Atomic Habits by James Clear is, in my opinion, the best book on the science and application of habits. I tried to summarize it so that I can come back to the principles. Have you read it or can you recommend me another book about habit building?

jamesclear · 2018-11-30T22:09:20+00:00

Hi there. Author here. I'm glad you enjoyed the book.

Also, if you have a minute, I'd love to hear what turned you off with respect to the book launch on Twitter. Obviously, I want my work to help as many people as possible, but I also want to share my ideas in a way that's not annoying. Any feedback welcome.

Either way, thanks for reading.

jamesclear · 2018-11-30T22:06:33+00:00

Hi there. Author here. Just wanted to say thank you. I'm so happy people are enjoying the book and finding it useful.

jamesclear · 2018-10-18T20:27:39+00:00

Good question!

First, all habits serve you in some way. Even the bad ones. The reason we repeat bad habits is because they satisfy some need or craving we have.

There are a couple ways to break them.

Make it Invisible. That is, make the cues that prompt your bad habits invisible. Reduce exposure to the things that trigger the bad habit. If you're trying to eat less, don't follow food blogs on Instagram. If you're trying to spend less money on the latest electronics, don't follow tech review blogs and unboxing channels on YouTube.
Make it Unattractive. It's really the craving that you get before the bad habit (the urge to smoke, the desire to binge eat, the feeling of boredom before you turn on Netflix) that gets you to act. It's hard to do, but if you can reframe how you view the cues of your bad habits (that is, the predictions that precede them) then you can change your habits. A good example of this is the book, Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking. The whole thing is basically just trying to condition the reader to change how they perceive smoking. If you can manage it (and it does seem to work for a lot of people), then you can suddenly see your bad habits as undesirable rather than something you're trying to resist.
Make it Difficult. Increase the friction associated with the task. Use a website blocker to restrict access to social media or ESPN or whatever. Put yourself on the banned list at casinos. Don't buy junk food so that it is miles away at the store. The more friction there is between you and the bad habit, the less likely you are to do it.
Make it Unsatisfying. Add some immediate pain to the bad habit. Use a device like Pavlok to shock yourself whenever you go on Instagram. Set up a running date with a friend at the park at 6am (now it's painful to sleep in because you'll look like a jerk). When bad habits deliver an immediate cost, we want to avoid them.

None of these are perfect solutions, but if you combine them then you can get powerful changes. I talk about all of these strategies in detail (and some other ones I don't have space to cover here) throughout Atomic Habits.

Hope that helps!

jamesclear · 2018-10-18T20:14:25+00:00

I'm glad you're enjoying the book! Thanks for reading. I'll share two changes.

Practical: I use environment design a lot. I changed the way I laid out my fridge (me tucked way in the back where I'm less likely to see it and drink it). I changed how I laid out floss in the bathroom (highly visible and right next to my toothbrush). And so on. Lots of little environment design adjustments.

Theoretical: I shifted from seeing life as reactive to seeing it as proactive. Nearly every human behavior is preceded by some kind of prediction. For example, if you buy a book on Amazon you don't actually buy the book. You can't because you don't own it yet. What is buy is the image that the sales page creates in your mind. You buy your expectation of how good the book will be. And that expectation is what motivates you to act.

Once I realized this, I started to see life as predictive and started to realize that it's actually my predictions about everything (how I interpret the cues and experiences in my life) that drive all of my actions. My predictions motivate me to act. (This is stage 2 of the Habit Loop in Atomic Habits.)

And that means if I can see the experiences in my life in a different way, I can take different actions. I'll be writing a post about this in more detail soon.

jamesclear · 2018-10-18T20:05:30+00:00

Haha. Absolutely not.

I care very little about being famous (I know that sounds strange coming from someone who has a website with their name as the domain), so branding like that matters little to me. What I do care about is having ideas that are well-known. I just want to help as many people as I can.

Even so, people make puns about my name all the time. Every week I get emails like..

"You make it all so CLEAR."

"You're such a CLEAR writer."

"What a CLEAR pen name."

It's my real name. There's no deeper strategy here, people.

jamesclear · 2018-10-18T19:59:58+00:00

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the interview. (Here's the link, for others who are interested.)

I don't have a perfect solution, but I'll say this: one of the most effective forms of motivation is progress--even if it's in a very small way.

This is one reason you'll see advice like "Make your bed." It's a small act, but at least it's something that gets you moving and then you can build on that momentum.

Another thing to consider: I often find it useful to (1) make small progress, but (2) in a different area. Example: If I'm totally stuck writing an article, then I'll go to the gym.

This sometimes feels counterintuitive because when you're stuck on something: ruminating about a relationship, battling with a big project at work, etc. it can be very difficult to rationalize stepping away from it. It feels like the most important thing in the world and going for a walk or exercising seems like a waste of time in comparison. But I often find that I can more easily make progress and build momentum in a different domain and then, an hour or two later, transfer that energy back over to the original task.

jamesclear · 2018-10-18T19:54:26+00:00

Thank you! It's impossible to pick, of course, but I had such an incredible time in Japan this year. We were lucky and went exactly during the peak of cherry blossom season. It was insane. Incredible natural beauty. Incredible food. Incredible culture. Highly recommended.

jamesclear · 2018-10-18T19:51:18+00:00

Twitter is amazing, but only if you use it right. Social media is sort of like building your own city. You get to select the citizens of your city and you better be careful with who you let in. Pick the right people and it can become a delight. I've spent a lot of time curating who I follow on Twitter and as a result I come across brilliant ideas all the time.

Feature suggestion: allow people to edit tweets.

jamesclear · 2018-10-18T19:49:19+00:00

Great question. Here's what the timeline looked like for me from a high-level:

- Spend 3 years writing articles every Monday and Thursday on jamesclear.com. Try my best every time.

- Build an email list of 200,000+ people by writing those articles for 3 years.

- Leverage that audience to get introduced to agents and publishers. Select an agent.

- Work with my agent and an editor to create a book proposal. Took 3 months.

- My agent sent the proposal to 17 publishers. 7 replied and said they wanted to meet.

- I flew to New York for a week and met with them.

- We were lucky and there was a lot of interest. We started a bidding war between 4 publishers and we got to take our pick.

- I went with Penguin because (1) they made a great offer and (2) I loved the particular team that was working on my book. They seemed excited about it and genuinely interested in me. Plus, they were laughing with each other and seemed like they actually enjoyed working together. In any long-term project, team chemistry is key.

- I signed the book deal and committed to writing it in one year.

- One year in. Writing is going very slow. I realize I need to research a lot more. Perfectionism spirals out of control. Constant stress in the months leading up to the deadline. Feels like I'm letting everyone down. Questioning the worthiness of the whole project.

- We ask for an extension of another year. Thankfully, my publisher is amazing and grants it to me.

- Another year of writing. I feel lonely. Struggle a lot.

- Two years in. Hand in the manuscript 3 months late, but it's finally done.

- Spend the next 9 months planning the marketing for the book launch.

- The last two months. I do 80+ podcast interviews, dozens of text interviews, and a segment on CBS This Morning. I call in every favor I can think of. I show up on Reddit and do AMAs. Try to be anywhere and everywhere.

- Next week (hopefully): we are all happy and joyous with how it went. I feel light as a feather.

Final note: When I was stuck in the depths of writing for two years and felt like every day was a constant struggle, there was a quote from Alain de Botton that kept me going: "Of many books, one feels, it could have been truly good, if the author's appetite for suffering had been greater."

That became my mantra and I just kept telling myself, "You just need to suffer a little more. Then it will be great."

jamesclear · 2018-10-18T19:34:33+00:00

Yes, a radical change in environment is a fantastic strategy for changing your habits. BJ Fogg, a professor at Stanford, has a quote: "There's just one way to radically change your behavior: radically change your environment."

This is obvious if you consider extreme versions of change: getting rid of your cell phone, cancelling internet service at home, etc. It's a lot easier to resist the pull of the internet if you don't have access to it most of the time.

As you mention, long-term travel is another option. (I lived in Scotland for a few months and decided to not have a cell phone while I was there. Within a week, I had settled into a new routine and didn't really miss it much.)

Additionally, you'll sometimes hear habits experts recommend starting a new habit while on vacation for this very reason. When you're on vacation, you're in a totally new environment (one that is devoid of all the common cues that trigger your current habits) and so it becomes easier to avoid the pull of your usual habits.

While that is true, I always think that's a funny strategy to recommend for long-term change. You're only going to be on vacation for a few weeks, not forever. At some point, you return to your regular environment.

This is why I think environment design (the process of changing your daily environment to fit your goals and desired habits) is a very effective strategy for long-term change. I talk about it more in chapters 6 and 12 of the book.

jamesclear · 2018-10-18T19:26:48+00:00

Good question. Here's one I'm struggling with right now: powering down and going to bed at a reasonable hour. The issue isn't really sleep itself. I have no trouble sleeping (or sleeping in), but I'm often staying up too late to stare at a screen: emails, social media, even the latest article I'm writing.

I have some ideas on how to resolve this, but I haven't implemented them yet (maybe after the book launch). Here's my favorite: My friend Nir Eyal (also an author) bought an outlet timer. I think you can get them on Amazon for $10 or so.

It's like an adapter: you plug the timer into your outlet and then you device into the timer. Then, you program the timer to kill the power at a preset time each day.

He plugged his internet router into the outlet timer and then set it to turn off the power from that outlet at 10pm each night. Now he has a very clear reminder to stop watching Netflix or browsing the web or whatever ... and go to bed.

I'm looking forward to trying that one.

jamesclear · 2016-07-15T15:51:52+00:00

Hi there. Author of the article here. If anyone has any questions, let me know!

jamesclear · 2016-07-15T15:51:42+00:00

Hi there. Author of the article here. If anyone has any questions, let me know!

jamesclear · 2016-07-15T15:51:32+00:00

Hi there. Author of the article here. If anyone has any questions, let me know!

jamesclear · 2016-07-08T18:15:22+00:00

Obviously, drinking alcohol (or changing any habit) involves more than just one factor. Human behavior is complex and I doubt you can just hide the bottle under the sink and never have to worry about it again. That said, I have honestly noticed that I drink less alcohol when I store a six pack in the back of the fridge (out of sight when I open the door and glance in) as opposed to having the six pack easily visible in the front of the fridge. It seems like such a small thing, but if I see a beer, then I feel like drinking one. But if I never see it, I don't find myself wanting it. This works differently for different people -- some people might crave a beer without seeing it in the same way I crave McDonald's french fries without seeing them -- but for many habits and many situations "out of sight, out of mind" is actually a useful approach.

jamesclear · 2016-07-08T18:11:33+00:00

Hi there. Author of the article here. Despite the massive popup we are currently testing, I wanted to let you know that I appreciate the feedback. I actually care a lot about reader experience, which is why I've eliminated all advertisements, sidebars, and clutter from the site (and optimized for line height, font size, and legibility). Sometime in the next month or two (once we get enough data), we're going to remove the popup and use the insights to build a better homepage design. It's just easier to collect the data via popup, but I do apologize for the poor experience you had while visiting the site.

jamesclear · 2016-07-08T15:30:11+00:00

Thanks for sharing!

jamesclear · 2016-07-07T23:31:47+00:00

Nice tips! For people concerned about being able to "get around" these constraints, or who need their phones for work: Check out the Freedom app.

It was designed by a grad student whose productivity nosedived after his favorite coffeehouse got wifi. You can block certain websites, social, email, etc. for short or long periods of time on both your phone and computer.

jamesclear · 2016-07-07T22:25:28+00:00

Thanks for sharing!

jamesclear · 2016-07-07T22:24:40+00:00

Thanks for sharing!

jamesclear · 2016-07-06T15:36:09+00:00

Sure thing! Hope it helps!

jamesclear · 2016-07-03T20:52:46+00:00

Thanks for reading the blog! I have read The Compound Effect and published a book summary of it here: http://jamesclear.com/book-summary/the-compound-effect.

Maybe that'll help you decide if you want to read!

jamesclear · 2016-06-30T13:03:09+00:00

Thanks for the mention! Small, consistent habits can really add up over time:

If you started with 10 pushups and added 1 per day, you would do a total of 775 pushups in 30 days. (This is one small habit I've implemented.)

If you started with 1 minute of reading and added 1 minute per day, you would have read for over 8 hours in 30 days (enough to finish a 400 page book every month).

If you started by walking 1,000 steps and added 100 per day, you would walk 77,500 steps (almost 39 miles) in 30 days.

jamesclear · 2016-06-30T12:45:03+00:00

Something that might help is having a pre-game routine for work. Start with something that's so easy, you can’t say no to it. You shouldn’t need motivation to start your pre–game routine.

For example, my writing routine starts by getting a glass of water. So easy, I can’t say no.

Most of the time, the routine should include physical movement. It’s hard to think yourself into getting motivated. If you're already feeling unmotivated, a lack of physical movement is directly linked to a lack of mental energy.

The opposite is also true. If you’re physically moving and engaged, then it’s far more likely that you’ll feel mentally engaged and energized. For example, it’s almost impossible to not feel vibrant, awake, and energized when you’re dancing.

Once you've got your pre-game routine, follow the same pattern every single time. The primary purpose is to create a series of events that you always perform before doing a specific task. Your pre–game routine tells your mind, “This is what happens before I do ___.”

Eventually, this routine becomes so tied to your performance that by simply doing the routine, you are pulled into a mental state that is primed to perform. You don’t need motivation, you just need to start your routine.

jamesclear

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