Atomic Habits by James Clear is one of the bestselling self-improvement books on the market and I can sort of see why. It is formulaic, but then again, I think that many of this type of book end up like that. It is much less ridged than One Minute Manager or Eat that Frog and spends most of its time picking out something that is touched on in both books and making it the complete focus; Repetition.
Doing a little, every day, leads to progressive change. It doesn’t sound like a new idea, but it is a great one to drive home and to consider more pro-active thought about our small everyday actions. One of the key learnings that I have take from this is about setting myself up to be more successful. By making things I want to do less often harder like putting the crisps on the top shelf at the back of the cupboard and fruit on the side next to where I make coffee, I make it simpler for my brain to make good choices when all I am really thinking is that I want a snack.
Combining this with things like planning the next day from Eat That Frog should in theory mean that every day is spent in a way that Sun Tzu described as fighting downhill, with the inertia working in my favour or as James Clear mentions in his book and the developer Oswald Nuckols is quoted as saying; being “proactively lazy”.
One of things from this that I have not been able to capture is a list of my habits. I am not used to thinking about how I act day to day. I guess that is partly the point of trying to describe your daily habits. Perhaps one of my habits is the lack of a habitual routine.
Reality is a little messy though, so while every day might not be perfect, this book gives me another set of strategies I can use to help me do more and achieve more of my goals.