Book Review: Atomic Habits
Atomic Habits, by James Clear, is a book I chanced upon during my fervent exploration of FIRE(Financial Independence, Retire Early) blogs, tucked into one of the “recommended books list"s. I’m not a huge fan of self-improvement books. Let’s be honest, they are repetitive, and may succeed in making you nod in agreement at the moment, but rarely result in much actual “improvement.” One exception to this would be Cal Newport’s books (Deep Work, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Digial Minimalism), which I am a huge fan of – but that is another story/post. Is Atomic Habits worth your time and energy?
What is Atomic Habits about?
So, what are “atomic” habits? Somewhat inferrable from the term “atomic”, atomic habits refer to very small, miniscule habits that appear to have little effect in the moment but result in huge compounded improvement/results. When people wish to change something about themselves, they usually start heavily armed with motivation and huge goals – this year I want to lose twenty pounds so I’ll start working out in the gym one hour after work! This motivation gets you along for a few days, perhaps, but how many times has it lead to an actual new routine and goal accomplished? Probably not so often.
Clear has an answer to why this doesn’t work out for so many people – not lack of motivation or strong will as some people may think. Instead, Clear finds fault in the system. This refers to building an environment that will make it easier to stick to these habits, instead of solely relying on motivation. He introduces four laws to make your habit system robust. Here I’ve tried to include some of the tips for each rule that I feel ring the most with me:
1. Make It Obvious
- Make a “habits scorecard”: clearly log your current (good and bad) habits.
- Clearly lay out when and where you will perform a certain behavior.
2. Make It Attractive
- Join a group where your desired behavior is the norm.
3. Make It Easy
- The Two-Minute Rule: downsize your habits until they can performed in less than two minutes.
4. Make It Satisfying
- Use a habit tracker.
- Never miss performing a behavior twice.
The Good and the Bad
The Goods
This book points out so many reasons why people end up giving up on habits. A lot of these are easily relatable to the mass majority, which is probably why the book is so persuasive and has sold over two million copies(!). I feel that for every problem in life, you need to have awareness of why it is happening – and this book helps you with exactly that.
The book also equips you with many practical strategies to form your dream habits, and ultimately become the person you want. The rules and tips I have enumerated in the above section are a mere fraction of the book’s vast collection of habits coaching. You probably don’t even need to practice all of them, it is probably good enough to adopt a few of the strategies that work best for you.
The Bads
The repetition: the format of each chapter is so “predictable”, as if they were printed out of the same press. All of them start with an anecdote that will serve as proof towards the author’s argument for the rest of the chapter. Then as the arguments unfold there are a few graphs. And at the end are some bullet points where Clear summarizes the gist of the current chapter. You could also argue that this is good though – not everyone is fond of surprises when reading non-fiction titles. But still personally I feel that the writing style is a bit dry, and less engaging. Perhaps this is why the book was so enrapturing at first but quickly got somewhat boring afterwards.
And as with perhaps every self-improvement book in the world: just reading this book gets you nothing. You need to take action instead of being in motion, as the book suggests.
The Final Verdict
I would definitely recommend giving the book at least a try. It’s a fairly short read, but if you are really busy you could perhaps skim through the bullet points at the end of each chapter, and read in more detail if you’re not totally convinced by them.