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

by James Clear

No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving—every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.

If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.

Learn how to:
- Make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy);
- Overcome a lack of motivation and willpower;
- Design your environment to make success easier;
- Get back on track when you fall off course;
...and much more.

Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Psychology, Personal Development, Productivity, Audiobook, Business

319 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 18, 2018

About the author

James Clear is the author of "Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones"

He writes about habits, decision-making, and continuous improvement at jamesclear.com. His website receives millions of visitors each month and hundreds of thousands subscribe to his popular email newsletter.

His work has appeared in the New York Times, Entrepreneur, Time, and on CBS This Morning. He is a regular speaker at Fortune 500 companies and his work is used by teams in the NFL, NBA, and MLB.

Learn more at jamesclear.com

Reviews

[Lisa of Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Book That Changed My Life

A book worth reading once a year.

In 2023, my goal is to consume less and create more. The stories in my heart and mind were finally going to meet paper. But I wasn’t actually writing anything.

When the day started, I knew that I had to write. I wasn’t feeling very well so I would write later. Then, dinner would happen, and I was behind on my reading and didn’t feel any better than earlier in the day.

Enter Atomic Habits. After reading the book, I took out my calendar and scheduled, “Writing,” from 1 pm to 1:20 pm. Now, I am actually writing.

How many of us have goals: to have better relationships, to lose weight, to learn a language? We have the best of intentions, but we don’t have a plan with manageable actionable steps.

Have you ever wondered how I got to be the #3 US Book Reviewer on GoodReads? Atomic Habits.

Before reading Atomic Habits, I had what I now realize as wishful thinking or dreams. At times, sometimes I made it on to the top 100 book reviewers, but it was always a complete mystery to me. When I made the list, I couldn't believe my luck! I wanted to rate higher, but I had no real plan.

Then, I read Atomic Habits. I sat down and had a clearly articulated goal. "I want to rate X on the best reviewer list." Okay. Sounds great. But what does that take? I looked at where I wanted to be on the weekly list and saw how many votes the reviewer received. I divided that number by 7 and knew that I needed to achieve that many votes per day to get to where I needed to be.

Sure enough. I met my goal and started to become consistently ranked. Atomic Habits is all about shifting your dreams and wishful thinking into knowing exactly where you want to be and making a plan to get there.

Also, it talks about lofty goals.

Almost everybody can relate. We make lofty goals: I’m going to run a marathon! I’m going to write a book! I’m going to lose weight! After a few weeks of intense effort (if we make it that far), we give up and go back to the way things were.

Did you know that I got back into reading by reading 6 books a year? That’s right. My goal was 6 books per year.

The only reason that I initially picked up this book was that someone was RAVING about it, and I was extremely skeptical. I honestly thought that this book was just going to be a bunch of rah rah feel good, you can do it, pep talk. However, it had an entire list of actionable steps you can take to help you make progress on your goals.

Little changes can make big differences over time. For example, when I lay out my sheet mask in the morning, I am much more likely to use it at night. This book made me want to write down goals for the year or at least start thinking of the things I wanted to make a priority.

This is my second reading of Atomic Habits, and I read it as a buddy read (which I highly recommend). It is interesting to hear about other systems.

During this read of Atomic Habits, I was struck by the idea of becoming 1% better.

Growing up, I really enjoyed playing basketball. The game is fast-paced, and it was one game where I could actually score. However, I can’t jump very high. I was so fixated on this weak area that I convinced myself that I couldn’t be a basketball player.

But you know what? I can sink three-pointers like nobody’s business. At Dave and Buster’s, I can easily achieve the high score. What if I didn’t give up? What if I spent my time trying to get better at running, aiming, teamwork, dribbling?

As an overachiever, I do tend to obsess over my weak areas. I spend so much time on the weak area that I ignore some of my other talents. What would I achieve if I just accepted that I am not great in a particular area but focused my time on other areas? Would I enjoy the journey more?

If you have tried losing weight or training, I would highly recommend this book. I can definitely see myself reading this once every year—it really is that good!

2023 Reading Schedule
Jan Alice in Wonderland
Feb Notes from a Small Island
Mar Cloud Atlas
Apr On the Road
May The Color Purple
Jun Bleak House
Jul Bridget Jones’s Diary
Aug Anna Karenina
Sep The Secret History
Oct Brave New World
Nov A Confederacy of Dunces
Dec The Count of Monte Cristo

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[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book does a great job of laying down the framework of how habits are formed, and shares insightful strategies for building good habits and breaking bad ones. Even though I was already familiar with research behind habit formation, reading through this book helped me approach habits I’m trying to adopt or break in my own life from different angles.

But the book suffers from the same problems that seem to plague all self-help books. In the chapter about tracking habits, the author shares an anecdote about Benjamin Franklin’s habit of carrying a journal everywhere to track thirteen virtues. If you care to know more about that story, Franklin tried to make a habit of his thirteen virtues by turning it into a thirteen week course where he would work on a different virtue every week and track his progress. The author conveniently leaves out the fact that Franklin quickly found this method impractical and abandoned the project before getting through all thirteen virtues. There’s a lot of irony in including this anecdote in a chapter that talks about the importance of not “breaking the chain”. So while the author isn’t entirely wrong, I found it off-putting that he would retell this story in a manner that fit his narrative. This is a vice that is found all too commonly in self-help and pop science books that make you question the author’s intellectual rigour.

Another criticism I have of this book is that it could have been even shorter. The last few chapters under “Advanced Tactics” that deal with the topic of mastery were the weakest in the book. While there is an obvious connection between habits and mastery, trying to tie in a topic as complex as mastery was perhaps too ambitious.

The three star rating I am giving this book doesn’t reflect how important I consider habits to be. I completely agree with the author that habits are the cornerstone of your life. If you want to change your life in any meaningful way, the only dependable way I know is to build good habits. If you need convincing that habits are important, I would strongly recommend this book. If you are already convinced but struggling to adopt or break habits, racing through this book will give you some good ideas about how you can make changes stick.

[Hampus Jakobsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

TLDR;
- "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems."
- The best way of building a habit is making it part of your identity.
- Make it easy to start: Habits are the entry point - not the goal. "Read 30 books" ⇒ "Read before bed every night" ⇒ "Read one page". Reduce a habit into a 2-minute first step.
- Stick to the plan: "Professionals stick to the schedule, amateurs let life get in the way." Don't be a "fair weather runner" if you want to run a lot.
- Make it hard to do the things you want to avoid.

Most modern "American self-help books for engineers or entrepreneurs" (it is a category for me) are too repetitive and too long. Atomic Habits is not! It does have the category-required set of stories of American (mostly men) who built a great habit and got to the top - but just the right amount.

----- NOTES -----

*Identity*
The three levels of change - the lower the more "fundamental":
3. Outcomes = Your goals
2. Processes = Your system
1. Identity = Who you perceive yourself to be

Make every action is a vote for what kind of person you want to become. Building habits is becoming the version of yourself you want to be. Habits help you to trust yourself.
- Realize that "You don't _have to_ do anything, you _get to_."
- Ask "What would a healthy person do?".
- Ask "What feel like fun to you, but is work to others?"


*Engineer it so that:*
Things you want to achieve vs Things you want to avoid
Obvious —————————————— Invisible
Attractive ————————————Unattractive
Easy ————————————————— Hard
Satisfying ————————————- Satisfying
For example: if you want to watch less TV - keep it unplugged - only plugin if you can say out loud the name of the show you want to watch.

[Greg Swierad · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first great book about habits was the Power of Habit. That book was quite theoretical and difficult to apply. This book, Atomic Habits, has a completely different approach. James Clear focused on writing a book that goes deep into every single step of habit creation from a practical point of view. At the end of the day, who we are and what we will achieve depends so much on these small habits that we do every day. James Clear argues, that focusing only on improving those habits will lead to much bigger changes and accomplishments.

My top 3 takeaways from this book are:

* Forget about goals, focus on the system instead.
* Change your identity to change your habits.
* Motivation is overrated. Design the environment to support your habits.

From this book, I distilled 21 strategies and principles on habit creation, and also I wrote a detailed book summary that you can read here: https://www.mentorist.app/books/atomi...

[Acordul Fin · Rating 2 out of 5]

“The more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it. If you’re proud of how your hair looks, you’ll develop all sorts of habits to care for and maintain it. If you’re proud of the size of your biceps, you’ll make sure you never skip an upper-body workout. If you’re proud of the scarves you knit, you’ll be more likely to spend hours knitting each week. Once your pride gets involved, you’ll fight tooth and nail to maintain your habits.”

What a doozy of a quote. I guess it pays to be a prideful guy.

It's been quite an unlucky year when it comes to personal development. I keep picking up these tired pop-psychology books because of the hype, hoping that I'll at least be entertained but I just end up being disappointed. I should know better by now.

This one was no exception. It's the same superficial, regurgitated information I've been stumbling upon in the productivity blogosphere for the past 10 years. The main flaw of this was the execution: robotic writing, highly repetitive, anecdotes are taken out of context to conveniently prove the author's point, and even some shoddy "science". The main ideas in here are not bad but have already been covered by others, in greater depth, and with more skill (Kelly McGonigal or George Leonard for example). I didn't feel the material present in this required a book it could have easily been condensed into a blog post. There was a lot of fluff added in to have more pages which made me feel many times like I was reading an infomercial for his blog. This is essentially was this was, another platform to enhance his brand and add to his "passive income".

The world really needed to hear another privileged marketer with an A-type personality telling people they can become like him if they follow his 'secret formula'. Based on the way it's written, it caters, especially, to a very specific group of people, the lifestyle-hacker extraordinaire - Tim Ferris wanna-bes.

P.S. I've met several people who adored this book and swore it changed their life only to find out years later that they did not in fact stick to any new habits they picked up after reading this book. What a surprise.

[Rowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years. We all deal with setbacks but in the long run, the quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits."

Did not live up to the hype. There’s good material here, and easy-to-follow strategies to improve our habits, but I found it a chore to wade through. My interest ebbed and flowed and ironically, I felt it could be the book to undo my healthy reading habits and routine.

Atomic Habits succeeded in bringing awareness to my daily habits and making me more 'present'. The likes of “habit stacking” and “habit tracking” are things that I have started implementing since reading this. But while it’s great to be self-aware and regularly analyse our behaviours, I found it tiresome after a while.

“Daily habits are powerful because of how they compound, but worrying too much about every daily choice is like looking at yourself in the mirror from an inch away. You can see every imperfection and lose sight of the bigger picture.”

Tedious.

James Clear gives many examples of famous people who achieved success via their approach to habits. I enjoyed reading some of those, but far too often, content felt like it was being regurgitated from other books and work in the field of habits and human psychology. Sometimes it felt like he had simply thrown catchy new titles on pre-existing ideas and methods. Other times, it just seemed like common sense.

The book is not just about developing good habits and sticking to them, but about eliminating bad ones. I was pleased to see reference to Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking – a book that already made a huge difference to my life! The importance of patience, the difference between 'motion'/'action' and the two-minute rule (when starting a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do) were all takeaways that resonated with me.

The chapter summaries were helpful to remember key points, but also made it clear there was substantial filler surrounding a couple of main ideas. These ideas are solid guidelines though, and no doubt helpful for building a better life - I guess time will tell.

It's perhaps worth noting that my grievances with Atomic Habits are in the minority - many find this book amazing, so don't let my words prevent you reading this if you think it could be helpful. After all, I'm left wanting to eat healthier, improve my bedtime routines and embrace minimalism - so all this has to be good.

“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.”

[Emily (Books with Emily Fox) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was prepared to dislike this book but I really enjoyed it!

I've seen it on so many list of "life-changing non fiction" next to deeply misogynistic authors and it's popular with people promoting hustle culture so I didn't expect it to work for me.

While I can't say that the information in it is that different from other books I've read on the topic, it's definitely the best breakdown of said info that I've seen.

Super accessible, bitesize chapters... absolutely go with the audiobook if you enjoy them. I didn't want to sit while reading it because I was too busy reorganizing my space while listening to it!

Worth it

[Matias Andina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading this book feels like reading a homework assignment. James Clear wanted to read a lot of books and make a summary of the concepts he would implement for self-improvement. He also made a point in improve himself in the most hacky way possible. Instead of keeping the summary as personal notes, he published it. The fact that the author boasts about being a writer only makes it worse. You can actually smell the cheap tools he uses to put words into text and build chapters out of thin air. I wanted this book to get better, but it doesn't, up to the very end the author repeats the same choice pattern:

* Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them.
* Simplify science to the border of being wrong.
* Abuse of "as such person said ___INSERT QUOTE HERE____"
* Build each chapter out of unacknowledged (stolen/refurbished) concepts, coming from other writings that predate this book.

The last point is particularly annoying and the book is plagued by them. He even uses the same graphics and plots as the originals! He includes verbatim whole poems by Lao Tse or writings by Seneca. At least these are attributed and not refurbished.
If you are somewhat familiar with the literature, avoid this book.
If you are thinking about reading this book, think about the books the author got the content from. Go and read those, you will get the original content without the coarse editing by James Clear. You will also get better foundations for growing a mindset instead of implementing hacks.

Start with Why - Simon Sinek
Mastery - George Leonard
Outliers - Malcom Gladwell
The Tipping Point - Malcom Gladwell
Getting Things Done - David Allen
The Element - Ken Robinson
Behave - Robert Sapolsky [Science communication written by experts in the field]
Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman [Science communication written by experts in the field]

[Mario the lone bookwolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

The nuclear option for pimping, rebranding, fine-tuning, and perfecting grey cells.
Atomic also in one regard: As long as it works, it´s perfect down to the smallest part, each atom. If it fails, it´s radioactive and self cannibalizing, -destructing- and demotivating.

To exaggerate, we can develop great working, social. and creative habits or destroy ourselves with neuroticism going haywire, find great ways to optimate oneself or madness, just read anecdotal filled pop psychology/science/philosophy books one can read without the danger of the hard work of really changing something or choose the difficult way and this book.

The 1st Law Make it obvious
Repetition and consequence, as if it wasn´t so shamefully obvious, is one of the key elements to everything, a skill, foreign language, school, degrees,… and the funny thing is that successful people use learning, creativity, memo-, techniques to perfect their skills, but forget the motivational, critical thinking, analytic retrospection, optimization, meditation-,… techniques, and, most importantly, to recapitulate, criticize oneself, let others criticize oneself, reflect, and develop. There is always some space left toward top performance but without modifying or even changing habits, they won´t be possible and nothing is more painful than stopping a working, well known, perfected, but ineffective habit, using an oldfashioned program, modify a schedule, use knowledge and expertise in a new, complicated, unknown way, etc. The brain is a bit bitchy, nagging, and one´s worst enemy, because it´s a lazy manipulator, not wanting one to do something that means real work for it, trying to make it feel as uncomfortable as possible, wanting easy stagnation instead of sweaty evolution.

The 2nd Law and 3rd Law Make it attractive and easy
As if this wasn´t already painful and difficult enough, the self experimental subject now has to implement unused, and thereby for the crying, sobbing, angry brain very painful, new neuronal integrated circuits because, as one knows, reptile stem brain and monkeys social anxiety wants one to run far away from everything new, different, possibly dangerous. Here the inner demons have to been disguised as angels to make the whole agony as attractive as possible, a kind of hopeful masochism. Detecting the deficits has already wasted vast resources of willpower and now one doesn´t even have the legitimation to kill and destroy positive change with anger and negative emotions, but the new mind baby has to be raised next to the rascals one has to be tolerant and sympathetic towards.

The 4th Law Make it satisfying
Reaching this point is tricky, as one needs the stamina, perseverance, and resilience not to resign. As the old behaviors often aren´t directly harmful, just unproductive and used, they will come whispering and trying to get a hold of the subconscious mind to develop back towards the beginning. Humans are creatures of habit and whenever one just loses track and motivation for a second, their siren calls will try to lure you into old behaviors whose reminiscences are still lurking behind each screen, interaction, or working process.

And as if all of this wasn´t torture enough, it should come with personal development and vivisecting one´s personality, thoughts, memories, all these things that seemingly aren´t directly related to work, too. Because hidden in the chasms of each simulated reality lies the key to boosting the occupational performance even more by eliminating all the mental corpses of complexes, childhood traumas, anxieties, phobias,… As long they are not overcome, they keep holding one down, interrupting the workflow, reducing concentration, focus, the quality of sleep,… even changing the obvious problems won´t unleash the full potential.

A tip, after I´ve read a few of the most highly recommended DIY self brainwashing mind penetrating behavioral modification endeavor books for dummies, I´ve come to the conclusion that most of the theory, techniques, and schedules can easily be found during a longer google search, a Wikipedia or special wiki and Reddit, Quora walk, just using the essential keywords, bookmarking a few dozens to hundreds of pages of interest, copying the subjectively most essential and useful elements and still begin with the 1st law. But it would at least have cost you nothing.

It´s getting a bit anecdotally and subjective now, even personal (cause people seem to like that stuff for whatever reason) and, of course, misanthropic, so don´t be shy to stop reading here and saving time and eye power that could be focused on reading something profound. Seriously, I´ve warned you.

One of my main advantages is that I am naturally neurotic, a bit of still under control and productive, not negative elements of perfectionism, some might say soft OCD, but who listens to people, pedantic; a bit antisocial, and cold, rational, things very helpful when implementing new behavioral patterns because one doesn´t care about whatever other people think.

I am a bit biased here, because I have the, depending on the standpoint, positive or negative tendency to overachieve and excessively focus on one thing for weeks and months up to 12 or 14 hours a day, obsessive might be an understatement, let´s call it possession instead. Afterward, it´s often difficult to say how the final results, ideas, solutions paths developed, but conditioning oneself to combine focus and flow to hard fun and gamification, optional collaborative learning, yuck, might be a good alternative to just partying hard.

This leads me to the extroverts that might face massive deficits in this regard, as they have the unfortunate tendency to spent much unproductive time with other people, leading to excessive, exponentially growth of sympathy, friendship, contact, dangerous pheromones, endorphins, territorial alpha behavior,… manipulating logical thinking, in the worst case not just resulting in friendships, but love, relationships, and kids bringing the distraction in your home, permanently, reproducing and multiplying it and giving it names, all things that make one ineffective, cost time. So start avoiding people, feel cold, sad, and dead inside; and whenever you are doubting, compare what the introvert vs extrovert forever achieving score lists brings in comparison, all science and technical evolution that is human history vs all BS, war, extremism, tradition, all evil isms. Doesn´t an empty, lonely life seem a small price for helping primate progress? Don´t forget thanking me for ruining your socialization with these stupid tips, lol.

But seriously, social life is another prime example of habit, one becomes the people she/ he is in regular contact with and attracts more of these people, a dynamic one should not underestimate, and they all feed on you lifetime by craving for your attention, just compare how much one can get from articles and books in comparison to real life drivel filled with small talk, redundancies, errors,..., heck even the better memorization and internalization of content by social contact can be achieved with sophisticated learning techniques. To continue the isolationist standpoint (joke), it´s of course meanwhile absolutely unnecessary to make anything face to face and not in home office, VR, AR, psi transfer remote perception,... the technological singularity in general makes it more and more useless to leave the home castle.

A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positiv...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavio...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindful...

[Reading_ Tamishly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book just climbed to the top as my most favourite self-help non-fiction of the year!

Totally engaging and quite convincing in how the book makes you want to change your bad habits and adopt good ones, this book doesn't talk in a way to make you feel overwhelmed or make you feel like everything you do is wrong or inadequate.

The book doesn't give you impractical tips yet it tells stories and what to learn in how to gradually maintain habits that would benefit you in the long run as well as how to start maintaining habits that you have been wanting to in small practical steps.

This book is life-changing for me.

I have already adopted some of these tips yet the book makes me realise that there are many things that we do that we consider harmless yet taking up most of our time which make us frustrated in real.

The tips are easy to understand and follow. The writing is amazing. I would highly recommend this book.

This one is already changing my year and the rest of everything else that's going to happen in how I make my future a better and a fulfilling one.


Too good to be true. Literally life changing 🍂

[Victoria · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why do I keep doing this to myself? All I want is a productive little audiobook to listen to while I work, helpfully filled with tips to improve my life. All I get is priviledged white people recycling the same old advice over and over. This book is especially grating as it's filled with cute little platitudes like "the same boiling water will soften a potato and harden an egg". I already know how boiling water works, thanks, can we get to the part where you tell me something I haven't heard from seven other productivity books already?

At one point Clear writes, "I get my assistant to do this for me every week, but if you don't have an assistant..."

I love how some of these productivity authors neglect to mention all the outside help they hire. It's like that other woman who suggested hiring an au pair for when your primary nanny is taking her vacation days. He also suggests doing things like paying for grocery delivery instead of going to the store to save time. He tells the story of one guy who paid his personal trainer $500 every time he forgot to log his food for the day.

The real productivity hack seems to be to hire someone to do all the little day-to-day tasks for you so you can focus on other things. This is great if you're fabulously rich, but, if you're like me and don't currently have a full time assistant, and people to do your housework and your meal prep for you, then you may have to look elsewhere for more practical advice.

[❀ Lily ❀ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the only book on 'habits' you should read.
It lays out all the rules of changing/developing habits in a simple, straightforward way and gets right to the point without a bunch of rambling and seemingly unrelated filler chapters like some other self development books i've read.

[Kaytlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway yesterday and immediately settled down to read it. I am always very skeptical of self help books because they often do no get to the root of issues. This one did. James Clear's main arguments are that habits are the compound interest of self improvement and that your identify emerges out of your habits. So, you must expereince a shift in identity for your habits to hold. This made a lot of sense to me, but I do think that Clear should have addresses deeper emotional issues and gave readers resources so as not to mislead them into believing that they can change their identity by action (repeating new habits) alone.

[Dr. Appu Sasidharan (Dasfill) · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are many self-help books discussing the topics of habit. Some of them are written by famous authors like Stephen R. Covey, Charles Duhigg, and Timothy Ferris.

I read this book after reading the books by the above authors and was sure that I won't get any new information. Despite discussing a similar topic, James Clear managed to pull a convincing book discussing these familiar ideas in a new way that will help us view our daily routine and life differently and will be a good choice if you are interested in the topic of productivity.


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[Hamad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am in the mood for more non fiction lately, so I decided to read the books of Ali's book club. I wanted to read a book on habits for a long time now and Atomic Habits met all those criteria.

I am not gonna elaborate a lot since it is a well known book and there are a lot of YouTube videos that summed it up better than I can ever do including Abdaal's video here:

Check Video

Like all non-fiction books, I found most of the information in the book to be logical but the way it was written and ordered was pretty good. I found it engaging, easy to read and scientific. I enjoy it when authors provide data through real life stories and there was a lot of that here.

The book mostly discusses 4 laws to get into a habit or get out of one. These are: Make it Obvious, Make it Attractive, Make it Easy, Make it Satisfying. And if you inverse those you get a way to lose bad habits. A very intriguing read!

[Sean Barrs · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”

I’ve been trying so hard lately to break out of a funk and every self-help book I read recommends starting at the most basic level. We must sort out our daily habits before we can begin to feel better and more fulfilled in our lives. But how do we do this?

Gradual change is the answer. If we improve each day by just 1% by the end of the year we will be dramatically and unrecognizably better. Winning tiny battles will determine our future self. Identifying bad habits that are ruining our potential is the key to change. We must eradicate them, slowly, if need be, and replace them with habits that allow us to grow each day. We must set goals and work towards them in a sensible and patient fashion.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

We also need to design a system to achieve our goals. Simply having goals is not enough. We need to have an actionable framework on how we can move towards these otherwise we will never reach them. We must have a process to follow and daily habits that allow us to achieve them. Our level of commitment to the process will determine our level of progress. Sticking to healthy proactive habits with our end goals in mind is the key.

So, here’s a little bit about me and my goals for this year: I want to complete a 100-mile ultra-marathon and I also want to have written up a full draft of my PhD. How will I achieve these goals? Habitually running and writing each day, habitually working towards them and remaining committed to the process of daily improvement. I will also read everyday and review on Goodreads more frequently because it helps me remain focused on the process. Daily writing is so important for me as is learning and discovering more literature.

I quite enjoyed this. It proposes a very straightforward approach to being successful and one I am very keen to implement into my own life. So let’s do this 2023!

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[Sara Kamjou · Rating 5 out of 5]

یکی از بهترین کتاب‌های خودیاری که خوندم!
واقعیت اینه که خودم رو لابه‌لای قانون‌های کتاب پیدا می‌کردم و می‌گفتم چه جالب منم دقیقا همین کارا رو انجام می‌دم! از این به بعد اگر کسی ازم بپرسه چطوریه که تو این‌قدر به همه‌ی کارات می‌رسی و پشتکار داری، به جای نمی‌دونم، می‌تونم این کتابو معرفی کنم.
کتاب در مورد اینه که چطوری با قوانینی ساده، زندگیمونو بهتر کنیم و روزهامونو بهینه‌تر بسازیم تا بتونیم به کارهایی که دوست داریم انجام بدیم برسیم و جزء جدایی‌ناپذیر روزهامون بشن.
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یادگاری از کتاب:
کیفیت زندگی ما غالبا به کیفیت عادت‌هایمان بستگی دارد.
...
عادت‌ها غالبا هیچ تفاوتی ایجاد نمی‌کنند، تا اینکه از یک مرزی عبور کنیم و سطح جدیدی از عملکرد گشوده شود.
...
تمام نتایج بزرگ از شروع‌های کوچک حاصل می‌شوند.
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هر قدر یک رفتار را بیشتر تکرار کنید، بیشتر هویت مربوط به آن رفتار را تقویت می‌کنید‌
...
موثرترین راه برای تغییر عادت‌ها، این است که نه بر روی دستاوردهای مدنظرتان، بلکه روی شخصیتی که دوست دارید تمرکز کنید.
...
چگونه یک عادت خوب بسازیم: اولین قانون (سرنخ): آن را شفاف و آشکار کنید. دومین قانون (تمایل): آن را جذاب کنید. سومین قانون (پاسخ): آن را ساده کنید. چهارمین قانون (پاداش): آن را رضایت‌بخش کنید.
...
_
چگونه یک عادت بد را از بین ببریم: اولین قانون (سرنخ): آن را مخفی (پنهان) کنید. دومین قانون (تمایل): آن را لوس و غیرجذاب کنید. سومین قانون (پاسخ): آن را دشوار کنید. چهارمین قانون (پاداش): آن را عامل نارضایتی کنید.
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عادت‌های شما راهکارهای مدرن برای تمایلات دیرین هستند.
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هر قدر یک عادت به انرژی کمتری نیاز داشته باشد، احتمال وقوع آن بیشتر است.
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بهترین راه این است که همواره در اوج و زمانی که عملکردتان خوب است، متوقف شوید.
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مغز انسان چالش را دوست دارد، اما چالشی که میزان دشواری آن در یک حد بهینه و معقول باشد.
...
بالاترین تهدید برای موفقیت، نه شکست بلکه بی‌حوصلگی است. از عادت‌هایمان خسته می‌شویم، زیرا دیگر ما را مجذوب نمی‌کنند.

[Tanu · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations."

Goals are useful for charting a course, but systems are the most effective in moving forward. When you spend too much time thinking about your goals and not enough time creating your systems, you'll run into a few issues. The antidote is a systems-first mentality. When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to permit yourself to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.

My 3 major takeaways from this  book are:

1. An atomic habit is a regular practice or routine that is small and easy to do and is also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth.
2. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change.
3. Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.

Highly recommended to understand the science behind habit building and practically implement those baby steps to build or break a habit.

Grab your copy here.

[Odai Al-Saeed · Rating 4 out of 5]

يرتبط الكتاب بتجربة صاحبه التي ومن ثم صقلا لتكون له أسلوب حياة وعندما يعنونها بالذرية فهو يقصد المقدار التراكمي للذرة الصغيرة لتصبح كتلة , عندما يكون التوق لدينا في انجاز هدف معين ( انقاص وزن, تأليف كتاب , لياقة بدنية عالية ) يجب علينا حسب الكاتب أن تنشئ عادة متراكمة لهذا الفعل لأن الهدف قد يحقق ومن السهولة فقدانه متى ما أنهينا العادة ورجعنا لنفس الأسلوب , بمعنى قد تستطيع تحقيق هدفك بانزال وزنك في فترة وجيزة ولكن بمجرد عن تخليك عن هذه العادات الصحية فسرعان ما يعود الوزن الى عهده السابق
يتطرق الكتاب الى استراتيجيات مقرونة بقصص وبراهين كتبت بأسلوب شيق ونقاط محددة وواضحة لتغيير اتجاهات وعادات خاطئة اعتدنا عليها ويشرح بطريقة مبسطة استراتيجيات مبسطة للاقلاع عنها وهو من أجمل كتب تطوير الذات التي مرت علي

[Ahmad Sharabiani · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system.

Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work.

Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible.

Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «عادت‏‌های اتمی؛ تغییرات کوچک و نتایج چشمگیر راهی آسان و اثبات‏‌شده برای ایجاد عادت‏‌های خوب و ترک عادت‏‌های بد»؛ «تغییرات جزئی، نتایج چشمگیر»؛ «عادت‌های اتمی‮‬‏‫: یک راه ساده و اثبات‌شده برای ایجاد عادات خوب و شکستن عادات بد، تغییرات کوچک، نتایج قابل توجه»؛ «عادت‌های اتمی»؛ «راه آسان و اثبات شده برای ایجاد عادت‌های خوب و شکستن عادت‌های بد، تغییرات کوچک، نتایج قابل توجه»؛ «جورنال خرده‌ عادت‌ها»؛ «عادت‌های اتمی: خرده عادت‌ها»؛ «عادتهای اتمی: تغییرات کوچک، نتایج چشمگیر»؛ «عادت‌های اتمی: راهی آسان و اثبات شده برای ایجاد عادت‌های خوب و ترک عادت‌های بد»؛ «عادت‌های اتمی: عادت‌های کوچک شخصیت شمارا شکل می‌دهند راهکارهای موثر برای جذب عادت خوب و ترک عادت‌های بد»؛ «عادت‌های اتمی : تغییرات کوچک، نتایج چشمگیر روشی آسان و اثبات‌شده برای ساختن عادت‌های خوب و شکستن عادت‌های بد»؛ و ...؛ نویسنده: جیمز کلییر؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز بیست و ششم ماه اکتبر سال 2018میلادی

عنوان: عادت‏‌های اتمی؛ تغییرات کوچک و نتایج چشمگیر راهی آسان و اثبات‏‌شده برای ایجاد عادت‏‌های خوب و ترک عادت‏‌های بد؛ نویسنده: جیمز کلیر؛ مترجم هوشمند دهقان؛ تهران، هورمزد، سال1397؛ در320ص؛ شابک9786226010221؛ موضوع: ترک عادت از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 21م

عنوان: ‏‫عادت‌های اتمی‮‬‏‫: یک راه ساده و اثبات‌شده برای ایجاد عادات خوب و شکستن عادات بد ، تغییرات کوچک، نتایج قابل توجه‮‬‏‫؛ نویسنده: جیمز کلیر‮‬‏‫؛ مترجم هادی بهمنی؛ ویراستار مصطفی طرسکی؛ تهران، نوین توسعه، سال1397؛ در283ص؛ شابک9786008738701؛ چاپ چهارم سال1398؛ چاپ یازدهم تا چاپ پانزدهم سال1399؛ چاپ شانزدهم سال1400؛

عنوان: عادت‌های اتمی؛ نویسنده جیمز کلیر؛ مترجم نغمه نورمحمدنوری؛ تهران، آسو، سال1397؛ در300ص؛ شابک9786008755777؛

عنوان: عادت‌های اتمی؛ نویسنده جیمز کلیر؛ مترجمها: روزبه ملک‌زاده، شمس‌الدین باپیری؛ ویراستار شبنم باقری؛ [برای گروه رویال مایند]؛ تهران؛ انتشارات پردیس آباریس، سال1398؛ در288ص؛ شابک9786229531488؛ چاپ دوم سال1399؛

عنوان: عادت‌های اتمی: راه آسان و اثبات شده برای ایجاد عادت‌های خوب و شکستن عادت‌های بد، تغییرات کوچک، نتایج قابل توجه؛ نویسنده جیمز کلیر؛ مترجمها: محمدهادی آقاجانی، علی آقاجانی؛ ویراستار مرضیه احمدی؛ تهران، انتشارات دیموند بلورین‏‫، سال1398؛ در364ص؛ شابک9786222100087؛

عنوان: تغییرات جزئی، نتایج چشمگیر؛ نویسنده: جیمز کلییر؛ مترجم سمیه‌سادات آل‌حسینی؛ قم، آلاچیق کتاب، سال1399؛ در360ص؛ شابک9786229600320؛

عنوان: جورنال خرده‌ عادت‌ها؛ نویسنده: جیمز کلییر؛ مترجم فاطمه جابیک؛ ویراسته‌ی مینا محمدیان؛ تهران، انتشارات میلکان، سال1399؛ در219ص؛ شابک9786222540319؛

عنوان: عادت‌های اتمی: خرده عادت‌ها؛ نویسنده جیمز کلیر‏‫؛ مترجم غزال پارسا؛ تهران، انتشارات شیرمحمدی؛ سال1399؛ در237ص؛ شابک9786008981725؛

عنوان: عادتهای اتمی: تغییرات کوچک، نتایج چشمگیر؛ نویسنده جیمز کلیر؛ مترجم زهرا بختیاری؛ قم، آستان مهر، 1399؛ در224ص؛ شابک9786226699174؛

عنوان: عادت‌های اتمی: راهی آسان و اثبات شده برای ایجاد عادت‌های خوب و ترک عادت‌های بد؛ جیمز کلیر‏‫؛ ترجمه موسسه ترجمیک؛ ‬تهران، آدینه، سال1399؛ در63ص؛ شابک دوره978600861090؛

عنوان: عادت‌های اتمی: عادت‌های کوچک شخصیت شمارا شکل می‌دهند راهکارهای موثر برای جذب عادت خوب و ترک عادت‌های بد؛ نویسنده جیمز کلیر ؛ مترجم طیبه احمدوند؛ قم: یوشیتا‏‫، ‏‫سال1399؛ در272ص؛ شابک9786226412773؛

عنوان: عادت‌های اتمی : تغییرات کوچک، نتایج چشمگیر روشی آسان و اثبات‌شده برای ساختن عادت‌های خوب و شکستن عادت‌های بد؛ جیمز کلیر ؛ ترجمه زردی؛ قم، الماس سرخ؛ سال1400؛ در216ص؛ شابک9786229807576؛

و ....؛

بسیاری در زندگی برای دیگر کردن عادات بد خود تلاش می‌کنند، اما شکست می‌خورند و پیروز نمی‌شوند؛ چرا که تنها تلاش آن‌ها برای دیگر کردن یکباره ی عادت‌هایشان است؛ «جیمز کلیر» در این کتاب «عادت‌های اتمی» خویش می‌نویسند: چگونه بایستی این الگو را شکست دهیم، و با تغییرهای ریز و کوچک، در رفتارها و عادت‌های بدمان؛ چگونه میتوانیم از نارواییهای وجود خویش آزاد و عادت‌های خوب را بر تن ذهنمان بپوشانیم، و آن‌ها را گسترش دهیم تا به پیروزی و دارا بودن عادتهای نیک برسیم

نقل از متن برگردان جناب دهقان: (عصب شناسان کشف کرده‌اند وقتی عواطف و احساس‌ها مختل می‌شوند، عملا توانایی تصمیم‌گیری را از دست می‌دهیم؛ زیرا علامتی در دست نداریم که چه کاری را دنبال و از چه کاری حذر کنیم؟ به قول یکی از عصب شناسان به نام آنتونیو داماسيو «احساس است که به شما امکان می‌دهد تا چیزها را خوب، بد و خنثی دسته‌بندی کنید»؛

خلاصه، اشتیاق‌های خاصی که دارید و احساس و عادت‌هایی که اجرا می‌کنید، در حقیقت تلاشی برای پاسخ‌گویی به انگیزه‌های اساسی و زیربنایی‌تان است؛ هرگاه با کمک یک عادت به انگیزه‌ای پاسخ موفق دهید، به انجام دوباره آن عادت اشتیاق پیدا می‌کنید؛ به مرور یاد می‌گیرید که پیش‌بینی کنید؛ چک کردن رسانه اجتماعی کمکتان می‌کند تا احساس عشق‌ورزی داشته باشید و تماشای یوتیوب مجال می‌دهد تا نگرانی‌هایتان را به دست فراموشی بسپارید؛ عادت‌ها وقتی جذاب می‌شوند که آن‌ها را با احساس‌های مثبت مرتبط سازیم؛ ما می‌توانیم از این بینش بیشتر به نفعمان استفاده کنیم تا به ضررمان

چطور مغزمان را از نو برنامه‌ریزی کنیم تا از عادت‌های دشوار لذت ببرد؟

گاهی اوقات همه ما به تغيير خفیفی در قالب ذهنی نیاز داریم؛ برای مثال اغلب پیرامون کارهایی صحبت می‌کنیم که مجبوریم در زمان معینی انجام دهیم، برای رفتن به سر کار مجبورم زودتر بیدار شوم. برای رونق کسب وکارم مجبورم بیشتر تماس‌های فروش بگیرم؛ برای خانواده مجبورم شام درست کنم

اکنون فقط تغییر یک کلمه را مجسم سازید: «مجبور» نيستم، «می‌توانم»؛ برای رفتن به سر کار می‌توانم بیدار شوم؛ برای رونق کسب وکارم، می‌توانم بیشتر تماس فروش بگیرم.؛برای خانواده‌ام می‌توانم شام درست کنم؛ با تغییر ساده یک کلمه، طرز نگرشتان را به هر رخداد عوض می‌کنید؛ به جای آنکه این رفتارها را باری بر دوش خود تصور کنید، آن‌ها را فرصت‌هایی برای خود می‌بینید؛ نکته کلیدی این است که هر دو شکل واقعیت، حقیقت دارد؛ شما مجبورید این کارها را انجام دهید و شما می‌توانید این کارها را انجام دهید؛ برای هر نوع قالب ذهنی‌ای که اختیار می‌کنیم، می‌شود شاهدی پیدا کرد.)؛ پایان

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 04/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

[Steven Medina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muy buen libro. Todo el mundo debería leerlo.

Este es otro gran amigo de papel que me encuentro en el camino; amigo que me otorga multitud de enseñanzas para practicar en mi vida personal. ¡Qué satisfecho me siento! Había leído y escuchado muy buenos comentarios de este libro por lo que mis expectativas eran altas, pero afortunadamente fue mejor de lo que esperaba.

Desde la introducción me he sentido fascinado por la historia del autor, pero después, cada historia real y cada recomendación me ha parecido fantástica. El autor todo lo presenta de una forma tan sencilla, cada consejo parece ser mejor que el anterior, todo parece ideal; fórmula perfecta para alimentar el interés del lector no solo para seguir leyendo sino también para practicarlo en su vida real.

Siempre había tenido la creencia de que crear un hábito es algo supremamente difícil pero después de esta lectura siento que he estado errado muchísimos años y que realmente es bastante sencillo. Siempre había buscado un método que me ayudara a centralizar mi vida, a clasificar lo bueno y lo malo, a encontrar un fortín desde el cual dirigir, y creo que eso es exactamente lo que he hallado en esta ocasión.

Motivación, pragmatismo, sabiduría. Todo eso lo encontré aquí. Cuando realice la reseña completa contaré un poco cómo me ha ido después de aplicar en mi vida personal los principios de esta obra. Les contaré que buenos hábitos he logrado establecer. También les contaré cuáles han sido los negativos que he logrado abandonar.

Libro súper recomendado. Reseña completa más adelante.

[Amir Tesla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, there’s almost no single shred of original content here. It could be a fine book if it’s the first self-improvement book you have started to read.

The science is also flawed. He presents the following elements for habit:
1. Cue
2. Craving
3. Action
4. Reward
Not to mention that its a skewed copy of principles presented in Power of Habits (to authors credit, he mentions it), craving starts to appear strongly only when your brain has learned to associate the cue, action, reward which happens with repetition.

Two star is a good score. It was merely okay. Given the earth-shattering noise it had made, I simply expected more.

[Brandice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones is a practical framework for how to build and keep new habits. To create a good habit, author James Clear suggests:

- Make it Obvious
- Make it Attractive
- Make it Easy
- Make it Satisfying

While at first glance these may seem overly simplistic, Atomic Habits delves into each of these concepts and also describes how these same ideas can be inverted to break bad habits. The content is easily digestible.

Different parts are likely to resonate with different readers but I found a lot of helpful information in this book, especially in one of the final chapters about how to stay motivated — Mastery requires practice. ”The only way to become excellent is to become endlessly fascinated with doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.”

Atomic Habits is a read I recommend for anyone trying to step up their game, in any facet of life, with the reminder that refinement and improvement are continuous, long-term processes.

[RoWoSthlm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a dual review of two books about habit. Habits are important things in one’s life and there are numerous books on the subject. The classic book, a must read, is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. Another two popular books about habits are The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and Atomic Habits by James Clear, that came out very recently. Having read all three of them I combined my notes for the last two in this post. No matter what stage in life you are, it is always good to review one’s habits and behaviour – these books provide a good framework for doing it.

One of the habits I’m struggling with is to get rid of the reading of self-help books. Thus, reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and parallelly Atomic Habits by James Clear became a sort of a meta enterprise. Would these self-help books about habits help me to get rid of the habit of reading self-help books? There’s nothing wrong with the self-help genre per se. I believe, everybody should strive to become a better version of themselves. Evidently, there’s a lot of great wisdom in this type of books – many prominent figured refer to them when they tell the story of their success. However, having read tons of them, one would usually circle around the same known stuff and shabby ideas wrapped in different narratives and supported by different anecdotes. The trick here is to know when to stop and, actually, go out and do something by using the knowledge and inspiration gained.

My own habit of falling back to self-help books is, obviously, grounded in the alluring products of the habit loop driven by the craving for knowledge on self-improvement. We can use the basic members of the habit loop – cue, routine, and reward – well covered in the Duhigg’s book and analyse the situation with the reading of self-help books. For this type of products, the cues (triggers) are everywhere, and who can ignore the wish for excellence? Then, the routine is easily carried out – the messages in those books are straightforward that doesn’t require a very deep thinking and reading between the lines. It just assumes the acceptance in many cases, and, finally, the reward is instant – the feeling of getting something very valuable – a digested wisdom and not seldom a bit of inspiration. It can be compared to junk food (which by the way is almost gone from my life thanks to this kind of books). However, my point is not to pick on this genre, but rather to stress the importance of not getting stuck in it, as in my previous point.

Habit as a phenomena humans and other living creatures are equipped with is one of my favourite subjects. I strongly believe, in the end, habits defines us and our destiny. The subject of habit covers several interesting areas as neuroscience, biology, psychology, and more. The basic mechanics of habit system can be described through the theory of operand conditioning, a term coined by B.F. Skinner back in 1930. It is a technique of learning that occurs through reward and punishment for behaviour. Through operand conditioning, an individual makes an association between a behaviour and a consequence. A relatively simple feedback loop forming habits of an individual can be described in terms of drive, stimulus, response, reward with different kind of reinforcers – positive or negative.

What was lacking in the model of operand conditioning was other influencers like feelings, thoughts, and, very importantly – beliefs. Moreover, human behaviour is so complex that factors as the environment and group psychology are of crucial importance when it comes to the habit science. Modern behavioural science takes these terms into account and they are very important in the habit theory. The authors of both books did a great job addressing these factors in their respective methodologies.

Based on the early theory of operand conditioning, different models around habits and behaviour (in my interpretation, behaviour is a series of actions evoked by habits) are developed and fundamental terms are just called different names. Charles Duhigg in The Power of Habit grounds his model on the habit loop consisting of cue-routine-reward parameters which are driven by craving. James Clear in Atomic Habits suggests his model consisting of four steps called cue, craving, response, and reward. These factors are systematically analysed by respective author and the steps how to build good habits and remove the bad ones based on these models are suggested. In both books I found some valuable and interesting points as well as good tips on how to keep one’s habits on the right track.

As one can see from the parameters in each model, there’s a difference in the arrangement of them making some differences in application of the methodologies of habit treatment. Duhigg sees the term craving as a driving force for the members in the habit loop – cue, routine, reward. Clear suggests that craving is simply a second stage in his model of habit. This is the main difference, and I need to admit I haven’t put enough time to analyse which model is right – both make sense. We would need some deeper diving in relevant disciplines and get help from ontology of the actual things here. Anyhow, I tend to believe that a craving lies above cue, routine, and reward. Cues alone without craving are meaningless. Nevertheless, both models are very useful for working on one’s habits. Duhigg argues that the way of changing or replacing of habit is to focus on the routine parameter, or the response part according to the terminology or Clear. Clear gives a lot of examples on how the cue and reward steps can be worked on. I completely agree that even these parts can be influenced, whereas Duhigg argues that the most important thing is to focus on routine leaving cues and rewards unchanged. I believe, we can remove unwanted triggers. Like making the tempting things like candies hard to reach and out of sight, etc. This has been well researched in a very interesting work by Richard H. Thaler for which he was awarded the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2017. Then, we can reprogram our brain to think about rewards differently – change the mode of them or reinforce the distant rewards requiring immediate sacrifice by some direct reward. Clear has a lot of good examples how to do it.

Habit should be seen as one of the essential parts forming an individual. A brilliant quote by Margaret Thatcher shows the operational importance of habits: “Watch your thoughts, for they will become actions. Watch your actions, for they'll become... habits. Watch your habits for they will forge your character. Watch your character, for it will make your destiny.” If we put those terms it in a different order, we can see that habits are very important, perhaps more important than one’s thoughts, because they are operational tools defining which actions one will take and what destiny those actions will form.

In summary, if you are somehow unsatisfied with any of your habits and would like to actively and effectively change them and thus become an individual you’d like to be, I strongly recommend both books. I would read The Power of Habit book first, this book is longer, has more stories, and has more research behind it. Atomic Habits book is easier to get through, especially after reading Duhigg’s book. Both books, as you might have guessed, are clear, easy to read and grasp. They will give you the right mindset to approach your behaviour and provide valuable tools to shape your personality.

[Valeria Lipovetsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed how easily digested this book was. We all have certain habits we want to learn or unlearn and we usually start strong but lack the motivation to stick to it. This book really expanded my mind about what it actually takes to make habits stick and how motivation has VERY little to do with it.
I added a few of key quotes from the book that touch on some of the steps: why the smallest habits matter, awareness, repetition over perfection, focus on environment, how to keep going when the initial flame of motivation dies down, learn / unlearn your identity, pay attention to the words you use. #vlbookclub

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Clear.

[marta (sezon literacki) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nope. Nawet kiedy desperacko szukam motywacji, kołczingowe pierdololo dalej na mnie nie działa.

[Mehrsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is basically reinforcement for Duhigg's books on habits. There is some good advice--get rid of obstacles, use cues of things you like to do with things you need to do (i.e., everytime you check facebook, do pushups or whatever). It's good advice, but nothing new or unique.

[Youghourta · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب "العادات الذّرّيّة" يتحدثّ حول كيفية بناء عادات حميدة جديدة وكيفية التّخلص من عادات سيّئة. في حقيقة الأمر لم تكن أغلب مُحتويات الكتاب جديدة علي، فمعظمها يعتمد على دراسات ومصادر إما ذائعة الصيت أو سبق لي أن صادفتها في كتب أخرى، ككتاب "قوة العادة"* أو حتى كتاب "كيف تفشل تقريبًا في كل شيء ومع ذلك تربح في النهاية بشكل كبير"** والذي بالرغم من أنه ليس كتابًا حول بناء العادات لكنّه استعرض إحدى أقوى الأفكار المُتعلّقة ببناء العادات والمُتعلّقة بالاعتماد على الأنظمة بدل الأهداف . كتاب "العادات الذّرّيّة" يذكر هذا الكتاب لدى استعراضه لهذه الفكرة.

قبل أن أخوض في تفاصيل هذا الكتاب أودّ أن أستعرض فكرة "التركيز على الأنظمة بدل الأهداف" لأنها في غاية الأهمية. لتوضيح الفكرة إليك المثال التالي: لنفرض أنك ترغب في إنقاص وزنك لتصل مثلًا إلى 70 كيلوجرام. لو سطّرنا هذا الهدف وبعد أشهر قليلة وصلت إليه عبر وسائل عدّة، فإن أول ما سيواجهك بعد الوصول إلى هذا الهدف هو سؤال "ما التالي؟" وقد لا تجد إجابة واضحة حول هذا السؤال، بل وقد ينتهي بك المطاف إلى اكتساب كل الوزن الزائد الذي تخلّصت منه قبل وز��ادة، لأنه في البداية كان لديك هدف "يجب أن أخفّض وزني إلى 70 كيلوجرام" وقد حقّقته وبعد الوصول إلى هذا الهدف، لم يعد لديك ما تعمل عليه. لكن في المُقابل لو اعتمدت على نظام بدل هدف، كأن تقول "سأتبع نظاما سيسمح لي بالحفاظ على جسم رشيق وصحّة جيّدة وسأقوم بذلك عبر تجنّب الأكل غير الصّحي، اختيار ما آكله بشكل مدروس ومُمارسة الرياضة بشكل دوري" فإنه وحتى بعد وصولك إلى مثل الهدف السابق (70 كج) فإنك ستواصل العمل وفق نفس النظام، لأن النظام لا يهدف إلى هدف بعينه، وإنما غايته هو الحفاظ على ذلك النظام، كما أن تحقيق الأهداف من خلال هذا النظام سيكون مجرد "عرض جانبي".

أفضل ما يُميّز هذا الكتاب هو أسلوب الكتابة المُتّبع فيه، حيث أن الفصول مكتوبة بشكل واضح يسهّل استهلاكها. لكن أفضل خاصّية على الإطلاق هو تلخيصه لكل فصل في خاتمته.

يبني الكاتب فكرته حول الأفكار القاعدية التالية:
- بناء العادات يتم تدريجيًا وليس دفعة واحدة ويتم على فترات قد لا تكون قصيرة. ركّز على تحسين نفسك تدريجيا (مثلًا 1 بالمئة كل يوم) وستحصل على نتائج مُذهلة مع مرور الوقت.
- مثلما يُمكنك بناء عادات حسنة بشكل تدريجي وعلى فترات طويلة فقد يحصل عكس ذلك معك أيضًا دون أن تشعر. يُمكنك مثلًا أن تحصل على عادة سيّئة عبر نفس المبدأ، كأن تتساهل مع قليل من الأكل غير الصّحي بشكل تدريجي حتى تجد بأن طعامك أصبح كلّه غير صحّي.
- تحتاج إلى الصّبر لدى بناء عادات حميدة، فالعديد من التحسينات الصغيرة (الـ 1 بالمئة آنفة الذكر) لن تُلحَظ على المدى القصير وقد تُصاب بالإحباط. يضرب الكاتب مثالًا بقطعة ثلج موضوعة خارج الثلاجة، رغم ارتفاع درجة حرارة الغرفة التي أنت فيها بشكل تدريجي (درجة واحدة مثلا كل فترة) فلن تلحظ بأن قطعة الثلج تذوب، لكن بعد مرور ما يكفي من الوقت (تراكم تلك الزيادات في درجات الحرارة) وبعد تجاوز درجة حرارة مُعيّنة فستلاحظ بأن تلك القطعة شرعت في الذوبان بشكل مُتسارع قبل أن ينتهي بها المطاف وقد ذابت عن آخرها. هذه النقطة في غاية الأهمية لكل من يرغب في بناء عادات حميدة.
- أفضل طريقة لتغيير عاداتنا ليس بالتركيز على ما نرغب في تحقيقه (أرغب في أن أمارس الرياضة بشكل يومي) ولكن بالتركيز حول ما ترغب في أن تُصبح (أرغب في أن أصبح رياضيا).
- العادة عبارة عن سلوك قمنا بتكراره مرات عديدة حتى أصبح تلقائيًا.
- الهدف الرئيسي من بناء العادات هو حل المشاكل التي نواجهها في الحياة اليومية بأقل جهد مُمكن.
- يُمكن تقسيم كل عادة إلى 4 مراحل: الإشارة +، الرغبة/التوق ++، الاستجابة +++ و المُكافأة ++++.
- لبناء العادات الحميدة (أو للتخلص من العادات السيئة) يُمكننا الاعتماد على "إطار عمل" متكوّن من 4 مبادئ أساسية:
- اجعلها ظاهرة /واضحة
- اجعلها جذّابة
- اجعلها سهلة
- اجعلها مُرضِية
هذه المبادئ تُصبح على النّحو التالي لما يتعلّق الأمر بالتّخلص من عادات سيّئة:
- اجعلها مخفية
- اجعلها غير جذّابة
- اجعلها صعبة
- اجعلها غير مُرضِية

1/ اجعلها ظاهرة /واضحة
- لجعل العادة الحميدة التي ترغب في الحصول عليها ظاهرة/واضحة فإنك تحتاج أن تربطها إما بوقت مُعيّن أو بمكان معُيّن (سأقوم بكذا في الوقت الفلاني أو سأقوم بكذا في المكان الفلاني).
- يُمكن أيضًا بناء العادات الحميدة عبر ربطها بعادات أخرى أصبحت تلقائية. على سبيل المثال بعد أن أفعل [العادة س] سأقوم بـ [العادة ع].
- اجعل من بيئتك / الأماكن التي تتواجد فيها طرفًا فعّالا في بناء العادات ولا تعتمد كثيرًا على قوّة الإرادة. على سبيل المثال إن أردت أن تبني عادة شرب ما يكفي من الماء كل يوم فضع قنينات ماء في أماكن مُختلفة وبشكل واضح في مكتبك/منزلك.
- بعد بناء أي عادة (سواء كانت حميدة أو سيّئة) فإنه من المُستبعد أن تنساها بشكل كامل.
- بدل أن تعتمد على "التّحكم في النفس" من الأفضل أن تتجنّب ما يُذكّرك بالعا��ة (الإشارة cue) بدل أن تراقب نفسك باستمرار. فمن السهل أن تتجنب الإغراء على أن تمانعه.
- التحكم في النفس/مُمانعة إغراء العادات السيّئة قد يصلح على المدى القصير فقط.


2/ اجعلها جذّابة
- اجعل العادات الحسنة التي ترغب في الحصول عليها مُغرية.
- ما يجعلنا نقوم بما نقوم به ليس إنهاء المهمة بقدر انتظار "المُكافأة" التي سنحصل عليها.
- أفضل طريقة لبناء العادات الحميدة هي ربطها بشيء نرغب فيه. على سبيل المثال قد ترغب في مُشاهدة التلفاز (تتوق نفسك لذلك) لكن يُمكنك أن تربط ذلك بممارستك للرياضة لدى قيامك بذلك، كأن تضع دراجتك المنزلية مقابلة للتلفاز وأن لا تُشاهد التلفاز إلا لما تكون على الدراجة.
- الثقافة/المُجتمع الذي نعيش فيه له تأثير كبير على مدى جاذبية بعض العادات بالنسبة لنا (قد تجد هذه العادة أو تلك جذابة في بيئة مُعيّنة ومُنفّرة في بيئة أخرى). يعني نستحسن ما يستحسنه المُجتمع ونستقبح ما يستقبحه.
- أفضل طريقة لبناء عادات حميدة هي أن تحيط نفسك ببيئة تستحسن تلك العادة التي ترغب في بنائها. فعلى سبيل المثال إن أردت أن تُصبح رياضيا وتكون في صحّة جيّدة فستحتاج أن تُحيط نفسك بأشخاص يولون هذه الأمور اهتمامًا كبيرًا (كما يقول المثل الجزائري: “الصاحب ساحب").

3/ اجعلها سهلة
- ركّز على المُمارسة أكثر من تركيزك على التخطيط للعادة التي ترغب في الحصول عليها.
- ركّز على عدد المرات التي تقوم بها بالعادة التي ترغب في الحصول عليها وليس في الوقت الكلي الذي أمضيته في القيام بها.
- بناء العادات هي الآلية التي من خلالها تصبح تلك السلوكيات آلية بشكل تدريجي عبر المُمارسة (ركّز على التّدرج وعلى المُداومة).
- من عادة البشر القيام بالأمور التي تتطلب جُهدّا أقل. وعليه تحتاج أن تخلق لنفسك بيئة يسهل فيها القيام بالعادة التي ترغب في اكتسابها. على سبيل المثال إن كنت ترغب في ممارسة الرياضة صباح كل يوم، فستحتاج أن توفر ما سيسهل عليك اتخاذ هذا القرار صباح كل يوم عبر تجهيز ملابس الرياضة ووضعها في مكان ظاهر في غرفتك.
- لدى بنائك لعادة جديدة فحاول أن لا يتجاوز الوقت الذي تُخصصه لها في البداية أكثر من دقيقتين. على سبيل المثال (ومع مثال الرياضة من جديد) هل ترغب في ممارسة الرياضة بشكل دوري؟ ركّز في البداية على نقطة واحدة فقط وهو أن تلبس ملابسك الرياضية (حتى ولو لم تمارس أية تمارين).
- ركّز على بناء العادة أولا وبعدها يُمكن تحسين أدائك (اجعل من لبس ملابس الرياضة عادة آلية وبعدها يمكنك أن تضيف التمارين الرياضية إليها تدريجيا).

4/ اجعلها مُرضِية
- لديك حظوظ أوفر للحفاظ على عادتك لو جعلتها مُرْضية (تحصل على نتيجة مُرضية من خلالها).
- العقل البشري مجبول على حب المكافآت قريبة الأمد على تلك التي سيحصل عليها في المُستقبل البعيد.
- القاعدة الذهبية لتغيير العادات هي: ما نحصل من خلاله على مكافأة آنية (في حينها) ستُكرّر وما سنُعاقب عليه آنيا سيُتجنّب.
- لتبني عادات حميدة فستحتاج أن تحصل على تلك المُكافآت الآنية حتى ولو كانت صغيرة.
- المبادئ الثلاثة الأولى تهدف إلى ضمان القيام بالعادة في وقتها. هذا المبدأ الرابع يهدف إلى ضمان تكرار العادة المرة القادمة.
- أفضل شعور لدى بناء عادات حميدة هو الشعور بأنك تحرز تقدّما. وعليه فمن المنصوح به تتبّع مدى تقدّمك في رحلة بنائك لتلك العادة.
- حاول أن لا تقطع سلسلة العادة التي ترغب في بنائها. على سبيل المثال إن كنت تضع علامة إكس على رزنامتك كل يوم تمارس فيه الرياضة فحاول أن تبقي على سلسلة علامات إكس طويلة وغير منقطعة قدر الإمكان. إن اضطررت إلى قطع تلك العادة مرّة فحاول أن لا تقطعها يومين مُتتاليين.
- قد تستفيد من إخبار صديق أو زوجتك (زوجك) بالعادات التي ترغب في بنائها، وجود شخص يلعب دور "الرقيب" سيزيد من احتمال تحول ذلك السلوك إلى عادة آلية.
- ستحصل على أكبر قدر من التحفيز لما تعمل على مهام تقع على حدود قدراتك الحالية. بعبارة أخرى إذا أردت أن "تنمو" أو أن "تنمي قدراتك" فيجب عليك أن تسعى للبقاء في هذا المكان أطول مدّة مُمكنة. بطبيعية الحال كلما زاد نموّك كلما توجّب عليك التقدّم أكثر لتبقى في حالة "العمل على حدود قدراتك الحالية".
- أكبر مُشكل سيواجهك لما تُكوّن عادات جديدة هو قيامك بتلك المهام دون تفكير (هذا أصلًا أحد ركائز بناء العادات لكن قد يُمثّل أكبر نقاط ضعفها أيضًا في آن واحد). الإشكال هو أنه ومع مرور الوقت لا نُلقي بالًا للتفاصيل الدقيقة. وعليه يتوجّب علينا مُراجعة عاداتنا المُكتسبة بشكل دوري.
- الإتقان يكون نتيجة تكوين عادات جيّدة ومُواصلة العمل على تحسينها (التّدّرّب المُتواصل).


الكتاب مُفيد، خفيف وسهل الهضم. قد ترغب في قراءته مرّتين، المرة الأولى لتكتشف القواعد الأساسية لبناء العادات الحميدة (والتّخلّص من العادات السّيّئة) ومرة أخرى لما تكون لديك عادة مُعيّنة ترغب في بنائها. قد ترغب أيضًا في قراءة كتاب "قوة العادة"* أو حتى كتاب "كيف تفشل تقريبًا في كل شيء ومع ذلك تربح في النهاية بشكل كبير"** بعد الفراغ منه للاستزادة حول هذا الموضوع.

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* "قوة العادة": the power of Habit
** "كيف تفشل تقريبًا في كل شيء ومع ذلك تربح في النهاية بشكل كبير": How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big

+ الإشارة Cue
++ الرغبة/التوق craving
+++ الاستجابة response
++++ المُكافأة reward.

ملاحظة: سبق وأن نشرت هذه المُراجعة على مُدوّنتي هنا: http://www.it-scoop.com/2018/12/atomi...

[Dragos Pătraru · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ideea cărții este pe cât de simplă pe atât de adevărată și puternică și o aveți chiar în descrierea din subtitlu. Autorul folosește o mulțime de exemple pentru a arăta că:
1. Schimbările mici pot avea un impact foarte mare în viețile noastre. Dacă halești zilnic un burger de la Mec sau o găleată de pui de la Kafece, peste zece ani nu-ți va plăcea deloc ce vei vedea în oglindă și nici ce-ți va arăta cântarul. Dacă alergi juma de oră pe zi, lucrurile vor sta cu totul altfel.
2. Obiceiurile noastre sunt comportamente automate pe care le învățăm din experiență. Intri într-o cameră în care e întuneric, vei căuta automat întrerupătorul. De-aia, diferența pe termen lung o fac rutinele zilnice. Dacă ele sunt bune, rezultatul pe termen lung e excelent.
3. Construiești obiceiuri bune schimbând lucruri în viața ta și înconjurându-te de lucruri care declanșează acele obiceiuri pe care le vrei în viața ta. Eu nu am reușit să repet consistent la chitară, de pildă, până când nu am avut patru chitare, puse în locuri strategice: la masa din bucătărie la care stau destul de mult, la birou, în dormitor, în terasa de lângă casă, în care petrec ceva timp în weekend lucrând. La fel, cu exercițiile fizice. Am amenajat o sală la redacție, de care eu și colegul Marote profităm din plin, dar am și acasă ”matereale”, benzi elastice, gantere, kettlebell, saltea, bancă, ladă pentru sărituri, tot ce-mi trebuie pentru antrenamente complete și variate. Că dacă ești vineri, sâmbătă și duminică la grătare și șpriț nu vei putea schimba mare lucru la felul în care arăți. Fix la fel e și cu cititul și cu toate celelalte obiceiuri bune.
4. Ca să te țină, trebuie să faci obiceiurile atractive. Cum? Cu recompensă. Nu neapărat cum a făcut un inginer irlandez, care a legat o bicicletă de exersat acasă la computer, astfel încât Netflixul, de care omul era dependent, nu rula decât la o anumită viteză a bicicletei, dar trebuie să legi activitatea de un rezultat care îți face plăcere. Uite, eu, de pildă, pun periodic pe rețelele sociale poze după antrenamentele la sală. Iar faptul că oamenii apreciază munca pe care o fac pentru mine - da, oamenii se mulțumesc să-i aplaude pe alții, prea puțini se și apucă de treabă - mă încarcă și pe mine, astfel încât să pot continua.
5. Fă obiceiul accesibil, dacă vrei să îți fie ușor. La fel, fă-l inaccesibil, dacă e un obicei de care vrei să scapi. Uite, eu, de pildă, nu pot să adorm dacă nu mă uit la ceva film sau meci sau emisiune. Așa că primul pas a fost să scot cablul tv din dormitor. Apoi, am recurs la tabletă. Și am observat că dacă pun un film sau un meci nu adorm, mă ține treaz acțiunea. Așa că am luat cea mai bună decizie din viața mea: adorm seară de seară ascultând cursuri. Fie că e vorba de Masterclass, fie că e vorba de tot felul de prelegeri ale unor profesori puse pe yt (mare chestie yt premium, că nu te mai opresc reclamele), fie că e vorba de podcasturi, dau drumul și în cel mult zece minute adorm (asta și după ce am adoptat o rutină de respirație care induce somnul - inspir numărând până la patru, expir numărând până la 8, adormi ca un copil, tati!)
6. Ține un jurnal cu schimbările pe care le faci, cu obiceiurile bune și cu efectele lor. Uite, a te poza periodic și a compara pozele este o bună metodă de a rămâne motivat, pentru că schimbările se văd de la o lună la alta, de la un anotimp la altul, de la un an la altul.

Cam asta ar fi. Cei mai mulți dintre oameni eșuează în adoptarea unor obiceiuri bune pentru că vor rezultate imediate, pentru că nu au deloc răbdare și viziune, nu se pot vedea pe ei peste doi-trei ani, pentru că nu știu cum să rămână motivați, pentru că pun greșit problema. Uite, de pildă, mâncarea. În loc să ne preocupe în primul rând sănătatea, cum ne influențează sănătatea dieta, pe noi ne preocupă relațiile sociale și plăcerea pe care ne-o produce zahărul, de pildă. Sau alcoolul. Sau prăjelile de tot soiul, ori carnea în exces. Cât timp nu ne setăm mintea cum trebuie, cât timp nu ne stabilim clar prioritățile, nu vom putea să fim stăpânii propriei existențe. Vom fi doar consumatori, doar folosiți de marile companii, fără să ne dăm măcar seama.