Atomic Habits by James Clear Review

Atomic Habits is about the importance of small changes (like atoms) leading to big changes rather than anything nuclear-related. It’s also not really an original work. James Clear (a name designed for puns I’ll try to steer… away… from) makes it… transparent… that his book is more of an aggregator of past advice/books. That’s probably why it’s so underwhelming, at least for someone who’s read similar books, because the material isn’t new and feels repetitive.

The premise itself is obvious: make small changes and, over time, those changes compound to make big changes. Duh. The first half of the book pretty much repeats this idea over and over with a number of similarly unremarkable tips: change your environment, reframe things cognitively, set the bar for creating a new habit really low (the two-minute rule - do something for two minutes each day and eventually it becomes a habit), have an accountability partner, make lists, and so on. It’s all stuff I’ve heard before so I wasn’t impressed.

The format is like most self-help books of this kind: start with an anecdote about someone famous that underlines your point and then get into the point. Some of the anecdotes are ok, some are forgettable. I find it only added to an already overlong book, especially as the few things in it I found useful could’ve been condensed into a handful of pages at most.

The writing style is accessible but bland, like most copywriting for instructional websites, though I appreciate why that is - so that the information is passed on as… understandably… as possible. And, like said websites, the book features numerous links, all to Clear’s own site, for anyone wanting to see examples of things he’s talking about in the chapter (ie. habit trackers).

Still, I got some new ideas from the book that I’ll be trying out and maybe the most important thing Clear imparts is to focus on systems rather than goals - about changing your behaviours and lifestyle so that you become the kind of person who maintains the success of the goal rather than falling back onto bad habits once you’ve achieved it.

Generally though I didn’t find the book all that interesting and found the lessons quite banal. Not being put off when you miss a day/stumble, find the system that works for you, remember to reward yourself, get rid of obstacles in the way of good habits and put obstacles in the way of bad habits, be more aware of your behaviours in order to change them, and so on.

Not that I’ve read a great deal of self-help books but I’ve read a few and even then I found that Atomic Habits did little to add to the accumulated knowledge of these. So maybe if you’ve read literally nothing on the subject of self-improvement, this book may be useful and compelling to you, though, aside from the occasional piece, James Clear’s Atomic Habits was… self-evidently… not for me.