Atomic Habits by James Clear – Book Review

 

Publisher’s write-up:

‘World-renowned habits expert James Clear has discovered a simpler system for transforming your life. He knows that lasting change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions – doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call. He calls them atomic habits.

In this ground-breaking book, Clear reveals how these tiny changes will help you get 1 percent better every day. He uncovers a handful of simple life hacks (the forgotten art of Habit Stacking, the unexpected power of the Two Minute Rule, or the trick to entering the Goldilocks Zone) and delves into cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to explain why they matter. Along the way, he tells inspiring stories of Olympic gold medalists, leading CEOs and distinguished scientists who have used the science of small habits to stay productive, motivated and happy.

These small changes will have a revolutionary effect on your career, your relationships and your life.’

Atomic Habits is a self-help book that helps its readers build effective habits. I read the book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg a few years back which was along similar lines. James Clear, the author of this book has drawn inspiration from The Power of Habit; the issue was that much as I read the book from Charles Duhigg, the implementation was not easy. I was suggested by some of my friends that this book helps us implement the changes that leads to building habits.

The author starts by introducing himself and about a terrible accident that had occurred while playing baseball; and went on to build habits that helped him excel in the same sport post recovery. The title is then explained – that the focus ought to be on the systems and processes that drive our habits – and what we need to do is several atomic changes to our way of working, which would eventually lead to better habits.

To go about this, the author proposes four laws – make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy and make it satisfying. The author has a dedicated section to each of these ‘laws’ and proposes methods to implement them. He also brings about the important point that the ‘atomic habits’ process applies even for undesirable habits, the reason why we are unable to change several things about our way of doing things which we are unable to change.

I could relate to almost everything that the author had written in the book and I believe most of you would be able to do it as well. I made the same mistake of focusing on the goal (example: like keeping my place organised and clean) instead of focusing on the process that is involved. We tend to load all the activities required for achieving a goal at once, which inevitably makes it a difficult task; thereby making it less attractive. And if I do such an activity once in a while, I am going to end up with an unorganised room in no time since I did not focus on the process.

I liked the way the author presented the book – where he wanted the reader to have the takeaways and at the end of each chapter, there was a summary and also links to his website where we could download resources to implement the methods he had laid out.

For a quick verdict, as on the date of writing this review, it has been a month since I have read his book and a lot of his suggestions seem to have worked. The long-term impact remains to be seen; and I would need to take into account the author’s caveat – that negative habits have the same rules as positive habits and we could plunge into negative habits the same way we create a positive routine.

To conclude on the book, I was very satisfied with reading the book and the suggestions that the author presented – they are simple, easy to read and possible to follow. I wish I had read this book earlier. On that note, I would award the book a rating of nine on ten.

Rating – 9/10

Have a nice day,
Andy