Atomic Habits

How to create a good habit:

1st Law: Make It Obvious

1.1: Fill out the Habits Scorecard. Write down your current habits to become aware
of them.
1.2: Use implementation intentions: “I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].”
1.3: Use habit stacking: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
1.4: Design your environment. Make the cues of good habits obvious and visible.
2nd Law: Make It Attractive
2.1: Use temptation bundling. Pair an action you want to do with an action you need
to do.
2.2: Join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.
2.3: Create a motivation ritual. Do something you enjoy immediately before a
difficult habit.
3rd Law: Make It Easy
3.1: Reduce friction. Decrease the number of steps between you and your good
habits.
3.2: Prime the environment. Prepare your environment to make future actions easier.
3.3: Master the decisive moment. Optimize the small choices that deliver outsized
impact.
3.4: Use the Two-Minute Rule. Downscale your habits until they can be done in two
minutes or less.
3.5: Automate your habits. Invest in technology and onetime purchases that lock in
future behavior.
4th Law: Make It Satisfying
4.1: Use reinforcement. Give yourself an immediate reward when you complete your
habit.
4.2: Make “doing nothing” enjoyable. When avoiding a bad habit, design a way to see
the benefits.
4.3: Use a habit tracker. Keep track of your habit streak and “don’t break the
chain.”
4.4: Never miss twice. When you forget to do a habit, make sure you get back on
track immediately.

How to break a bad habit

Inversion of the 1st Law: Make It Invisible

1.5: Reduce exposure. Remove the cues of your bad habits from your environment.
Inversion of the 2nd Law: Make It Unattractive
2.4: Reframe your mind-set. Highlight the benefits of avoiding your bad habits.
Inversion of the 3rd Law: Make It Difficult
3.6: Increase friction. Increase the number of steps between you and your bad
habits. 3.7: Use a commitment device. Restrict your future choices to the ones that
benefit you.
Inversion of the 4th Law: Make It Unsatisfying
4.5: Get an accountability partner. Ask someone to watch your behavior.
4.6: Create a habit contract. Make the costs of your bad habits public and painful.

1. The Power of Atomic Habits

Four step model of habits: Cue, Creaving (urgent desire), Response, Reward
and 4 laws of behaviour change that evolve out of this steps.
- Focus on the system, not the goal.
- Small steps, step by step daily improvements is the key to success.
- Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. Getting 1 percent better
every day counts for a lot in the long-run.
- Habits are a double-edged sword. They can work for you or against you, which is
why understanding the details is essential.
- Small changes often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical
threshold. The most powerful outcomes of any compounding process are delayed. You
need to be patient.
· Productivity compounds. Accomplishing one extra task is a small feat on any
given day, but it counts for a lot over an entire career. The effect of automating
an old task or mastering a new skill can be even greater. The more tasks you can
handle without thinking, the more your brain is free to focus on other areas.
· Knowledge compounds. Learning one new idea won’t make you a genius, but a
commitment to lifelong learning can be transformative. Furthermore, each book you
read not only teaches you something new but also opens up different ways of
thinking about old ideas.
- An atomic habit is a little habit that is part of a larger system. Just as atoms
are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the building blocks of
remarkable results.
- If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your
system instead. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level
of your systems. Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about
the processes that lead to those results. If you’re a musician, your goal might be
to play a new piece. Your system is how often you practice, how you break down and
tackle difficult measures, and your method for receiving feedback from your
instructor. Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making
progress.
Reason: winners and those who lost had the same goals; achieving a goal is only a
momentary change; goals restrict happiness, satisfaction with the system, the
process, increases happiness; goals are at odds with long-term progress, true
continuous improvement instead.

2. How Habits Shape Identity (and Vice Versa)

- There are three levels of change: outcome/result change, process/system/routine

change, and identity change means changing beliefs, worldview, self-image. Outcomes
are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you
believe.
- 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.
- Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of
person you wish to become. The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a
reader. Writer didn’t start out as a writer, but became one through the writing
habits. Behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity. The focus should
always be on becoming that type of person, not getting a particular outcome.
- Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your
beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.
- The real reason habits matter is not because they can get you better results
(although they can do that), but because they can change your beliefs about
yourself. You become your habits.

3. How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps

- A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.
"Habits are, simply, reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment."
- The ultimate purpose of habits is to solve the problems of life with as little
energy and effort as possible.
- Any habit can be broken down into a feedback loop that involves four steps: cue
- bit of hint information that predicts a reward, craving - motivational force
(thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the observer are what transform a cue into a
craving), response - actual action/habit you perform, which can take the form of a
thought or an action, and reward - the end goal of every habit, satisfaction,
teaching, relief from craving.
Without the first three steps, a behavior will not occur. Without all four, a
behavior will not be repeated.
Eg. Problem phase: cue - you walk into a dark room, craving - you want to be able
to see. Solution phase: response - you flip the light switch, reward - you satisfy
your craving to see. Turning on the light switch becomes associated with being in a
dark room.
- 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 (immediate satisfaction).
How can I make it obvious?How can I make it attractive? How can I make it easy? How
can I make it satisfying?
- To break a bad habbit: (1) make it invisible, (2) make it unattractive, (3) make
it difficult, and (4) make it unsatisfying.

4. The First law: Make it obvious.

- With enough practice, your brain will pick up on the cues that predict certain
outcomes without consciously thinking about it.
- Once our habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing.
- The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware
of your habits before you can change them.
- Pointing-and-Calling raises your level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to
a more conscious level by verbalizing your actions.
- The Habits Scorecard is a simple exercise you can use to become more aware of
your behavior: List all daily actions/habits. Mark them with good and bad. Does
this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be?

5. The Best Way to Start a New Habit

Implementation intentions: when and where (time and location). E.g. I will start
tomorrow, in the bedroom.
Habit stacking: Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and
location, you pair it with a another habit. E.g. After my regular asana practice, I
will perform pranayama and then meditation. Set of rules to guide behavior.
- The 1st Law of Behavior Change is make it obvious.
- The two most common cues are time and location.
- Creating an implementation intention is a strategy you can use to pair a new
habit with a specific time and location.
- The implementation intention formula is: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in
[LOCATION].
- Habit stacking is a strategy you can use to pair a new habit with a current
habit.
- The habit stacking formula is: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

6. Motivation Is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More

Many of the actions we take each day are shaped not by purposeful drive and choice
but by the most obvious option (e.g. which is near our sight). The best choice is
the most obvious one. Environment design for help.
- If you want to practice Yoga more frequently, place your Mat in the middle of the
living room.
- If you want to drink more water, fill up a few water bottles each morning and
place them in common locations around the house.
- Small changes in context can lead to large changes in behavior over time.
- Every habit is initiated by a cue. We are more likely to notice cues that stand
out.
- Make the cues of good habits obvious in your environment.
- Gradually, your habits become associated not with a single trigger but with the
entire context surrounding the behavior. The context becomes the cue.
- It is easier to build new habits in a new environment because you are not
fighting against old cues.

7. The Secret to Self-Control

To control spend less time in tempting situations. Watching television makes you
feel sluggish, so you watch more television because you don’t have the energy to do
anything else.
-If you’re wasting too much time watching television, move the TV out of the
bedroom.
- If you can’t seem to get any work done, leave your phone in another room for a
few hours.
Make the cues of your good habits obvious and the cues of your bad habits
invisible.
- The inversion of the 1st Law of Behavior Change is make it invisible.
- Once a habit is formed, it is unlikely to be forgotten.
- People with high self-control tend to spend less time in tempting situations.
It’s easier to avoid temptation than resist it.
- One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to
the cue that causes it.
- Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one.

8. The 2nd law. Make It Attractive.

Dopamine. Most simple habits are a dopamine-driven feedback loop.

Make habits attractive because it is the expectation of a rewarding experience that
motivates to act in the first place.
1. After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED].
2. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].
- The 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it attractive.
- The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-
forming.
- Habits are a dopamine-driven feedback loop. When dopamine rises, so does our
motivation to act.
- It is the anticipation of a reward—not the fulfillment of it—that gets us to take
action. The greater the anticipation, the greater the dopamine spike.
- Temptation bundling is one way to make your habits more attractive. The strategy
is to pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.

9. The Role of Family and Friends in Shaping Your Habits

In the long history of humankind, those who learned to collaborate and improvise
most effectively have prevailed.
- The culture we live in determines which behaviors are attractive to us.
- We tend to adopt habits that are praised and approved of by our culture because
we have a strong desire to fit in and belong to the tribe.
- We tend to imitate the habits of three social groups: the close (family and
friends), the many (the tribe), and the powerful (those with status and prestige).
- One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a
culture where (1) your desired behavior is the normal behavior and (2) you already
have something in common with the group.
- The normal behavior of the tribe often overpowers the desired behavior of the
individual. Most days, we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by
ourselves.
- If a behavior can get us approval, respect, and praise, we find it attractive.

10. How to Find and Fix the Causes of Your Bad Habits
You can make hard habits more attractive if you can learn to associate them with a
positive experience. Not 'you gave to', but 'you get to'. Simple changing of
mindset shift. Instead of telling yourself “I need to go run in the morning,” say
“It’s time to build endurance and get fast.”
- The inversion of the 2nd Law of Behavior Change is make it unattractive.
- Every behavior has a surface level craving and a deeper underlying motive.
- Your habits are modern-day solutions to ancient desires.
- The cause of your habits is actually the prediction that precedes them. The
prediction leads to a feeling.
- Highlight the benefits of avoiding a bad habit to make it seem unattractive.
- Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings and
unattractive when we associate them with negative feelings. Create a motivation
ritual by doing something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.

11. The third law. Make it easy.

If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition, not perfection.
You don’t need to map out every feature of a new habit. You just need to practice
it. This is the first takeaway of the 3rd Law: you just need to get your reps in.
- The 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it easy.
- The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning.
- Focus on taking action, not being in motion.
- Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes progressively more
automatic through repetition.
- The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the
number of times you have performed it.

12. The Law of Least Effort

Making your habits simple and easy. You are more likely to go to the gym if it is
on your way to work. When we remove the points of friction that sap our time and
energy, we can achieve more with less effort.
If you want to cook a healthy breakfast, place the skillet on the stove, set the
cooking spray on the counter, and lay out any plates and utensils you’ll need the
night before. When you wake up, making breakfast will be easy.
Want to exercise? Set out your workout clothes, shoes, gym bag, and water bottle
ahead of time.
You can also invert this principle and prime the environment to make bad behaviors
difficult. If you find yourself watching too much television, for example, then
unplug it after each use, take the batteries out of the remote.
I leave my phone in a different room until lunch. When it’s right next to me, I’ll
check it all morning for no reason at all. But when it is in another room, I rarely
think about it. And the friction is high enough that I won’t go get it without a
reason. As a result, I get three to four hours each morning when I can work without
interruption.
- Human behavior follows the Law of Least Effort. We will naturally gravitate
toward the option that requires the least amount of work.
- Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.
- Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low, habits
are easy.
- Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When friction is high,
habits are difficult.
- Prime your environment to make future actions easier.

13. How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the Two-Minute Rule

“When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”
“Read before bed each night” becomes “Read one page.”
“Do thirty minutes of yoga” becomes “Take out my yoga mat.”
Examples of habit shaping.
Becoming an early riser.
Phase 1: Be home by 10 p.m. every night.
Phase 2: Have all devices (TV, phone, etc.) turned off by 10 p.m. every night.
Phase 3: Be in bed by 10 p.m. every night (reading a book).
Phase 4: Lights off by 10 p.m. every night.
Phase 5: Wake up at 6 a.m. every day.
Other example 1: Exercise for fifteen minutes at least once per week.
Other example 2: Exercise three times per week.
- Habits can be completed in a few seconds but continue to impact your behavior for
minutes or hours afterward.
- Many habits occur at decisive moments—choices that are like a fork in the road—
and either send you in the direction of a productive day or an unproductive one.
- The Two-Minute Rule states, “When you start a new habit, it should take less than
two minutes to do.”
- The more you ritualize the beginning of a process, the more likely it becomes
that you can slip into the state of deep focus that is required to do great things.
- Standardize before you optimize. You can’t improve a habit that doesn’t exist.

14. How to Make Good Habits Inevitable and Bad Habits Impossible

Onetime technology actions that lock in good habits: Buy a water filter to clean
your drinking water. Use smaller plates to reduce caloric intake. Get blackout
curtains. Remove your television from your bedroom. Unsubscribe from emails. Turn
off notifications and mute group chats. Set your phone to silent. Use email filters
to clear up your inbox. Delete games and social media apps on your phone. Buy good
shoes to avoid back pain. Enroll in an automatic savings plan.

- The inversion of the 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it difficult.

- A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that locks in better
behavior in the future.
- The ultimate way to lock in future behavior is to automate your habits.
- Onetime choices—like buying a better mattress or enrolling in an automatic
savings plan—are single actions that automate your future habits and deliver
increasing returns over time.
- Using technology to automate your habits is the most reliable and effective way
to guarantee the right behavior.

15. The 4th law. Make it satisfying.

The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change

Immediate, instant gratification. The consequences of bad habits are delayed while
the rewards are immediate.
In the beginning, you need a reason to stay on track. This is why immediate rewards
are essential. They keep you excited while the delayed rewards accumulate in the
background.
A habit needs to be enjoyable for it to last. Simple bits of reinforcement—like
soap that smells great or toothpaste that has a refreshing mint flavor or seeing
$50 hit your savings account—can offer the immediate pleasure you need to enjoy a
habit. And change is easy when it is enjoyable.
- The 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it satisfying.
- We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying.
- The human brain evolved to prioritize immediate rewards over delayed rewards.
- The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change: What is immediately rewarded is repeated.
What is immediately punished is avoided.
- To get a habit to stick you need to feel immediately successful— even if it’s in
a small way.
- 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.

16. How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day

Habit tracking is obvious, attractive, satisfying. A habit tracker is a simple way

to measure whether you did a habit. The most basic format is to get a calendar and
cross off each day you stick with your routine. As time rolls by, the calendar
becomes a record of your habit streak. It feels good to watch the results grow.
Habit tracking (1) creates a visual cue that can remind you to act, (2) is
inherently motivating because you see the progress you are making and don’t want to
lose it, and (3) feels satisfying whenever you record another successful instance
of your habit.
- One of the most satisfying feelings is the feeling of making progress.
- A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit—like marking
an X on a calendar.
- Habit trackers and other visual forms of measurement can make your habits
satisfying by providing clear evidence of your progress.
- Don’t break the chain. Try to keep your habit streak alive.
- Never miss twice. If you miss one day, try to get back on track as quickly as
possible.
- Just because you can measure something doesn’t mean it’s the most important
thing.

17. How an Accountability Partner Can Change Everything

- The inversion of the 4th Law of Behavior Change is make it unsatisfying.

- We are less likely to repeat a bad habit if it is painful or unsatisfying.
- An accountability partner can create an immediate cost to inaction. We care
deeply about what others think of us, and we do not want others to have a lesser
opinion of us.
- A habit contract can be used to add a social cost to any behavior. It makes the
costs of violating your promises public and painful.
- Knowing that someone else is watching you can be a powerful motivator.

18. Advanced tactics. How to Go from Being Merely Good to Being Truly Great. The
Truth About Talent (When Genes Matter and When They Don’t)

Habits are easier to perform, and more satisfying to stick with, when they align
with your natural inclinations and abilities. The key is to direct your effort
toward areas that both excite you and match your natural skills, to align your
ambition with your ability. Build habits that work for your personality.
What makes
me lose track of time? What comes naturally to me? When have I felt like the real
me?
- The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of
competition.
- Pick the right habit and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is a
struggle.
- Genes cannot be easily changed, which means they provide a powerful advantage in
favorable circumstances and a serious disadvantage in unfavorable circumstances.
- Habits are easier when they align with your natural abilities. Choose the habits
that best suit you.
- Play a game that favors your strengths. If you can’t find a game that favors you,
create one.
- Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work. They clarify it. They tell us what
to work hard on.

19. The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated in Life and Work
- The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on
tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities.
- The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.
- As habits become routine, they become less interesting and less satisfying. We
get bored.
- Anyone can work hard when they feel motivated. It’s the ability to keep going
when work isn’t exciting that makes the difference.
- Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way.

20. The Downside of Creating Good Habits

Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender
and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is
a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will
prevail.
- The upside of habits is that we can do things without thinking. The downside is
that we stop paying attention to little errors.
- Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery
- Reflection and review is a process that allows you to remain conscious of your
performance over time.
- The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.

Conclusion

The holy grail of habit change is not a single 1 percent improvement, but many of
them. It’s a bunch of atomic habits stacking up, each one a fundamental unit of the
overall system.

You want to push your good habits by making them obvious, attractive, easy, and
satisfying. Meanwhile, you want to let go your bad habits by making them invisible,
unattractive, hard, and unsatisfying.

The secret to getting results that last is to never stop making improvements.