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Habits

I recently finished the book, Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick by Wendy Wood. I have previously enjoyed books on improving daily routines and habits such as Atomic Habits by James Clear, but this book stands out due to the academic nature of its author, Wendy Wood.

43% of our actions repeated on a daily basis are purely out of habit

There are two basic systems of our brain that are at interplay:

3 basic foundational steps of creating a habit that resides

  1. Context
  2. Repetition
  3. Reward

Build (or Break) habits:

Context

Friction!

Context Cue Examples:

Strategies:

Repetition

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit." - Aristotle

As you keep doing the behavior, it gets easier to do. Over time, this becomes automatic.

Reward

The establishment of an immediate reward is the main driver for a habit to become automatic.

These are of 2 types of rewards:

  1. Extrinsic Rewards (appreciation, money, appealing surrounding, etc.)
  2. Intrinsic Rewards (the response itself, feeling good, etc.) - These are more effective to building habits

Over time, habits will not need a reward to continue, just the context/cue.


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