Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results

repetition is a form of change
: Apparently, Brian Eno says the same thing in his excellent,
creatively inspiring Oblique Strategies card set, which I didn’t know when I wrote this line!
Great minds and all that.
Automaticity is the ability to perform a behavior
: Phillippa Lally et al., “How Are Habits Formed:
Modelling Habit Formation in the Real World,” European Journal of Social Psychology 40,
no. 6 (2009), doi:10.1002/ejsp.674.
habits form based on frequency, not time
: Hermann Ebbinghaus was the first person to describe
learning curves in his 1885 book Über das Gedächtnis. Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory: A
Contribution to Experimental Psychology (United States: Scholar Select, 2016).
CHAPTER 12
this difference in shape played a significant role in the spread of agriculture
: Jared Diamond,
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: Norton, 1997).
It is human nature to follow the Law of Least Effort
: Deepak Chopra uses the phrase “law of least
effort” to describe one of his Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga. This concept is not related to the
principle I am discussing here.
a garden hose that is bent in the middle
: This analogy is a modified version of an idea Josh
Waitzkin mentioned in his interview with Tim Ferriss. “The Tim Ferriss Show, Episode 2:
Josh Waitzkin,” May 2, 2014, audio, 
https://soundcloud.com/tim-ferriss/the-tim-ferriss-show-
episode-2-josh-waitzkin
.
“it took American workers three times as long to assemble their sets”
: James Surowiecki, “Better
All the Time,” New Yorker, November 10, 2014,
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/10/better-time
.
addition by subtraction
: Addition by subtraction is an example of a larger principle known as
inversion, which I have written about previously at 
https://jamesclear.com/inversion
. I’m
indebted to Shane Parrish for priming my thoughts on this topic by writing about why

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“avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance.” Shane Parrish, “Avoiding Stupidity Is
Easier Than Seeking Brilliance,” Farnam Street, June 2014,
https://www.fs.blog/2014/06/avoiding-stupidity
.