A review by robbie
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

This book has a lot of practical advice on how to make it easier to do things you want to do and stop things you don't. It starts off with an explanation of habits and how they form and goes on to explain how you can leverage those very things to make positive habits easier to follow through on.

The strategies that stood out most to me were "define a specific time and place" for your habit, prepare the space for your habit to make it easier to do, and add your habit to something else that you already do. For example, the past week I'be been leaving my phone in the kitchen to charge before going to bed. This not only helps me stay off the phone and get distracted before going to sleep but also ensures I go to the kitchen in the morning, where I can brew some coffee and practice learning a new language while the coffee brews! One thing stacks on top of the next and makes for a nice little routine that I've been missing—hopefully it'll stick with me because it's been pretty nice!

It also inverts its strategies to provide ways to break bad habits by making it harder to do them. Overall, I think it's good to read if for no other reason than to help you look at your own habits and evaluate them. I'm pretty happy to have the practical advice presented within too, and I hope I'll be able to revisit the book later to make sure I can internalize some of the concepts!