Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones

I read Atomic Habits and, while reading, wrote 150 lines of a .txt file summarising the best parts. I still find it useful today.

Also reminded me of this passage from War of Art...

"What's hard is sitting down to write. Have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what “Resistance” is."

Thanks for that! I've wasted far too many hours of my life on books like this that could easily have conveyed all their useful information in a couple of pages.

I had the distinct feeling it might be that sort of book from the vapid, content-free nature of the linked blog post, but to have it confirmed by someone who's actually bothered to look at the source is valuable.

Here you go: https://www.chrisbehan.ca/posts/atomic-habits

Related HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29774859

Which would have drowned it in the ocean where drops are posts.

_We do "need" (it would be a revolution in civilization) a system to review contributions - including posts - ranking them for value._

Something that would allow such «blog post» to have a recognition - closer to "best seller" class and farther to "found it randomly".

That's every self help book ever. I've read a few a while ago and don't read them anymore. Past the intro and maybe the first or second chapter it's a collection of anecdotes to fill 100~200 pages.

If you takeaway a valuable idea, what’s that worth to you? The time I spend reading a book is far more valuable than whatever the cost of the actual book is. I can’t imagine factoring a discount into the decision making process.

This is the "problem". You've read a lot of similar books so this one isn't groundbreaking. But if you were one of today's 10000, this one would be groundbreaking.

That is false.

Maybe you can, but if you don't know you should then this book helps.

However, a doctor or therapist wouldn't just give you the book and ask you to follow its suggestions on your own. They'd work with you to set up homework (worksheets to identify negative thinking patterns for example), set deadlines and assess how you're doing after 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks, etc. They act as an accountability partner.

Judging the efficacy of productivity advice can also be properly assessed via a similar scientific method of observation and experimentation and measurement.

And so we get Self Help Book 2.0, now with a lengthy introduction describing all kinds of relatable issues that convinces you that this is the right book that seems to 'get' you as an individual. But beyond the motivational first chapter, the book still contains those hard-to-do-regularly steps and insists that you must change if your habits are to. So we end up dropping that as well, choosing instead to wait for the next book that makes all the right promises.