I gleaned a lot of great information out of this book. Definitely going to have to let it digest and re-read at some point.

Everything from learning how habits are formed to how to use that to your advantage is packed in here. Another great section is all about how others are using your built-in habit loops against you. ( )

Right, THAT'S why I don't read generic business popsci self help books.

NF

Terrific book. I have a whole new outlook on coupons I get from Kroger and Target. ( )

I loved this book and found it one of the best business books I've ever read. It also has wonderful information for personal application. I learned very valuable and interesting information about habits and how to use a good habit to improve all areas of my life. I would recommend this book to everyone. ( )

Great explanations of how people and organizations develop and (sometimes) change habits. The book gives lots of interesting examples of how habits shape our lives, from psychology to advertising to corporate processes to cultural prejudices. It makes me think habits are like computer programs that our brains are constantly running, sometimes without even realizing it; and these programs can be modified. ( )

I enjoyed this book. It provided interesting insight into the power of habits and how we can try to change them. ( )

There are lots of interesting and well-told anecdotes to illustrate Duhigg's point, which is (let me save you some time): your actions, whether you realize it or not, predominantly come from web of habits. There is also a Golden Rule: "If you use the same cue, and provide the same reward, you can shift the routine and change the habit. Almost any behavior can be transformed if the cue and reward stay the same." That is, You Can't Extinguish a Bad Habit, You Can Only Change It (p.63).

I wasn't always sure that he chose the right stories to support his message (while always entertaining, there was a hole or two in some of them), but I understand and mostly agree with his premise. My favorite line from the book is a quote from William James, brother of Henry James: "I will assume for the present that [the ability to change] is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe if free will" (p. 272).

Appendix consists of "A Reader's Guide to Using These Ideas". ( )

Nëse ne kuptojmë sekretet e shprehisë, mënyrën e funksionimit të tyre, mund ta transformojme biznesin tonë, dhe jetën tonë. Ky libër ofron shumë sekrete që vlejnë në përditshmëri. Suksesi i këtij botimi dëshmohet edhe nga vlerësimet që i kanë bë mediat më të njohura në botë dhe shitjet në miliona kopje, duke u kthyer në bestseller në një periudhë rekord

While this book had some interesting information in it - both scientific studies and anecdotal stories - I was disappointed with it.

Many of the examples seem "stretched" a bit to be classified as "habits," and Duhigg jumped back and forth between stories, which made for disjointed reading.

It was not a practical book that I found helpful in changing my own habits.

Note: It also references evolutionary theory as fact. ( )

The entire first part of this book was completely fascinating. I was completely in love with the first significant chunk - about a man who loses his hippocampi in a traumatic accident, but still manages to go for walks around the block, make food and hold conversations about computers, all without being able to remember such details as where he lives or how old he is or what year it is. A Oliver Sacks-worthy story illustrating the power of habit in determining how we live.

Duhigg goes on from there to illustrate, using animal experiments in rodents and monkeys how habits are formed and how we can form good habits and extinguish bad ones. He perfectly balances practicality with intriguing science and anecdotes.

The latter two halves of the book spiral off in a multitude of directions. How is having willpower a habit? I'm not really sold. Some of his anecdotes read like they would belong better in Blink or the Tipping Point and it undermines the strong, consistent definition of a habit from the first third.

Also, some of my favorite parts of the book - the febreze model and the target/pregnancy story are available online on NPR & NYTimes magazine and excerpted on lifehacker. (I had read them prior to this and hoped that the rest of the book would be the same quality) ( )

Engaging writing makes this an easy read. Duhigg incorporates extensive research and presents it with a voice that kept me reading even when the example was coaching NFL football. ( )

Some interesting stories demonstrating the core premise, but lacking a little in depth ( )

great ( )

Great book... super informative and well researched! ( )

Incredibly enlightening book. A highly recommended read if you want to understand yourself (and others) better. ( )

Simple, popular, “arm chair” psychology says that life is full of “rational” choices that guide our lives. However, reasoning from human experience and psychological research, we’ve learned that habits guide most of our lives and prevent us from “choice fatigue.” How are we then to make use of habitual practices? In this book, Charles Duhigg analyzes how this impacts our business lives, our personal lives, and our society. He seeks to identify specific ways that people can become more effective.

People with even a rudimentary understanding of marketing can quickly grasp many of the business insights in this book. Advertisers clearly try to get us hooked on numerous products, and the research presented in this section was hardly earth-shattering to me. Most of it can be observed by watching an hour of television or walking through an American mall. Likewise, the section on personal habits taught self-awareness, but those who are already fairly self-aware will not benefit much from explanations of cues triggering behaviors.

Despite these repetitious shortcomings, I found the section on implementing social change to be more enlightening. Duhigg examines two social examples – the 1960s Civil Rights movement and Rick Warren’s megachurch – in light of contemporary research. He shows why and how they produced lasting social change where others did not. Reading the newspaper each day, I find it easy to become jaded that true social improvements will never occur. Duhigg reminded me that they can, provided that the right circumstances exist and the right opportunities are taken. Importantly, he spells out what research identifies as what these factors are.

This book drives home the postmodern point that our practices are what make us who we are, not our “rational” minds. Our minds inform our practices and craft our habits, yes. But each day, we follow mental scripts more than make decisions. This understanding has been supported by neuroscience findings throughout the last few decades, and Duhigg has brought them to public light. That is the real contribution of this book and why it reached bestseller status. As a self-help book, it speaks to a general audience, particularly people who want to change some aspect of their life. (And frankly, who doesn’t?) Like many self-help books, its recommendations can be repetitive, but the underlying research is new and interesting. ( )

Find a simple and obvious cue
Clearly define the rewards

Consumers need some kind of signal that a product or service is working .

Champions don’t do extraordinary things, they do ordinary things, but without thinking.

The best way to strengthen willpower and discipline is to make it a habit.

Willpower isn’t a skill; it’s a muscle

Starbucks method :
"This workbook is for you to imagine unpleasant situations, and write out a plan for responding," the manager said. "One of the systems we use is called the LATTE method. We Listen to the customer, Acknowledge their complaint, Take action by solving the problem,
Thank them, and then Explain why the problem occurred.

Routines reduce uncertainty

that the will to believe is the most important ingredient in creating belief in change. And that one of the most important methods for creating that belief was habits.

Cue - Routine - Reward

Step 1: Identify the routine
Step 2: Experiment with rewards
Step 3: Isolate the Cue
Step 4: Have a Plan

Types of Cues:
Location
Time
Emotional state
Other people
Immediately preceding action or event ( )

Some good stuff, but a mishmash. ( )

Cue-routine-reward
Cues: time, people, place, emotion, something you just did ( )

Meh. This book has interesting points, but it's highly repetitive with too many examples for each area. It also totally misses it's mark. "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life And Business" is the title - but that isn't what this book is about. It's about Marketing, so if you're actually looking for - "why we do what we do" - you won't find it here. ( )

Before I begin my book review, for those who are planning to purchase this book, they must know what this book WILL NOT offer you (in case you’re looking for below points):
1. This book will not help you inculcate habits or help you in forming new habits
2. This book will not dramatically change your life (in case you were hoping so. If you wish to change your life dramatically, you’ll have to help your own self)
3. This book will not help you get rid of your bad habits.

Now that we’re clear with what this book doesn’t offer, let us look at what this book offers:
1. The book will tell you how habits work and how are they formed (the scientific approach). So it does not directly help you in forming new habits or getting rid of bad ones, but you can try applying the scientific approach described in the book and see if it helps you or not.
2. The book will help you understand the power of habits among individuals, organizations and societies through powerful and impactful examples
3. The book will describe various instances and stories around products, instances, and individuals etc, to emphasize on the importance of habits and how we can use habits to our advantage.
The book helps you understand why habits are at the very core of anything you do, how you can change them (scientific approach), and what impact that will have on your business, life and society.

The book is primarily divided into 3 parts
Part 1 – Habits of Individuals
Part 2 – Habits of Successful Organisations
Part 3 – Habits of Societies

The book is written by Pulitzer-prize winning author Charles Duhigg, and was first published in 2012. It is one of the bestseller in the ‘Self-help’ category. Duhigg wrote this book when he got fascinated by the intelligence of a US army major in Iraq, who controlled numerous riots by persuading the town’s mayor to keep food vendors away from gatherings. When people couldn’t satisfy their hunger with food, as they usually did (put of habit), they just left. Duhigg published this book after a lot of research, 8 years after this incident.

Now that you know what led to creation of this book, let’s look at the book summary:

1. Habits work in 3-step loops: cue, routine, reward. The cue is what triggers you to do the habit. The routine is the behavior you then automatically engage in. Lastly, you’ll receive a reward for completing the routine. Example: You get up every morning (Cue), make coffee (routine) and have a rich tasting coffee with a great aroma (reward).

2. You can change your habits by substituting just one part of the loop, the routine. The trick to changing a habit then, is to switch the routine, and leave everything else intact.

3. Your most important habit is willpower, and you can strengthen it over time in 3 ways. These three ways are:
- Do something that requires a lot of discipline. - For example a tough wake-up regimen or strict diet will make you constantly practice delaying gratification and thus give you more willpower
- Plan ahead for worst-case scenarios.
- Preserve your autonomy - When you’re assigned tasks by someone else, which you must do, your willpower muscle tires much quicker.

4. Keystone Habits are those habits which help you transform other habits. Figuring out these habits and working on them can create great transformation. Example – Getting up early can be a keystone habit that can have a positive impact on your other spheres of life such as having breakfast daily without skipping it, reaching work on time, having more time throughout the day for various tasks etc.
The author describes this with wonderful example of Alcoa’s transformation by Paul Neill.

5. Every small habit is like a small win. And a series small wins will help you form a routine/habit. Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage. Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favors another small win. Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach.
The author describes this with the story Michael Phelps, the world renowned swimmer.

6. Transformation is always easier in groups, rather than alone or in isolation. Example – If you have a gym buddy, you’re more likely to hit the gym, than skip it.

7. Good leaders seize crises to remake organizational habits. In fact, crises are such valuable opportunities that a wise leader often prolongs a sense of emergency on purpose. The author describes this with transformation of a subway station after a major fire broke out killing many people.

8. People’s habits are more likely to change when they go through a major life event. To encourage people to practice new behavior, it needs to take advantage of patterns that already exists within them. Author uses example of the hypermarket chain Target, and how it uses customer’s demographics and spending habits to extract key inferences that help them sell relevant products to these consumers.

9. Social change and movement only happen with the existence of the weak link – the change as a whole within a group of people without a direct connection – and the strong link – the change of people around with close relationship (peer pressure). The author describes the movement in Montgomery against racial discrimination and how the movement gathered momentum.

10. Habits emerge within the brain and often, we don’t have the ability to control them, but we’re conscious and aware of them. With that said, it’s still our responsibility to cultivate our own habits and take charge of our own life.

The book is filled with multiple stories and instances that reiterate how important habits are and how we can use them to our advantage. I hope this was helpful! Thanks.

Favorite Quote from the book:
“The difference between who you are and who you want to be is what you do.” – Charles Duhigg ( )

This is a really powerful book which tries to explain how habits emerge, neuroscience behind them and what we can do to identify and change them. The author starts at a personal level and goes all the way to the habits of organizations or even communities with a very thorough historical examples. He shows that it all comes to the Cue -> Routine -> Reward loop. Once one is able to isolate and identify each of these, habits can be changed.

Put another way, a habit is a formula our brain automatically follows: When I see CUE, I will do ROUTINE in order to get a REWARD.

( )

This is an illuminating book on how habits influence our lives in both small and big ways. I like that the author tackles not only how habits affect us on a personal level, but how the habits of a group of people can spread and affect the entire community. To be honest, I don't completely buy into his analysis of the latter-- in particular, I'm not convinced by his example of Rosa Parks that habits can have such an influence on social movements. It seems like he was reaching a bit there. But overall, this book was a consistently engaging and interesting read. I think readers of Malcolm Gladwell would enjoy this one. ( )

student work ( )