Atomic Habits - James Clear Page 0,54

keep your eyes open.

Technology creates a level of convenience that enables you to act on your smallest whims and desires. At the mere suggestion of hunger, you can have food delivered to your door. At the slightest hint of boredom, you can get lost in the vast expanse of social media. When the effort required to act on your desires becomes effectively zero, you can find yourself slipping into whatever impulse arises at the moment. The downside of automation is that we can find ourselves jumping from easy task to easy task without making time for more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding, work.

I often find myself gravitating toward social media during any downtime. If I feel bored for just a fraction of a second, I reach for my phone. It’s easy to write off these minor distractions as “just taking a break,” but over time they can accumulate into a serious issue. The constant tug of “just one more minute” can prevent me from doing anything of consequence. (I’m not the only one. The average person spends over two hours per day on social media. What could you do with an extra six hundred hours per year?)

During the year I was writing this book, I experimented with a new time management strategy. Every Monday, my assistant would reset the passwords on all my social media accounts, which logged me out on each device. All week I worked without distraction. On Friday, she would send me the new passwords. I had the entire weekend to enjoy what social media had to offer until Monday morning when she would do it again. (If you don’t have an assistant, team up with a friend or family member and reset each other’s passwords each week.)

One of the biggest surprises was how quickly I adapted. Within the first week of locking myself out of social media, I realized that I didn’t need to check it nearly as often as I had been, and I certainly didn’t need it each day. It had simply been so easy that it had become the default. Once my bad habit became impossible, I discovered that I did actually have the motivation to work on more meaningful tasks. After I removed the mental candy from my environment, it became much easier to eat the healthy stuff.

When working in your favor, automation can make your good habits inevitable and your bad habits impossible. It is the ultimate way to lock in future behavior rather than relying on willpower in the moment. By utilizing commitment devices, strategic onetime decisions, and technology, you can create an environment of inevitability—a space where good habits are not just an outcome you hope for but an outcome that is virtually guaranteed.

Chapter Summary

The inversion of the 3rd Law of Behavior Change is make it difficult.

A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that locks in better behavior in the future.

The ultimate way to lock in future behavior is to automate your habits.

Onetime choices—like buying a better mattress or enrolling in an automatic savings plan—are single actions that automate your future habits and deliver increasing returns over time.

Using technology to automate your habits is the most reliable and effective way to guarantee the right behavior.

HOW TO CREATE A GOOD HABIT

The 1st Law: Make It Obvious

1.1: Fill out the Habits Scorecard. Write down your current habits to become aware of them.

1.2: Use implementation intentions: “I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].”

1.3: Use habit stacking: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”

1.4: Design your environment. Make the cues of good habits obvious and visible.

The 2nd Law: Make It Attractive

2.1: Use temptation bundling. Pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.

2.2: Join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.

2.3: Create a motivation ritual. Do something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.

The 3rd Law: Make It Easy

3.1: Reduce friction. Decrease the number of steps between you and your good habits.

3.2: Prime the environment. Prepare your environment to make future actions easier.

3.3: Master the decisive moment. Optimize the small choices that deliver outsized impact.

3.4: Use the Two-Minute Rule. Downscale your habits until they can be done in two minutes or less.

3.5: Automate your habits. Invest in technology and onetime purchases that lock in future behavior.

The 4th Law: Make It Satisfying

HOW TO BREAK A BAD HABIT

Inversion of the 1st Law: Make It Invisible

1.5: Reduce exposure. Remove the cues of your bad habits from