Atomic Habits

Like the idea of building habits rather than striving after goals. Goals are subject to gamification and fictionalization, but habits are slowly built, incremental tools. "Do you want to run a race, or do you want to be a runner?"

(Had a couple other things noted, but then it got eaten,,,)

There is some good advice in here but WOW does this guy hate fat people. Holy crap dude we get it! No need to harp on about it

I speed listened to this book to try and gain some traction in life after realizing I have very very few positive habits. I was surprised to hear some gems towards the end, like adapting habits to our personality types. Although I sped through it, there are some worksheets which are online and can provide some really useful practical tools, I am looking to use those

Key to this book is the idea of small but compounded changes.

Full of useful examples, lessons, and very pragmatic and practical. I am very glad that I picked it up.

One star is missing, because, just like many self help books, this suffers from the vice of unnecessary elongation.

This book could have had 30 pages less and be equally effective.

One full star removed for 30/40 pages? Not quite. The style of this book also matters. Whenever। a new concept is introduced, the author starts a story. This was true for all of the concepts. This was a little tiring to read.

Padded to draw out the length, but informative

Sustains
- clear info on the psychology of behavior
- good use of end-of-chapter summaries

Improves
- repeated information to pad the text to a more “book-worthy” length
- could bring in documentation that is only available on the author’s website as lead magnets (I don’t want to give up my email to get info that is a part of the book; I just want to read the book)

There's a lot about this book that I like, and that has helped me. Specifically the parts about breaking large daunting habits down into smaller achievable pieces, chaining habits together so that doing one makes you do others, and generally making habits enjoyable and convenient. There's a lot of practical advice. My only problem is that the book is framed from the perspective of an athlete who's striving for excellence. That's by no means unusual in self help books written by American men. I just don't derive a lot of motivation from a need to prove myself through competition.

I thought the book was good. It seemed to cover a lot of the same ideas as "The Power of Habit", though this book is more focused on putting the ideas into practice as opposed to the science behind why things work. Also, I read the Spanish translation since that's the version read by most of the people that recommended me this book.

I was expecting this to be the kind of book that has a big idea that could easily be explained in an article, but has to be lengthened to sell it. It ended up being a good length and worth it.

2nd: Clear’s newsletter notified everyone that the hardcover is 40% off, and a second read-through helped a lot. I saw where I’m still slacking, and was reminded of things I skipped the first time, like his annual review and integrity report. It’s still the best combination of habits/self-improvement/psychology. The book requires homework but it’s worth the time.
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1st: Combines many useful books and ideas into one actionable read. Compounding 1% daily, habit stacking, desired rewards, systems over goals, two-minute habits, discipline = freedom, etc.

Most of this book presents a clear and useful framework for thinking about and developing habits, or minimising behaviours you'd rather avoid. The style is very much the modern "originally written for a blog" one, and thankfully his anecdotes are mostly taken from others as I get the impression I'd find him quite intolerable in person.

Something that might have been useful is discussion of what happens when your brain's dopamine response is atypical, do you just crank these strategies to 11? Are there other complimentary approaches? It's perhaps understandable that the book assumes a neurotypical reader, but it also seems like this is exactly the sort of book that might be sought out by someone who isn't.

Still, there's a lot of useful stuff in here and I'm looking forward to putting it into practice.

A hugely enjoyable and easy to read book on habit forming, which both manages to bust some myths (no, doing something for X days will not form a habit) and contains a very simple insight: while goals work really well to achieve specifics, it is habits which truly change you for the better.

Great thoughts on how to build habits by habit stacking, shaping your environment among others.

For some reason this book took me a long time to finish, I think that maybe I was avoiding it because I felt guilty I wasn’t creating any new healthy habits while I was reading it. But I did finish it and I can say it deserves all the praise it’s got so far. James Clear was able to structure a simple yet powerful process for us to implement new habits, and to help us understand how and why habits impact our lives in weather good or bad. I’ve definitely included into my life some of the tools and practices he described here. I recommend anyone to read this book along with “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson for a powerful combination.