Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results

EXAMPLES OF HABIT SHAPING
Becoming an Early Riser
Phase 1: Be home by 10 p.m. every night.
Phase 2: Have all devices (TV, phone, etc.) turned off by 10 p.m. every night.
Phase 3: Be in bed by 10 p.m. every night (reading a book, talking with your partner).
Phase 4: Lights off by 10 p.m. every night.
Phase 5: Wake up at 6 a.m. every day.
Becoming Vegan
Phase 1: Start eating vegetables at each meal.
Phase 2: Stop eating animals with four legs (cow, pig, lamb, etc.).
Phase 3: Stop eating animals with two legs (chicken, turkey, etc.).
Phase 4: Stop eating animals with no legs (fish, clams, scallops, etc.).
Phase 5: Stop eating all animal products (eggs, milk, cheese).
Starting to Exercise
Phase 1: Change into workout clothes.
Phase 2: Step out the door (try taking a walk).
Phase 3: Drive to the gym, exercise for five minutes, and leave.
Phase 4: Exercise for fifteen minutes at least once per week.
Phase 5: Exercise three times per week.
Nearly any larger life goal can be transformed into a two-minute
behavior. I want to live a healthy and long life > I need to stay in shape
> I need to exercise > I need to change into my workout clothes. I want
to have a happy marriage > I need to be a good partner > I should do
something each day to make my partner’s life easier > I should meal
plan for next week.
Whenever you are struggling to stick with a habit, you can employ
the Two-Minute Rule. It’s a simple way to make your habits easy.
Chapter Summary
Habits can be completed in a few seconds but continue to impact
your behavior for minutes or hours afterward.
Many habits occur at decisive moments—choices that are like a
fork in the road—and either send you in the direction of a

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productive day or an unproductive one.
The Two-Minute Rule states, “When you start a new habit, it
should take less than two minutes to do.”
The more you ritualize the beginning of a process, the more likely
it becomes that you can slip into the state of deep focus that is
required to do great things.
Standardize before you optimize. You can’t improve a habit that
doesn’t exist.

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I
14
How to Make Good Habits Inevitable and
Bad Habits Impossible
N THE SUMMER OF 1830,
Victor Hugo was facing an impossible deadline.
Twelve months earlier, the French author had promised his
publisher a new book. But instead of writing, he spent that year
pursuing other projects, entertaining guests, and delaying his work.
Frustrated, Hugo’s publisher responded by setting a deadline less than
six months away. The book had to be finished by February 1831.
Hugo concocted a strange plan to beat his procrastination. He
collected all of his clothes and asked an assistant to lock them away in
a large chest. He was left with nothing to wear except a large shawl.
Lacking any suitable clothing to go outdoors, he remained in his study
and wrote furiously during the fall and winter of 1830. The Hunchback
of Notre Dame was published two weeks early on January 14, 1831.
*
Sometimes success is less about making good habits easy and more
about making bad habits hard. This is an inversion of the 3rd Law of
Behavior Change: make it difficult. If you find yourself continually
struggling to follow through on your plans, then you can take a page
from Victor Hugo and make your bad habits more difficult by creating
what psychologists call a commitment device.
A commitment device is a choice you make in the present that
controls your actions in the future. It is a way to lock in future
behavior, bind you to good habits, and restrict you from bad ones.
When Victor Hugo shut his clothes away so he could focus on writing,
he was creating a commitment device.
*

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There are many ways to create a commitment device. You can
reduce overeating by purchasing food in individual packages rather
than in bulk size. You can voluntarily ask to be added to the banned list
at casinos and online poker sites to prevent future gambling sprees.
I’ve even heard of athletes who have to “make weight” for a
competition choosing to leave their wallets at home during the week
before weigh-in so they won’t be tempted to buy fast food.
As another example, my friend and fellow habits expert Nir Eyal
purchased an outlet timer, which is an adapter that he plugged in
between his internet router and the power outlet. At 10 p.m. each
night, the outlet timer cuts off the power to the router. When the
internet goes off, everyone knows it is time to go to bed.
Commitment devices are useful because they enable you to take
advantage of good intentions before you can fall victim to temptation.
Whenever I’m looking to cut calories, for example, I will ask the waiter
to split my meal and box half of it to go before the meal is served. If I
waited until the meal came out and told myself “I’ll just eat half,” it
would never work.
The key is to change the task such that it requires more work to get
out of the good habit than to get started on it. If you’re feeling
motivated to get in shape, schedule a yoga session and pay ahead of
time. If you’re excited about the business you want to start, email an
entrepreneur you respect and set up a consulting call. When the time
comes to act, the only way to bail is to cancel the meeting, which
requires effort and may cost money.
Commitment devices increase the odds that you’ll do the right thing
in the future by making bad habits difficult in the present. However,
we can do even better. We can make good habits inevitable and bad
habits impossible.