Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

by Gretchen Rubin

When we give more to ourselves, we can ask more from ourselves.

habits are the invisible architecture of daily life.

Eat and drink more healthfully (give up sugar, eat more vegetables, drink less alcohol) 2. Exercise regularly 3. Save, spend, and earn wisely (save regularly, pay down debt, donate to worthy causes, stick to a budget) 4. Rest, relax, and enjoy (stop watching TV in bed, turn off a cell phone, spend time in nature, cultivate silence, get enough sleep, spend less time in the car) 5. Accomplish more, stop procrastinating (practice an instrument, work without interruption, learn a language, maintain a blog) 6. Simplify, clear, clean, and organize (make the bed, file regularly, put keys away in the same place, recycle) 7. Engage more deeply in relationships—with other people, with God, with the world (call friends, volunteer, have more sex, spend more time with family, attend religious services)

Princeton study that found that visual clutter reduces your ability to focus and process information.”

“Follow the one-minute rule: if you can do a task in less than a minute, do it.” “Never keep newspapers overnight.” “Use counters for activities, not for storage.”

When scheduling a new habit, it helps to tie it to an existing habit, such as “after breakfast,” or to an external cue, such as “when my alarm rings,” because without such a trigger, it’s easy to forget to do the new action.

The desire to start something at the “right” time is usually just a justification for delay. In almost every case, the best time to start is now.

fixed habits—that is, habits that always happen in the same way, without conscious thought.

unfixed habit requires more decision making and adjustment: I’m in the habit of going to the gym on Mondays, and I write every day, but every Monday I must decide when to go to the gym, and I must decide when and where I’ll do my daily writing.

a habit took sixty-six days to form. An

Andy Warhol said, “Either once only, or every day.

whenever possible, important habits should be scheduled for the morning.

Use the autumn end to daylight saving time as a painless way to add an hour to the morning.

scheduling an “artist’s date,” that is, taking a few hours each week to “nurture your creative consciousness,” with activities such as visiting an art gallery, checking out a junk store, exploring a new neighborhood, or going for a walk.

overestimate what we can accomplish in the short term (in one afternoon, in one week), we often underestimate what we can accomplish over the long term if we work consistently.

“Worry.” Although scheduling time to worry sounds odd, it’s a proven strategy for reducing anxiety. Instead of worrying continually, a person saves the worry until the appointed time, and then worries until the time is up.

private resolver wrote: “I have to keep my goals private or they lose their magic.” Another private resolver added, “The more I talk to other people about what I’m thinking about doing, the less likely I am to do it! The more I work on a goal in secret, the more likely I am to accomplish it.”

self-sabotage. Instead of doing his best work and being judged, he does it at the last minute. That way, if he does well, he can say, ‘I’m so brilliant that I do well even when I throw something together,’ and if he does poorly, he can say, ‘What do you expect? I did that work in two days.’ ” It was time for

Blast Start can

A twenty-one-day project, a detox, a cleanse, an ambitious goal, a boot camp—by tackling more instead of less for a certain period, I get a surge of energy and focus. (Not

“How many shrinks does it take to change a lightbulb?” “Only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change.”

Something that can be done at any time often happens at no time, and waiting vaguely for the right time to start again is very risky.

Thinking about forever can be intimidating, so the one-day-at-a-time concept helps many people stick to their good habits.

Again, this is where deciding-not-to-decide comes to the rescue. I don’t revisit my habits. I just think, “This is what I’m doing today.” Trust the habit. I take that first step, over and over and over.

Could I join a new group? Joining a group is a clean slate of relationships. It’s a way to enter a new social scene and, often, an area of learning.

action unleashed an enormous force: the Strategy

“Progress, not perfection,” I told him. “Even if you make exceptions sometimes, you’re eating better than before.”

the temptation, the giving in, the promise of moderation, and then the slide into overindulgence.

“First, I gave up dairy,” he explained. “That didn’t seem too hard. No milk in my coffee, no ice cream. Then I gave up rice. Then bread. Each time I had to decide that I would give it up forever. But it never seemed very hard to stop eating a particular thing, and then I never thought about it again.”

habit convenience is a wise investment.

“Gamification” is used in the design of devices and apps to help people improve their habits.

invest in good tools and pleasant work surroundings.

easier to make pleasant activities into habits.

realized that I should first consider whether I should maintain those habits at all. It’s too easy to spend time on needless tasks, and

Michael Pollan advises, “Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.”

There are six obvious ways to make an activity less convenient: • Increase the amount of physical or mental energy required (leave the cell phone in another room, ban smoking inside or near a building). • Hide any cues (put the video game controller on a high shelf). • Delay it (read email only after 11:00 a.m.). • Engage in an incompatible activity (to avoid snacking, do a puzzle). • Raise the cost (one study showed that people at high risk for smoking were pleased by a rise in the cigarette tax; after London imposed a congestion charge to enter the center of the city, people’s driving habits changed, with fewer cars on the road and more use of public transportation). • Block it altogether (give away the TV set).

People who feel less guilt and who show compassion toward themselves in the face of failure are better able to regain self-control, while people who feel deeply guilty and full of self-blame struggle more.

try thinking of each day as a set of four quarters: morning, midday, afternoon, evening. If you blow one quarter, you get back on track for the next quarter. Fail small, not big.”

Someone who can’t go for a run because his wife is sick can go for a short walk. Someone who can’t write for an hour because the kids are home from school can write for ten minutes.

making a purely mental shift can be difficult, so distraction works best when it involves physical activity: walking around the block, woodworking, or cleaning out the kitty-litter box. Of course, if it’s an enjoyable distraction, such as playing catch with a child, so much the better.

One unexpected benefit of going to sleep earlier has been the marked decline in the frequency of my bad trances. When I’m not exhausted, and when I’m not up too late, I don’t fall into this habit.

Alfie Kohn in Punished by Rewards and Daniel Pink in Drive,

several sources of intrinsic motivation: Challenge: we find personal meaning in pursuing a goal that’s difficult but not impossible. Curiosity: we’re intrigued and find pleasure in learning more. Control: we like the feeling of mastery. Fantasy: we play a game; we use our imagination to make an activity more stimulating. Cooperation: we enjoy the satisfaction of working with others. Competition: we feel gratified when we can compare ourselves favorably to others. Recognition: we’re pleased when others recognize our accomplishments and contributions.

‘As a reward for preparing and bringing in my own lunch, I’ll splurge on a lunch at an expensive restaurant on Friday,’ you think, ‘Now that I’m bringing in lunch every day, I’m going to splurge on a fabulous set of knives, so my habit of cooking is more fun.’ ” “What’s the difference?”

shredding mail, emptying out files, or even peeling hard-boiled eggs can feel like a treat. Funnily enough, clearing clutter is also a treat for me, when I’m in a certain mood. On my blog, people wrote about their own untreatlike treats: ironing, writing code, doing Latin translation.

sketching, playing tennis, cooking, doing puzzles, or playing a musical instrument,

“I’m getting a massage, which increases immune function” or “I’ll go to the football game with my brother, and that will strengthen our family ties.” Other Questioners like to consider treats as “investments.” A Questioner wrote: “I’m getting a haircut at the expensive place, not the $20 place, because having a professional cut and color helps my career. (Maybe a little bit just because I like it so much better.)” To be sure, some Questioners may conclude that “because I want to” is a sufficient justification for a treat.

Television stays a treat, I concluded, if: • I anticipate with pleasure watching a particular show (I’m not just flipping through the channels). • I watch with someone else. • I turn off the TV when the episode is over. • I feel energized, not listless, when the episode is over.

Often, too, we can describe the same attribute in either positive or negative terms, which can help us shape the habits we want: Am I conscientious or rigid? Spontaneous or impulsive? Gourmet or glutton? Fun-loving or slacker? Artistic or disorganized? Energetic or restless?

“Here’s something I’ve noticed,” I said. “If I do something only occasionally, people don’t adjust. If I make a habit of something, they adapt.” A friend had the same experience: “When I started shutting my office door for a few hours every morning, my coworkers learned to deal with it.”