Book Review: Atomic Habits by James Clear

Most of the unread emails in my inbox are from a newsletter by author James Clear. I read them and then immediately mark them as unread so that I can re-read them again later. His writing is that useful.

James Clear's book Atomic Habits is equally helpful. I purposefully read it on my Kindle 1) because it's free from the library, but more importantly, 2) so that I can highlight passages and then save them to OneNote for future reference. Just like his emails, I have hundreds of highlights to reread.

Why read a book about habits? To have better habits, right? I think most of the millions and millions of people who read this book don’t actually want better habits—they want the outcomes that the habits provide. Nobody really wants to meditate, for example, they want to feel calm. No one wants to quit smoking, either, they want to live longer and not have yellow teeth and bad breath.

So, what do you want?

Clear asks the tough questions that really need to be answered in order to truly benefit from creating new habits. This is where the book deviates from other self-help books that I skim through at the airport. Clear doesn’t include a list of all the good habits you need in order to live a happy, healthy life. Instead, he emphasizes that you need to do the work and first decide the type of person who you want to become, and then act accordingly.

Step 2 in the Atomic Habits game-plan is to prove it to yourself with small wins. Does a behavior help you become the type of person who you wish to be? If yes, then it’s a win.

Reading the entire book will give you the best strategy to learn how to get these wins, but here are a few tips:

1. Fill this out: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].
2. Try “habit stacking” where you identify a current habit you already do and then stack your new behavior on top. You (hopefully) brush your teeth every night, and flossing afterwards is an example of habit stacking.
3. The secret to getting results that last is to never stop making improvements. Just. Keep. Going.

More quotes I enjoyed from Atomic Habits:

• “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."
• “…people who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through.”
• "Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity.”
• “Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use.”