The Power of Habit
A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, have fundamentally changed. Marketers at Procter & Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern -- and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year. An untested CEO takes over one of the largest companies in America. His first order of business is attacking a single pattern among his employees -- how they approach worker safety -- and soon the firm, Alcoa, becomes the top performer in the Dow Jones. What do all these people have in common? They achieved success by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives. They succeeded by transforming habits. In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.
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What Hacker News says
- I'm a SWE, a book lover too. Ppl keep asking me what are my favorites. I think these are 5 books any engineer or techie should read at least once if they want to think more clearly, understand people better, and make better decisions
1. Thinking, Fast and Slow Learn why your brain constantly tricks you and how to avoid costly thinking errors.
2. Sapiens A fascinating look at how humans built civilizations, beliefs, and the modern world.
3. The Art of War Timeless lessons on strategy, leadership, and winning without unnecessary conflict.
4. The Power of Habit A practical framework for understanding and changing the behaviors that shape our lives.
5. Outsmarted: The Hidden Costs of Being the Smartest Person in the Room A different kind of intelligence book that I recently read. It explores the emotional and social challenges of highly intelligent and high-achieving people. Specially a must-read for elites and techies.
#book_suggestion #elite #engineers #softwareengineer
- Not OP, but my favorite book of all time is Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I quit every drug, stopped playing video games, quit social media for 3 years, started exercising daily.
I'm only back on social media because it actually made my life worse being off it.
- A fascinating chapter in The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg describes market-basket analytics at Target. They wanted to be able to determine whether a shopper is pregnant because that is an event that they believed women to be willing to reconsider their otherwise steadfast shopping brand loyalty. They got too good at their target ad mailers and so had to throw in decoys like motor oil and lawn equipment.
The tipoff for expecting women was purchases of larger quantities of lotion and washrags.
- I recommend you 3 books that changed my perception and really helped me during tough times. The Power of Habit" by charles duhigg, "The Forty Rules of Love" by elif shafak and "Man's Search for Meaning" by viktor E. frankl.
- I preferred Charles Duigg's book the Power of Habit for similar reasons. All the material in Atomic Habits with more meat.
- This depends on what your specific problems are that are holding you back.
General advice is to start with common techniques .. getting things done, pomodoro, etc.
Building good habits is the best thing you can do, because you no longer need motivation once you have a habit.
Charles Duhigg's "The Power of Habit" is a good place to start with that concept.
