The Power of Habit

erifdekciw said:
Oh man.. the question of the century.

Already downloaded book... Do I read it? I hate reading... Why not just wait for Niko's badass cliff notes... but isn't that why I should be reading this book so I stop being a lazy bastard?
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That book will teach you start forming good habits. Reading for example.
Why don't you start before trying to apply it afterwards, by reading it?
 


wiredniko said:
So I have been reading this book for the last three hours.

Damn...I have read Mastery - The Keys to Success and Long Term Fullfilment and Willpower - Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength both very good books when it comes to accomplishing what you want.

This book is on another level. Its pretty much explains why things I have tried and succeeded worked and why things I have tried and failed did not work.

It even explains why sometimes you will do something for a month or two and then revert back to old habits...

This book rocks....book notes to come when I finish the book. Probably a few more days.
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Ditto. I just read it and now I understand WHY GTD works so well.
 
An anecdotal story about mobs getting violent after being assembled for hours and inciting one another, needing to eat to refuel and then rioting etc.

The officer disrupted a habit pattern and the rioting stopped.
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Oh, I thought it was because the kebab vendors were muslim.

/sarcasm

Can't wait; reading now; thanks for the recommendation.
 
Hale.Pane said:
Ditto. I just read it and now I understand WHY GTD works so well.
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Yes.

I am 150ish pages in, suddenly everything clicks. Everything that I do well and everything that I do bad I am starting to see why.

By the way if you like GTD, which I was a huge fan off check out Agile Results...or I have book notes on it, I don't think I have posted them here. PM if you want them.

Its like GTD with more focus on results and a much simpler system so you can accomplish more. I still use Inbox Zero from GTD, the major shift is instead of writing a task, you write a result. Also the concept of versioning is awesome.

The wiki is here: Getting Results the Agile Way Table of Contents - Getting Results | The Book

My notes just let me know if you need them.
 
I read the first 3 chapters last night. I would appreciate it if you didn't post your cliff notes. This book sucks everybody nothing to see here. Go away.
 
erifdekciw said:
I read the first 3 chapters last night. I would appreciate it if you didn't post your cliff notes. This book sucks everybody nothing to see here. Go away.
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Heh, well played.

The chapter about Target predicting pregnancies (show a posted about this a few days ago) and statistical analysis of hit songs is pretty crazy.

It also proves out why I fucking hate the music industry and like to listen to underground music.
 
I feel like I need to make a disclaimer about my notes this time.

1. This is probably the most important book I have ever read...its the equivalent of Ca$hvertising when it comes to marketing
2. The book has numerous examples and studies that my notes do not include. This is actually the hardest book I have taken notes on mainly because there was so much information it was hard to condense so instead I just wrote the actual learning not the stories and lab studies
3. Even though I found a pirated copy to download I have ordered the book for myself, my daughter that is 2.5 years old but I think this is the best book I can give her about life and will be sending a copy to my brother and sister. That should exhibit how amazing this book is.
4. After reading this book you will see the matrix. I honestly want to experiment for a year and see how this book changes my life.

With that said...

The Habit Loop - -How Habits Work
  • The process in which the brain converts a sequence of actions into an automatic routine is known as chunking
  • Chunking is the root of habits
  • Habits form because the brain is looking for ways to save effort
  • Basal ganglia has devised a clever system to determine when habits take over, its something that happens whenever a chunk of behavior starts or ends
  • There is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical, mental or emotional and finally there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future
  • The habit loop becomes more and more automatic. The cue and reward become intertwined until a powerful sense of anticipation and craving emerges
  • Unless you fight a habit the pattern will unfold automatically
  • Cues and rewards can be anything
  • By learning to observe the cues and rewards we can change the routines

The Craving Brain - How To Create New Habits
  • Find a simple and obvious cue, clearly define the rewards
  • Creating new food habits requires a predetermined cue and simple rewards
  • As a habit loop is continuously repeated the cue creates reward anticipation, a craving
  • If the reward does not come anger or depression appears
  • A habit is formed by putting together a cue, a routine and a reward and then cultivating a craving that drives the loop
  • To overpower a habit you must recognize which craving is driving the behavior
  • A cue in addition to triggering a routine must also trigger a craving for the reward to come
  • Craving is an essential part of the formula
  • Basic formula or creating new habits, choose a cue, such as going to the gym as soon as you wake up and a reward, smoothie after each workout. Then think about that smoothie or about the endorphin rush you will feel. Allow yourself to anticipate the reward. Eventually that craving will make it easier to push through the gym doors every day
  • Food dieters ate breakfast every morning, but most successful also envisioned a specific reward. The focused on that craving for that reward when temptations arose, cultivated the craving into a mild obsession. The craving drove the habit loop

The Golden Rule of Habit Change - Why Transformation Occurs
  • To change a bad habit you must keep the old cue and deliver the old reward but insert a new routine
  • Keep the cue, provide the same reward, insert a new routine
  • Awareness training, identifying what triggers their habitual behavior
  • Identifying the reward can sometimes be tricky
  • Competing response is creating a new routine based on the same cue
  • Habit reversal: identify what triggers your behavior, identify the reward, mark down how often you encounter the triggers, insert a new routine that offers the same reward, continue to write down triggers and which time you use the new queue
  • Some habits need another ingredient, belief. During stressful times we revert to old habits, belief can overcome that
  • You do not have to believe in God, but belief that things will get better
  • Change occurs among other people, the concept of if they can do it so can I, or that change is feasible
  • Belief is easier when it occurs within a community

Keystone Habits - Which Habits Matter Most
  • Habits in the work environment, finding issues that both unions and executives agree that they are important
  • Cue: worker injury, routine: call to CEO within 24 hours and present a plan to never have the injury happen again, reward: promotion
  • By creating a system communication improved
  • Keystone habits spread, they establish new structures and establish cultures where change becomes contagious
  • Small wins, once a small wins has been accomplished forces are set in motion that favor another small wins
  • Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach
  • Keystone habits: small wins
  • Keystone habits: creating structures that help other habits flourish (infant mortality rate, pre mature birth, malnutritioned mothers, teachers teaching proper nutrition to teens, teachers learning biology in college...leads to 68% decrease in infant mortality rate)
  • Cultures grow from keystone habits in every organization whether leaders are aware of them or not

Starbucks And The Habit of Success - When Willpower Becomes Automatic
  • Willpower can be exercised, getting better at regulating impulses, learning how to distract yourself from temptations your brain gets to practice at helping you focus on your goal
  • Signing up kids for piano lessons or sports...when you force yourself to practice you build self regulatory strength
  • Willpower habits, figuring out how to stick with your routine. Designing willpower habits to help overcome painful infection points
  • Creating a routine for when willpower fails
  • Writing down how to overcome painful inflection points, looking ahead and figuring out possible issues and how to overcome them is key to maintaining willpower (Starbucks: when a customer is unhappy my plan is to ...)
  • Practicing plans / role playing painful inflection points until reactions become automatic
  • In essence creating cue for bad situations (bad angry customer) initiates a routine
  • Giving people the ability to decide instead of just follows increases their willpower for tasks

The Power of a Crisis - How Leaders Create Habits Through Accident and Design
  • Routines create truces that allow work to get done
  • Truces work if they create justice, otherwise the routines fail when they are needed the most
  • For an organization to work leaders must cultivate habits that both create a real and balanced paced and paradoxically make it absolutely clear of who is in charge
  • During turmoil organizational habits become malleable enough to both assign responsibility and create a more equitable balance of power

How Target Knows What You Want Before You Do - When Companies Predict (and Manipulate) Habits
  • Familiarity loop, we like what is familiar to us
  • A way to introduce new things is putting them in between the familiar (familiarity sandwitch)
  • If you dress a new something in old habits its easier for the public to accept it

Saddleback Church and the Montgomery Bus Boycott - How Movements Happen
  • A movement starts because of the social habits of friendship and close tires between close acquaintances
  • It grows because of the habits of a community and the weak ties that hold neighborhoods and clans together
  • It endures because a movement's leaders give participants new habits that create a fresh sense of identity and a feeling of ownership

The Neurology of Free Will - Are We Responsible for Our Habits
  • Pathological gamblers, mind gets excited on win and close loses equally
  • The behavior that occur unthinkingly are the evidence of our truest selves - Aristotle
  • Every habit, no matter the complexity is malleable
  • To modify a habit you must decide to change it
  • Consciously accept the hard work of identifying the cues and rewards that drives the habits routines and find alternatives
  • You must have control and be self-conscious enough to use it
  • Belief that you can control over yourself and your destine, that you can become better, having the free will to change
  • Habits are like the water fish swim in, the unthinking choices and invisible decisions that surround us every day, and which just by looking at them become visible again
  • If you make it a habit to believe you can change the change becomes real
  • The real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be
  • Once that choice occurs and becomes automatic it starts to seem inevitable
 
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A Reader's Guide to Using These Ideas
  • Identify the routine (eating a cookie every afternoon)
  • Find the cues and rewards of the routine (hunger? boredom? low blood sugar? a break?) (reward: the cookie itself? change of scenery? temporary distraction? socializing). Some experimentation might be needed
  • Experiment with rewards, they are powerful because they satisfy cravings. Think yourself as a scientist in the data collection stage while you try to figure out the rewards of your habit
  • Testing different hypothesis of what the reward is (walk over to a friend's office, buy a coffee, a donut, an apple, take a walk around the block)
  • While testing your reward write down the first three things that come in mind, they can be emotions, random thoughts or self reflection
  • Set an alarm for fifteen minutes, are you still craving the reward (cookie)
  • If after fifteen minutes you are no longer craving the same reward you have identified the solution (distraction around 3-4pm)
  • Isolate the cue
  • All habitual cues fit into five categories, location, time, emotional state, other people, immediately preceding action
  • Write down your location, time, emotional state, other people, and immediately preceding action when the urge occurs (sitting at desk, 3:36pm, bored, no one is around, answered an email) compare it to the next day and identify commonalities
  • Have a plan
  • A habit is a formula our brain automatically follows, to re-engineer the formula you need to begin making choices again (plan 3:30 every day walk to a friend and talk for 10 minutes)
  • Repeat until the new routine replaces the old one

If anyone would rather have my Evernote notes, here is the link:
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s63/...ff92e45073a8/b648d2b73355414077885f015798066d
 
i have the need to have sex/masturbate every night before i go to bed... how can i fix this problem?
 
Going to check this out today, from the looks of it, sounds like it will be worth it. I thought this was a different habit book that I had on my reading list, so I almost passed over it.
 
Finished the book last week after seeing David Allen recommend it.

It's an amazing read and made me understand some of the good / bad routines in my life.

5 / 5
 
Also finished the book.

I found the first and third parts excellent, with the second part (organizational habits) a bit irrelevant to me and both the second and third parts kind of stretched the habit concept.

2 routines I think are probably super common here.

cue: need to feel as though we're accomplishing something.
routine: instead of working, we just refresh stats.
reward: the above feeling

fixing that by blocking your stats websites and training yourself to complete something from your todo list instead.

cue: need a break after working hard
routine: surf wickedfire
reward: a break

fixing that by using my ebook reader instead to read more excellent stuff.

Am I doing this right?

Thanks Yuma; I always enjoy your posts/recommendations.
 
cue: fap
routine: fap
reward: fap

Reading it, didn't know the story about Febreeze. Interdasting.

IMG_1721-425x317.jpg
 
It's not bad, but after one or two chapters, it gets pretty repetitive (old) quick. Feels like my Psych 101 class all over again. I wouldn't say it was a waste of time, but it was probably a little too much fluff if you have had any psych classes at all. Honestly the actual meat of the book was probably like a chapter in any decent psych 101 textbook. But it was entertaining.

The thing I dislike about most of these books is that while I'm entertained, I don't really feel like I've gained that much actual information given the amount of time I spend reading them. But, I go into them thinking that I will. I should probably stick to Romance novels.
 
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