Cheatsheet: "Atomic Habits" by James Clear

Recommended for Startup Investors?

Why

I started reading this book and was very confused: wasn't this the same book as Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit? After finishing the book, I concluded that Clear's book has been more successful because 1) it's more concrete and has more tactics, 2) he himself lives the principles, and 3) he continues to market the content online.

That said, all this will influence how I continue to try and make SIFA the most relevant nexus for startup investors. I've noticed the longer and more frequently I write deal memos, I become instinctively drawn to revenue, valuation, funding, and the other criteria for any form of business evaluation.

Concepts

[1] Good habits: make it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying (“Any habit can be broken down into a feedback loop that involves four steps: cue, craving, response, and reward.”)
The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become.
Habit scorecard. Japanese conductors see "pointing and calling."
[5] Time and place are great intention triggers
Many lack clarity not motivation
Diderot Effect and habit stacking
[10] Breaking bad habits: make it invisible, unappealing, difficult, and unsatisfying
[11] Art and Fear Ted Orlan: Book about quantity is quality.
[13] “The Two-Minute Rule states, ‘When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.’”
[16] "The first rule of compounding is never interrupt it"
Goodhart's law: when one starts to optimize for a KPI then the KPI loses use.
Habit tracking is not for everyone and everything because it has high costs
Never miss twice
[18] Choose the right field of competition
Big five personailty test
Explore exploit paradigm, settle on 80% exploit 20% explore
"Boiling will soften potato and harden egg but you can't choose whether you're a potato or egg"
Work hard on things that come easy
[19] Steve Martin's story
"Who can handle the boredom of training every day"
How not to be a fair-weather anything is sticking to the schedule
[20] Decision journal and reflection
Paul Graham: keep your identity small
[Conclusion] Can one coin make a person rich?

Facts

[1] Pointing and calling in the Japanese subway saved a life. Link. Reduces error by 85% and accidents by 30%. MTA adopted a modified version and reduced errors by 57% within a couple years.
[10] Alan Carr's easy way to stop smoking: "stop lying to yourself. You don't actually enjoy this." Systematically reframes queues.
Ed Latimore and building good habits: found that he could focus putting headphones on even without playing music.
[14] Cash register allegory
[15] Karachi soap story
[16] Paper clip strategy
[20] CBE career best effort, peak effort, and the LA Lakers