‘The greater the friction, the less likely the habit’ – Atomic Habits, Chapter 12 Notes

Posted on: July 6, 2022

Last Updated on: July 7th, 2022

Post Category: Book Notes

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About #onepageonepoint

#onepageonepoint aims to summarise new ideas from books on personal and professional development – with (approximately) one point for each page. Read more about this project here.

Today for #onepageonepoint, we have summary notes for Atomic Habits – for chapter 12: ‘The Law of Least Effort’.

If you are interested in getting yourself a copy or learning more about the book, click here.

Chapter 12: The Law of Least Effort

• ‘Conventional wisdom holds that motivation is the key to habit change. Maybe if you really wanted it, you’d actually do it’ (Clear 2018, p. 151).

• However, we have a natural tendency to do what is convenient – to follow the Law of Least Effort i.e., between two similar options, we will select the option that requires the lower amount of work.

• The less energy a habit requires, the more likely it is to occur – so it is important to make your habits easy, so that you’ll do them even when you don’t feel like it.

• It is important that, even on tough days, you have many things as possible work in your favour, so that you can work on meaningful things that pay off in the long run. The idea is to make these meaningful habits easy and reduce friction between you and what you want.

• One effective way to reduce this friction is by designing your environment for success – optimising your environment to make the right actions easier so they fit into the flow of your life. For example, stopping at the gym on your trip to work. There is more coverage on this topic in Chapter 6.

• Another strategy is addition by subtraction. This involves eliminating every point of friction that takes up our time and energy, so we can achieve more with less effort. For example, tidying up lightens our cognitive load, meal delivery services reducing the need of shopping for groceries.

• Conversely, to break bad habits, you increase the friction between you and those bad habits. For example, leaving your phone in another room locked in a drawer or leaving your phone with a co-worker for some time so you can focus on deep work.

• Another strategy is to prime your environment so that it is ready for future use – so that when you want to use it for its intended purpose, you can do it very easily. For example, if you want to organise a catch-up, you can use a calendar application installed on your portable smart devices. If you would like to send a greeting card for an occasion whenever they pop up, have greeting cards already sorted and accessible so you can easily send them off. If you would like to perform deep work later in the day, pack the gaming consoles into a wardrobe and unplug the TV.

If you are interested in getting yourself a copy or learn more about the book, click here.

Interested in reading more? See my notes for Chapter 13.