Review of James Clear's Atomic Habits

Hi folks!

This post will be a quick review of James Clear's Atomic Habits. I finished it about an hour ago and found it... all right. It didn't blow me away (although some tips were useful!) and the writing was quite dry. It took me several days to finish (that should be an indicator how dry the writing was!) and I want to with this post simply give you an overview of Clear's most important (my opinion) points.

Why did I read it? I thought I could improve my work ethic when it comes to writing - but I'm not sure it actually worked. I am still tired after writing only a little bit (hello depression!) and can't think of any way to improve my habit of doing nothing whatsoever instead of writing most of the time.

All right! Let's get started.

Atomic Habits is a book about... well you guessed it. Habits. Atomic means small and therefore the book is about (guessing it again?) SMALL HABITS. And how SMALL HABITS stack up to over time become BIG HABITS/YOUR LIFESTYLE.

The first point Clear makes is that you should not try to change your whole life all at once. It's much too difficult (can confirm. I've tried it multiple times.). You're supposed to start small. AND you're supposed to change not because of the goal you want to to achieve (example: you want to lose weight and therefore decide to run) but because of the type of person you wish to become (example cont.: you want to become a healthy person at a good weight).

This way of thinking will supposedly help you stick to your habits much easier than if your goal were simply to lose a few kilos. Let me elaborate on that example a bit.

Your goal: lose 10 kilos
Your habits: eating cheeseburger every day for breakfast (don't judge. It has happened to me. Incl. pizza)

IF you only attempt to lose weight then you might do so by sheer force of will (been there done that - eat fruit/cereals instead of that cheeseburger for a few weeks). This is extremely hard and a bit pointless because as soon as you go back to your old HABITS (eating cheeseburger for breakfast) you will rapidly regain that weight.

HOWEVER.

If your goal becomes to change your lifestyle (be a healthier person) then James Clear suggests building small habits around that (as opposed to using SHEER FORCE OF WILL) will serve you better in the long run. This means you are replacing your habit of cheeseburger for breakfast with a habit of something healthy (???) for breakfast instead. This is a small change and you can even start by only going through the motions. Instead of warming up that frozen burger/pizza/sweetened cereal you'd start taking out your healthy cereals and fruit and what not. You don't even have to eat them just yet. The habit of taking them out of your storage needs to come first. You do this every day and at some point you'll be like 'heck I'm starting to make two meals (you're still taking out your burger/sweetened cereals/etc too at this point) and this is inconvenient'. 'Heck. The healthy stuff is already out - might as well eat that and then the cheeseburger if I'm still hungry'.

This is how it starts.

In a few months then you'll cultivate the habit of eating your healthy foods (the things you started taking out of storage first thing in the morning) and will (hopefully) forget all about pizza for breakfast entirely after a while.

The same principle goes for anything else you want to do. Write a book? Start by switching on your PC/writing program or carrying a notebook with you. Commit yourself to writing only two minutes a day. You are allowed only to make this SMALL CHANGE. You must do it every day. After a while you will be tempted to write more. And then more. And suddenly you have a BIG HABIT.

The second (most useful) tip in Atomic Habits is this:

Have a schedule and schedule the habits you want to cultivate one after another. This can be done by certain time or after another activity. The formula goes something like this:

If I wake up at 7:00 AM the next step in my day will be to make a cup of tea (habit you're probably already doing?). After this habit or while the water boils I will do (if you want to change to a healthier lifestyle) five pushups. This will usually be around 7:02 AM.

In this way you have two 'schedules':

1: At 7:02 AM I will do five pushups.
2: While the water boils for my morning tea I will do five pushups.

You can schedule other things this way as well.

If you want to be more productive at work: After getting on the train and finding a seat I will take out my notepad and write 2 new ideas I could develop during the day.
If you want to reduce your calorie intake: After sitting down to eat a meal I will drink a glass of water.
If you want to get better at drawing: I will draw one object every day before sleep (ca. 10 PM)
If you want to learn about physics: During my lunch break (12 lunchtime) I will read an article/watch a video on physics

You get it? After a habit you're already doing (going to lunch break/getting out of bed) you will 'stack' up another habit (referred to as HABIT STACKING in Atomic Habits).

The third piece of juicy advice:

MAKE IT EASY.

This is one very no-brain and yet very difficult to follow through with.

We all know this issue: If you're hungry you'll just grab whatever snack is available no matter if it's healthy or not. (And you're probably still hungry afterwards so have to eat a normal/healthy snack on top of it.)

We also all know this: There's an exciting book/new game/TV series RIGHT THERE when you're supposed to be doing work. What is easier? Sit back and relax or work on that difficult project you've been procrastinating on the whole week? Which one will you automatically do? Grab the controller or try to make your brain solve your work issue?

You don't have to answer that (but you can if you want to!). All of us have good intentions but rarely choose the difficult thing over an easier option.

The same it is with habits. Our bad habits are usually easy. The TV controller is right there. So is that greasy snack that won't fill you so you'll have to eat more later/immediately.

James Clear proposes this:

Make your GOOD HABITS EASY and your BAD HABITS HARD.

In practice this means:

Food: Don't buy unhealthy snacks. If you have to go to the store before you can eat them... well there's a good chance you'll be too lazy to go to the store and thus won't eat them.

Pre-cut your healthy snacks during the weekend (says James Clear - but personally I think the healthy fruit and vegetable snacks he's referring to will be rather gross later on if you pre-cut them too early) so they're always ready to eat. I want to suggest rather than pre-cutting the whole week's cucumbers and apples on the weekend to simply make them more visible and pre-cut them the evening before or in the morning of. How to make them more visible? Put them everywhere. Put them in your (unhealthy) snack drawer. Put them on your tables and desks. Put them on your nightstand. (This is a trick learned from a hotel. They had apples in a basket and I was hungry. I ate an apple instead of unpacking my candy from my bag simply because it was THERE already.)

TV: If you want to reduce the hours spent watching TV - Hide the TV. This is paraphrased from Clear's idea to PUT YOUR TV IN THE CLOSET. This will automatically make you roll it out only when you DESPERATELY want to watch something. Alternatively (and easier): hide your remote or remove its batteries.

Sports: Prepare your workout clothes in advance. If you have to search for them, you're likely to skip your workout. If they're right there, well, then you're just lazy if you don't go, and nobody wants to be lazy.

Obviously this can be done with a lot more than just these three categories of habits! Try to come up with new tactics yourself! I'd love to hear about them in the comments too!


Overall thoughts:

They book was dry as Parmesan (PS: cheese should only be eaten in moderation) but had some valuable tips (as listed above). I would definitely recommend the book simply because it has more tips than what I've personally listed and everyone has their own style of learning/changing and their own goals to meet. This means that while the above advice is valuable to me there might be other important things in the book for YOU to learn.

Only YOU know what YOU need to change/learn about yourself/in your life. That is why you personally should read this book.

WriteBot thinks everyone can benefit from this book. It can be found easily on Amazon (I am not affiliated with James Clear or Amazon in any way by the way) and probably other stores and isn't very long either. You might learn something about yourself with this book!

WriteBot out.