Habit book notes · Gretchen Rubin · 2015

Better Than Before — the big ideas

A personal-experiment approach to habits, with strategies like monitoring, scheduling and convenience, and a four-type personality framework.

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A personal, experiment-driven book on habits, with strategies like monitoring, scheduling, convenience and treats, and a personality framework called the Four Tendencies.

The big ideas

Know yourself

Habits work better when they fit your temperament — morning or evening, abstainer or moderator.

Strategies menu

Monitoring, foundation habits, scheduling, accountability, convenience and more.

Treats

Small healthy pleasures help sustain effort.

Key concepts

• Self-knowledge
• Abstainers and moderators
• Four Tendencies
• Strategy of convenience

Limits

• The Four Tendencies framework has not been scientifically validated.
• Based largely on the author’s observations and experiments.

What the research says

• Harkin, Webb, Chang, Prestwich, Conner, Kellar, Benn & Sheeran (2016) — Pooled 138 experiments with close to 20,000 people. Interventions that increased how often people monitored their progress also improved goal attainment on average, and effects were larger when progress was physically recorded or shared with others. Limits: An average across very different goals; monitoring can feel like a chore, and what you choose to monitor matters.

Apply this idea

Try one strategy from the menu as a two-week experiment and note what you learn about yourself.

Described in our own words with the source named — not a summary of the whole book.