‘when successful people fail, they rebound quickly’ – Atomic Habits, Chapter 16 Notes

Posted on: July 10, 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 16: ‘How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day’.

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

Chapter 16: How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day

• The paper clip strategy is the act of moving items from one “bucket” to another every time a good habit is performed. For example, you might move a paper clip one-by-one from one jar to the other everytime you make a sales call, until the first jar is empty. You would then reset the jars and repeat this for the following day.

• ‘Making progress is satisfying, and visual measures – like moving paper clips or hairpins or marbles – provide clear evidence of your progress. As a result, you reinforce your behaviour and add a little of immediate satisfaction to any activity’ (Clear 2018, p. 196).

• ‘Visual measurement comes in many forms – food journals, workout logs, loyalty punch cards, the progress bar on a software download, even the page numbers in a book’ (Clear 2018, p. 196).

• A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit – the simplest form being a calendar that you cross off at the end of each day. It is powerful because it leverages many of the laws of behaviour change.

• For example, Jerry Seinfeld uses a habit tracker so that he sticks with his streak of writing jokes – with an objective to “never break the chain”.

• Habit tracking leverages the first law of behavioural change: make it obvious – when you look at your tracker and see your progress, you are reminded to act again.

• Habit tracking leverage the second law of behavioural change: make it attractive – the streak you have on your tracker is a visual measure of your hard work, with each small win feeding your desire and motivation to continue.

• Habit tracking leverages the fourth law of behavioural change: make it satisfying – completing an entry on your tracker is satisfying, and it is satisfying to see your results grow.

• Often people deter from habit tracking despite it’s potential to drive positive outcomes, because it forces them to pick up a habit of tracking habits. Clear recommends that it is beneficial to have some sort of tracking – and there is no need to measure your entire life.

• Habit tracking can be made easier by automating it (for example, using data from a calendar, credit card statement or fitbit), or by dedicating manual tracking for only your most important habits. This is because you are more likely to track consistently with a smaller number of habits.

• Record each measurement immediately after the habit occurs.

• Inevitably, life will get in the way and you will miss a day of performing the habit, but it’s best to remember one rule: never miss twice. Missing one day is an accident, missing twice-in-a-row is the start of a new habit.

• It is important when habit tracking that you are measuring the right thing because you are optimising what you measure. If you measure the wrong thing, you will get the wrong behaviour. For example, the amount of work done or the amount of value you deliver on a project is generally a better measure than the number of hours worked – when it comes to productivity.

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 17.