Atomic Habits is a Leaf Non-Fiction book focused on successful habit building.

  • Plateau of Latent Potential → Plateau where results flat line or do not change with a new practice. Habits must be stuck with to break through this plateau and see larger results
  • Systems (process) over goals → the score will take care of itself
    • Goals can be too binary (win/lose)
  • Habits build and change identity, identity shapes habits
  • Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become
  • Focus on who you wish to become, not the results you wish to achieve
  • The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become.
  • Habits are meant to solve life’s problems with as little effort as possible
  • Applying the Ideas to Business
  • Applying the Ideas to parenting
  • The Habit Scorecard is a method of tracking your daily habits, this is a useful survey to conduct before deciding what habits to add or remove. A template of the scorecard can be found here
  • When trying to implement a new habit, use an implementation intention. Develop a concrete plan on how you will accomplish the action. A simple template is: “When situation X arises, I will perform response Y” or “I will do <Activity> at <Time> in <Location>”.

How habits are built

  • Cue
  • Craving
  • Response
  • Reward

Four Laws of Behavior Change

  1. Make it obvious
  2. Make it attractive
  3. Make it easy
  4. Make it satisfying

Breaking a bad habit

  1. Make it invisible
  2. Make it unattractive
  3. Make it difficult
  4. Make it unsatisfying