Atomic Habits The 3rd Law - Make It Easy
Make It Easy
Chapter 11 Walk Slowly, but Never Backward
A research study administered by Jerry Uelsmann found that quantity produced quality. He assigned half of his photography class to turn in 100 photos (quantity earned an A) and the other half to turn in one perfect photo (quality earned an A). In the end, the students who were to turn in 100, practiced more and produced really nice photography by the end of the assignment. Those focused on quality spent the entire semester talking and speculating about perfection. Quantity honed in on their skills through repetition and doing while quality became bogged down with planning.
It is really easy to spend your time thinking about the best gym regiment or the best side hustle, but you must move from being in motion to actually taking action. Strategizing and learning are great, but action produces the result and delivers the outcome.
We love being in motion because it makes us feel like we’re progressing without risking failure. Delaying failure will put us further away from finding the best method. Get your reps in and practice.
Habit Formation: the process by which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition.
Long-term Potentiation: the strengthening of connection between neurons in the brain based on recent patterns of activity; the more you repeat an activity, the more the structure of your brain changes to become efficient at that activity.
Basically, this is the scientific proof the fact that repetition is a form of change.
Automacity: a process that all habits follow a similar trajectory from effortful practice to automatic behavior; the ability to form a behavior without thinking of each step.
Habits form based on frequency, not time. So it isn’t about how long it takes to build a new habit. There is no “21 days to form your habit” timeline. It is about how frequently you practice your habit.
Chapter 12 The Law of Least Effort
The brain is designed to conserve energy naturally. As humans, we naturally gravitate toward the things that require the least amount of energy. The more energy required to complete an action, the less likely it is to occur.
Also realize that you don’t want the habit, you want the outcome of performing the habit.
When life throws a tough day at you, it is crucial to have as many things working on your side as possible, making it easier for you to get through the day because on tough days, we don’t necessarily want to do the hard work. Focus on making it as easy as possible in the moment and it’ll pay off in the long run.
Reduce the friction in your life rather than trying to overcome the friction.
How do we make it easy? Fit the habit into your flow of life. The location of the habit matters and if we choose a place already on the path of our daily routine, it will be more easy to follow through.
It’s difficult to begin a habit in a high friction environment. Reduce that friction (this is why I encourage you to design a space that is yours and decluttered so that you can focus and feel good with a clear cognitive space).
Addition by Subtraction: eliminate points of friction in order to make a process run more smooth; remove the point of friction that sap our time and energy, we can achieve more with less effort.
Create and environment where doing the right this is as easy as possible.
ex: Resetting the room before you leave the room will prime it to make the next action or next habit practice easier.
ex: Unplug the tv when you finish watching it or take the batteries out of the remote and place them across the room to increase the friction for bad habits. (the greater the friction, the less likely the habit.)
Imagine: Take a moment to think about the impact of changing a lot of tiny things to organize your environment and allow the good behaviors to become easy while increasing the friction of the bad behaviors.
Chapter 13 How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the Two-Minute Rule
Doing the same morning ritual each morning makes it easier to follow through without skipping it, which makes the actions one less thing to think about.
Decisive Moments: the handful of moments that deliver an outsized impact; ex. The decision of whether to get up early to go to the gym or decide to snooze your alarm and sleep in, or the decision to order take out rather than your normal routine of cooking dinner with your partner. These moments are your fork in the road and set the rest of your day or night.
My mornings are shaped by my first choice: to get out of bed and put on my workout clothes, or to take a shower. My habit is the entry point (putting on workout clothes), not the end point (exercising).
Two Minute Rule: When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do. Make your habit as easy as possible to start, not a challenge. The actions that follow are the challenge. Make your habit a gateway habit.
Master the habit of showing up. A habit must be established before it can be improved. This is not just a hack to make forming habits easier, this is the ideal way to master a difficult skill.
If you can make the first action mindless, the rest will follow.
How do you stay below the point where it feels like work or it feels like it’s forced? Do it for two minutes and then stop. It’s better to do less than to do nothing at all because it contributes to your identity.
Habit-Shaping: scale your habit up to your ultimate goal by slowly advancing toward the next intermediate step. Master the first phase before moving on to the next phase.
ex. Habit: Become an Early Riser
Phase 1- Be home by 10pm each night
Phase 2- Turn off all devices by 10pm every night.
Phase 3- Be in bed by 10 pm every night.
Phase 4- Lights off by 10pm every night.
Phase 5- Wake up at 6am each morning.
Chapter 14 How to Make Good Habits Inevitable and Bad Habits Impossible
Make it difficult is the inversion of the 3rd Law.
In order to make bad habits more difficult, try using a commitment device.
Commitment Device: a choice you make in the present that controls your actions in the future; take advantage of good intentions before you fall victim to temptations.
ex. Reduce overeating by buying individual food packs rather than bulk. Make yourself get your work done by locking away your “party” clothes. End your work day at a certain time by using an outlet timer that turns off computer power at that time each day.
Change the task so that it requires more work to get out of the good habit and increase the odds that you’ll do the right thing in the future by making bad habits difficult in the present.
Make your bad habits impractical to do, even if it is a one-off action. Use technology to automate some things. ex. Prescriptions can be automatically refilled. Social media browsing can be cut off with a website blocker.
Each habit that we hand over to technology frees up our time to allow more growth in other areas. Technology creates a level of convenience that enable you to act on your smallest whims and desires.
Freeing up your mental space and reducing the possibility of negative behaviors to happen can result in you having the clarity and motivation to check off your positive habits each day.
*this summary is based on the writings in the Atomic Habits book by James Clear. I am not the owner of this summary and do not take credit for the ideas and writings in this post.
For more info, visit the Atomic Habits Website.