Thoughts on Atomic Habits Commentary by Jason Braganza

Original post at https://mjbraganza.com/atomic-habits/

1. Schedule and structure make or break the plan. Goals only show the direction of the task. Personally I would say this has brought all change I need.

2. Answer in the affirmative. You don’t try quitting smoking, you don’t smoke period. Personally I don’t identify as someone who can’t eat butter or meat but as someone who won’t. This confirms my resolve in what I believe to be done.

3. Environments are inherently associated with specific habits. I go to the department to work to make it possible to just concentrate on the task at hand instead of procrastinating. This has worked really well and it can be further improved but it is much better than being at home.

4. Jason mentions a more important point that I had realize earlier but failed to follow through. It is to always repeat and practice something even if one is not good at it. We can always improve on the parts of the task that are lacking rather than ditching the whole task.

5. I have made running more enjoyable by running with an acquittance and making them a friend. It is more interesting to interact with someone you don’t see everyday.

6. I will just leave the quote here, “Never miss twice. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.”

I think most of it boils down to building an identity and keep improving it to best serve our needs. For me, it is a matter of compounding the effort put in building up a schedule this month to make it smoother in the coming days. As a nice side effect I am getting 6km of biking done everyday for free :)