I just read Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, by James Clear.

The first post shared more of the theory and the why of Atomic Habits. This post is more about the how, practical tips and techniques. The author shows how we make or break habits through the habit loop of cue, craving, response, reward, and how we can make things obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying to build our own habits.  

I’m really excited to try it out, by building a new habit system in order to reach my goal of making a million dollars. Also musing about how this habit framework might be applied to writing, and to 200wad too. Maybe I will expand on this tomorrow.

Sharing them here as reference for myself, and for anyone who might find it useful. This is not a book review, just raw notes lifted directly from the book, with some minor interpretations and categorisations of my own. This is part of my reading list for a new season.

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Atomic Habits, by James Clear

Habit loop = cue, craving, response, reward

If a behaviour is insufficient in any of the four stages, it will not become a habit. No cue, habit will not start. Reduce craving, not enough motivation to act. Make the response difficult to carry out, you won’t be able to do it. If reward fails to satisfy desire, you’ll have no reason to do it again.

4 laws of behaviour change (for good and bad habits)

• Cue - Make it obvious/Make it invisible
• Craving - Make it attractive/unattractive 
• Response - Make it easy/difficult
• Reward - Make it satisfying/unsatisfying

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The 1st Law Make It Obvious

1.1 

Fill out the Habits Scorecard. Write down your current habits to become aware of them.

- Behaviour change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them. Once our habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing (thus making it hard to break bad habits). Pointing-and-Calling makes a non-conscious habit more conscious by verbalizing actions.

1.2 

Use implementation intentions: “I will [BEHAVIOuR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].”

- Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity, a specific, predetermined plan and when and where they will perform a new habit, called an implementation intention.

1.3

Use habit stacking: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”

- You can use connectedness of behaviour to your advantage. Rather than pairing new habit with a specific time and location, you pair it with a current habit, and create larger stacks by chaining small habits together.

1.4

Design your environment. Make the cues of good habits obvious and visible.

- People often choose products not because of what they are, but because of where they are. Many of the actions we take are shaped not by purposeful drive and choice but by the most obvious option. You don’t have to be a victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it.

- The most persistent behaviours usually have multiple cues. Use obvious visual cues. 

- The entire context is the cue. Our environment is not filled with objects, but with relationships and how we interact with them. 

- It’s easier to associate a new habit with a new context than to build a new habit in face of competing cues. Avoid mixing contexts.

Inversion of the 1st Law - Make It Invisible

1.5

Reduce exposure. Remove the cues of your bad habits from your environment.

- “disciplined” people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control. They need discipline the least. Discipline is a short-term strategy, not long term.

- showing pictures of blackened lungs to smokers leads to anxiety, driving them to smoke more. If you’re not careful about cues, you can cause the very behaviour you want to stop.

- Once a habit is encoded, you can break a habit, but you’re unlikely to forget it. So easier to cut off exposure to it.

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The 2nd Law- Make It Attractive

2.1

Use temptation bundling. Pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.

- our brain is preloaded with certain rules for behaviour, and these supernormal stimuli elicits a stronger response than usual, e.g. salty, sweet, fatty junk food.

- habits are dopamine-driven feedback loops. Dopamine drives craving, and our brain allocate more space to wanting than liking. It’s the anticipation of a reward than the fulfillment of it that gets us to take action.

- combine temptation bundling with habit stacking: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED]. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT]. E.g. if I want to write, but I need to 1 chore = After dinner, I will do 1 chore. After 1 chore, I will write. 

2.2

Join a culture where your desired behaviour is the normal behaviour.

- social norms are seductive, we all want to fit in and belong. We don’t choose our earliest habits, we imitate them. 

- Most of the time, going along with the group does not feel like a burden.

- We imitate the habits of 3 groups of people: the close (friends, family), the many (the tribe), the powerful (those with status & prestige).

- Proximity means peer pressure from people around us. We are the aggregate of the 5 closest friends. - Join a tribe where the desired behaviour is the normal behaviour, and you already have something in common with the group. Make a personal quest into a shared one.

- We rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves. When changing habits means challenging the tribe, change is unattractive. 

- We’re drawn to behaviours that earn us respect, approval, admiration and status. Many of our daily habits are imitations of people we admire.

2.3

Create a motivation ritual. Do something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.

- Make hard habits more attractive by associating them with a positive/enjoyable experience, e.g. play some music I enjoy before writing. 

Inversion of the 2nd Law - Make It Unattractive

2.4

Reframe your mindset. Highlight the benefits of avoiding your bad habits.

- Shift your mindset. Instead of “I have to exercise”, say “I get to exercise.”

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The 3rd Law - Make It Easy

- Practice, not planning. Habit becomes automatic through repetition. 

- Not how long you had the habit but how many times you performed it. Habits form based on frequency, not time. Not “How long does it take to build a new habit?”, but “How many repetitions required to make a habit automatic?”

3.1

Reduce friction. Decrease the number of steps between you and your good habits.

- law of least effort: we naturally gravitate towards the option that requires least amount of work/energy.

- habits are easier when they fit in the flow of your life. Hard to start habits in high friction environments. 

- Try “addition by subtraction” strategy. Subtract wasted effort to add more customers/revenue. 

3.2

Prime the environment. Prepare your environment to make future actions easier.

- Organize the space for immediate practice of the habit. Make things within easy reach, ahead of time, pre-prepared, easily recalled.

3.3

Master the decisive moment. Optimize the small choices that deliver outsized impact.

- Every day, there’s a handful of little choices/moments that deliver an outsized impact. These decisive moments determine the trajectory you take. Habits are the entry point, not the end point. The habit is changing into gym clothes, not working out.

3.4

Use the Two-Minute Rule. Downscale your habits until they can be done in two minutes or less.

- Make habits as easy as possible to start. The first 2min should be easy. This is the gateway habit.

- Master the habit of showing up. A habit must be established before it can be improved; show up before mastered; standardized before optimized. Do the easy thing consistently before the perfect habit perfectly.

- It’s better to do less than you hoped than to do nothing at all. Use habit shaping to scale the habit up progressively, e.g. to become early riser, be home by 10pm > Turn off devices by 10pm > Be in bed by 10pm > Lights off by 10pm > Wake at 6am

3.5

Automate your habits. Invest in technology and onetime purchases that lock in future behaviour.

- Rather than trying to change habit, make it impossible to do it.

- A onetime choice that require a little effort upfront but deliver returns again and again, e.g. auto savings plan for financial habit

Inversion of the 3rd Law - Make It Difficult

3.6

Increase friction. Increase the number of steps between you and your bad habits.

- Keep things out of sight, out of mind. Or unplug/dismantle so it’s harder to use.

3.7

Use a commitment device. Restrict your future choices to the ones that benefit you.

- A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that controls your actions in the future.

- Enables you to take advantage of good intentions when you’re motivated before being tempted later when less motivated and relying on willpower in the moment.

- Make getting out of the good habit harder or require more effort ahead of time.

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The 4th Law - Make It Satisfying

4.1

Use reinforcement. Give yourself an immediate reward when you complete your habit.

- Easier to adopt a product that provides a strong sensory signal/pleasurable sensory feedback, e.g. mint and suds in toothpaste.

- What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.

- We evolved in immediate-return environment, but modern life is delayed-return environment. We value instant gratification, prioritize quick payoffs, choose for Present Me than Future Me. As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns to your long-term goals. “The sweeter the first fruit of a habit, the more bitter are its later fruits.”

- You need to feel immediately successful, even if it’s in a small way. Don’t wait till goal achieved to feel satisfaction. A habit needs to be enjoyable for it to last. But ensure short-term rewards are aligned to long-term goal - eating ice cream after exercise cancels out. 

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.”

- Visual measurement reminds you to act, is motivating to see progress, and feels satisfying. 

- Make tracking automated whenever possible, because tracking is another habit and takes effort. Manually track the most important few habits than sporadically track 10. Track immediately after the habit occurs. 

4.4

Never miss twice. When you forget to do a habit, make sure you get back on track immediately.

- Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit. “The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.” Sluggish or bad performance of habit done poorly better than not at all. 

- But don’t track the wrong thing. We optimize for what we measure. Wrong measurement leads to wrong behaviour. Goodhart’s Law: “When a measurement becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Measurement is useful when it guides you and adds context to a larger picture, not when it consumes you. Each number is simply one piece of feedback in the overall system.

Inversion of the 4th Law - Make It Unsatisfying

4.5

Get an accountability partner. Ask someone to watch your behaviour.

- Knowing someone is watching is powerful motivator. You want to be seen as someone who is trustworthy, consistent, and uphold promises.

- This adds a social cost to any lapse.

4.6

Create a habit contract. Make the costs of your bad habits public and painful.

- Strength of punishment must match the relative strength of the behaviour you’re trying to correct. To be healthy, the cost of laziness must be greater than the cost of exercise. 

- State your commitment to a habit, lay out progressive roadmap, state daily smaller habits, list the punishment if fail, and sign off with accountability partners.