Atomic Habits

Some good advice in here! I've read a lot about habit forming and this is a good overview of stuff that could help you form more lasting habits. Not every tip will work for you, but that's ok, part of building habits is making sure you tailor it to your own self!

This book was really informative. I have started using some of the techniques the author mentioned and it has improved my ability to create and maintain certain habits. As a person with anxiety and other mental disorders, habits and routines are extremely important to my life, however I do struggle to stick with them.

The only reason I gave this a 4/5 rating was because it took me months to get through this book.

WHY: Was chatting to my cousin and we were looking for ways to better utilise our time as we go through university and working life, finally giving me motivation to pick one of the popular non-fiction books off of my ‘want to read' list. Atomic Habits is one of the more well-known, highly-read and rated books from that selection, and we thought why not start with the best one.
CONTENT: I really loved all of the content in Atomic Habits, revolving around the discussion of small changes accumulating in an almost non-quantifiable manner to make large differences. There were a lot of great gems within, especially relating to setting up systems rather than goals, chaining good actions together and being efficiently lazy. I also appreciated the advanced section, which explains what the Goldilocks Rule is (balancing difficulty and achievement), and the dangers that can arise when you live a habitual lifestyle and forget continual improvement.
WRITING: Clear has a great structured approach to the book, building upon the cue-craving-response-reward process across the book's sections. Each chapter is streamlined to the key information, which is dressed by anecdotes, diagrams, sub-headings and summaries that all work together in keeping the reader engaged and learning. I also appreciated how Clear pairs positive-leaning changes that build habits with negative ones that can break undesired behaviours.
WHO: Honestly, this is one of those books which I feel I need a physical copy of on my bookshelf, so that at different times of my life (and for different people who may need it) I can just pull it down and flick to the section that is relevant. This is definitely one I recommend anyone read at any age when attempting to improve any area of their life - along the way, you'll probably end up using at least one or two of these tips in other areas, and these little changes will assist in building the identity you want for yourself.

A very easy to read book about human behavior. Great examples with research to crack up the principles. This is a re-read in a couple years.

Simple and effective!

Best self-help book out there, and most practical as well, which many self-help books fail at doing.

I like that this book doesn't become preachy with their formula of forming habits. The advice listed here are helpful, but the author is also careful to be aware of the limits of the prescriptions that he wrote. The tips are also useful and can be applied to other areas outside of personal development, such as business and parenting. If you have read Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit, this book can be a perfect companion because it gets more practical on how you can actually make habits work for you.

Practical, enough data to make the case.

I was expecting this to be the kind of book that has a big idea that could easily be explained in an article, but has to be lengthened to sell it. It ended up being a good length and worth it.

I came into this already familiar with some facets mindfulness and habit building, but I still found this non-fiction excellent. For me it reinforced the good things I know, planted food-for-thought, and taught me new things. Highly recommend for all.

Poder de los Hábitos Atómicos

Ha sido un placer recorrer este libro. Comprender cómo desde los más mínimos cambios pueden originar grandes cambios en nuestras vidas.

Short, but powerful. Much more practical than power of habit. A book to keep and re-read now and then.

Thought this was going to be a bunch of productivity hacks but it turned out to have a lot of pretty good advice on (and foundational tools for) success. The insight and summaries of research were really good, the anecdotes weren't annoying as they are in other self-help books, and in general the perspective was very down to earth. Highly recommended.

The tools and mechanisms he shares really resonated with my in a way other habit forming books haven't.

Useful lifehacks, do recommend!

A great practical guide to a millennia old truth, habits are the key to everything. Some people build them without needing to be told, those people are successful.

The rest of us need to learn it.

I skimmed a bunch of the psych/evolution stuff since I've read it before many many many times so my rating is for the helpfulness of his ideas on setting goals vs. establishing processes, etc. Gonna implement some ideas from this book. Really a 3.5 but whatever.

Practical guide and study of habits to incorporate into your life style or developing a better lifestyle. I definitely liked this one better than The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business and found it to be what I was looking for.

I recommend this read, very insightful about habits.

A fairly short book which I liked. Books like this tend to be too long and include too much useless information but Atomic Habits managed to stay on point for the most part.

There were a lot of good points here about habits that could be very useful for people. There were a few cases where analogies and examples weren't relevant to the author's message within the chapter (each chapter focuses on a specific topic related to habits) but that's a very minor issue. Another reviewer mentioned that the author's Benjamin Franklin story left out key details where Franklin actually gave up the habit of journaling because it wasn't helpful but the author here includes it anyway (omitting the crucial part) and using it as his example anyway in support of his point anyway.

In one of the later sections Clear is discussing boredom and habits, and makes the case that we shouldn't expect to find everything fun about it (e.g. lifting weights) but the people who are successful do it anyway each day despite the boredom, not because of some hidden passion they have. He cites a well-known trainer as his evidence. All fair points, and one of the key takeaways for me. However, Clear further talks about “loving” boredom which I found to significantly subtract from his argument.

I liked that the end of each chapter also includes a well-written summary, making it easy to double-check what each chapter discussed (something more books like this could implement). For the most part the writing is succinct and well-written with relevant and useful advice. 4-stars.

I rarely read non-fiction. This one was recommended to me by a stranger. I loved it. It's a practical and easy to read book. Most importantly there were lessons that were immediately actionable

Good book, Unveiling some of our unconscious habit-forming methods to our conscious minds so we can start creating new behavior that will stick.

I have 2 things to say about this book. Firstly JC is a good writer. Engaging stories and a framework that he has refined over the years makes for easy reading. Secondly, it's a pity that the psychological fundations are 80 years old from the relative dark ages of psychological science. Operant conditioning from old BF Skinner is for training animals and naughty children from Charles Dickinson stories.

But overall a helpful book

This is an extremely useful book with science backed ideas and enjoyable narrative. It was a pleasure to follow James teachings and understand the different stages from which one can study habit formation and take action to create more consistency, less friction and more joy in my daily routine.

The fundamental idea of the book states the four elements of a habit: cue, craving, responde and reward. All these elements loop sequentiatly from the first to the last and in the repetition of a habit starts all over again from beginning. Associated to each element, there is a basic principle to increase the likelihood of a habit to stick: make it obvious/visible (cue), make it attractive (craving), make it easy (response) and make it satisfying (reward). If what we need is to avoid a negative behavior, we might try to follow the opposite advice: make it invisible (cue), make it unattractive (craving), make it difficult (response) and make it unsatisfying (reward). Then James expands on these ideas.

During the last three months, I have been creating several habits: meditating, reading, studying programming (data structures and algorithms), studying french, exercising and learning touch typing. All of this has been happening before and during the reading of this book. I have to say this book is such a treasure in my situation, I feel equipped with all I need to stick to my good habits in the long term. I will revisit this book in the future.

Well worth the reread, considering the year we've had and all the free time we found on our hands.

I really love Clear's writing style. Is that his real last name?! Because it's extremely appropriate. Clear writes very plainly, with no preamble or fluff. He gives it to you straight. When he does that - gives you extremely simple, actionable steps that aren't convoluted or confusing - it makes you think, “yeah. It is that simple. Why aren't I doing this??”

Highly recommended.