Introduction

Atomic Habits from James Clear is a fantastic book and i want to tell you why.

In this review you will get an insight of the book and why it can change your life. Habits are one (if not the most) important thing when it comes to productivity and behaviour. Almost everything you do on a daily basis is habit driven.

For example:

• Brushing your teeth in the morning
• Making your bed
• Make you a coffee
• Take a shower

This list can grow and grow. And this happens everyday. Many of those things are happen unconsciously because they are so into you. But how those habits were created and how i can build new habits or throw away bad habits like eating chips every evening on the couch?

These question and a lot more will be questioned in this book.

I dont want to write every single detail from this book in this article. My goal is to give you a rough overview of it and maybe this will help some poeple to improve their habits and so improve their life. This would be AWESOME!

The core of the book

The most important question James Clear try to answer is this: How we can change our behaviour? How we can use habits so they help us to become the type of person we want to be?

Behaviour Change

In this book James Clear talks about the change of our behavior. He distinct it in 3 different ways:

• Outcome
• Process
• Identity

In this review i want to highlight the last one. Identity. This is propably the best way to change our behavior in the long run. Ask yourself what type of person you want to become. If you say you want to become an athlete you can build your habits around that identity. Everytime you do something ask yourself: Will this help me to become an athlete? So next time you sit down in front of the TV and want to get the chips ask yourself this question and then ask yourself: What would a person do that is already an athlete?

Form your habits around the person you want to become and not the person you are at this moment. This can improve your life and your productivity enormously.

The 4 Laws of behaviour change

Most of the book is divided into the 4 laws of behaviour change. Lets get an rough overview of these.

Make it obvious

Habits are triggered by specific cues. For example if you sit down in your car you turn on the engine without thinking of it. You can take this knowledge and turn it to your favor. If you want to build a new habit for example reading a book you can place it on your pillow in the morning so when you go to bed the book is waiting for you. Or if you struggle to get work done in your office (or homeoffice) try to recreate your work place.

This is really important:

Environment is much more important than motivation!

Make it attractive

Habits are so old as the human is. Many of our habits are just modern solutions to old desires. You have to make your habits attractive to you. The moment of expectation is much more important and intensive than the reward itself.

Make it easy

Make your habits as easy as possible. We are humans and we always go the path of least resistance. But thats okay we can work with that. If our habits are easy we can do it. Its important to do things on a regular basis instead of doing it perfect for hours. Also the environment is important (see Rule 1 above). If your book is waiting for you on your pillow its easy for you to pick at up and read it.

Make it satisfying

Last but not least. Make your habits satisfying. We will repeat things when they feel good to us. If we take our book example we can do things like make us a fresh warm tea while we read our book. We feel warm and relaxed and so we feel satisfied. Try to reward yourself even by a bit when you want to build new habits.

Get rid of bad habits

Everyone have bad habits. And thats okay. You can be the type of person you want to become if the good habits predominate the bad ones. If you want to get rid of bad habits you can take the 4 laws of behaviour change and reverse it. Jeah its that easy!

• Make it invisible
• Make it unattractive
• Make it difficult
• Make it unsatisfying

If you interested in these in detail go grab the book you will learn a ton!

Techniques

Here are some techniques James Clear introduced to form new good habits and get rid of bad ones. In the book are many more.

Habit Scoreboard

Before you can build new habits or get rid of old ones you have to be aware of your current habits. Write every habit down and mark it with a + if its a good habits, - if its a bad habit, = if its a neutral habit.

Habit Stacking

Also a quite simple but effective technique. You can stack habits. For example when you constantly forget to take your vitamins in the morning you can this. After you brushed your teeth instantly take your vitamins.

Habit Tracking

This is a more advances technique but very effective. Take a family member or a friend and make a contract with them. For example you can write a contract that you will work out 3 times a week and if you fail you have to pay a fee to them. We humans hate to dissapoint others so this is very effective!

Downside of Habits

Habits are good. They happen mostly unconsciously and you dont have to think about them so your brain can focus on the important stuff. The downside is you dont think about it and so you will do mistakes time after time. Reflect your habits from time to time and get aware of them. Ask yourself: Are these habits still the right ones so i can become the person i want to become?

Conclusion

I hope you could take something with you and learned something. I surely did while reading that fantastic book! I can highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in improving as a person and become better each day. And that is the core essence of the book!

Atomic Habits => Tiny Changes => Compound each day => Remarkable Results