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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
James Clear
Read between
January 1 - January 4, 2023
The 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it easy. ■ The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning. ■ Focus on taking action, not being in motion. ■ Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition. ■ The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it.
You can be the most talented farmer in the world, but it won’t help you grow Florida oranges in the Canadian winter.
The changes started out small—a crop that spread slightly farther, a population that grew slightly faster—but compounded into substantial differences over time.
the truth is, our real motivation is to be lazy and to do what is convenient. And despite what the latest productivity best seller will tell you, this is a smart strategy, not a dumb one.
Out of all the possible actions we could take, the one that is realized is the one that delivers the most value for the least effort. We are motivated to do what is easy.
Habits like scrolling on our phones, checking email, and watching television steal so much of our time because they can be performed almost without effort. They are remarkably convenient.
In a sense, every habit is just an obstacle to getting what you really want. Dieting is an obstacle to getting fit. Meditation is an obstacle to feeling calm. Journaling is an obstacle to thinking clearly. You don’t actually want the habit itself. What you really want is the outcome the habit delivers.
The less friction you face, the easier it is for your stronger self to emerge.
(This is one reason tidying up can feel so good: we are simultaneously moving forward and lightening the cognitive load our environment places on us.)
Business is a never-ending quest to deliver the same result in an easier fashion.
create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible. Much of the battle of building better habits comes down to finding ways to reduce the friction associated with our good habits and increase the friction associated with our bad ones.
The purpose of resetting each room is not simply to clean up after the last action, but to prepare for the next action.
my wife keeps a box of greeting cards that are presorted by occasion—birthday, sympathy, wedding, graduation, and more. Whenever necessary,
Whenever possible, I leave my phone in a different room until lunch. When it’s right next to me, I’ll check it all morning for no reason at all. But when it is in another room, I rarely think about it. And the friction is high enough that I won’t go get it without a reason. As a result, I get three to four hours each morning when I can work without interruption.
If sticking your phone in another room doesn’t seem like enough, tell a friend or family member to hide it from you for a few hours. Ask a coworker to keep it at their desk in the morning and give it back to you at lunch.
When I delete social media apps from my phone, it can be weeks before I download them again and log in.
“How can we design a world where it’s easy to do what’s right?” Redesign your life so the actions that matter most are also the actions that are easiest to do.
Human behavior follows the Law of Least Effort. We will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work. ■ Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible. ■ Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low, habits are easy. ■ Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When friction is high, habits are difficult. ■ Prime your environment to make future actions easier.
“The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.
Researchers estimate that 40 to 50 percent of our actions on any given day are done out of habit.
Habits are automatic choices that influence the conscious decisions that follow.
Habits are like the entrance ramp to a highway. They lead you down a path and, before you know it, you’re speeding toward the next behavior.
If I change clothes, I know the workout will happen.
Every day, there are a handful of moments that deliver an outsized impact. I refer to these little choices as decisive moments.
decisive moments.
The difference between a good day and a bad day is often a few productive and healthy choices made at decisive moments.
Each day is made up of many moments, but it is really a few habitual choices that determine the path you take. These little choices stack up, each one setting the trajectory for how you spend the next chunk of time.
use the Two-Minute Rule, which states, “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”
“Read before bed each night” becomes “Read one page.” ■ “Do thirty minutes of yoga” becomes “Take out my yoga mat.” ■ “Study for class” becomes “Open my notes.” ■ “Fold the laundry” becomes “Fold one pair of socks.” ■ “Run three miles” becomes “Tie my running shoes.” The idea is to make your habits as easy as possible to start.
A new habit should not feel like a challenge. The actions that follow can be challenging, but the first two minutes should be easy. What you want is a “gateway habit” that naturally leads you down a more productive path.
But the point is not to do one thing. The point is to master the habit of showing up.
The more you ritualize the beginning of a process, the more likely it becomes that you can slip into the state of deep focus that is required to do great things.
Strategies like this work for another reason, too: they reinforce the identity you want to build.
It’s better to do less than you hoped than to do nothing at
habit shaping
Habits can be completed in a few seconds but continue to impact your behavior for minutes or hours afterward. ■ Many habits occur at decisive moments—choices that are like a fork in the road—and either send you in the direction of a productive day or an unproductive one. ■ The Two-Minute Rule states, “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.” ■ The more you ritualize the beginning of a process, the more likely it becomes that you can slip into the state of deep focus that is required to do great things. ■ Standardize before you optimize. You can’t improve a habit
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commitment device. A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that controls your actions in the future.
The best way to break a bad habit is to make it impractical to do.
When you automate as much of your life as possible, you can spend your effort on the tasks machines cannot do yet. Each habit that we hand over to the authority of technology frees up time and energy to pour into the next stage of growth. As mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead wrote, “Civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them.”
Technology creates a level of convenience that enables you to act on your smallest whims and desires.
The downside of automation is that we can find ourselves jumping from easy task to easy task without making time for more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding, work.
The average person spends over two hours per day on social media.8 What could you do with an extra six hundred hours per year?)
By utilizing commitment devices, strategic onetime decisions, and technology, you can create an environment of inevitability—a space where good habits are not just an outcome you hope for but an outcome that is virtually guaranteed.
The inversion of the 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it difficult. ■ A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that locks in better behavior in the future. ■ The ultimate way to lock in future behavior is to automate your habits. ■ Onetime choices—like buying a better mattress or enrolling in an automatic savings plan—are single actions that automate your future habits and deliver increasing returns over time. ■ Using technology to automate your habits is the most reliable and effective way to guarantee the right behavior. HOW TO CREATE A GOOD HABIT The 1st Law Make It Obvious
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The problem wasn’t knowledge. The problem was consistency.
What is rewarded is repeated. What is punished is avoided.
Positive emotions cultivate habits. Negative emotions destroy them.
The first three laws of behavior change—make it obvious, make it attractive, and make it easy—increase the odds that a behavior will be performed this time. The fourth law of behavior change—make it satisfying—increases the odds that a behavior will be repeated next time. It completes the habit loop.
We are not looking for just any type of satisfaction. We are looking for ...
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You live in what scientists call a delayed-return environment because you can work for years before your actions deliver the intended payoff.
