Atomic Habits by James Clear: Book Summary

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

by James Clear

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About

Atomic Habits by James Clear is packed with powerful and practical advice on how to form good habits and break bad ones. In the book, Clear outlines the latest findings from various fields—including psychology, biology, and neuroscience—to create a simple and effective how-to guide for making good habits possible. “Habits are the compound interest of self improvement…” Prepare to yield massive returns.

Here’s What You Will Learn About In This Summary:

• How to create good habits and eliminate bad ones
• How to get motivated
• How to design your environment for success and growth

Crucial quotes

”This is the meaning of the phrase atomic habits—a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do but also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth.”

“Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.”

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.”

Tweetable summary

Tiny persistent steps over time will breed powerful results. Forget the goal, focus on the process, make high-level changes.

Links:

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BIG IDEAS

1. AIM TO GET 1% BETTER EVERY DAY
2. FOCUS ON SYSTEMS, NOT GOALS
3. CREATE A SUCCESS DRIVEN ENVIRONMENT
4. ALL HABITS ARE BASED ON A FOUR-STEP SYSTEM: CUE, CRAVING, RESPONSE, AND REWARD
5. THE FOUR LAWS OF BEHAVIOR CHANGE
6. TRACK YOUR HABITS WITH A HABIT TRACKER
7. USE THE TWO MINUTE RULE
8. USE THE GOLDILOCKS RULE TO STAY MOTIVATED
9. HABIT STACKING
10. TEMPTATION BUNDLING
11. SIMPLE WAYS TO FORM EFFECTIVE HABITS

1. Aim To Get 1% Better Every Day

“If you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero.”

Focus on making small improvements each day, over time those small improvements will equate to massive change. Bad habits also compound over time, if you delay working on something every day, the bad habit of procrastinating will multiply and seep into other areas of your life.

For example, say you want to lose weight. Instead of focusing on losing 50 lbs, concentrate on working out for 30 minutes three times a week for 30 days. Over time you will begin to see changes in your body. Thirty minutes a day, three times a week for 52 weeks is 4680 minutes worth of exercise.

In the book, Clear tells a story about the British cycling team. Since 1908, British cyclists won only one gold medal at the Olympics, and in over a century, no British cyclist had ever won the Tour de France. In 2003, the team hired Dave Brailsford as their new coach/performance director. Brailsford’s coaching strategy was an interesting one. His method was to push the team to get 1% better each day. He dug deep, searching for tiny improvements that could be made on a daily basis.

• They had the seats redesigned for extra comfort and stability
• They put rubbing alcohol on the tires for better grip
• They experimented with different racing suits for better aerodynamics
• They tested various massage gels for better muscle recovery
• They tested electrically heated shorts

The changes they made were tiny, but over time they made a significant impact. From 2007 to 2017, the British Cycling team won 178 world championships, 66 Olympic or Paralympic gold medals and they had 5 Tour de France wins. In a nutshell, tiny improvements often appear small, but minute changes are transformational if you stick with it.

Actionable insight(s):

Set yourself a challenge to get 1% better each day for the next 30 days. If you want to improve your knowledge on a particular topic, for example, read five pages every day. Writing a book? Write five pages a day for the next 30 days. Pay attention to small action steps, make small changes and achieve more. “All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger…”

2. Focus On Systems, Not Goals

“If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.”

The concept of focusing on systems instead of focusing on goals is a powerful one. There are a few problems associated with focusing on goals:

• Winners and Losers Have The Same Goal: Every Olympic athlete has a goal of winning a gold medal. What sets you apart from your competitor is the daily habits that you cultivate to become a better athlete. Paying attention to small improvements daily is the most effective way of building momentum and achieving massive results.
• Achieving A Goal Is A Short-Lived Change: You set yourself a goal to tidy your disorganised office desk. You spend hours doing this, and finally, it is done. The goal is achieved, but if you forget about the reasons why your desk got like this in the first place, the desk will eventually get messy again. However, if you set yourself the task of making small changes daily to ensure that your desk remains in an organized state, you are winning, you have made progress.
• Goals Do Not Lead To Long Term Progress: “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” When building effective daily systems, you create long term change. When you work on goals you focus on a particular achievement and return back to old habits once you have achieved the goal. However, when you create systems, long term habits, you move forward, you make high-level changes.

Actionable insight(s):

• Focus on your daily systems, the tiny action steps that you take each day to improve your life.
• Build daily habits like reading daily, drinking eight glasses of water daily and meditating daily. Analyze your systems, and work on making small changes every single day.

3. Create A Success Driven Environment

“The most powerful of all human sensory abilities, however, is vision. The human body has about eleven million sensory receptors. Approximately ten million of those are dedicated to sight. Some experts estimate that half of the brain’s resources are used on vision.”

What you see around you can lead to a huge transformation. Your environment can either stifle you or propel you. Clear emphasizes this big idea by highlighting a story about the energy crisis of the 1970s. Dutch researchers conducted a study. They observed energy usage in a small town near Amsterdam. Their findings revealed that some households were using 30 percent less energy than their neighbors.

The results indicated that homeowners who kept their energy meters in the hallway used less power than those who kept their meters in the basement. Now, although it may not seem like it at first blush, this is actually great example of how powerful of a role your environment plays within your life… How so? Simple: the people in the study with energy meters in their hallways used less energy because the meter was in their immediate purview—clearly visible in their environment—rather than hidden away in the basement.

Let’s take a quick look at a few more examples:

• You are less likely to practice your guitar if you have it hidden away at the back of your closet.
• You are less likely to take your vitamins if you hide them in your kitchen cabinet
• You are less likely to read that book you have been meaning to read if it is pushed to the back of your bookshelf.
• You are less likely to write that book if your notebooks, pens, and laptop are stashed away in a drawer.

Actionable insight(s):

Set yourself up for success by changing your environment to meet your needs. Switch Things Up

• Place the books that you want to read on your coffee table, on your desk or somewhere that you will see them every day
• Write down your daily processes and paste them to your bedroom wall, on your bathroom mirror on your refrigerator door.
• Keep your surroundings tidy and neat to make things easier to find and to provide you with a clear space to cultivate good daily habits.

4. All Habits Are Based On A Four-Step System: Cue, Craving, Response, And Reward

Let’s break each of these down, shall we?

1. Cue—Information that tells us there will be a reward. For example, the smell of a cake baking in the oven, a dark room waiting for someone to push the light switch.
2. Craving—The motivation to do something to get the reward, this is when you think about what you need to do to taste that freshly baked cake. The cake is your motivation.
3. Response—Now you have to act to get the reward.
4. Reward—You receive the reward and feel satisfied.

Actionable insight(s):

• What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided. Positive emotions cultivate habits; negative emotions destroy them. Make habit forming easier by thinking of a reward that promotes positive emotions. When you run three times a week, you feel energized and motivated to continue. The habit you need to form here is the habit to get up, put your running shoes on and get out the door.

5. The Four Laws Of Behavior Change

“The Four Laws of Behavior Change are a simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. They are (1) make it obvious, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it easy, and (4) make it satisfying.”

• Make it OBVIOUS: Don’t hide the books you need to read or the fruit you want to eat, display them to remind yourself to form new habits.
• Make it ATTRACTIVE: Read the books you like to read, and it’ll encourage you to read more.
• Make it EASY: If you want to eat more fruit, eat the fruits that are easy to eat.
• Make it SATISFYING: If you are satisfied, you will want more.

Apply this to all good habits, and do the opposite for bad habits: Make them invisible, unattractive, difficult and unsatisfying.

Actionable insight(s):

Whenever you want to change your behavior, focus on these factors:

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?

For example:

• How can I make it obvious? Establish a running habit by placing your running shoes at the foot of your bed.
• How can I make it attractive? Buy nice running shoes and some new workout clothes.
• How can I make it easy? By starting small—I can run or walk for ten minutes a day.
• How can I make it satisfying? By preparing a delicious, healthy meal when I’ve finished my run.

6. Track Your Habits With A Habit Tracker

A habit tracker is a simple way to hold yourself accountable without becoming overwhelmed. As the name entails, a habit tracker tracks your habits. It’s a tool that allows you to quantify your behaviors and track how consistent you are in acquiring or removing specific ones. It allows you to keep track of all the good habits you want to form and all the bad habits you want to eliminate. At the end of each day, you highlight the habits you managed to stick to.

This system is often called the Seinfeld Productivity Hack. The comedian Jerry Seinfeld marked his calendar with an X every day in which he wrote a new joke. His goal is not to break the chain of X’s. This motivated him to cultivate the habit of creating new jokes every day.

Actionable insight(s):

• Track your habits and have visual proof of how far you have come. Use the habit tracking system to hold yourself accountable and to track your progress. For example:
  • Mark your habit tracker each day you manage to read 15 pages of a book.
  • Mark your habit tracker each day you drink eight large cups of water.

7. Use The Two Minute Rule

“Decisive moments set the options available to your future self.”

Every day there are a handful of moments that deliver significant impact. In the book, these are referred to as decisive moments. “The Two-Minute Rule states, ‘When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.” Any habit can be scaled down to a two-minute version of itself. For example:

• “Read before bed each night” becomes “Read one page.”
• “Do thirty minutes of yoga” becomes “Take out my yoga mat.”
• “Study for class” becomes “Open my notes.”
• “Fold the laundry” becomes “Fold one pair of socks.”
• “Run three miles” becomes “Tie my running shoes.”

Actionable insight(s):

• The idea behind this is to make your habits as easy as possible to start. Get yourself into the habit of doing something small, then building up to the more intense version of that habit.
• A new habit should not feel like a challenge. Master the art of showing up and keep in mind that you need to standardize before you can optimize.
• Start today. It doesn’t matter what habit you’re working on, you can always do something to move the ball forward. For example: let’s say you’ve got a goal to write a book, instead of setting a target to write 10,000 words a day, which is very hard, set a target to write one page a day. If you find this too difficult, write one paragraph a day. Start small, get comfortable, do more.

8. Use The Goldilocks Rule To Stay Motivated

“The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.”

Let’s say want to improve your tennis skills. Let’s assume you’re a beginner—not bad by any means—but you’ve got definitely got plenty of room for growth. If you spend most of your time practicing with a four-year-old, you’ll probably get bored pretty quickly and you definitely won’t improve your tennis-game. If you tried practicing with a US Open tennis champion on a daily basis, that wouldn’t work out very well either—it would be too difficult for you and too boring for Roger Federer.

If you really want to grow, you should aim to practice with someone who’s not too hard, not too easy, but just right.

That’s the Goldilocks Rule in a nutshell. And you can apply to anything. Aim to work on tasks that are not too hard, not too easy, but just right. Do this, and you’ll boost your skills as well as your motivation to continue getting better.

Here’s how James puts it: “Wanting to improve your life is easy. Sticking with it is a different story. If you want to stay motivated for good, then start with a challenge that is just manageable, measure your progress, and repeat the process.”

Here’s another example: Let’s say you want to write 10,000 words a day. At first, writing 10,000 words a day will be too difficult. Instead, think about writing 3,000 words a day. Not too difficult, but definitely not too easy.

Actionable insight(s):

• How can you apply the Goldilocks Rule in your own life? With your own habits? Identify your sweet-spot (not too hard, not too easy, but just right) and get to work!

9. Habit Stacking

“When it comes to building new habits, you can use the connectedness of behavior to your advantage. One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This is called habit stacking.”

Here’s a quick formula you can utilize for creating your own habit stacks:

• After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

Some examples:

• Reading: After I brush my teeth in the morning, I’ll read for 20 minutes.
• Relationships: As soon as I get into bed each evening, I’ll tell my partner one thing about him/her that I’m grateful for.
• Daily Planing: While I wait for my morning coffee to brew, I’ll write down my three most important goals for the day.

You can utilize habit stacking for virtually any habit you’re working to develop. Just keep in mind that the key to habit stacking is to tie your desired habit/behavior to something you’re already doing on a daily basis. Once you’ve got this down, Clear says, “you can begin to create larger stacks by chaining small habits together. This allows you to take advantage of the natural momentum that comes from one behavior leading into the next”

Actionable insight(s):

• Think of a habit you currently have,
• Next, think of a habit you want to develop.
• Now, use the habit stacking formula to bring it together and make it happen: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”

10. Temptation Bundling

”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. This is where a strategy known as temptation bundling comes into play.”

To illustrate this Big Idea, Clear tells the story of an engineering student named Ronan, who had the unhelpful habit of constantly binging shows on Netflix.

Ronan wanted to binge-watch less and exercise more. But he had a big problem on his hands—he LOVED binge-watching and HATED exercising. So, he came up with a clever solution: he connected his stationary bike to his laptop and television… then, he coded a computer program that allowed him to watch Netflix only if he was also cycling at a certain speed. When he slows down, his TV (or laptop) automatically pauses. When he picks up the pace again, it starts playing again. Ronan’s solution to developing his exercise habit is an excellent example of temptation bundling, which works by linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do.

For Ronan, bundling Netflix (the thing he wanted to do) with exercising on his stationary bike (the thing he needed to do) was exactly what he needed to get himself going.

So, how does this apply to you? And how can you use temptation bundling in your own life?

Here’s the temptation bundling formula:

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

Some examples:

• If you need to wash your dishes, but want to watch YouTube:
  • After I wash my dishes, I will watch YouTube videos for 20 minutes YouTube.
  • As an alternative option, you can choose to combine the two—like Ronan did with his exercise bike + Netflix—by watching YouTube only while you’re washing your dishes.
• If you want to read the news, but need to read a book:
  • After I read my book for 30 minutes, I’ll read the news for 20 minutes.
• If you need to do some writing for work, but feel like you want to surf the web instead:
  • After I’ve done 60 minutes of uninterrupted writing, I’ll check my favorite blogs for 30 minutes.

Now, let’s talk about how YOU can do the same with your own habits…

Actionable insight(s):

• Think about a habit you need to develop,
• Next, think about a habit you want (that you enjoy or like to do).
• Now use the temptation bundling formula to bring it together and make it happen: “After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].”

11. Simple Ways To Form Effective Habits

Here are four practical and powerful strategies you can utilize to form your own habits:

1. Start a new good habit by setting what’s called an “implementation intention,” the formula for which goes like this: I will BEHAVIOR at TIME in LOCATION.

• Example #1—Exercise: I’ll workout for 60 minutes at 6 a.m. at my local fitness club.
• Example #2—Meditation: I’ll meditate for 5 minutes at 7 a.m. in my backyard.
• Example #3—Studying: I’ll study Philosophy for 30 minutes at 5 p.m. in my room.

2. Use the habit stacking method by attaching a new habit to a pre-established habit. Here’s the formula: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

• Example: After I finish my morning workout (your current habit), I will make a protein-rich smoothie for breakfast (new habit you need to develop) rather than having my usual bagel. *See Big Idea #9 for more on Habit Stacking

3. Combine habit stacking + temptation bundling to create an ongoing set of rules to guide your behavior. Here’s the 2-part formula:

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

Here’s the logic behind combining habit stacking with temptation bundling: By focusing on your current habit, then moving on to a habit you might not want to do (but need to do,) and then moving on to a habit you want to do — you create a cycle that gives you the momentum and motivation to continue taking action (even when you don’t feel like it.)

All of these formulas sound a lot more complex than they really are. But they’ll get easier after you write them out a few times and work your own habits into the mix.

Here’s a quick review of habit stacking + temptation bundling: After my current habit, I will perform a habit I need. After I perform the habit I need, I will move on to the habit I want.

Some examples:

• Example #1—If you want to browse social media, but need to call clients:
  • 1: After I get back to my desk from lunch, I’ll call 3 clients (need.)
  • 2: After I call 3 clients, I’ll see what’s happening on Twitter (want.)
• Example #2—If you want to watch TV, but need to exercise more:
  • 1: After I get back home from work, I’ll change into my workout clothes and go running.
  • 2: After I finish running, I’ll watch TV.

The goal here is this: doing what you need to do means you get to do what you want to do. This can drive behavior-change—even if what you want to do seems trivial in comparison to what you need to do.

4. Combine habit stacking + habit tracking by tracking each day in which you execute your habits. *For more on tracking, refer to Big Idea #6.

Closing Notes

Key takeaway:

• To build good habits or break bad ones, use the four laws of behavior change laid out in Atomic Habits: (1) make it obvious, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it easy, and (4) make it satisfying.

Actionable insight(s):

Tiny Steps, Big Gains: “Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change.”

• Significant changes do not happen overnight; they occur as a result of a series of tiny steps taken over some time. As the personal development philosopher Jim Rohn said: “Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.”
• Make just ONE change today by telling yourself that you’ll execute a single small task each day… For example, let’s say you want to run a marathon. Get your running shoes on each day day and walk around the block or to the park, and back home again. Now you can build upon that initial accomplishment, bit by bit. Your next step is to start running to the park and back three times per week, while walking on other days. Bit by bit. Little by little. You grow and get a little better everyday until eventually, you’re running that marathon.

Build Better Habits in Four Simple Steps: Remember to utilize the four laws of behavior change to build better habits:

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?

Your Environment Matters: “Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior.”

• Make the cues of good habits obvious in your environment.
• Your environment shapes the way you think or feel. Therefore, if you want to lose weight, you will need to change your eating habits and exercise. If your environment is not conducive to this, losing weight will be more difficult. Set yourself up for success by designing your environment to meet your needs. Fill your fridge and pantry with healthy foods. Purchase irresistible workout gear, write your daily habits for losing weight on a large whiteboard.
• Cultivate good habits by designing a success-driven environment.

Stop Procrastinating By Using The Two-Minute Rule: “Habits can be completed in a few seconds but continue to impact your behavior for minutes or hours afterward.”

• Instead of focusing on cultivating difficult habits, focus on building small habits that grow into big habits over time. A great way to do that is by leveraging the 2-minute rule. David Allen, the author of the classic productivity book Getting Things Done says that when we start a new habit, “it should take less than two minutes to do.”
• Some examples:
  • You want to write a book; you need to start writing first. Write one paragraph a day.
  • You want to start reading more, start by reading one page a day.
  • You want to start a podcast, start by learning one actionable thing per day about how to launch your own podcast.
  • Get into the habit of exercising daily by performing two minutes of jumping jacks each day.
  • Get into the habit of drinking more water by setting yourself a low target first and building up to more over time.
  • Just start—you can’t cultivate a habit that doesn’t exist. So, start small and build from there.

Try Lukewarm Tasks-Goldilocks Rule: “One of the important sources of human happiness is working on tasks at a suitable level of difficulty, neither too hard nor too easy.” —Gilbert Brim

• Avoid focusing on tasks that are too difficult or too easy. Focus on tasks that are just right. If a task is too easy, you will lack the motivation to carry it out.
• If the level of difficulty is suitable for your current situation and ability, you will feel motivated to remain consistent with it.

How To Stick With Good Habits Every Day: “The human brain needs some way to visualize our progress if we are to maintain motivation. We need to be able to see our wins.”

• Habit trackers and other visual forms of measurement can make your habits satisfying by providing clear evidence of your progress. Provide clear evidence of your progress by visually tracking your habits daily.
• At the end of each day, write down the small tasks that you have completed.
• Try this for 30 days, observe and analyze your results.

Final note:

• Focus on the START, not the FINISH. Then create systems and habits to design the life that you want. Start small, build up.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: James Clear is an author, entrepreneur, and speaker. He writes and speaks about the art and science of how to live better, and how to build better systems and habits to become the best version of yourself. Clear’s specific focus is personal improvement based on proven scientific research. “I believe the best way to change the world is in concentric circles: start with yourself and work your way out from there.” His work has appeared in the New York Times, Entrepreneur, Time and CBS This Morning. He regularly speaks at Fortune 500 companies, and his strategies are used by the NFL, NBA, and MLB.

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BONUS NOTES + CRUCIAL QUOTES:

“We all deal with setbacks, but in the long run, the quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits.” “When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.” “Eventually, I began to realize that my results had very little to do with the goals I set and nearly everything to do with the systems I followed. What’s the difference between systems and goals?” “In order to improve for good, you need to solve problems at the systems level. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.” “Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.” “Your actions reveal how badly you want something. If you keep saying something is a priority, but you never act on it, then you don’t really want it. It’s time to have an honest conversation with yourself. Your actions reveal your true motivations.” “Can one tiny change transform your life? It’s unlikely you would say so. But what if you made another? And another? And another? At some point, you will have to admit that your life was transformed by one small change. The holy grail of habit change is not a single 1 percent improvement, but a thousand of them.