I would like to thank my friend, JJ, again for recommending Atomic Habits. I've been getting quite a lot out of it. Although I already had a number of the habits down pat before I began reading this, I didn't have it all tied together into a comprehensive system like James Clear does.

For example, “making bad habits invisible". I don't like to have my iPhone in my pocket when I'm at home, and particularly in the morning when I'm trying to get stuff done. The phone stays on the top shelf, across the room, and I don't look at it until noon. I generally don't keep alcohol at home. If I do buy a bottle of something, I'll have a couple slugs, then pass the bottle onto my father-in-law who adds it to a growing collection of shōchū in his cupboard. I stopped keeping a narghile at home and only smoke now at one bar that has odd hours about 20 minutes' walk from my home. That kind of thing.

“Habit stacking” is another technique where you add a desired habit to one that you are going to do anyways, such as take a dump in the morning. No better time to read or study something. As soon as the kids are out the door and off to school, my wife and I do sit-ups, planks, push-ups, then go for a long walk ourselves. When you do A, do B. Before you do Y (something you want to do), do X (something you have to do).

In this passage, the author talks about addition by subtraction-- reducing friction to make doing the right thing easier and habit forming.

Anyways, it's a good read and this comes from someone who generally shies away from self-help books.