For me, starting behaviour is a lot easier than changing the ones you already have. With changing behaviour, you always have to get rid of something and it might be challenging. In the book four laws of behaviour change were presented: 

1. Cue – know the cue and make it obvious 

2. Craving – make the new behaviour attractive 

3. Response – make it easy, the environment should support good choices 

4. Reward – good habits should be satisfying 

This book made me reflect my own routines and how to improve them – self-improvement is a life-long process, not a terminal goal. Routines are something we should think about every once in a while since our lives have been built around them. 

Key insights – breaking our behaviour into atoms 

1. Small habit changes can produce outsized effects that improve or degrade quality of life. 

When thinking about making a change in my life, most of the time the changes that come to mind are big: start eating healthier, start going to the gym or get a job that you love. We easily overestimate the degree of change needed to make a difference in our lives. Small changes such as going for a walk every now and then are in a big part of improving the quality of life. We should also pay attention to keystone habits: replacing bad behaviour with good.  

2. Habits are interwined with personal identity. 

What comes to my mind when thinking about habits is routines but it’s important to remember that they are a lot more than that. Habits are reflections of our identity, they show who we are and who we aspire to become. They reflect our values, beliefs, and priorities when at the same time shaping our identity. I have spent a lot of time reflecting myself and my values and I’m sure it can be seen from the outside. 

3. A person who wants to break a bad habit may wish to use a commitment device, which is a preventative measure that limits future actions. 

Any step taken to make a bad habit harder to execute in the future is one step closer to reaching goals. I’ve started tracking my screentime on my phone and set some restrictions to apps to decrease the use of it. 

4. Outcomes are a delayed reaction to long-standing habits. 

After changing habits, the results we see in our lives aren’t immediate but rather the product of the habits we have cultivated over time. Because of that, keeping healthy habits might get tricky if the result isn’t seen right away – we’re impatient and grave instant gratification and immediate results. It’s good to have milestones to have the feeling of success more often.  

5. How people talk about a new habit, even to themselves, affects its implementation. 

It’s easy to focus on the negatives when starting a new habit – it makes some kind of change in your life, and it isn’t always only positive. When starting new habits, we should frame them in a positive light to be more successful. And tricking yourself to think more positively isn’t that hard – an easy way to do that is to change the way you frame your sentences – instead of saying that you have to do something, tell that you can do something. Good way to start new habits is also to make them more luxurious: if you struggle with sleeping, you can buy a new, more comfortable pillow or if you struggle with eating breakfast, you can buy something a little fancier for the mornings. 

6. A new habit is more likely to become ingrained if it’s easy. 

There is a common thought that a great expedinture of effort is needed to make a change, this is not a very effective way of thinking since many small changes will eventually make a big change. In the book Hoffman recommends a half an hour long technique she refers to as the 20/10 – it consists of 20 minutes of active work and 10 minutes of break time. I have used this exact technique for a while, and it’s really helped me to boost my working or other tasks – a great example of this has been reading books and writing reflections of them. The technique works because it’s easy to carry through and it leaves me space to only think about books and not the time – I’ve myself used a timer for this. I also like to split the work into smaller pieces – big tasks may seem overwhelming but when cut into smaller pieces, it makes the project feel more accessible. 

7. Good habits yield positive results over the long term. Bad habits only bring short-term gain. 

It’s easy to seek for short-term gain: our brains grave for fast dopamine – that’s why Tiktoks and reels are as popular as they are. What follows fast dopamine is delayed negative effect – the good feeling doesn’t last long and melancholy can fill the mind. Instead, we should seek for slow dopamine: going for a walk instead of watching Tiktoks brings long term gain at least for me since it lifts my mood for a longer time. 

8. Environments can be designed to better support good habits. 

Workplaces are usually designed to support different habits – there might be reading corners for quiet working, kitchen areas for small talking and conference rooms for meetings and working. We associate different rooms or areas for different types of working and that happens for me in Tiimiakatemia. If I want to talk to people, I usually go to our team’s workstation and if I need to get something done effectively, I’ll reserve myself a conference room – then my brain knows that it’s time to work. I associate home with resting and recovering so getting anything work-related tasks done there is almost impossible. The happiest people in the world surround themselves by cues that encourage healthy behaviour and good habits – these might involve leaving your running shoes somewhere you can see them daily – just to remind you that you own them.