Despite my motivation, I could hardly quit porn.

The environment plays a key role here. “Every habit is context dependent”.

Oftentimes, motivation matters less than the environment around us. If we want to be fit but still buy cookies when we do the groceries, we’ll still eat them. Motivation and willpower have little to do with habit change. We have to work on our environment first.

In the supermarket’s aisles, we don’t choose the products for what they are but because of where they are. The more visible a product is and the eager we are to try it. The cues produce specific behaviors. We’ve all seen the easily accessible items at an Ikea store. They end up in our shopping bag without even realizing it!

How to design your environment for success

The psychologist Kurt Lewin argues that behavior is a function of the person in their Environment

B = f (P, E)

Our environment is composed with different cues that will trigger different behavior. Remember the cookies? Seeing them in the kitchen will create a craving and an automated response.

It would be difficult to play the guitar when it’s tucked away in the closet. It would be easy to get addicted to your phone if you place it by your bed. Why not put your phone downstairs if you live on the 3rd floor for example?

By the same token, if we want to create a new habit, we need to make these cues visible.

“If you want to make a habit a big part of your life, make the cue a big part of your environment. The most persistent behaviors usually have multiple cues”

If you want to play the guitar more often, place it in the middle of your living room.

When you adjust your environment, you influence and regain control of your life.

Atomic habits: Context is the cue

Overtime, your habit is no longer conditioned by one single cue but by the context surrounding the behavior. The context becomes the cue.

For example, I’m not a drinker and I like to think so. But I would usually drink more than usual during a party: Watching my friends having fun, the nice interaction, all of these trigger a behavior: me drinking more.

A specific location develops certain routines. If you go to the gym, you’re likely to be more motivated to exercise than if you stayed home. Your office is for work and your bedroom is for sleep. To each location, you associate a behavior.

Imagine now that you want to work in your bedroom. Overtime, you’ve associated this place with sleep. Even if you’re highly motivated, a part of your brain wants to sleep because the context is the cue. For your brain, the bedroom is for sleep, not for work.

The good news is that you can train your brain. You can link a particular habit with a particular context.

It is also easier to associate a new habit with a new context. Habits can be easier to change in a new environment.

7- The secret to self-control

You can become a more disciplined person. We associate discipline with self-control, persistence and willpower. But we don’t always need to use these finite resources. The secret to self-control is to create a disciplined environment.

If I were addicted to porn, it would help if I cancel my internet-subscription. That’s a disciplined environment.

In this example, I created a disciplined environment that would help me achieve my goals.

James Clear argues that people are better at structuring their lives.  They can structure their lives to avoid any temptations. It even turned out that “the people with the best self-control are typically the ones who need to use it the least”.

A bad news

The sad truth is: we can break a habit but we’re unlikely to forget it.

If we still face the same cues, we will always have the same behavior. So break a habit by structuring your environment. Self-control alone doesn’t work. “Resisting a temptation is an ineffective strategy”

Self-control is only a short-term strategy. Optimize your environment as an alternative. That’s the secret to self-control. “Make the cues of your good habits obvious and the cues of your bad habits invisible”

2nd law: make it irresistible

A new habit sticks when we make it attractive. How to make our habits irresistible?

Understand that habits are a dopamine-driven feedback loop. A desire appears when dopamine is released.

Dopamine is much more than simple pleasure. It triggers different “neurological processes including motivation, learning and memory, punishment and aversion, and voluntary movement”.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that triggers actions. Without dopamine, desire dies and action stops.

A major discovery

The major discovery is this: dopamine is released both when you experience pleasure and when you anticipate it. “Cocaine addicts get a surge of dopamine when they see the powder, not after they take it”

The anticipation of the reward motivates us more than the enjoyment of the reward itself. It gets us to act more than the achievement itself.

We can use a strategy called “temptation bundling” to initiate a new behavior.

How to use temptation bundling to make your habits more attractive

What do you desire? What makes you itch? Which cravings motivate you to take action immediately? Maybe you’ve exercised long enough to make it an integral part of your life. You can’t wait to go to the gym because it feels great.

“More probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors”. Here, the more probable behavior is you going to the gym. You just can’t wait to go there. Use that temptation to motivate you to practice another new habit. Link an action you want to do with an action you “crave” to do.

The formula is:

After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT]

It is similar to habit stacking and you can use both strategies to create a new habit.

The habit stacking + temptation bundling formula is:

1. After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED].
2. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].

If you want to go out, but you need to exercise more:

1-     After I work out, I will meditate

2-     After I meditate, I will go out and have fun

Working out is part of your routines and you can’t live without it. But you want to meditate more so you stack meditation onto the exercise habit. To motivate you even more, think about the reward after meditating = you do want to go out!

Habit stacking and temptation bundling are powerful tips, use them.

9 – The role of family and friends in shaping your habits

One of our biggest fears is the fear of rejection. As social creatures, we humans want to belong. It’s just a deep desire we all have.

Since our childhood, we were like a sponge: we imitated our parents’ earliest habits, we didn’t choose them. Behaviors are attractive when they help us fit in:

We particularly imitate the habits of three groups:

1-     The close: “the shared identity begins to reinforce your personal identity”

2-     The many: We conform to what the majority is doing

3-     The powerful: we imitate our idols, the people we look up to.

As Jim Rohn said: “We are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with” To build better habits, join a positive environment that will uplift you, where it is the normal behavior.

 

The 3rd law: Make it easy

11- Walk slowly, but never backward

The difference between “being in motion” and “taking action”

We all know that guy who creates New Year’s resolutions. He talks about his plans to everyone, all the time. He’s so eager downloading exercise apps, writing down his goals and posting on social media about his amazing plan. He’s in motion.

The thing is, he didn’t take any action yet. He produced nothing!

As James Clear highlights in Atomic habits, being in motion includes planning and strategizing and learning. It’s good but they don’t produce any results.

Action however is the type that will deliver, get things done and produce results.

For instance, I am a professional blogger and I write content. Sometimes, I read all day and feel re-energized, as if I accomplished something. But at the end of the day, my blog still needs more content, not “intellectual masturbation”.

How long does it actually take to form a new habit?

It’s a well-known fact that we need 66 days to form a habit. But a habit sticks when we frequently repeat the behavior; it is independent of how long we’ve been doing it.

Repetition is the mother of skill, not strategy or plan.

“Habits are formed based on frequency, not time”

How frequently do you repeat a behavior? That’s all that matters.

12- The law of least effort

People are generally lazy and it’s totally normal. Back in the days, our ancestors avoided any misuse of energy to respond quickly to an emergency. Imagine that a lion suddenly attacks the tribe while you spend all of your energy hunting. Conservation of energy is a survival feature deeply ingrained in our DNA.

It is human nature to follow the Law of least effort. We will naturally do what’s easy and will be less motivated when it’s difficult.

How to achieve more with less effort

A habit is likely to stick if its execution is easy. The key is to create as few frictions as possible when we implement it.

If you want to start to work out regularly, you would simply choose the gym nearest to your location. Even better, you can for example choose a place on the path of your work.

The key according to James Clear in his book “Atomic habits” is to design an environment that will optimize the friction.

If you want to build a new habit, subtract as many frictions as possible. On the contrary, if you need to get rid of a bad habit, add as many frictions as possible.

Since I implemented this knowledge, I became far more productive. I used to put my phones on the table as I’m writing content. But seeing them is a cue to an automatic behavior: “Check your social media, even just for a second”. In the end I would spend half an hour and get nothing done. But I added more friction and put my phone downstairs. Since then, I made the cues invisible and added more frictions: “I’m too lazy to go downstairs, just to check my phone”. I slowly changed my behavior. I realized that I achieved more with less effort.

Prime the environment for future use

“Whenever you organize a space for its intended purpose, you are priming it to make the next action easy.”

If you want to exercise, prepare in advance the materials, the shoes and the workout clothes ahead of time. It reduces the friction and you will be likely to go to the gym.

Increase the friction to demotivate you by sticking to the bad habits. I for example noticed that I no longer browse on Facebook using my phone when I let it downstairs. Sometimes, I turn it off to add more friction. Since I read and implemented the Atomic habits, as I’m writing this upstairs (no internet connection to distract me), I became more productive because I added enough friction to prevent me falling back to my bad behavior.

 

13- How to stop procrastinating by using the two-minute rule

There is a solid body of evidence that 40 to 50 percent of our daily actions are done out of habit.

Once we’ve developed a habit (either good or bad) it becomes easier to continue and do it. For example, you want to check your phone only for one minute but it easily slips into a 20-minute distraction.

Every day, there are decisive moments that will impact all the others. If you wake up and play with your phone just for one minute, you will soon spend one hour and that will greatly impact your mood. That tiny decision to play with your phone negatively impacted your whole productivity.

If I want to exercise, putting on my workout clothes is a tiny decision. But there’s a domino effect and I’m sure I will work out as soon as I change my clothes.

The two-minute rule

The two-minute rule in the atomic habits states that “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do”

Make your habits as easy as possible to start. It doesn’t have to feel like a burden. If you want to work out, start by lacing your shoes, it takes less than 2 minutes.

The two-minute rule seems trivial but it can also reinforce your new identity. Showing up to the gym, even just for five minutes every day will make you proud. Deep down, when you look yourself in the mirror, you’ll tell yourself: “I know that person in the mirror; it’s the person who shows up”. You’ll build yourself integrity and will respect yourself more.

In the end, two minutes going to the gym is far better than none. “Start by mastering the first two minutes of the smallest version of the behavior”.

The two-minute rule is a smart strategy to stick with your habit.

4th law – Make it satisfying

15- The cardinal rule of behavioral change

We repeat a behavior when our brain experiences pleasure and when the experience is satisfying.

The brain’s motto works like this: “That felt great. Do this again, next time”.

As soon as we get pleasure, we consider it worth remembering and repeating. Inversely, a painful experience is unlikely to be repeated.  Positive emotions reinforce a habit and negative emotions destroy them.

The difference between the 4 laws in the atomic habits:

James Clear underlines the difference like this: “The first three laws of behavior change—make it obvious, make it attractive, and make it easy—increase the odds that a behavior will be performed this time. The fourth law of behavior change—“make it satisfying”—increases the odds that a behavior will be repeated next time. It completes the habit loop.”

The mismatch between immediate and delayed rewards

Our brain craves instant gratification and it hasn’t changed much over the years. We keep our bad habits because the negative results are delayed. Conversely, we ignore positive habits because the deferred gratifications are too far in the future.

“Put another way, the costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future”

The updated version of the cardinal rule of behavior change is: “What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.”

It is possible to delay gratification. The tip is to work with our nature, not against it. We can still delay gratification but add instant pleasure that immediately rewards the habits. As we repeat that positive habit, it will yield in a better life in the future.

Make sure to choose a short-term reward that aligns with your general goal. For example, if your major goal is to get fit and regularly exercise, you wouldn’t go to a fast food restaurant as the immediate gratification; it would ruin your efforts. Instead, why not choose to buy delicious salads or plant-based dishes as a reward? The latter choice aligns with your general goal.

The more you integrate a habit, the more it will be part of your identity. Feeling good about yourself is not an extrinsic motivator but an intrinsic one. Now, you’re no longer motivated by external things, but internal such as your identity, better mood and more energy.

16- How to stick with good habits every day

I got addicted to video games because it gave me a sense of purpose. Most importantly, I love feeling that I made progress.

It feels great to make progress. When we keep track of our good habits, it’s satisfying, which aligns with the 4th law: make it satisfying. Feeling that you’re progressing reinforces your behavior.

How to keep your habits on track

One of the best ways to measure your progress is a simple habit tracker. As developed in Atomic habits, you can use either an app or a simple calendar where you’d cross “X” when you succeeded.

To stick with your good habits every day, “don’t break the chain” and never miss twice in a row.

Oftentimes we think that if we can’t do something perfectly, we shouldn’t do it at all. But there are times when life interrupts our progress, it’s inevitable. If you skip once, try to get back as soon as possible. It has the merit to reinforce your identity.

If you missed the gym once, get back there the next day, even if it’s just for a few reps. “Going to the gym for five minutes may not improve your performance, but it reaffirms your identity.” Here you shouldn’t say: “I missed once, let’s just give up on everything”

17 – How an accountability partner can change everything

This is the inversion of the 4th law: make it unsatisfying.

We are more likely to reinforce a habit when it is pleasant and avoid it when it’s painful.

For this, we can create a habit contract that will clarify the punishments if we don’t respect our words. We can also have an accountability partner who will hold us accountable.

The habit contract

“A habit contract is a verbal or written agreement in which you state your commitment to a particular habit and the punishment that will occur if you don’t follow through. Then you find one or two people to act as your accountability partners and sign off on the contract with you”

I used to be lazy but since I got a girlfriend, someone who’s watching what I was doing, it became a powerful motivator. The image I wanted to project and my actions must be aligned and I no longer procrastinate because someone else observed me. Their disappointment acts as a cost to our inaction. This is why an accountability partner can be powerful.

Atomic habits: in summary

The secret to lasting results

There is a great example that helps you understand the power of compound effect. If you were given the choices, which one would you choose: 3 million $ right now or 1$ that doubles every day for 31 days?

We might be tempted to choose the first option but in his book the “Slight Edge”, Jeff Olson mentions that the second option would look like this: “On day 28, the first boy’s purse of pennies had passed the million-dollar mark, and on day 29, the two-and-a-half-million mark. Yesterday, on day 30, it had exceeded five million, and today, when the butler handed his purse over to his own care, it had topped out at $10,737,418 … and twenty-four cents.”

The Holy Grail of habit change is not a 1% improvement, but a thousand 1% improvements.  It is a pile of atomic habits that pile up, each one constituting a fundamental unit of the global system.

Success is not a goal to be reached or a finish line to cross.  It is a system to be improved, an endless process to be refined.

Conclusion

“When the student is ready, the master appears”. Coming across this book was a pure chance. I’ve been looking for a book about productivity, especially one focusing on habit development. As I scanned through Facebook, one person in our mastermind group asked for a recommendation. He wanted to know books about productivity. I mentioned what I knew are the best books about productivity (how to be more productive) such as Getting things done by David Allen, The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson or the Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. But one member proposed “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and it received over 10 likes. I didn’t hesitate to buy the book and read it.

James Clear writes in a clear and concise manner. I especially liked the short chapters that help us quickly move onto the next. The book mixes great anecdotes, real-life accomplishments, and scientific experiments. I loved the 4 strategies (obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying) based on the 4 steps to create a habit.

Atomic habits remains one of the most practical, methodic and pragmatic books about productivity I’ve ever read.