Atomic Habits

Un énième livre sur le développement des habitudes, mais qui malheureusement pêche justement en étant l'énième. Je m'attendais à un vrai découpage plus orienté outil, peut être à de l'aide à la mise en place de la méthode Kaizen ou autre, mais finalement ce livre n'apporte pas grand chose de vraiment neuf dans le développement des habitudes etc. On revient sur les même tropes : se rendre “accountable”, bien doser la difficulté, respecter les répétitions etc. De plus le livre parait extrêmement long pour le sujet qu'il traite pour au final peu d'intérêt. Dommage, il avait pourtant un bon potentiel.

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.

The book is good except for the endless sports analogies. I should have known this would happen since the book opens with the tale of a major injury the author suffered while playing baseball, but most of the examples in the book are about sports. That gets tiresome for those of us who aren't sports fans or athletes.

The information presented is useful, though not necessarily new or groundbreaking. It's very well-organized and the additional resources offered via Clear's website are very helpful.

This is the first time I tried using the Kindle/Audible Whispersync feature. It works like a charm!

As of late I've become pretty obsessed with habits and habit change: it's fascinating to me, the concept of wrangling one's subconscious to serve continuous improvement through simple, proven steps inherent to our neurobiology.

I like this book on habit change because it's well-written and organized in a digestible, and actionable, way. The little vignettes are interesting and helpful to anchor concepts and prevent the book from feeling too much like a “how-to,” even though it absolutely is. It's a quick read so if you're interested in habit change I suggest picking it up!

I really enjoyed this book. James Clear engages the reader with actionable plans and meaningful narrative to make forming habits less like your mom telling you to brush your teeth and more like you enjoying coffee in the morning because you want to.

The book builds on so many other fantastic books and research about how people think, how we engage, how we fight, and how we can use our underlying behavior to make it easier to do the things that we say we want to do.

I would have no qualms about recommending this book to anyone interested in science or power of habit. Graspable for high school and up. If you haven't read the other big titles - Atomic Habits has the references for you to dive in (if you want) and the summary and juicy bits from the perspective of this book (if you don't).

I forgot to review Atomic Habits when I read it a year ago, but it has stuck with me. I'll also say that I love the newsletter that James sends out each week - short and thought provoking.

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 more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it. If you're proud of how your hair looks, you'll develop all sorts of habits to care for and maintain it. If you're proud of the size of your biceps, you'll make sure you never skip an upper-body workout. If you're proud of the scarves you knit, you'll be more likely to spend hours knitting each week. Once your pride gets involved, you'll fight tooth and nail to maintain your habits.”

What a doozy of a quote. I guess it pays to be a prideful guy.

Well, it seems luck isn't on my side when it comes to personal development reads, and “Atomic Habits” by James Clear is no exception. Despite the hype surrounding it, I find myself once again let down by a tired, regurgitated pop psychology book that fails to deliver.

The information presented feels like a rehash of what I've stumbled upon in the productivity blogosphere for the past decade. But it's not just the lack of freshness that bothers me—it's the execution. The writing feels robotic, the repetition grows tiresome, and the cherry-picked anecdotes conveniently support the author's points, often taken out of context. Even the scientific references feel shaky and questionable at times.

While the core ideas explored in “Atomic Habits” aren't inherently bad, they've already been covered by other authors with more depth and skill. Writers like Kelly McGonigal and George Leonard come to mind, offering a richer exploration of the subject matter. Frankly, I can't help but feel that the material in this book could have easily been condensed into a blog post or article. Instead, what I encounter is a bloated book filled with unnecessary fluff, making it feel like an extended infomercial for the author's blog. It's evident that this is just another platform to boost his personal brand and generate ‘passive income'.

I guess the world really needed another privileged marketer with an A-type personality telling people they can become like him if they follow his ‘secret formula.' It seems tailor-made for a specific group of individuals—those who aspire to be the lifestyle-hacker extraordinaire, like Tim Ferris, and his devoted followers.

P.S.
I should note that despite my disappointment, I've come across individuals who found value in this book, claiming it transformed their lives. However, in most of those cases, they failed to sustain the new habits they initially adopted and years later it's like they never read the book.

While “Atomic Habits” didn't meet my personal expectations, it may still hold potential for people who are new to the subject or resonate with the author's approach. And hey, if it floats your boat and makes you feel like the captain of your own destiny, who am I to rain on your parade? Happy reading!

I know the word “atomic” means small or tiny in this book, but I couldn't help but think about explosions every time I read the term “atomic habits”.
Anyway, the idea is that small changes done consistently and with the right system will lead to extraordinary results.

I was already familiar with the concepts of habit formation (cue-routine-reward) described in the book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg so I must say I didn't see too many new insights in Atomic Habits.

James Clear presents the idea of the habit loop: cue-craving-response-reward. These four steps create a motivational loop that allows us to create habits. The cue triggers a craving, which leads to a response that satisfies the craving and that will become associated with the cue.
He presents a method to create good habits and break bad ones based on this habit loop.
So for creating a long lasting habit we must make:
- the cue obvious
- the craving attractive
- the response easy
- the reward satisfying.

And to break a bad habit we must make:
- the cue invisible
- the craving unattractive
- the response difficult
- the reward unsatisfying.

I found the anecdotes at the beginning of each chapter to be uninteresting as the book progressed. Maybe the predictability threw me off.

Overall it is a great book for someone who has never read about habits formation and it brings lots of practical examples.

Meh. There were a few useful ideas – namely that of creating/optimizing an environment for habits and the 2 minute idea that the trigger action is the habit rather than a whole performance. A lot of it was self helpy fluff or stuff you'll have heard before. There were a lot of references to weight loss as a goal (cw I guess) and overall it felt like a bit of a bro-ey book but there were some interesting anecdotes. It probably could've been a blog post instead.

As with all self-help books, this has a lot of padding. At least from my point of view, I could do without the illustrative anecdotes and get down to the nitty gritty like cue, craving, response, and reward; habit stacking; (1) make it obvious, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it easy, and (4) make it satisfying, etc.

Still, those specific tips on installing the habits you want are really helpful. This is information that'll go into my everyday life to help me take concrete action to progress toward my goals.

One final complaint - though I think this is well worth reading (and is perfect book to buy at Blinkist, where you get a summary of key points), it is absolutely soaking in fat shame and diet culture. Not all, but MANY of the examples use weight loss, calorie counting, and demonizing certain foods as fodder. It would be nice if authors could wake up that these attitudes are really dangerous for a lot of people, and there are so many other examples that could be used!

I was able to get an advance copy of Atomic Habits and I'm really glad I did! I haven't enjoyed a book about habits this much since The Power of Habit (one of my favorites). I feel like Atomic Habits is sort of the perfect continuation of the idea, looking at some of the ways to create and modify good habits after you understand some of the psychology of how habits begin and work. So if you've read the Power of Habit, you'll probably love this one too.

I'm a fan of James' blog anyway, but I got so much out of Atomic Habits, I took a few pages of notes. Some of the lessons I already know have changed the way I think about things and will help me build healthy habits for the rest of my life.

The book was well organized and had just the right combination of science, practical advice, and personal stories. I know Atomic Habits is a book I'm going to come back to, and I'm sure I'll pick up more with each subsequent reading.

Meh. Like most self help books, this is a compendium of other people's ideas, and James Clear gives credit where credit is due. Over all, this was just "consistency over perfection" with some statistical evidence cited. Not a mind blowing concept. I was hoping to read more about techniques and paths to success. Instead the text focuses mostly on why the concept works rather than how to really succeed with it.

For some reason this book took me a long time to finish, I think that maybe I was avoiding it because I felt guilty I wasn't creating any new healthy habits while I was reading it. But I did finish it and I can say it deserves all the praise it's got so far. James Clear was able to structure a simple yet powerful process for us to implement new habits, and to help us understand how and why habits impact our lives in weather good or bad. I've definitely included into my life some of the tools and practices he described here. I recommend anyone to read this book along with “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson for a powerful combination.

I had fairly realistic expectations going into this book, anticipating little more than a typical self-help, grindset, get-your-money-up-not-your-funny-up type of book, and I was pleasantly surprised. Clear is very practical and realistic, you can tell how knowledgeable he is every page of the book, but it's not obnoxious or filled with fluff. With a lot of non-fiction productivity type books, I've noticed a lot of repetition and rehashing of the same points, over, and over. This book hardly had any fluff or unnecessary repetition, greatly appreciated.
Clear also includes a bullet list after every chapter summarizing the material, and frankly I don't know why this practice is not more widespread. Additionally, there are many graphs and figures of his own creation, which surprised me in their effectiveness to represent his ideas.
Genuinely insightful and impressive, I would recommend this to anyone who cannot keep their shit together.