Atomic Habits

Small habits can have powerful impacts on your life. You may not see these impacts in real-time, but you'll only see them after a while.

A habit consists of four things

• A cue, a trigger that gets you to act.

• A craving, a desire you want to achieve.

• A response, the action of the habit itself.

• A reward, the positive feeling you get from completing the habit.

Make the cue as easy as possible (reduce friction), for example, if you want to read a book, keep the book on your side table, so you can pick it up easily. Increase friction to stop bad habits.

Make the habit as easy to adopt as possible, e.g., read two pages of a book per night; once you start reading two pages, you might even end up reading more.

Making a habit immediately satisfying is effective in behavioral change, e.g., opening a bank account called "Trip to Europe" and transferring $10 when you hit your gym goal.

Create a framework to track your habits; you can set penalties if you fail to track your habits or if you go off track. For example, transferring $50 to your partner if you fail to go to the gym or if you forget to track your calories.

You can stack a new habit on top of an existing habit, e.g., reading a book while drinking coffee.