Atomic Habits: A Life Changing Book
Recently I have completed the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to make a successful habit routine. Believe me, This book is a gem!
My Takeaway and Implementation based on Atomic Habits:
1. Two Minute Rule
The Two-Minute Rule states, “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”
I thought of reading tech articles before starting my office work every day but after a few days, the habit vanished. Recently I introduced 2 minutes rule. I just learn some content from Kubernetes documentation only for 2 minutes. It may be an abbreviation, a new keyword that I have never seen before, or a mere syntax. As it is taking only 2 minutes, My flow never got disturbed in spite of any urgent schedules. For the last one month, it has become a habit to read something in Kubernetes documentation before I open my Jira Board.
James Clear suggests we should make our good habits extremely easy so that we follow them without missing a day. Running 5km every day for 30 days is hard but what about 1000 steps every day? Doable right?
2. We live in a delayed return environment
If you work out at the gym or solve one problem in leetcode today, you will not become a pro tomorrow. At the same time when you eat Pizza today, you will not become fat immediately tomorrow. Fair game, right?
If you have a consistent schedule, breaking it is not a big threat because everybody has bad days. But the trick is not to miss the schedule for two continuous days. If you have good/bad habits, you are going to see the results only after years, but they are on cards.
The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they’re too heavy to be broken
James Clear states that, if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more.
3. Priming the environment
The environment is the main influential factor while forming habits. Make your environment favorable to practice the habits to taste the utmost success. If you want to eat fruits every day, just pile them up on the table of the hall every morning. If you want your children to read books, just keep a lot of books in their bedroom. If you want to work out, just keep the workout accessories in a very accessible place. Even I heard that few people tend to sleep with workout clothes so that they can head to the gym immediately after getting up.
Finally,
Always ask this question every single time:
“What’s the best small thing I can do right now?”
