Thread by @chrishlad

I just finished 365 straight days of reading.

Thank you Atomic Habits and @JamesClear for changing my life.

Here are 5 things I learned that you can use to build any habit:

1) Simpler is better

The more complex your habit is, the greater chance you will fail.

Complex: 4:21 AM wake up, splash water on face 3.5 times, meditate for 17 minutes, 4 min cold shower,

blah blah blah you get the point

Simple: Read atleast 1 page of a book per day

2) Friction is your best friend or greatest enemy

When you want to do less, add friction.

When you want to do more, remove friction.

For reading, I bought a kindle.

Why?

Buying and ordering new books is a huge friction.

Every book is now a few clicks away.

3) Make it easy

So you want to meditate for 30 minutes a day.

You're abouta be as zen as @naval.

1st day: "HEY I DID IT"

2nd day: "hey. i did it."

3rd: "Busy. I'll do it tomorrow."

4th: Doesn't meditate.

*repeat cycle forever*

Instead, start with just 1 minute.

4) Make Boredom Impossible

Doing anything for 365 straight days can be boring.

So you need to spice it up:

For reading, this is having 20 different books to rotate through depending on your mood.

For working out, this is switching up your routine once a month.

5) Keep the Streak Alive

So to track my reading, I kept a habit calendar.

It's a yearly calendar with a box for each day.

Everyday I'd read, I would X off a box.

After a few weeks, something wild happened.

I got ADDICTED to box X'ing

You can do this for any habit!

If you liked this, retweet the first tweet so more people can see it!

https://twitter.com/chrishlad/status/1379430002391805958

Follow me @chrishlad for more frameworks and stories that won’t bore you