Better Than Before (Gretchen Rubin)

Strangely, I haven't blogged this book! This is a book I try to re-read every six months. I just finished a re-read and I still love it. It is a good review of how to get good habits into my life and to help them be routine...you know, like a habit should be!

What I like about Gretchen Rubin is that she accounts for differences in personalities. Everyone has their own personality quirks (although, she does put people into categories) that make it so that what works for one person does not work for another. The first part of the book is about recognizing what kind of a person you are. She has a sorting called The Four Tendencies but she doesn't just stop there. She talks about other traits:

Larks versus Owls
Marathoners, sprinters and procrastinators
Under buyers and over buyers
Simplicity and abundance lovers
finishers and openers
Familiarity lovers and novelty lovers
Promotion versus prevention focused
Small steps versus big steps.

After that, she talks about many different strategies for implementing habits:
- monitoring
- Foundation
- Scheduling
- Accountability
- Abstaining versus moderating
- Pairing
etc

She also discusses things that we do to sabotage our new good habits....
- convenience versus inconvenience
- safeguards
- loop-holing

The chapter about rewards was really interesting. It really reminded me of a lot of what I've read on children and rewards for behavior. We need to be careful about rewards.

She cites a lot of research and this time I noticed that she organizes her notes about this research in a reader friendly way.

I totally recommend this book!

Goodreads says:

The author of the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, The Happiness Project and Happier at Home, tackles the critical question: How do we change? 
 
Gretchen Rubin's answer: through habits. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life. It takes work to make a habit, but once that habit is set, we can harness the energy of habits to build happier, stronger, more productive lives.
 
So if habits are a key to change, then what we really need to know is: How do we change our habits?
 
Better than Before answers that question. It presents a practical, concrete framework to allow readers to understand their habits—and to change them for good. Infused with Rubin’s compelling voice, rigorous research, and easy humor, and packed with vivid stories of lives transformed, Better than Beforeexplains the (sometimes counter-intuitive) core principles of habit formation. 
 
Along the way, Rubin uses herself as guinea pig, tests her theories on family and friends, and answers readers’ most pressing questions—oddly, questions that other writers and researchers tend to ignore: 

• Why do I find it tough to create a habit for something I love to do? 
• Sometimes I can change a habit overnight, and sometimes I can’t change a habit, no matter how hard I try. Why? 
• How quickly can I change a habit? 
• What can I do to make sure I stick to a new habit? 
• How can I help someone else change a habit? 
• Why can I keep habits that benefit others, but can’t make habits that are just for me? 

Whether readers want to get more sleep, stop checking their devices, maintain a healthy weight, or finish an important project, habits make change possible. Reading just a few chapters of Better Than Before will make readers eager to start work on their own habits—even before they’ve finished the book