An applied method on leveraging the power of habit.

Summary

Habits free the mind for productive thoughts.

The habit cycle is 4 steps: cue, craving, response, reward. To build better habits or break bad habits, act on those four steps:

• make it visible (or invisible): put things where you see them
• make it attractive (or unattractve): stack on good habits you already have, associate to positive thoughts
• make it easy (or hard): put into routing, reset your environment, avoid hard situations
• make it rewarding: stack a "need" to a "want", shorten the gratification cycle.

Keep the chain

Reading notes

• Marginal improvements compound interests

• Focus on the system rather than the goal

  • Survivor bias - people see the outcome, not the process

• Change the identity first ("I'm not smoking" rather than "I'm trying to quit")

• Habits are freeing you to do more by leveraging automated response to a problem

• Cheat sheet

• Habits are behaviors done because of a craving triggered by a cue

  • Habit loop: Cue, craving, response, reward
  • Response gets associated with the reward
  • Building habits is acting on these 4 steps: make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it rewarding
  • Breaking bad habits is the opposite

• Make it visible

  • Stack habits together
  • Put things you want to do in visible places / in the middle of your routine
  • Put things you don't want as habits away
  • People with more will are just more organized

• Make it attractive

  • Stack what you want with what you need
  • Make it something in your circles: the close to you, the many, the powerful
    • We follow those close, the general advice, or those who stand out.

• Make it easy

  • Reduce the friction
  • Put it into your routine
  • Preload/reset the environment
  • Avoid the situations where it's hard to resist / favor those where its hard to say no
  • Start small, the first step is usually easy
  • Automate / commit

• Make it pleasurable

  • This is what makes that you will repeat the habit
  • Need ≠ want
  • Stack a need with a want
  • Good habits usually have delayed gratification. Bad habits usually have immediate gratification.
  • To create good habit try to shorten the gratification cycle

• How to keep habits

  • Track
  • Measure the right metric
  • Commit with someone
  • "Don't break the chain"
  • Find a partner
  • Don't log 0, do even the smallest to confirm your identity
  • Never miss twice in a row
  • Choose habits that fit your capacity
  • Fall in love with the boredom and have variable results

• Doing the same thing over and over again isn't enough

  • You need to get better
  • Keep records of decisions
  • Calculate a score and improve it
  • Reflect on core values and write integrity report
  • Don't tie everything to a single identity ("I'm an athlete"), tie to the underlying qualities ("I'm persistent, like the effort, train relentlessly")

• How to apply to parenting