How to Write Like James Clear, Bestselling Author of Atomic Habits
“It is not the reader’s job to figure out what is important. That’s your job.”
Every couple weeks I dive into a different writer’s creative process. This week’s deep-dive is practical-science writer James Clear—one of my favorite thinkers today.
If you haven’t heard of James by now, you soon will. He’s a longtime blogger about habits, health, and psychology. And now he’s the ultra-bestselling author of the book Atomic Habits. I’ll let you learn more about the book here, and meantime, here’s how James writes:
What’s your process for putting together a big writing project like Atomic Habits?
JC: Atomic Habits was my first book, so I didn’t have a well-defined process going in. I found out pretty quickly that writing a 2,000-word article (which I do every week on jamesclear.com) is a very different process than writing a 200-page book.
Some things did carry over, however. For example, I always collect ideas in Evernote. I have one notebook that is a central holding ground for any interesting idea I come across: a title, a thought that pops in my head, a link to an article I want to write about at some point, whatever.
Typically, when I write an article, I do it in Evernote. I just build around those snippets that I dump in from time to time and the post begins to take shape. With the book, the scope was much larger and so (after struggling for a few months) I moved everything over to Scrivener. That software is designed specifically for writing books and you can tell. It has features that help organize a large writing project and it is much easier to move sections around, which is crucial in the early stages.
Once I finally completed the first draft of the book (easily the hardest part of the entire process), I moved the complete manuscript into Word because that’s what my publisher wanted. Most of the edits were performed in the Word doc and, after a few months of back-and-forth work, we had a completed book.
How did you use the principles of the book during the process of writing it?
JC: Good question. One of the things I talk about in the book is automating your habits to make them as easy as possible. During the year I was writing the book, I utilized some of these ideas to help me stay focused.
Every Monday, my assistant would reset the passwords on all Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, which logged me out on each device. All week I worked without distraction. On Friday, she would send me the passwords. I had the entire weekend to enjoy what social media had to offer until Monday morning when we would do it again.
One of the biggest surprises was how quickly I adapted. Within the first week of locking myself out of social media, I realized that I didn’t need to check it nearly as often as I had been, and I certainly didn’t need it each day. It had simply been so easy that it had become the default. Once my bad habit became impossible, I discovered that I did actually have the motivation to work on more meaningful tasks. After I removed the mental candy from my environment, it became much easier to eat the healthy stuff.
What rituals, if any, do you have as a writer?
JC: Given how much I write about habits, I’m probably more unstructured than people might expect. My ideal day is one with an empty calendar.
That said, my typical writing ritual is:
- Wake up
- Shower
- Get a glass of water
- Go immediately to my office (no breakfast)
- Open up Evernote
- Select an article (I rarely start from a blank slate)
- Start writing
I’ll usually continue for a few hours and then take a break in the afternoon when I have to answer emails or do interviews or take calls. Then, I”ll lift weights and eat dinner. Later at night, I might catch a second wind and do some more writing for an hour or two.
What’s your writing toolkit?
JC: I keep it simple. I run my business almost entirely on: Evernote, Trello, Wordpress, Fantastical, Google Docs, and Gmail.
For writing, the most essential components are Evernote, Trello (used for all project management with my team), and WordPress (runs my website).
Where do you go for inspiration?
JC: I love historical stories, especially ones from people or organizations that are no longer around, but that still encapsulate the same lesson I’m writing about. I feel like those stories are additional proof that I’m writing about evergreen concepts.
Where I find those stories, however, differs wildly. Usually, it’s from a book or article I’m reading. But you’d be surprised how often a tweet or a passing comment in conversation is the spark that gets me to dive into a story later on.
What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever read in your life?
JC: Am I allowed to say Harry Potter? That’s certainly the fastest I’ve ever read 700 pages.
What’s the first book you remember reading?
JC: Duck Dodgers in Outer Space. I was four years old and my parents read it to me so many times that I actually had it memorized before I could actually read. So, I could flip through the whole book and “read” each sentence… even though I couldn’t technically read yet.
A few years later, I really fell in love with the Hardy Boys series. I read dozens of them growing up.
What’s your best piece of advice for writers?
JC: It is not the reader’s job to figure out what is important. That’s your job. Don’t make the reader work to figure out what the main point is. Make it easy to understand.
It is not the publisher’s job to market the work. That’s your job. Don’t think, “If I write it, they will come.” You are responsible for making sure your writing reaches your intended audience.
If a sentence isn’t working for some reason, delete it.
The real work is not writing. The real work is revising. Get to a first draft fast. Then revise endlessly.
However much time you currently spend thinking about titles and subtitles, double it.
And finally: people remember stories.
What do you want written on your tombstone?
JC: I have no idea, but I’ll tell you a story that my dad once told me. I’m not sure if it’s true, but it offers a good answer for these “what do you want to be known for” type of questions:
George Brett, the Hall of Fame baseball player, played for over 20 years in the Big Leagues. During his final season, it was known that he would retire at the end of the year and at some point a journalist asked him if he had given any thought to what he would like his final at-bat to be like.
“Do you dream about hitting a home run?” he asked.
Brett responded with the opposite answer, “I’ll take a hard ground ball to second and me running like hell.”
I always loved that answer. There’s nothing sexy about grounding out to second. There’s nothing memorable about it. But that’s baseball. All he wanted was one more hard sprint down the baseline. One more chance to play the game the right way.
I don’t know what will be on my tombstone, but I want to play the game the right way.
– James Clear
Shane Snow is author of Dream Teams and other books. Get more like this from The Snow Report.
