How Can Atomic Habits Help You Write More
Any article you read about being a better writer will tell you to develop a habit of writing every day. The same is valid for every skill you want to master. Still, countless people will vouch for the fact that it is extremely difficult to achieve this.
We all want to eat healthily, exercise regularly, read more, write more, and get off spending inordinate time on social media. Despite it being tough, few people do pull it off.
The book Atomic Habits by James Clear is a serious exploration of the concept of small incremental habits that can cause monumental changes in life. It talks about being patient and some simple strategies to build and sustain these atomic habits.
The age-old adage below describes the value of incremental changes in our life extremely well.
1% worse every day for one year → 0.99 ^365 = 00.03
1% better every day for one year →1.01 ^365 = 37.78
People say patience is a virtue, but when you have finally managed to exercise for a complete week and still don’t see those toned muscles, it is very difficult to be patient and continue. This is what is called the Plateau of Latent Potential.
According to this theory, when we begin a new thing, the initial efforts do not show proportional results. But if we persevere, these efforts accumulate over time and one day we cross that plateau and the results start showing at an exponential scale.
We spend weeks learning grammar and vocabulary of a new language. We do not start speaking from day one or even week four. But one day, it all clicks. That’s when we start speaking and understanding complex sentences. It feels like it happened in a day, but it actually happened over all those weeks.
Change your Identity
In Atomic Habits, I came across this interesting theory of developing your identity as a person of the doer of the habit. If you want to develop a habit of reading, rather than thinking that you want to read a book, start identifying yourself as a reader.
Once you start doing this, you will be motivated to do what readers do, which is read. Motivation and perseverance are the most important components of developing a habit and there is little perseverance without motivation.
The Habit Loop
The process of developing and maintaining habits is a loop and is divided into four steps — Cue, Craving, Response, Reward. A cue is an indication of the memory/proximity of a reward. This creates a craving for the reward which forces us to create a response to get the reward.
People see an advertisement for ice cream (Cue) and their brains remember that cold sugary heaven (Reward). What develops next is the intense desire to eat ice cream (Craving) and they end up buying and eating it(Response).
Four Laws of Behavior Change
The four laws of behavior change govern how we make or break a habit. It deals with making the habit loop more attractive for good habits and unattractive for bad habits. These laws when applied for developing a good habit can be summarized in four bullet points.
- Cue — Make it Obvious
- Craving — Make it Attractive
- Response — Make it Easy
- Reward — Make it Satisfying
Cue — Make it Obvious
The more obvious the cue is, the more frequently you will remember the reward.
The first step is thus to make the cue very obvious. Connect it with a normal routine habit. If you want to write daily, pair it with an existing habit, like cooking. In addition to this, specify a time and place. Say it out loud to yourself. The final chant will be “I will write for 15 minutes at the kitchen table after I complete cooking my breakfast.”
Once writing is associated with cooking, which is a daily essential activity and you have started identifying yourself as a writer, the cue is established. Further, try to create an environment conducive to it. Join writing clubs, social media groups of people with similar interests, and so on.
Craving — Make it Attractive
The more attractive an action, higher is the craving to do it.
The idea is to bundle the new habit you want to develop with something you really enjoy doing. This is called Temptation Bundling. Bundle things you have to do with something you love to do.
Most of us love scrolling on social media. Pledge to do it only after you have written for at least once a day for 15 min. Try apps like Forest that do not let you use the cellphone at all.
I read about an alarm clock that automatically deducted and donated money from one’s bank account to a charity every time the snooze button was hit. You don't have to get that alarm clock, but you have to find a way to honor your pledge.
Response — Make it Easy
We all follow the Least Effort rule. The easier the task is, the more we do it.
The third law is to make the response extremely convenient. Once you have decided to write after you have cooked, picking a notebook already there on the kitchen table will be much easier. It is much easier to start writing when there are five of them visibly lying in different parts of the house rather than opening the cupboard and picking one.
For people just beginning to write, even a 200-word piece can be a daunting task. So pick a smaller habit which is easy enough to begin the main habit. Showing up is half the job done. Decide to write 2 lines first. Once you are done with 2 lines, writing more will be much easier.
Reward — Make it Satisfying
The more satisfying the reward, the more you would like to do it
The reward makes sure that you do repeat the habit. The more a habit is repeated, the more automatic it becomes. Once a habit is automatic, we don't have to think about doing it, the same way we don't have to decide to wash hands immediately after going to the toilet.
Every week you do write 15 minutes for at least 5 days, reward yourself. The rewards need not be big, but it should make you happy. Eat a candy, tell someone about your achievement, put a $ in a jar to buy something you would really like. The visual cues of someone appreciating you, seeing your jar fill up with money are bound to run a feedback loop which makes you want to repeat the habit.
Moreover, there are a lot of habit tracker apps available online. Download one, record your progress. I personally love the Loop Habit Tracker app (available for Android). It has an extremely clean and simple UI and keeps track of habit streaks and daily/monthly graphs. There are a ton of options available for iOS as well and you can pick any you like. Even if you skip a day, the disappointment of a broken streak will make sure that you are discouraged to do it again.
In short, the idea is to make the new habit extremely desirable (Satisfying Reward) by relating them to existing habits (Obvious Cues) and giving enough motivation (Attractive Cravings) along with substituting it with simpler habits (Easy Response).
I am trying to develop a habit of working on my writing for 20 minutes every day. Firstly, I have decided that I want to be identified as a writer. Secondly, I have employed the four laws to encourage this habit. Here is how I plan on doing it.
- Obvious Cue — I will write for 20 minutes immediately after I get up and pet the dogs.
- Attractive Craving — I will not check my Medium Stats/Notifications unless I write for those 20 minutes. I will disable internet access to the Medium app to make sure I cannot have a peek. On an Android phone, you can do this by following this article. The unchecked box might not be there for Oxygen OS (OnePlus Phones), but you can still disable it by looking at the screenshot below.
3. Easy Response — I will put my laptop on airplane mode and place it near my bed in sleep mode every night before I go to sleep. The laptop will have a word document open (either with an already written draft or an empty page) so that it is easy to start writing immediately. I plan to write 2 lines every day about the first thing that comes to mind and then work on an existing draft or a new article.
4. Satisfying Reward —The stats page along with the claps feature on Medium is itself a very satisfying reward. Moreover, every article I publish, I will set aside some money in a box very visibly on a desk for a dream watch I have been planning to buy. Further, I am also going to track this habit in the Loop Habit Tracker app.
As I go about developing this habit, I will wait to see how soon it becomes an automatic habit. I plan to track my progress and write about the results. Even if I fail to keep it up indefinitely (I will try my best not to), I would have written much more than I would normally do and gained insights on how my brain works.
For a more in-depth discussion about how habits are formed or broken, you can read Atomic Habits by James Clear.
