Atomic Habits

[nelsonic]

1.01^365 = 37.78 ... a 1% improvement each day compounded over 365 days is a 37x improvement!

If we do this calculation for one day 1.01 x 1.01 = 1.0201 it's "meh." right? 🤷‍♂️ it does not feel like much of an improvement after one day, it's "only" 1% after all. After 30 days (1.01^30 = 1.3478) a 34.78% improvement over the baseline might not feel like much but it's huge! A 34% improvement in any area/field is an incredible achievement. But keep going ...

After 90 days (1.01^90 = 2.4486) 244.86% improvement. i.e. almost 2.5x better than at the start! If this was investing money and you were able to more than double your money in 90 days, you would be more successful than Warren Buffet, John D. Rockefeller and Ray Dalio combined!

After 180 days (1.01^90 = 5.995) you are almost 6 times better than at the start. The effect of compound interest is pretty obvious at this point.

And if you are keeping track of your progress relative to your starting point this will be massive. It's difficult to comprehend this because there are not many things in the natural world that increase by 6x in 6 months. Perhaps Bamboo (the fastest growing plant) grows this fast...? Even Bamboo does not come close to 6x growth rate! Bamboo does not start it's rapid growth phase until it has established deep/strong roots, that usually takes 1-3 years. It does not grow 10m in the first year ...

[nelsonic]

[nelsonic]

This is the calculation on page 15 of James Clear’s book. It’s the notion that a 1% improvement each day compounds to a 37x increase over a year.

[nelsonic]

I finished reading Atomic Habits this morning. It took me 3 days x 3 hours each day to read. 9h total. I feel that it was worth my time because it made me think about the habits I want to cultivate/change in my life. However I felt that the book was about 50% too long. James (or his Editor/Publisher) could have reduced the book down to fewer than 100 pages and it would have been a better book!

[nelsonic]

a few minutes after I finished reading atomic habits this notification appeared on my iPad:

GOTO: https://youtu.be/_u8lxBrIm0c

[nelsonic]

Nathan Lorenzo (Productivity Game) has create a good summary of the book: https://convertkit.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/documents/4427/1776099/Atomic_Habits.pdf

However I feel it's incomplete ... he fails to highlight the key quote in the book:

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

I feel that this is the single most important/valuable lesson in the book, and it's the one the book completely fails to give a conclusive "next action" for.

[nelsonic]

https://youtu.be/xRse5I_p7tA

[nelsonic]

Full audiobook available on YT: https://youtu.be/dEOmnFZUnm8 Listening to it now before it disappears. (I need a refresher. Originally read it on paper in 2018…)

[nelsonic]

Summary: https://www.chrisbehan.ca/posts/atomic-habits HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29774859