The Atomic Habits

For business:
Four Laws of Behavior Change:

1. Cue: Make it obvious.

• app multiple notifications
• hide buttons like “Cancel Account” and “Log Out” in hard-to-find places
• whenever possible you want to make anything that could distract the user from the desired behavior invisible.
• Put your most profitable product in the front of the store or in the most visible locations.

2. Craving: Make it attractive.

• products are often more attractive when they seem relevant to the customer’s life.

  • If you’re a freelance writer, it is more powerful to read a sales page with the title, “Exactly How to Double Your Income as a Freelance Writer” than to read, “How to Double Your Income.” It’s the same pitch, but the first one feels like
    it’s made for you.
  • This strategy is even more powerful if you can use the person’s first name. “Olivia, here’s exactly how to double your income as a freelance writer.”
  • Everyone is “selling” something, even if it doesn’t feel like sales. Doctors sell healthy lifestyle changes to their patients. Coaches sell teamwork to their players. Parents sell life skills to their kids. Making your message personal—something as simple as saying the other person’s name—helps connect with people in a meaningful way and is one way to make change a bit more attractive

• businesses can often “personalize” at scale if they pair the product with a strong identity

  • Toyota Prius = environmental friendly

• Another strategy that can increase the attractiveness of a product is highlighting social norms. Humans are heavily influenced by the crowd.

  • If you can show a customer that other people like them use your product— people in their zip code, from their hometown, on their team, etc.—they will be more likely to find it attractive themselves.

3. Response: Make it easy.

• map out the chain of behaviors that a customer must perform to purchase your product or use your service, and then search for any possible area where you can reduce the friction associated with the task.
• Business is a never-ending quest to deliver the same result in an easier fashion.” The idea is to make every phase of the process as convenient as possible

4. Reward: Make it satisfying.

• The speed of the reward is a crucial factor in the 4th Law of Behavior Change.
• Customers need to feel immediately successful—even if it’s just in some small way—each time they use a product or service. At a minimum, the product should solve the problem (i.e. resolve the craving they experienced in Law 2) and, if possible, it should do so with some surprise or delight as well.
• One way to employ the 4th Law is to drop in little bits of satisfaction throughout the experience.
  • add flavor to gum or toothpaste.
• Behaviors that make you feel good—that is, behaviors that are followed by an immediate sense of satisfaction or praise or encouragement or pleasure—are exactly the kind of behaviors you want to repeat in the future.

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• A habit is a routine or behavior that is performed regularly—and, in many cases, automatically.

• the concepts in this book can help you fulfill your potential as well.

• the aggregation of marginal gains, which was the philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do.

  • 1% worse every day for one year. 0.99365 = 00.03
  • 1% better every day for one year. 1.01365 = 37.78

• Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.

• But in order to make a meaningful difference, habits need to persist long enough to break through this plateau—what I call the Plateau of Latent Potential.
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• changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.

• But in order to make a meaningful difference, habits need to persist long enough to break through this plateau—what I call the Plateau of Latent Potential.

• build identity-based habits. With this approach, we start by focusing on who we wish to become.

• It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who is this.True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity.

  • The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader. The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner. The goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician.

• When you have repeated a story to yourself for years,e.g. “I’m not good with technology.” “I’m horrible at math.”, 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.”

• It is a simple two-step process: Decide the type of person you want to be. Prove it to yourself with small wins.

  • First, decide who you want to be. This holds at any level—as an individual, as a team, as a community, as a nation. What do you want to stand for? What are your principles and values? Who do you wish to become? These are big questions, and many people aren’t sure where to begin—but they do know what kind of results they want: to get six-pack abs or to feel less anxious or to double their salary. That’s fine. Start there and work backward from the results you want to the type of person who could get those results. Ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that could get the outcome I want?” Who is the type of person that could lose forty pounds? Who is the type of person that could learn a new language? Who is the type of person that could run a successful start-up?

• what is the easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones?

• why tiny changes make a big difference

• 1st law (cue): make it obvious

  • If you’re still having trouble determining how to rate a particular habit, here is a question I like to use: “Does this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be? Does this habit cast a vote for or against my desired identity?” Habits that reinforce your desired identity are usually good. Habits that conflict with your desired identity are usually bad.
  • The first step to changing bad habits is to be on the lookout for them. If you feel like you need extra help, then you can try Pointing-and-Calling in your own life. Say out loud the action that you are thinking of taking and what the outcome will be. 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.”
  • people who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through.The simple way to apply this strategy to your habits is to fill out this sentence: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].
  • Make the cues of your good habits obvious and the cues of your bad habits invisible. Motivation Is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More

• 2nd law (craving): make it attractive

  • It is the anticipation of a reward—not the fulfillment of it—that gets us to take action. The greater the anticipation, the greater the dopamine spike.
  • Temptation bundling works by linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do.The habit stacking + temptation bundling formula is: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED]. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT].
  • We imitate the habits of three groups in particular: The close. The many. The powerful.
  • Reframing your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks is a fast and lightweight way to reprogram your mind and make a habit seem more attractive

• 3rd law (response): make is easy

  • Walk Slowly, but Never Backward

• 4th law (reward): make it satisfying

• how to go from being merely good to being truly great

  • The Truth About Talent (When Genes Matter and When They Don’t)
    • The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of competition.
    • genes do not determine your destiny. They determine your areas of opportunity.
    • Learning to play a game where the odds are in your favor is critical for maintaining motivation and feeling successful.
      • explore/exploit trade-off. In the beginning of a new activity, there should be a period of exploration. In relationships, it’s called dating. In college, it’s called the liberal arts. In business, it’s called split testing. The goal is to try out many possibilities, research a broad range of ideas, and cast a wide net. After this initial period of exploration, shift your focus to the best solution you’ve found—but keep experimenting occasionally. The proper balance depends on whether you’re winning or losing. If you are currently winning, you exploit, exploit, exploit. If you are currently losing, you continue to explore, explore, explore. In the long-run it is probably most effective
    • What feels like fun to me, but work to others? The mark of whether you are made for a task is not whether you love it but whether you can handle the pain of the task easier than most people.
    • that the way to maintain motivation and achieve peak levels of desire is to work on tasks of “just manageable difficulty.”
  • The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated in Life and Work