I have been hearing about Atomic Habits for a while now and there was a period when I was obsessed with James Clear’s website too. I finally got to read the book Atomic Habits recently, thanks to my new habit of rising an hour earlier in the morning, and I thought why not share the summary of Atomic habits with y’all. Don’t I sound a nice?
The aim is to bring you the essence of the books, even if and especially if you are not a reader. Not everyone likes or wants to read but everyone wants to learn right? Let us use that motivation to better ourselves. So let us get on with it, shall we?
About Atomic Habits
Book Name: Atomic habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results, An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
The book consists of about 21 chapters including the conclusion. And the summary of Atomic habits will be in three parts, so that each post will be a bite sized version and would not overwhelm you. As I said we will make it easy as possible for you!
This is just a book summary of Atomic Habits by James Clear to help other people who would not be able to read the entire book by themselves. These lines are taken from James’ book for academic purposes only. I am not posing as it is my work or my ideas. The copyrights rights are with the author only.
Chapter 1: The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits
The aggregation of marginal gains – searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do.
The idea is that if you broke down everything you could think of, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.
It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis.
Too often, we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action.
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement .
1% BETTER EVERY DAY
1% BETTER EVERY DAY 1% worse every day for one year. 0.99 365 = 00.03 1% better every day for one year. 1.01 365 = 37.78
Be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.
If you find yourself struggling to build a good habit or break a bad one, it is not because you have lost your ability to improve. It is often because you have not yet crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential.
FORGET ABOUT GOALS, FOCUS ON SYSTEMS INSTEAD
Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.
If you’re a coach, your goal might be to win a championship. Your system is the way you recruit players, manage your assistant coaches, and conduct practice.
Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.
What happens when you have goals but not systems?
Problem #1: Winners and losers have the same goals. So that can’t be the reason for the winners/survivors.
Problem #2: Achieving a goal is only a momentary change.
Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment.
If you have a goal to have a clean room, cleaning it is only for NOW. It will be a mess again soon.
We think we need to change our results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results.
Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.
Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness.
“Either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment”. “Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy.”.
You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.
Problem #4: Goals are at odds with long-term progress.
When all of your hard work is focused on a particular goal, what is left to push you forward after you achieve it?
A SYSTEM OF ATOMIC HABITS
If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you.
The problem is your system.
Habits are like the atoms of our lives. Just as atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the building blocks of remarkable results.
Chapter 2 How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa)
Changing our habits is challenging for two reasons: 1) we try to change the wrong thing and 2) we try to change our habits in the wrong way.
There are three levels at which change can occur.
Changing your outcomes: losing weight, publishing a book, winning a championship. Outcomes are about what you get.
Changing your habits and systems AKA process: new routine at the gym, decluttering your desk for better workflow, developing a meditation practice. Processes are about what you do.
Changing your beliefs/Identity: your worldview, your self-image, your judgments about yourself and others. Identity is about what you believe
Your behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity.
I am horrible at math, I am not a morning person, I am not organized
When you have repeated a story to yourself for years, it is easy to slide into these mental grooves and accept them as a fact.
In time, you begin to resist certain actions because “that’s not who I am.”
There is internal pressure to maintain your self-image and behave in a way that is consistent with your beliefs.
You find whatever way you can to avoid contradicting yourself.
It can feel comfortable to believe what your culture believes (group identity) or to do what upholds your self-image (personal identity), even if it’s wrong.
Whatever your identity is right now, you only believe it because you have proof of it. If you go to church every Sunday for twenty years, you have evidence that you are religious. It’s unlikely you would consider yourself a soccer player because you kicked a ball once or an artist because you scribbled a picture. The more evidence you have for a belief, the more strongly you will believe it.
We do not change by snapping our fingers and deciding to be someone entirely new. We change bit by bit, day by day, habit by habit.
Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.
If nothing changes, nothing is going to change.
The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.
Each time you write a page, you are a writer. Each time you practice the violin, you are a musician. Each time you start a workout, you are an athlete. Each time you encourage your employees, you are a leader.
New identities require new evidence.
Changing is a two step process
Decide the type of person you want to be. “I’m the kind of doctor who gives each patient the time and empathy they need.” “I’m the kind of manager who advocates for her employees.”
Prove it to yourself with small wins. “What would a healthy person do?” Would a healthy person walk or take a cab? Would a healthy person order a burrito or a salad?
Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits.
It’s a two-way street.
Building better habits isn’t about littering your day with life hacks.
Your habits matter because they help you become the type of person you wish to be.
Chapter 3 How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps
A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.
Habits are, simply, reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment. – Jason Hreha
People who don’t have their habits handled are often the ones with the least amount of freedom. If you’re always being forced to make decisions about simple tasks—when should I work out, where do I go to write, when do I pay the bills—then you have less time for freedom.
The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior.
What you crave is not the habit itself but the change in state it delivers. You do not crave smoking a cigarette, you crave the feeling of relief it provides.
We chase rewards because they serve two purposes: (1) they satisfy us and (2) they teach us – reward detector.
If a behavior is insufficient in any of the four stages, it will not become a habit.
Eliminate the cue and your habit will never start.
Reduce the craving and you won’t experience enough motivation to act.
Make the behavior difficult and you won’t be able to do it.
And if the reward fails to satisfy your desire, then you’ll have no reason to do it again in the future.
Without the first three steps, a behavior will not occur. Without all four, a behavior will not be repeated. It is an endless feedback loop
THE 1ST LAW Make It Obvious
Chapter 4 The Man Who Didn’t Look Right
You don’t need to be aware of the cue for a habit to begin. – hunger/cookie
We dont realize that you apologize before asking a question, or that you have a habit of finishing other people’s sentences.
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. – Carl Jung
We’re so used to doing what we’ve always done that we don’t stop to question whether it’s the right thing to do at all.
It is a lack of self awareness
Create your Habits Scorecard
Make a list of your daily habits.
Write your score near each habit If it is a good habit, write “+” next to it. If it is a bad habit, write “–”. If it is a neutral habit, write “=”.
The goal is to simply notice what is actually going on.
You can try Pointing-and-Calling for extra dose of self awareness
If you want to cut back on your junk food habit but notice yourself grabbing another cookie, say out loud,
“I’m about to eat this cookie, but I don’t need it. Eating it will cause me to gain weight and hurt my health.”
Chapter 5 The Best Way to Start a New Habit
Voter turnout increases when people are forced to create implementation intentions by answering questions like:
“What route are you taking to the polling station? At what time are you planning to go? What bus will get you there?
People who make a specific plan for when and where are more likely to follow through.
Habit stacking
Identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top.
Example: After I finish eating dinner, I will put my plate directly into the dishwasher. After I put my dishes away, I will immediately wipe down the counter. After I wipe down the counter, I will set out my coffee mug for tomorrow morning.
Habit stacking allows you to create a set of simple rules that guide your future behavior.
Chapter 6 Motivation Is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More
People often choose products not because of what they are, but because of where they are.
Make sure the best choice is the most obvious one.
Example: If you want to drink more water, fill up a few water bottles each morning and place them on your table
In fact, the trigger is rarely a single cue, but rather the whole situation
Create a separate space for work, study, exercise, entertainment, and cooking. “One space, one use.”
It is easier to build new habits in a new environment because you are not fighting against old cues.
Change your environment/routine to change habits
Chapter 7 The Secret to Self-Control
Disciplined people are better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control, because they spend less time in tempting situations.
Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one.
Other parts of the summary of Atomic habits
By the way, do not forget to grab the next two parts of the summary of Atomic Habits by James Clear in the following weeks.
Did you find my summary of Atomic Habits useful? Do you read summaries of books or would you rather read the entire book by yourself? Do you read non fiction at all? What other non fiction book should I be summarizing? Let us talk.
The book you choose to read makes a great difference in what you gain. You can choose a murder mystery or romance to get you to relax, but do they help you in gaining knowledge? What if I say there are books eight books that will make you smarter that are enjoyable too?
Books that will make you smarter
Here are my top eight choices for books that will make you smarter. Let us start shall we?
1) What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
Author: Randall Munroe
Randall Munroe of xkcd.com fame (a former physicist and NASA robotics employee turned brilliant comics artist) provides scientific answers for absurd questions in his book What if.
With his trademark humor and illustrations, What if is perfect for anyone who wants to know the answers for the hypothetical questions.
2) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Author: Yuval Noah Harari
Change the way you think of history of humankind by reading Sapiens. What could have made us, the way we are as a society? Could the fictions we spin helped us to behave better as a group?
Harari makes us realize everything we have read about pre-historic world, in our schools and beyond, is just a sample on what could have happened. Sapiens is a must read if you are curious (and you should be) about the history of mankind.
3) Thinking, Fast and Slow
Author: Daniel Kahneman
This book has its place in every list of must read non fiction and rightly so. The Nobel prize winning author talks about human thinking that is of two types – one like it is on an auto pilot and the more conscious thinking.
With real life examples on how these different cognitive abilities affect real life decision making, Thinking, Fast and Slow is an interesting read that can make you smarter!
4) Train Your Brain: 60 Days to a Better Brain
Author: Dr. Ryuta Kawashima
Designed specifically for adults who want to stay sharp, the book is a bestseller in Japan since it was published.
With daily 5 minute exercise with simple mathematics problems, this is a great work book to help you become sharper and smarter soon.
5) Stuff Matters
Author: Mark Miodownik
Stuff matters takes us on a brilliant tour of various materials that we see and use in life (like concrete, chocolate and glass) and tells why these materials have a specific characteristic.
Why do some materials have an odor? Why some glass shatter and others are bullet proof? In his own witty and anecdotal way makes us think and enjoy his tour through material science.
6) A Short History of Nearly Everything
Author: Bill Bryson
This is one of those book that everyone should read as soon as possible. Bryson offers a crash course on all your existential crisis and provides answers to them with his wry humor.
From UFOs to bacteria to radioactivity this book nearly covers everything that a smart person should know. And the writing is pretty fun too.
7) The Art of War
Author: Sun Tzu
Considered as one of the text book guide on competing in the modern business world, The art of war talks about the psychology and strategy for the warfare.
But the principles of the ancient Chinese warfare could be applied to any competitive situation and/or conflict resolution or just to understand the human psychology.
It is a must read for CEO and wanna be high executives alike.
8) A Brief History of Time
Author: Stephen Hawking
Written in a plain language without too many scientific terms, this book shot the author as pop cultural icon. This book talks about black holes, universe and antimatter and answers profound questions, in a way anyone could understand it.
A perfect book that will make you smarter with a little bit of effort.
That’s it for now folks, these are my top eight choice of books to make you smarter.
So what do you think about my choice of books that will make you smarter? Have you read any of them? Suggest your favorite non fiction book. Let me know in the comments.
Are you a new reader who wants to kick start the reading habit? Or you may be returning to reading books for pleasure after a long gap? Either way if you are looking for book recommendations, I got you covered.
My criteria for this starter pack for new readers would be books that are
short
currently relevant
funny and romantic
thrillers and horrors
adapted into Series/movies
Non fiction / self help books
Books to kick start the reading habit
Let us get on with my recommendations, shall we?
1) A Man called Ove by Fredrik Backman
This is one of those heartwarming books that would bring a smile to your cold heart.
Ove is a mean, grumpy and opinionated old man, who looks forward to the day he would join his late wife, Sonja. What happens to this grumpy old man when he unwillingly meets his messy neighbors, forms the rest of the story.
Red, White & Royal Blue is such a cute, sweet and funny LGBTQA romance that will definitely keep your lock down sorrows go away.
The sons of the first families of The USA and the UK hate each other dislike each other and the world knows it. The first families and their PRs decide to intervene and stage a fake Instagram relationship. What starts as a fake friendship between them blossoms into something more.
Satoru and his feral cat Nana, have settled into a comfortable companionship. But Satoru suddenly decides to give away Nana and they embark on a journey to find a suitable home among his friends. Read The Travelling Cat Chronicles to join the duo on their travel through Japan and Satoru’s childhood memories!
The Travelling Cat Chronicles is a feel good book, with a bittersweet ending. Be prepared to cry, laugh and snicker throughout!
Maddy led a very sheltered life all through her life due to her illness. She has never stepped out of her house in years and her mother and her nurse are the only one she interacts with. Them and her book blog. Until a new family moves to their neighborhood.
You might like this short YA romance with a twist you wouldn’t see coming!
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is one of those rare movie adaptation that was as good as the book. The story revolves around Lara Jean, an introvert who writes letters to her crushes to get it out of her system. Unexpectedly those get delivered to all those boys and hilarity ensues.
This Young Adult book and its movie adaptation took everyone by a storm. You will love it if you are looking for a cute romance with teenage angst!
Dimple Shah has ambitious plans for her life and has been accepted to Stanford. But her parents have other plans for her. Dimple ambushed by her parents hates Rishi even before she gets a chance to know him. Does her opinion about Rishi changes after she knows him better?
When Dimple Met Rishi is a cute YA contemporary romance that would make you grin in all the right places.
One of us is lying begins at detention with five students that fit the popular stereotypes (the Breakfast Club?)
Things go haywire when one of them dies of an allergic reaction right in front of them at the detention center. The police suspect foul play and the other four teens are brought under spotlight.
Did the fact that Simon was going to publish their secrets on his website the next day had anything to do with his death? You will have to read One of us is lying to know more.
One of us is lying is definitely an easy to read book and I finished reading it in a few hours. And needless to say it was un-put-down-able. Perfect to start your reading habit!
Dr. Anna Fox’s daily routine includes drinking a lot of wine while being highly medicated, watching retro movies and peeking into her neighbours’ house through their windows.
But when she sees something untoward happening at her neighbors’ she has no grounds to report about it. How she proves that she did not hallucinate and finds out the culprit form the rest of the story in The Woman in the Window.
The Woman in the Window will keep you occupied and might even turn to be unputdownable. With the movie version coming before the end of the year, you might wanna read it already.
Stuck between the two worlds and parents who have different views about their lives, Starr feels an outsider in both places. Starr understands her lives are universes apart and has never had to choose between them – until the fateful night, her unarmed friend Khalil gets shot by a cop in front of her eyes.
Should she remain silent, as her mother and uncle want her to be, and save herself from the wrath of the public and her own peers at school? Or should she put her life in danger, give a voice to the cause that may lead nowhere?
The Hate U Give is essentially a coming of age story in the present American scenario, dealing with racism, bullying and violence. It is inspired by the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, obviously but is much more than that.
It is an honest account of a strong black family that has nothing to do with the gangs or drugs but is put to trial because of their skin colour.
Set in not so distant dystopian future, women have lost all that they won in the recent past, at least partially – the ability to chose what they wore, what they did for life or even handle money. They are forbidden from reading, writing and even speaking freely.
Their existence is based on their functionality – the wives (in charge of the household), the helps (Marthas), the teachers (Aunts), the wombs (Handmaids), the sexual toys ( Jezebels) and the outcasts (Unwoman) are sent to Colonies where they are left to harvest cotton or clean up the radioactive waste.
Offred, our narrator, a handmaid belongs to Fred, who is on her third and final attempt to conceive a child with a government appointed ‘Commander.’
Offred falls for Nick, the Guardian for the commander, a crime that could lead them both to be publicly hung. Was the risk worth taking? Did she learn anything about her family? Read to know more.
The Handmaid’s Tale might be a little hard to get into, yet once you are into it, you can not stop it. You can not read The Handmaid’s Tale as a breeze through the weekend. You can not unsee once you have been to the Republic of Gilead and not relate it to the real world.
The book follows the journeys of a young shepherd boy on his search for ancient treasure. The philosophical theme that ‘the universe conspires to help us achieve things we want’ is well written and shines through.
This simple and brief fable took the world by storm when it came out. The message is still relevant today. And perfect for someone who wants to kick start the reading habit.
The book is divided into two parts, a short story and then the relevant message. The basic theme of the books is how to deal with change and the importance of the right attitude in life.
While it is usually classified as a business subject, it is equally possible for anyone if us to implement them in our life.
What do you think about my choices? Would you recommend these books to someone who wants to start the reading habit? If you are someone who is starting the reading habit just now, let me know what you choose. Let us talk.
With almost 25% of the countries in the world have imposed a lock down due to the Corona virus pandemic, staying in seems the only way to go. And that might be a bit too convenient for us bookworms, right? If you were one of those introverts, you would have preferred to stay in with a cuppa.
For others staying in might be hard and can quickly become too much. But when there is literally no other safe way to get away from it, why not make the best use of the downtime?
Things to do without leaving the house
So, let us talk about the things to do inside the house during the lock down time aka “don’t leave your house if you value it” time, shall we?
3. Try one of the virtual museum tours if you are into culture and art. Museums of Amsterdam, London,South Koreaand even the Vaticanat your fingertips.
4. Learn a new language or more realistically, learn to say hello in different languages. Duolingo might interest you!
5. Can you name all the countries in the world. Learn with the World Geography games site.
6. Now you got all the time, and there is no excuse to not do those at home workouts. Keep fit!
9. Bring out those board games and play with your family or friends, whoever is around.
Clean up around the house
1. Do a fashion show and try every one of your dress. Discard or donate anything that do not fit or “spark joy”, Marie Kondo style.
2. Clean up your media folder on your phone and PC. Delete those duplicates and let your phone breathe a bit.
3. Are you one of those oldies that still has music stored on your PC or even CDs? Welcome to 2020, clean that up! I bet Media Monkey is still going strong.
4. Match all your Tupperware lids to the containers. In addition, the desi version of this is pick all the polythene covers lying around the house and collect them in a huge one.
5. Make a budget and check your finance. We need to ride out this tough times!
6. Get your taxes done early this year! Even though the governments would probably move the deadlines to pay the taxes.
7. Also ,why not catch up on the 8 hours sleep or how much ever you want to finally?
8. Throw out your old and expired make up stuff and clean the vanity table.
Bookish things to do
1. Start by making a list of the books that you wanna read during the Corona virus shut down.
2. Write reviews on Goodreads for the books that you loved. Authors need you!
3. Clean up your Goodreads virtual shelves. Remove the ones that you no longer wish to read and remove duplicates.
4. And update your wishlist. Soon this will be over and you will be treating yourself with book hauls.
5. Pick up a classic that you have been dreading to start. Read 20 or 100 pages, as you choose, everyday and finish the mighty book. War and peace, anyone?
6. It is a good time to do those Bookstagram shoots that you have been postponing for a while.
7. Do a virtual book club meeting. Maybe with some chai. Or wine!
8. Join readathons and read with others to keep your mind distracted from everything else.
9. Finally, dust your book shelf, and those on your night stand, the coffee table, and pretty much everywhere else.
Tidy up your blog
1. Ensure your posts are all on brand. Do they follow the same color scheme and format?
2. Begin by cleaning up your tags and categories on your blog.
3. Next, add Alt text tag information to all the images in your posts.
4. Add a Pinterest sized image to all your posts, or at least the most visited ones.
5. In addition, once you have done adding one Pinterest image to the important posts, add one more Pinterest sized image to them and maybe hide them inside your post. Thank me when the traffic improves!
No two bookworms can be same, right? Even if we read similar books and have similar tastes in bookish things, we can’t all be the same, can we? And that is true especially in my case because most of my bookish habits are weird and eccentric.
Tell me how different am I in my bookish habits than you in the comment section below, won’t you?
10. I do not care for the book covers
Of course, I love a beautiful art work on the book as much as any one else.
But I do not buy or judge books based on their covers. And in case of e-books I rarely even glance or remember them. I know many of my fellow book bloggers who do wonderful displays with those book covers on #bookstagrams, but sigh I can not be one of them.
9. You can’t spoil it for me
I don’t care for spoilers as such but I don’t mind if I stumble upon a few by mistake.
I know it might spoil the suspense or even the ending of the story for some, not for me. While I am not one to jump to the last age to know the ending, I am okay with a few small details or a major twist that I hear anyway. You will never find asking me to spare the spoilers
8. People before books, I guess
I am the crazy bag lady (mostly) who always carries a book or five with me everywhere I go. Yet if I were reading a book and someone talks to me, I close the book and talk to them.
When I am reading a physical copy I always try and remember the page I stop at. In fact I don’t even own bookmarks except for the free ones that come with the books. What is the point of owning those fabulous. beautiful bookmarks when I seldom use them right?
I can only see those awesome people who use those bookmarks or anything that resembles it so cleverly. Sigh.
6. I try to pause my reading at page that ends with 5 or 0.
This is one of the habits that I formed right from my childhood and I can’t seem to break it. Remember I told I don’t use bookmarks and I try to remember where I stopped at. So to make matters easier, I used to stop only at pages that ended in fives or tens.
Well, you can consider this as my kinda ‘five more minutes’ before bed time.
5. Read the book before I watch the screen adaptations
I am not sure when this habit started but I always make sure I read the book before I can get myself to watch its series or movies adaptation. I know I have broken this rule once or twice, owing to ignorance about the book at all or just the sheer volume of the book. I have found some great books and classics at that.
I am definitely gonna keep up with this one, so that I can see my own imaginations.
4. I have poor memory for character names and settings
I remember the names of most of the people I have met in real life, but I forget the settings / locations and the names of the characters I read in the books. Okay not immediately but in a while and this makes me the worst candidate for reading books in series.
Oh, to overcome this disadvantage, I can say, I have even started noting the character names and locations in my reviews.
3. It takes me a while decide on the books
Though this is not a steadfast habit and there have been lots of books that I have loved right from the first chapter, I usually take a few minutes or hours off from the book to decide how I felt about it.
After the break I start recollecting what I liked and didn’t like about the book, since I don’t usually take notes for books I read for reviewing. This works for now I guess.
2. Audio books are a huge no-no for me
I have enjoyed a few audio books in the past but I feel they require to much effort from me. I have to try much harder to focus on the narrator’s voice than the writing or the story itself.
It is so draining and as you all know, the time taken usually is a lot more. For me reading comes naturally, listening not so much.
1. I jump into a book blindly
Like most of us, I add a lot of books to my to-be-read shelf from others recommendations and blogs. But I like reading a book with zero knowledge about it.I like to be surprised by how good the book turns out to be, or bad in some cases.
I don’t even read the blurb usually and it is a blessing, sometimes, that I have such a poor memory that I even forget the reviews I read when I added the book to my list.
It seems to me that I am the only one that have these habits. Let me know if you have or do any of these things and make me feel better, please.
