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Kindle Notes & Highlights
make one healthy choice, and then stop choosing.
stress doesn’t necessarily make us likely to indulge in bad habits; when we’re anxious or tired, we fall back on our habits, whether bad or good.
Habit is a good servant but a bad master.
The happiest and most successful people are those who have figured out ways to exploit their Tendency to their benefit and, just as important, found ways to counterbalance its limitations.
If we want something to count in our lives, we should figure out a way to count it.
The desire to start something at the “right” time is usually just a justification for delay.
Although many people believe that habits form in twenty-one days, when researchers at University College London examined how long people took to adopt a daily habit, such as drinking water or doing sit-ups, they found that, on average, a habit took sixty-six days to form.
Andy Warhol said, “Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more.”
That's me with exercising! I was going to give myself a day off from going to the Y today but now I realize that wouldn't benefit me.
take a daily photo of something beautiful or interesting.
I like this idea!
Consistency, repetition, no decision—this was the way to develop the ease of a true habit.
people who schedule playtime are more likely to tackle unappealing projects than people who never let themselves enjoy guilt-free fun until after their work is finished.
Procrastinators can’t make themselves work—often, ironically, because they’re so anxious about work that they have to distract themselves from it—but they can’t enjoy free time, either, because they know they should be working. A regular work schedule can help procrastinators because progress and engagement relieve their anxiety.
“working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination. You want to use your writing time for writing only. Nothing else, including no other kinds of work.”
The goal is to develop habits that allow us to have time for everything we value—work, fun, exercise, friends, errands, study—in a way that’s sustainable, forever. Favoring work at the expense of everything else makes work itself less pleasant, diminishes quality of life, and creates a constant feeling of “emergency.”
Accountability means that we face consequences for what we’re doing—even if that consequence is merely the fact that someone else is monitoring us.
acting as an accountability partner can be tricky. I don’t want people to dread contact with me because I make them feel guilty about some broken habit. Also, it’s a lot of work to be a reliable accountability partner.
it’s quite pleasant to think about how virtuous I’ll be, tomorrow.
transitions often trigger the urge to snack or drink—
Maybe why I always want to snack & drink in the car?
We must guard against anything that might weaken a valuable habit.
For many people, don’t-break-the-chain is a powerful strategy—
Something that can be done at any time often happens at no time,
Habits are the behaviors that I want to follow forever, without decisions, without debate, no stopping, no finish lines.
We should start the way we want to continue.
Routines are chains of habits, and when just one seemingly insignificant link weakens, it can disrupt the entire habit chain.
Gary Taubes’s book Why We Get Fat.
we should avoid eating easily digestible, high-carb food: sugar, bread, cereal, grains, pasta, potatoes, rice, corn, juice, beer, wine, soda.
to get the benefit of being part of a group, you must participate. It’s not enough to lurk or listen. You must speak up, hold others accountable, help to keep the group on track, ask questions, and show up. If someone recommends a book, read it; if someone suggests an app, give it a try.
