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

| James Clear, 2018

What’s It All About?

Do you want to break your bad habits or get better at forming positive habits? This book is the place to start! In his massively popular bestseller Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, author James Clear presents a practical guide for forming good habits, breaking bad ones, and finding productive ways to practice turning small behavior into big results.

With an expert background in habit forming, Clear introduces actionable strategies for key tasks like developing habits, overcoming a lack of motivation and other challenges, and setting yourself up for successfully following through on new habits. His strategies are backed up from research drawn from neuroscience and other fields. I also particularly enjoyed how he interspersed his insights with impactful and inspiring stories from others who have used habit forming to reach new levels of success, ranging from Olympic athletes to everyday business leaders.

Favorite Quote

“Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit. This is a distinguishing difference between winners and losers.”

Biggest Takeaway

Atomic Habits has sold over 15 million copies worldwide, which is unsurprising since it’s full of so many powerful takeaways about forming and breaking habits. One of my biggest takeaways was the section on friction, and how leaders can actually use friction to their advantage. When you find yourself with friction toward a habit, it means you need to make the habit-forming process easier for yourself by removing the barriers and challenges that prevent you from getting started on forming a new habit.

For example, I want to write more handwritten notes, but often find myself set back by small tasks like buying stamps and finding the time in my schedule to sit down and write. Instead of letting these small setbacks keep me from my goals, I need to come up with solutions that make it easier for me to start my new letter writing habit, like blocking out writing time in my schedule.

Bonus Information

While forming a new habit, you might miss a day—and that’s okay! Even the most successful people miss a day from time to time. If you miss a day in your routine, the key is getting right back to it.

Reviewed by: Trevor Blondeel, November 22, 2023

At Manufacturing Greatness, Trevor Blondeel works with manufacturers to connect the top to the shop. If you’re ready to improve your own organization, contact Trevor to learn how Manufacturing Greatness can help you build stronger leaders and develop a dynamic, high-performing workplace.

Mindfulness Manufacturing

Our show is about providing listeners with real stories that come from a place of experience, transparency, and authenticity. Most importantly it’s about what we learn from these stories and applying Mindfulness in our everyday work and personal lives.
Our intention is to create an environment where people can learn through open honest discussions on how we apply Mindfulness. Although our experiences and stories come from time in a manufacturing environment hence the title “Mindfulness Manufacturing”, we still see our discussions and topics relatable to any organization or profession.

When a mistake occurs on the plant floor, your mind might jump to one question: who caused this issue, and should I write them up for their mistake? But there’s a more productive approach you could be taking—and in this episode of Mindfulness Manufacturing, guest Dr. Jake Mazulewicz breaks it all down!

With a background as a firefighter, EMT, and military paratrooper, Jake knows the challenges of high-hazard industries, and works with organizations to reduce errors and create safer, more reliable workplace environments. In this episode, Jake shares why you can’t procedularize everything, including the way you handle errors and accidents, and offers great insights and stories about how to use connection and curiosity to improve safety, address errors, and strengthen your organization.

3:35 – Procedures and policies are the work that is imagined, and on the floor is how the work actually gets done

4:19 – The work as-done is almost always radically different than the work as-imagined

5:20 – Even when you have standards and people show up wanting to do a good job, you can still see issues that need to be addressed

6:44 – There will always be areas that absolutely need to have procedures in place

8:02 – There are also adaptive jobs, which leans less into procedures and more intro troubleshooting and tacit human knowledge

10:56 – In an ideal environment, both mechanistic and adaptive models are used and respected and needed

12:11 – There are four levels, ranging from strict procedurals to looser guidelines that show what to do, but not how to do it

15:36 – Tacit knowledge gets shared through conversations

16:22 – A way to share important information is to have frontline experts record videos sharing their insights to problems, especially those that are not covered in procedures

19:44 – Through conversation and connection, more knowledge is shared

21:58 – Debriefing also plays a central role

23:45 – If you have strong discipline, you’ll find more freedom

25:31 – In most situations, errors are signals, not defects

27:07 – When an error occurs, be curious and find the deeper cause of the problem

Connect with Jake Mazulewicz

Find him on Linkedin

Visit his website