Field Report #7: How I Process “Atomic Habits” by James Clear

System

Field Report #7: Atomic Habits • Zettelkasten Method

First, ask yourself what the source requires of you. The individual in “individualising the way of working” is the source you are processing, not you.

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FernandoNobel

Those who do not react flexibly to the demands of the situation become slaves to their stubbornness.

This post is a good example of why it is important to go deeper and understand the principles behind the methods we imitate (shuhari). That flexibility is difficult to imitate. That flexibility is being able to create on-demand the method that is needed for each situation.

Thank you for this field report :-)

Sascha

I wouldn't say that you imitate the flexibility, but you add this style of processing to your toolbox when you encounter a fitting book that you want to process.

It is rather a problem-driven process: You need a proper resistance to have a good reason to build your Zettelkasten muscle.

FernandoNobel

I wouldn't say that you imitate the flexibility, but you add this style of processing to your toolbox when you encounter a fitting book that you want to process.

Yes, I agree that the idea is to have this flexible processing style in our toolbox.

However, in my previous comment, I was thinking about the case where you don't have flexible tools, and nobody tells you that it is good to have flexibility in your tools. In this case, one way to realize that you need flexibility is to go deeper and master your tools. That is why I said that this flexibility cannot be imitated.

(This was my case before reading this post: I was always applying the Barbell method without flexibility )

Thanks again for writing this post :-)

brsma

As for criticism of the behaviourist model (I share your discontents) that Clear and other authors on the topic rely on: have you already read Alfie Kohn's “Punished by Rewards” which provides probably the most encompassing compilation of research-backed arguments against it?

On a side note: in most cases the actual subject is not habits but routines. While habits are very much automated (e. g. brushing your teeth), routines require conscious effort (e. g. journaling). The – IMHO important – differentiation between habits (low effort, instrumental), routines (conscious effort, instrumental/transactional), and rituals (conscious effort, transcendental/beyond transactional) gets continuously ignored by most non-scientific authors. I have a hunch that this could help with moving beyond the behaviourist reductionism.

Sascha

@brsma said:
As for criticism of the behaviourist model (I share your discontents) that Clear and other authors on the topic rely on: have you already read Alfie Kohn's “Punished by Rewards” which provides probably the most encompassing compilation of research-backed arguments against it?

Ah, many thanks for the reminder of this book. This actually a very important book for my work in general and I didn't read it yet.

On a side note: in most cases the actual subject is not habits but routines. While habits are very much automated (e. g. brushing your teeth), routines require conscious effort (e. g. journaling). The – IMHO important – differentiation between habits (low effort, instrumental), routines (conscious effort, instrumental/transactional), and rituals (conscious effort, transcendental/beyond transactional) gets continuously ignored by most non-scientific authors. I have a hunch that this could help with moving beyond the behaviourist reductionism.

In that case, I have to disagree with the notion that habits and routines are something completely different. It might be a language thing. But I'd count journaling as a habit. It is not the action itself that is automated but the decision to journal in reaction to a certain context cue.

I don't think that the low resolution is the core problem of the self-help literature. It is the single-mindedness that stems from unconscious dogmas guiding the work (especially the modern-western hedonism).

So, my angle is much more existential than psychological in my critique.

But on the flip side, I think that behavioural reductionism is an awesome tool, if you see it as a role that you are playing: Reducing the problem to a behavioural one. (Which could be a job title for me)

EDIT: In my book, I make the following distinction, however:

• Habits are automated behavioural representations that are activated in specific contexts.
• Routines are actions with a more or less fixed order. (not automated)
• Rituals are routines that represent meaning.

Wood's model is less sexy but more accurate:

JasperMcFly

@brsma said:

While habits are very much automated (e. g. brushing your teeth), routines require conscious effort (e. g. journaling).

I really like this distinction between habit and routine. Makes sense. Atomic Habits collapses the two into one and the same.

I almost wish James Clear would go back and rewrite the entire book and be more deliberate about which claims refer to automatic habits and which pertain to routines that require effort to complete.