Hello, Habits (Fumio Sasaki)

 

I love books about habits. This one gave me plenty to think about with what habits I'm focusing on and tracking.

p. vii It isn't talent. It's continuing.

Genius is often only the power of making continuous efforts (Elbert Hubbard)

p. xi

Habit is as second nature (Cicero)

Habit a second nature! Habit is ten times nature. (The Duke of Wellington)

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit (Will Durant)

p. 4 All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. (Blaise Pascal)

p. 5 We're happier if we don't have too much free time.

p. 6 Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. (Gandhi)

p. 62 I don't do special things for the purpose of something something special. I do ordinary, everyday things in order to do something special (Ichiro)

p. 113 The fuel that a rocket uses for the first few minutes immediately after launch is greater than the amount used in the eight hundred thousand kilometers to follow.

p. 170 When my habits are on track to getting cemented, I gain a sense of cntentment. For example when exercising, I'll feel that I can go on running forever. But if I decide to test my limits and run until I'm exhausted,  know I'll get the impression that running is too strenuous, which will have na impact on the next time I run. 
It's more important than anything to continue our habits, so I stop when I think I want to do more. I quit while i'm around 80%. That way, I'll stop the action wit hthe impression that it's fun.....I don't keep going until it isn't fun anymore....Muscles develo further when they go beyond their limits and are hurt. Top athletes undergo tough practices beyond their comfot zones, but that lies far ahead, in a future time when we have already acquired our habits. Quitting in the middle of something is effective for developing the habit in the first place.

Good reasons for never skipping a day:
p. 173 When Nippon Professional Baseball goes off season, all the players, return to their hometowns. But even during off-season, Ichiro alone shows up at the ballpark and starts his training.
"I once tried to take time off. To see if it would help, I didn't work out for a month. Then it didn't fee llike m body anymore. As if my body were sick," he said.
Ichiro tried different methods at least once, but ultimately did the opposite of what other players do. He i a true seeker of truth. What's important to him is to not quit completely.
The novelist John Updike also made it a habit to write every day, instead of waitng for inspiration. The reason was, there's so much busy work a writer can do. "You can actually spend your whole life being a writer and totally do away with the writing."

p. 174 Anthony Trollope (the God of habits according to the author) made it his task to spend two and a half hours writing before going to work. He wrote forty-seven novels and sixteen other works while working full-time, leaving behind a sizable oeuvre in the history of literature. 
His secret to producing so many works was starting the next project as soon as he finished the previous one. Once, he complete a lengthy work that comprised six hundred pages. A normal author would have wanted, perhaps, to celebrate or take plenty of vacation time. But because he had about fifteen minutes remaining until his usual two and a half hours were up, after finishing the manuscript, he simply put it aside and got started on his next one. 
The senses of pianists and guitarists are said to become dull when they don't touch their instrument for just one day. Some musicians claim they lose three days of practice if they skip just one. Not only is there no improvement when they don't touch their instrument for a day, they lose what they've nurtured. For me as well, three or four days without exercise makes it difficult to return to my previous condition. I get out of breath if I run, and I feel heavier. 
I have a real sense that the longer I veer from my habits, the tougher it gets to resume them. That's all the more reaso to avoid lapses in between. Your habits are further bolstered as you proceed to move forward with them.

p. 203 Do it; it's better than not doing it
He interviewed a professional runner. He's been running every day for more than 20 years. He still has days he doesn't want to run.

While habits refer to actions that we perform with barely a thought, we can't always make choices without thinking; conflicts will always, eventually, arise. Because we're human, there will always be times when we simply aren't in the mood to do something.
There is suffering in continuing to practice habits. But compared to the regrets we have when we don't practice them, I think it's far better to do them. By accumulating failures in our attempts to do something, we will someday gain a greater amount of rewards. If we don't make the attempt, we'll have the same regrets anyway, and we'll also have a sense of self-doubt. So we can choose whichever seems to be even slightly better: doing the task at hand, even when we don't want to.

p. 220 Create habits that are unique to you

It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races (Mark Train)

Ichiro has reflected on the intensive training he used to go through like this:
"It's true that when I was spending time at the Orix training cap when I was eighteen, nineteen and twenty, I was hitting hundreds of balls until two or three in the morning. Looking back, I can see that it wasn't a rational way to practice. But if someone told me that at the time and I hadn't done it, thinking that itw as a waste of time, I wonder if I would have thought this way now." 

There are also things that seem necessary for us despite our different situations. Records are one example. You should keep records of the conditions - your mood, physical condition, the season, how busy you are - in which you can it can't continue to practice your habits. If you keep records, you'll begin to see how to avoid difficulties that you've experienced before. 

There are no examples of habits that you have to acquire. The important thing is to think for yourself.

p. 223 Make eace with the knowledge that your habits will eventually collapse

Habits are surprisingly tough, and habits are surprisingly fragile (Gretchen Rubin)

Habits will eventually collapse. The important thing is to keep rebuilding them.

Write a "spell of restoration"

When we keep notes on the methods that have worked, we become confident that we can always find out way back to that state.

Maintain a sense of novelty in achieving habits: When you want to make a change to yourself, a tip is to not think about whether it will make things better. If things get back, you can make another change when you realize it. If a change doesn't change things the way you wanted it to, you can make another change.

p. 235 Whether it's your choice:

Two rats placed in separate cages are given an electric shock. Of teh two rats, only one of them can press a lever that allows both to escape the electric shock. As a result, the rat without access to the lever ends up showing signs of chronic stress, which leads to weight loss, ulcers, and even a higher incidence rate of cancer. Although both rats are given the electric shock for the same amount of time, the rat with the power to choose to avoid the shock experiences less stress.

....in other words, when we feel like there is no choice in our situation, it affects our health.

Deciding you do have control over things in your life (no matter how small the things are) is key.

p. 237 It's okay to judge your own efforts by your own standards

He's quoting a part from Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain:

Phil Lawler, a junior high school PE teacher, added heart rates to the measurements taken during PE class. One day, he had an eleven-year-old girl who wasn't good at exercising put on a heart rate monitor as she ran. Since she wasn't good at exercising, her time probably wasn't good. But Lawler was surprised when he looked at her heart rate. In theory, a person's age is subtracted from 220 to get what is generally considered the maximum heart rate. And Lawler couldn't believe hsi eyes when he saw her heart rate: an average of 187.

Age elevent meant her maximum heart rate would be about 209. And it increased to 207 when she reached the finish line that day. That meant she had run mostly at full speed. Reflecting on that day, Lawler said:
"You gotta be kidding me! Normally, I would have gone to that girl and said, "You need to get your ass in gear, little lady!"
"I started thinking back to all the kids we must have turned off to exercise because we weren't able to give them credit. I didn't have na athlete in class who knew how to work as hard as that little girl."

Running at a fast speed is different from doing your best. Whenever I read this anecdote, the tears start to fall. The girl who wasn't good at exercising had practically been crushing her chest putting in more of an effort than anyone else in her class.

p. 241 The simple truth about talent:

...sociologist Daniel Chambliss, who studied top swimmers for many yeras found:

• The best performaance is the result of accumulating countless small skills.
• There is nothing special or superhuman about what athletes do.
• Athletes achieve outstanding results through continuous efforts.

What this paper says is terribly ordinary: the ones who keep working diligently come out ahead....the diligent continuation of habits creates talent.

p. 244 Knack versus talent:

• Knack: A natural ability or predisposition for a certain skill, which helps you acquire it quickly.
• Talent: The skills and capacities that you acquire as a result of continuing to do something.

Recap: The 50 Steps for Acquiring Habits

1. Sever ties with vicious circles.
2. First, decide that you're going to quit.
3. Leverage turning points.
4. Quit completely - it's easier.
5. Know that you always have to pay the price.
6. Examine the triggers and rewards for your habits.
7. Become a detective who looks for the real criminal.
8. Don't make identity an excuse.
9. Start with keystone abits.
10. Keep a diary to record observations about yourself.
11. Meditate to enhance your cognitive ability.
12. Realize that enthusiasm won't occur before you do something.
13. Whatever you do, lower your hurdles.
14. Realize that hurdles are more powerful than rewards.
15. Raise the hurdle for habits that you want to quit.
16. Spend money on your initial investment.
17. "Chunk down".
18. Make your targets ridiculously small.
19. Start today.
20. Do it every day (it's easier).
21. Don't make up "exceptions" as you go.
22. Enjoy it because you aren't good at it.
23. Set triggers.
24. Create an adult timetable.
25. Realize that no one has the power to concentrate.
26. Take action according to the date.
27. Set up temporary rewards.
28. Make good use of people's attention.
29. Make an advance declaration.
30. Think from a thid-party perspective.
31. Quit in the middle of something.
32. Don't quit completely.
33. Keep records of your habits.
34. Take necessary breaks to conserve your strength.
35. Nap (the effects of a power nap are enormous).
36. Rest aggressively.
37. Cherish the things that you aren't making into a habit.
38. Don't mix up your "objectives" and your "targets".
39. Look only at the targets in front of you.
40. Experience failures - they're indispensable for your habits.
41. Stop worrying about how long it will take for something to become a habit.
42. Do it it's better than not doing it.
43. Gradually increase the level of difficulty.
44. Overcome each challenge along the way.
45. Keep at it, and increase your self-efficacy.
46. Create a chain reaction.
47. Adapt habits s needed.
48. Create habits that are unique to you.
49. Make peace with the knowledge that your habits will eventually collapse.
50. Know that there is no end to habits.

14 Good Habit Inhibitors
1. Believing that a bad habit is necessary to relieve stress.
2. Trying to focus on just the good points.
3. Relying on your motivation.
4. Not having the right tools.
5. An awareness of the difficulties.
6. The sense of self-doubt produced by one failure. 
7. Starting at a "good" time.
8. Thinking that tomorrow, you'll be Superman.
9. Creating an exception for the day in question.
10. Thinking that it's too late to start.
11. Not having a trigger.
12. Giving yourself a conflicting reward.
13. Pretending something never happened.
14. The "single-coin" issue.

Goodreads says:

The internationally best-selling author of Goodbye, Things shares insights and practices to help you become the best version of yourself.

Fumio Sasaki changed his life when he became a minimalist. But before minimalism could really stick, he had to make it a habit. All of us live our lives based on the habits we’ve formed, from when we get up in the morning, to what we eat and drink, to how likely we are to actually make it to the gym. In Hello, Habits, Sasaki explains how we can acquire the new habits that we want―and get rid of the ones that don’t do us any good.

Drawing on leading theories and tips about the science of habit formation from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and sociology, along with examples from popular culture and tried-and-tested techniques from his own life, he unravels common misperceptions about "willpower" and "talent," and offers a step-by-step guide to success. Ultimately, Sasaki shows how ordinary people like himself can use his principles of good habit-making to improve themselves and change their lives.

The Ritual Effect (Michael Norton)

 

This book got better and better the deeper I got into it. It made me think of the things that I identify as routines and pushed me on to thinking about how I can make those things more meaningful. It made me think of some of my religious practices and whether or not they're just routines or if they're ritualistic and meaningful. If they matter, they should be meaningful and that is really inner work.

For me, five stars means I thought it was great and I'd definitely read it again.

I started to notice rituals and as a result, could be more mindful of the practices. I noticed other people doing it too. We went to a funeral and one person talked about how the person they were honoring used to tap every log three times before he put it in the fire when they were camping....and now, in memory of this friend, he taps every log three times. 

Notes and ideas:
p. 25
Rituals are emotion generators. Once a particular set of movements become linked to a particular emotion, that set of actions, that ritual, is then available to summon the relevant emotion - not unlike a catalyst in the kitchen such as sourdough bread starter. 

- I started using the time when I get out of the shower as a ritual time. I light a candle and while I'm drying off and lotioning up, I think of the covenants that I have made in the temple. I go over them in my mind and repeat some of the phrases we use in the temple. It has made a big change in my life, helping me want to do better at keeping those covenants.
p. 78 After a childhood spent in the world of food and fine dining, Michaud had hospitality on her mind when she arrived in New York. what she discovered, however, was not the city that never sleeps. Instead, it was a city shattered by lockdown and looking to find its social footing. In 2022, although people were ready to socialize again, a mood of trepidation hung over many social gatherings. For people such as Michaud, young transplants still new to the city, the question was, How do you possibly find IRL friends after two years of Zoom happy hours? Instead of starting with people already in her network, Michaud took a bolder and bigger chance. She identified six strangers-friends of friends and people she found on Bumble BFF, a friendship app-and invited them to a meal in her home. She didn't call her party Dinner with Strangers, however. Instead, she sent out her invites and welcomed people she had never met to join her for an intimate evening around her dining table. It's a "Dinner with Friends," her invite stated. A promise or a pipe dream?
As documented in the New York Times, one by one, women arrived for dinner - total strangers - and learned, once again, how to have a conversation with new people in the same room. What does it look like to make friends again? The question was on everyone's mind after the worst of the pandemic. Researchers estimate that people's social networks decreased in size an average of 16 percent during COVIDs lockdowns and in the following year of social distancing.
When the strangers at Michaud's dinner party erupted into laughter or split off into side conversations, she knew they had all found a bit of chemistry. Before the night was over, she connected everyone on a group chat and added it to her growing collections of text streams, each from a different cohort of guests at one of her dinner parties. She now has a waiting list of more than eight hundred people to attend oen of her "stranger" events - primarily young women, all with a simple intent: today I might make a friend.

p. 144 
Everyday family meals offer another opportunity for reinvention. In the United States, one in five family meals are now consumed in a car, and close to three-quarters are eaten outside the home. Fewer than 33 percent of American families eat together at an actual table more than two times a week.
An abundance of research over the past two decades has confirmed the power of reviving this ritual. In 2012, for example, a survey conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found that regular family dinners were linked to a decreased rate of substance abuse in teenagers and an increase in feelings of connectedness between adolescents and their parents. One study of nine-three parents wit ha first-grader showed that the benefits of mealtime rituals are particularly pronounced for boosting relationships between fathers and daughters, family members who otherwise spend less time together. It's not a question of if for most families; it's a question of how. Between sports schedules, after-school jobs, commutes and school days and work meetings that run late, how can we make the family meal into a meaningful event?
Psychiatrist Anne Fishel has some ideas. Fishel directs the FAmily and Couples Therapy Program at Massachusetts Genreal Hospital, where she saw a need for more guidance on making this meal happen. She started the Family Dinner Project to help families add a touch of ritual back into their lives. The project is designed to transform family meals from habits to rituals; that is, from empty routines (this is what we do) to meaningful experiences that connect family and enrich the lives of children (this is who we are).
Rishel starts small. She recommends picking one meal, or even one snack time, when the family commits to being together - which often means poring through everyone's schedule to find that single thirty-minute window that works for all members. The key is to pick just one. Thinking that family dinners are all-important can be self-defeating if we focus on the impossibility of having dinner (or any meal) together every day. it's important to be realistic about the time you have.
It's also worth starting small on the food, too - while home-cooked healthy meals are best for everyone, the stress of preparing an entire meal from scratch is another barrier to getting started. As in so many other areas of life, the great can be the enemy of the food. What Fishel has in mind is decidedly more playful and improvisational: think less Sunday roast and more silly snack time when the family eats popcorn together on Tuesday evening.

p. 158 on death and the process after the funeral is over:
Literally, the United States has no law requiring bereavement leave.
As anyone who has experienced grief knows, this is not how the process works. In one study of 233 bereaved individuals followed for twenty-four months after the death of a loved one, disbelief peaked at one month after the loss, yearning peaked at four months, anger peaed at five months, and depression didn't peak until six months. Unfortunately, we often put pressure on ourselves to move on, to stop thinking about the person, to "get over it".

Goodreads says:

In the bestselling tradition of Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit and Angela Duckworth’s Grit, a renowned social psychologist demonstrates the power of small acts—and how a subtle turning of habits into rituals can add purpose and pleasure to life.

Our lives are filled with repetitive tasks meant to boost productivity—what we come to know as habits. Over time, these habits (for example, brushing your teeth or putting on your right sock first) are done on autopilot. But when a layer of mindfulness accompanies a habit—when we focus on the precise way an act is performed—a ritual has been created. Now, an everyday act goes from black-and-white to technicolor. And as author Michael Norton explains here, it’s these rituals that make life worth living.

Think of the way you savor a certain beverage, the care you take with a certain outfit that only gets worn on special occasions, the unique way that your family gathers around the table at the holidays, or the secret language you enjoy with your significant other. To some, these behaviors may seem quirky, but because rituals matter so deeply to us on a personal level, they saturate our lives with purpose and meaning. Rituals can heal a community experiencing a great loss, guide a speaker through a difficult presentation, drive a stadium of sports fans to ecstasy, inspire courage in soldiers going into combat, and help us rise to challenges and realize opportunities. Among those who have made effective use of rituals are Maya Angelou, Keith Richards, Barack Obama, and Steve Jobs. Drawing on decades of original research, author Michal Norton reveals that shifting from a “habitual” mindset to a “ritual” mindset can both enhance performance and add meaning to your life.

Compelling, inspiring, and practical, The Ritual Effect takes us on a fascinating tour of the intention-filled acts that drive human behavior and shows us how to create simple rituals to imbue everyday life with a sense of purpose and joy.

The Fitness Curveball (Tim Borys)

 

I had hopes that this book would talk about how to always be an exercises, even when life throws you curveballs. It doesn't really do that though. It does have some good information on habits and belief systems although some of the practices he suggests are a little weird and a waste of time, if you ask me. Having a good foundation of habits definitely is helpful though for when things go sideways, so I'll give him some credit. There is a lot on proper form for exercise too - which is hard to soak in through reading. I bet he's a good personal coach. He book was just so so if you ask me though. 

Goodreadsa says:

Nothing!! There's nothing on Goodreads and mind was the first review. Now that's new! 

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products (Nir Eyal)

 

I really enjoyed this book. It is interesting to read about how people get addicted to social media. His theories sync with all the habit books I have read. I didn't read this because I want to build some addictive product, but mostly because I wanted to learn about how they try to draw me in, and quite successfully do, it seems.

I have now read two of his books. After reading Indistractable, I turned off all the notifications on my laptop and on my phone. What a difference. I also signed up for FocusMate...which has been an interesting experience. Mostly positive! In this book I learned about an app called FitBod that I am really interested in. I think I might even pay for a subscription. He has good information! 

I just recently read an article that really stuck with me. It was about the things you may be doing in the morning that actually ruin your day. First on the list was getting on your phone first thing. Then in the first pages of this book I read that 79% of smartphone owners check their device within 15 minutes of waking up every morning. The thought struck me: if I don't check my phone first thing in the morning, I'm ahead of 79% of the population out there! Perhaps I'm too competitive, but things like this are very motivating to me. 

Goodreads says:

How do successful companies create products people can’t put down?

Why do some products capture widespread attention while others flop? What makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit? Is there a pattern underlying how technologies hook us?

Nir Eyal answers these questions (and many more) by explaining the Hook Model—a four-step process embedded into the products of many successful companies to subtly encourage customer behavior. Through consecutive “hook cycles,” these products reach their ultimate goal of bringing users back again and again without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging.


Hooked is based on Eyal’s years of research, consulting, and practical experience. He wrote the book he wished had been available to him as a start-up founder—not abstract theory, but a how-to guide for building better products. Hooked is written for product managers, designers, marketers, start-up founders, and anyone who seeks to understand how products influence our behavior.


Eyal provides readers with:


• Practical insights to create user habits that stick.
• Actionable steps for building products people love.

• Fascinating examples from the iPhone to Twitter, Pinterest to the Bible App, and many other habit-forming products.

The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg)

 

This was an excellent read (well, listen!). It has a lot of the same principles of Atomic Habits, but also talks a lot about people who have studied the brain in relation to habits. I finally understood the power of cues and appreciated his strategy for figuring out what are the cues that make you do what you do. Definitely a book to read again! 

A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, have fundamentally changed.

Marketers at Procter & Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern—and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year.

An untested CEO takes over one of the largest companies in America. His first order of business is attacking a single pattern among his employees—how they approach worker safety—and soon the firm, Alcoa, becomes the top performer in the Dow Jones.

What do all these people have in common? They achieved success by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives.

They succeeded by transforming habits.

In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.

Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.

At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.

Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.

Indistractable (Nir Eyal)

 

This is a great book. I want to also read his book, Hooked. In this book, he gives a lot of really great tips. Two that I started already are I turned off notifications on my email so that I'm not distracted at school every time I get an email. I also signed up for FocusMate. I haven't used it yet...but I plan to. 

This is a book I plan to go back and read annually to reflect on how I'm doing and make additional adjustments.

Goodreads says:

You sit down at your desk to work on an important project, but a notification on your phone interrupts your morning. Later, as you're about to get back to work, a colleague taps you on the shoulder to chat. At home, screens get in the way of quality time with your family. Another day goes by, and once again, your most important personal and professional goals are put on hold.  

What would be possible if you followed through on your best intentions? What could you accomplish if you could stay focused and overcome distractions? What if you had the power to become "indistractable"?  

International best-selling author, former Stanford lecturer, and behavioral design expert, Nir Eyal, wrote Silicon Valley's handbook for making technology habit-forming. Five years after publishing Hooked, Eyal reveals distraction's Achilles' heel in his groundbreaking new book.  

In Indistractable, Eyal reveals the hidden psychology driving us to distraction. He describes why solving the problem is not as simple as swearing off our devices: Abstinence is impractical and often makes us want more.  

Eyal lays bare the secret of finally doing what you say you will do with a four-step, research-backed model. Indistractable reveals the key to getting the best out of technology, without letting it get the best of us.  

Inside, Eyal overturns conventional wisdom and reveals: 


Why distraction at work is a symptom of a dysfunctional company culture - and how to fix it  
What really drives human behavior and why "time management is pain management"  
Why your relationships (and your sex life) depend on you becoming indistractable  
How to raise indistractable children in an increasingly distracting world 
Empowering and optimistic, Indistractable provides practical, novel techniques to control your time and attention - helping you live the life you really want.