Atomic Habits
James Clear
Atomic Habit is slicing the most common practice (and almost being ignored) into a visible & bite size ideas, that can be easily observed and accept by any human on this earth.
I think simply by googling Atomic Habit, there will be a lot of articles that sharing summaries of the book contents & advices, therefore I think I'm not going to do that (meh and I never did that for my book reviews), instead I will be sharing my take away from this reading.
I think simply by googling Atomic Habit, there will be a lot of articles that sharing summaries of the book contents & advices, therefore I think I'm not going to do that (meh and I never did that for my book reviews), instead I will be sharing my take away from this reading.
I thought it would be a boring non-fiction & lets-change-our-life books. But HOWEVER, this book is surprisingly interesting. The way James pointing out common things and how these valued our life got me impressed by almost every chapters.
The 4 key concepts are keep on got repeated throughout the reading experience. Repeat & repeat, until I got in embed into my brain. This is one of the trick as well.
1. Make it obvious
2. Make it attractive
3. Make it easy
4. Make it satisfying
*ok some promotes to the key knowledge get from the book
James reminded me. Whenever we interest on something, we make it easier to reach. I've been addicted to Tik Tok surf, I spent hours to swpie swipe swipe for short videos, and amazing part is Tik Tok videos never came to the ends. (Yea, at least Facebook will hit the end). That means by the application itself, there's no checkpoint that got you to stop using it. But to avoid this, James shared an extremely easy trick - Make it not obvious. So I've moved the Apps to App Library instead of having it on my home screen. This sounds "meh", but it helps. I hate trouble, by accessing to folders to open the apps OR by quick search required me to take few steps to open the Apps. That's it. and it helps. Whatelse can I say.
So yea, this is one of the tricks I learnt from the reading, of course much more.
How this reading changed my life?
1. Consider the location for each items. For items that form good habit, make it reachable within seconds, and make it obvious or always appear within the eye sights. Vice versa.
2. Believe the power of consistent. Repeat, repeat and repeat.
3. Focus on "start", not length. I once always says "I need at least 30m of excercise to keep myself diet successfully.", and when it comes to the days, "I do not have 30m today I might skip". However in 2minutes example used in this book, yea it's 2 minutes. What else can you say with a 2 minutes? With the interesting encouragement from the book, I set a 10 minutes (so generous) per day to learn a guitar song. And I made it! With a Happy Birthday plucking style after 20 days, using the guitar I've bought for almost 10 years. Yea I spent so many days to learn a simple song, but I started, and I made it.
BONUS
4. A little a day, lead to a great results. I spent 2 minutes to wipe toilet glass before bath, as such I can strike it from weekly bathroom cleaning; I spent 1 minute to wash kitchen basin today after I done my dishes, as such the basin keep clean for the next few days; I spent 2 minutes to vaccuum different area on random days, throughout the weeks I got a clean and comfort envinronment. The rewards is so much valueable and satisfying, that brings so much positive consequences. The key is, the vaccuum and cleaning cloth must be reachable. HA.
This is definitely a good book, giving an adaptable advices. Read this, to change your life.
Quotes:
- A habit is a routine or behavior that is performed regularly—and, in many cases, automatically
- Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.
- Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.
- Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.
- All big things come from small beginnings.
- Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.
- Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.
- Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.
- if your identity is someone who consumes rather than creates, then you’ll continue to be pulled toward spending rather than earning.
- Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are.
- The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.
- Some people spend their entire lives waiting for the time to be right to make an improvement.
- No behavior happens in isolation. Each action becomes a cue that triggers the next behavior.
- The reward of being accepted is often greater than the reward of winning an argument, looking smart, or finding truth.
- The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.
- When you can’t win by being better, you can win by being different.
- A lack of self-awareness is poison. Reflection and review is the antidote.
- Happiness is simply the absence of desire.