Book Club - The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
I read a lot of books with my team and a lot of books personally, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to share my thoughts on some of these amazing organizing books we are reading?” So, here is my first one, The Power of Habit, and I hope that it helps you get more organized and productive!
The Maniacs were already sold on Charles Duhigg, having previously read Smarter, Faster, Better. So the first book that I want to talk to you about is The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. It has a lot of great information in it. The book concept is very simple.
The big picture of the book:
“The habit loop – first there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. Craving is what keeps people going back to their habits.”
In the book is a great example about how at around 3 o’clock every day, he needed a break. He got up and went to get a cookie and he had gained quite a few pounds along the way. He decided to analyze his habit. “Why am I really doing this? Why is this habit happening every day to me? What is it that I’m trying to fulfill? What is my reward?”
The reward he was looking for was: one to have a break and two to have some social time with his peers. When he discovered that the cookie wasn’t the thing that was making him happy, that actually spending time with people was the thing that was making him happy, he was able to eliminate the cookie altogether and still get the same reward he was getting before. Of course, save on gaining a few pounds!
I think sometimes the reason why we don’t have or develop good habits around organizing is because we don’t have a good reward system for what we’re trying to accomplish. We don’t really understand what our goal is and we don’t really understand what we want that space to look like. What do we want to get from it? I think in order for people who want to get organized to develop better habits around organizing, I would challenge you to really understand what your goals are and what you want that space to look like.
Answer a few questions:
What do you want the space to feel like?
What do you want it to look like?
How do you want to use this space?
Answering these questions can help you develop a better habit around getting organized.
I highly recommend this book. It’s one of my favorites.
I’m going to start a discussion on Facebook. If you have read the book and have something that you learned from it, or something that you have applied, something that you find that has made you very successful at being more organized, please share. I’m really interested in your positive outcomes. What have you learned? How have you applied the books and the tips? How have you become more organized?
I am challenging you to developing better habits around organizing! If you are accepting the challenge to develop better habits, join us on our Facebook conversation.
I hope you get great value from this blog and that you learn something about organizing that you didn’t know. And if you do, will you share it with a friend? I would love to make some new friends.
Happy Organizing!