This article is an excerpt from Atomic Habits, my New York Times bestselling book.

The Japanese railway system is regarded as one of the best in the world. If you ever find yourself riding a train in Tokyo, you’ll notice that the conductors have a peculiar habit.

As each operator runs the train, they proceed through a ritual of pointing at different objects and calling out commands. When the train approaches a signal, the operator will point at it and say, “Signal is green.” As the train pulls into and out of each station, the operator will point at the speedometer and call out the exact speed. When it’s time to leave, the operator will point at the timetable and state the time. Out on the platform, other employees are performing similar actions. Before each train departs, staff members will point along the edge of the platform and declare, “All clear!” Every detail is identified, pointed at, and named aloud.

This process, known as Pointing-and-Calling, is a safety system designed to reduce mistakes. It seems silly, but it works incredibly well. Pointing-and-Calling reduces errors by up to 85 percent and cuts accidents by 30 percent.1 The MTA subway system in New York City adopted a modified version that is “point-only,” and “within two years of implementation, incidents of incorrectly berthed subways fell 57 percent.”2

Pointing-and-Calling Your Habits

Pointing-and-Calling is so effective because it raises the level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level.3 Because the train operators must use their eyes, hands, mouth, and ears, they are more likely to notice problems before something goes wrong.

My wife does something similar. Whenever we are preparing to walk out the door for a trip, she verbally calls out the most essential items in her packing list. “I’ve got my keys. I’ve got my wallet. I’ve got my glasses. I’ve got my husband.”

The more automatic a behavior becomes, the less likely we are to consciously think about it. And when we’ve done something a thousand times before, we begin to overlook things. We assume that the next time will be just like the last. We’re so used to doing what we’ve always done that we don’t stop to question whether it’s the right thing to do at all. Many of our failures in performance are largely attributable to a lack of self-awareness.

One of our greatest challenges in changing habits is maintaining awareness of what we are actually doing. This helps explain why the consequences of bad habits can sneak up on us. We need a “point-and-call” system for our personal lives. That’s the origin of the Habits Scorecard, which is a simple exercise you can use to become more aware of your behavior.

The Habits Scorecard

To create your own Habits Scorecard, start by making a list of your daily habits.

Here’s a sample of where your list might start:

• Wake up
• Turn off alarm
• Check my phone
• Go to the bathroom
• Weigh myself
• Take a shower
• Brush my teeth
• Floss my teeth
• Put on deodorant
• Hang up towel to dry
• Get dressed
• Make a cup of tea

… and so on.

Once you have a full list, look at each behavior, and ask yourself, “Is this a good habit, a bad habit, or a neutral habit?” If it is a good habit, write “+” next to it. If it is a bad habit, write “–”. If it is a neutral habit, write “=”.

For example, the list above might look like this:

• Wake up =
• Turn off alarm =
• Check my phone –
• Go to the bathroom =
• Weigh myself +
• Take a shower +
• Brush my teeth +
• Floss my teeth +
• Put on deodorant +
• Hang up towel to dry =
• Get dressed =
• Make a cup of tea +

The marks you give to a particular habit will depend on your situation and your goals. For someone who is trying to lose weight, eating a bagel with peanut butter every morning might be a bad habit. For someone who is trying to bulk up and add muscle, the same behavior might be a good habit. It all depends on what you’re working toward.

How Do I Know if a Habit is Good or Bad?

Scoring your habits can be a bit more complex for another reason as well.

The labels “good habit” and “bad habit” are slightly inaccurate. There are no good habits or bad habits. There are only effective habits. That is, effective at solving problems. All habits serve you in some way—even the bad ones—which is why you repeat them.

When completing your Habits Scorecard, however, you can categorize your habits by how they will benefit you in the long run. Generally speaking, good habits will have net positive outcomes. Bad habits have net negative outcomes. Smoking a cigarette may reduce stress right now (that’s how it’s serving you), but it’s not a healthy long-term behavior.

If you’re still having trouble determining how to rate a particular habit, here is a question I like to use: “Does this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be? Does this habit cast a vote for or against my desired identity?” Habits that reinforce your desired identity are usually good. Habits that conflict with your desired identity are typically bad.

Where to Go From Here

As you create your Habits Scorecard, there is no need to change anything at first. The goal is to simply notice what is actually going on. Observe your thoughts and actions without judgment or internal criticism. Don’t blame yourself for your faults. Don’t praise yourself for your successes.

If you eat a chocolate bar every morning, acknowledge it, almost as if you were watching someone else. Oh, how interesting that they would do such a thing. If you binge-eat, simply notice that you are eating more calories than you should. If you waste time online, notice that you are spending your life in a way that you do not want to.

The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. Strategies like Pointing-and-Calling and the Habits Scorecard are focused on getting you to recognize your habits and acknowledge the cues that trigger them, which makes it easier to discover which habits you should change and respond in a way that benefits you.

This article is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of my New York Times bestselling book Atomic Habits. Read more here. 

This article is an excerpt from Atomic Habits, my New York Times bestselling book.

While researching Atomic Habits, I came across a story that immediately struck me with its simplicity and power. It was the story of Oswald Nuckols, an IT developer from Natchez, Mississippi, and his simple strategy for making future habits easy.

Nuckols refers to the approach as “resetting the room.”1

For instance, when he finishes watching television, he places the remote back on the TV stand, arranges the pillows on the couch, and folds the blanket. When he leaves his car, he throws any trash away. Whenever he takes a shower, he wipes down the toilet while the shower is warming up. (As he notes, the “perfect time to clean the toilet is right before you wash yourself in the shower anyway.”2)

This might sound like he’s just “cleaning up” but there is a key insight that makes his approach different. The purpose of resetting each room is not simply to clean up after the last action, but to prepare for the next action.

“When I walk into a room everything is in its right place,” Nuckols wrote. “Because I do this every day in every room, stuff always stays in good shape . . . People think I work hard but I’m actually really lazy. I’m just proactively lazy. It gives you so much time back.”

I have written previously about the power of the environment to shape your behavior. Resetting the room is one way to put the power back in your own hands. Let’s talk about how you can use it.

The Power of Priming the Environment

Whenever you organize a space for its intended purpose, you are priming it to make the next action easy. This is one of the most practical and simple ways to improve your habits.

For instance, my wife keeps a box of greeting cards that are presorted by occasion—birthday, sympathy, wedding, graduation, and more. Whenever necessary, she grabs an appropriate card and sends it off. She is incredibly good at remembering to send cards because she has reduced the friction of doing so.

For years, I was the opposite. Someone would have a baby and I would think, “I should send a card.” But then weeks would pass and by the time I remembered to pick one up at the store, it was too late. The habit wasn’t easy.

There are many ways to prime your environment so it’s ready for immediate use. If you want to cook a healthy breakfast, place the skillet on the stove, set the cooking spray on the counter, and lay out any plates and utensils you’ll need the night before. When you wake up, making breakfast will be easy.

Here are some more:

• Want to draw more? Put your pencils, pens, notebooks, and drawing tools on top of your desk, within easy reach.
• Want to exercise? Set out your workout clothes, shoes, gym bag, and water bottle ahead of time.
• Want to improve your diet? Chop up a ton of fruits and vegetables on weekends and pack them in containers, so you have easy access to healthy, ready-to-eat options during the week.

These are simple ways to make the good habit the path of least resistance.

The Path of Most Resistance

You can also invert this principle and prime the environment to make bad behaviors difficult.

If you find yourself watching too much television, for example, then unplug it after each use. Only plug it back in if you can say out loud the name of the show you want to watch. (Which prevents you from turning on Netflix and “just finding something” to watch.) This setup creates just enough friction to prevent mindless viewing.

If that doesn’t do it, you can take it a step further. Unplug the television and take the batteries out of the remote after each use, so it takes an extra ten seconds to turn it back on. And if you’re really hard-core, move the television out of the living room and into a closet after each use. You can be sure you’ll only take it out when you really want to watch something. The greater the friction, the less likely the habit.

Whenever possible, I leave my phone in a different room until lunch. When it’s right next to me, I’ll check it all morning for no reason at all. But when it is in another room, I rarely think about it. And the friction is high enough that I won’t go get it without a reason. As a result, I get three to four hours each morning when I can work without interruption.

If sticking your phone in another room doesn’t seem like enough, tell a friend or family member to hide it from you for a few hours. Ask a coworker to keep it at their desk in the morning and give it back to you at lunch.

It is remarkable how little friction is required to prevent bad behavior. When I hide beer in the back of the fridge where I can’t see it, I drink less. When I delete social media apps from my phone, it can be weeks before I download them again and log in.

These tricks are unlikely to curb a true addiction, but for many of us, a little bit of friction can be the difference between sticking with a good habit or sliding into a bad one. Imagine the cumulative impact of making dozens of these changes and living in an environment designed to make the good behaviors easier and the bad behaviors harder.

Where to Go From Here

Whether we are approaching behavior change as an individual, a parent, a coach, or a leader, we should ask ourselves the same question: “How can we design a world where it’s easy to do what’s right?” Reset your rooms so that the actions that matter most are also the actions that are easiest to do.

When you master habits of preparation, habits of execution become easy.

This article is an excerpt from Chapter 12 of my New York Times bestselling book Atomic Habits. Read more here. 

It’s time for a little reflection and review. Each December, I conduct my Annual Review (this is my sixth year) and I’ve found the process useful every time.

As always, this Annual Review will answer three questions.

1. What went well this year?
2. What didn’t go so well this year?
3. What did I learn?

Before I begin, I should mention one thing: It’s always a little weird for me to share these Annual Reviews because when I talk about the good stuff it feels like I’m bragging and when I talk about the bad stuff it feels like I’m being strangely vulnerable with the world. That said, I still think it’s important because talking about how many workouts I did or articles I wrote provides proof that I am “walking the walk.”

While it is personally helpful for me to reflect on the last year, it also shows that I have skin in the game. I’m not just dishing out opinions when I write about things. I’m putting these ideas to practice in my own life.

Ultimately, every Annual Review is a personal process. This is what my year looked like, not a suggestion of what yours should include. Everyone runs their own race. That said, feel free to use this format for your own Annual Review and figure out what steps you want to take next.

1. What went well this year?

Let’s start with the good stuff.

Atomic Habits. I feel like I’ve told everyone within earshot at this point, but in case you haven’t heard: I published a book this year!

Longtime readers will know that this has been a multi-year battle. I announced the book deal in my 2015 Annual Review, I shared my writing struggles in my 2016 Annual Review, and I was (finally) nearing completion in my 2017 Annual Review.

I was still working on the manuscript in January and February of this year. If you had tapped me on the shoulder in the middle of my frantic final edits and told me the book would become a bestseller before the year ended, I almost certainly would have cried with relief.

As 2018 draws to a close, Atomic Habits has been out for 11 weeks (published on October 16, 2018). I did every single thing I could to make this book a success (starting with spending 3 years writing the best book possible), but the reception has outpaced even my high hopes.

Highlights include:

I don’t know what else to say, so I’ll just say “Thank You.” It means so much to me that you are finding the book useful and sharing it with others, and that my work is making some small difference in the world. If you’re interested in buying a copy, click here to see the different options.

Reach and Impact. It’s hard to quantify, but I feel like my work is making a bigger impact this year than in previous years. Maybe it’s just the excitement of seeing people read the book.

Regardless, I have said from Day 1 that I want to optimize for reach over revenue. I don’t care about making the most money. I just want to share the best ideas I can find with the greatest number of people. And this year we reached more people than ever before.

Here’s what the year looked like:

• 9 new articles published this year (browse my best articles)
• 241,827 new email subscribers this year
• 453,037 total email subscribers as of December 31, 2018
• 10,600,219 unique visitors this year
• 36,558,938 unique visitors since launching on November 12, 2012

Despite the success, there are some downsides hidden within these numbers. I’ll discuss them in the next section.

Travel. After not visiting a new country in 2017, I decided I would make travel a priority in 2018. And holy moly, did I travel this year.

My travel highlights for 2018 include:

• 7 countries (5 new): Argentina, Brazil, Chile, England, France, Japan, United States.
• 15 states (2 new): Arizona, California (4x), Florida (3x), Illinois (2x), Kansas, Massachusetts (2x), Nebraska, Nevada, New York (5x!), North Carolina (2x), Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington (2x).

I continue to follow many of the strategies mentioned in my Ultralight Travel Guide, but I’ve also begun to implement some new approaches to accommodate for the number of speaking engagements I have do while traveling. I’ll update that page soon.

Speaking. I’m definitely a better speaker and presenter at the end of this year than I was at the beginning of it. Most of that is just due to practice. Thanks to the success of the book, I’m being asked to speak much more than I was previously. I’m excited to do more of this in 2019 and I put together a page with upcoming events. (If you’d like me to speak at your company or event, you can submit a request here.)

Charity work. Earlier this year, I settled on Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) as our primary charity partner. AMF distributes nets to protect children, pregnant mothers, and families from mosquitos carrying malaria. It is one of the most cost-effective ways to extend life and fulfills my bigger mission to spread healthy habits around the globe.

My plan is to donate 5 percent of after-tax profits to charitable causes, which means you are helping us contribute any time you buy my book or purchase a course or read an article. So far, our contribution has led to:

• 4,685 malaria nets distributed
• 8,433 people protected
• 87 years of additional life
• 2 lives saved

Now that we have this charity partnership, I like to remind myself that I’ll never have an unproductive day. Even if I fail to check items off my own to-do list, as long as the business brings in one dollar, some of that money will go toward making the world a better place.

2. What didn’t go so well this year?

And now the not-so-fun stuff.

Deadlines. I’m not sure I met a single deadline this year. Book deadline? Please. I blew that by more than a year. (Thank you to my publisher for being so accommodating.) Recording a revamp of my habits course? I originally planned that for the summer and it still hasn’t happened. Heck, even this annual review is going out a day late.

This problem extends to little daily “deadlines” too—like arriving on time to meetings. I’ve been told that I have a very optimistic view of time, which I think is the nicest way to say, “You’re continually miscalculating how much you can get done in each block of time.”

When some people have an extra 15 minutes before an appointment, they think, “Great! I can leave now and arrive early.” I think, “Perfect. I can do 15 more minutes of whatever I’m doing right now, leave at the last moment necessary, and arrive with one second to spare.”

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what to do about this. I like having an optimistic view of time. The way I see it, I want to fit as much as I can into each hour. The upside is I get a lot done throughout the year. The downside is I have very little margin of safety. If everything goes to plan, I can get it all done. If something doesn’t go perfectly, a deadline is missed.

Weightlifting. In 2018, I exercised 141 times for an average of 11.8 workouts per month. Those numbers might look good at first glance, but both are a fair step down from last year (more on that in a minute).

When I broke the year down in detail, the issues became obvious. You can tell which months I turned in the manuscript (February), launched the book (October), and did a media tour across the US (December).

Workouts per month in 2018:

• January – 18
• February – 7
• March – 12
• April – 14
• May – 10
• June – 16
• July – 14
• August – 14
• September – 12
• October – 8
• November – 11
• December – 5

I am proud of myself in one respect, however. I could have said, “Oh, I’m launching a book in October so I can’t work out.” But getting 8 workouts in was better than zero. Managing to make it into the gym despite a crazy schedule (even if it’s only for 15 minutes) is important for maintaining momentum.

My best lifts of the year were:

• Back Squat – 400 lbs (181 kg) for 1 rep
• Bench Press – 280 lbs (127 kg) for 1 rep
• Deadlift – 500 lbs (226 kg) for 1 rep

These numbers are pretty good for me, but none of them are personal bests. I have been training fairly regularly for about ten years now and I believe this is the first time I have conducted an annual review and not hit a PR in at least one major lift.

Writing trajectory. I only wrote 10 articles in 2017, which was my lowest total ever. Somehow, I managed to lower the bar even further in 2018. The drop in output impacted other areas of the business too. Website traffic, for example, was highest in January and February and declined throughout the year.

In the short-term, it’s not a huge issue. But as I wrote in Atomic Habits, “It doesn’t matter how successful or unsuccessful you are right now. What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path toward success. You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”

The key point is not that millions are visiting the site right now (current results), but that the trend is headed downward (current trajectory). Now that the book is complete, I need to focus on rebuilding my weekly writing habit in 2019.

3. What did I learn this year?

Some of my major lessons from this year include:

If you don’t know what to do, focus on the fundamentals. Progress doesn’t need to be complicated. Skip all of the cutting edge tactics and focus on the key habits that deliver great return.

Here are a few habits that have a high rate of return in life:

• sleep 8+ hours each day
• lift weights 3x week
• go for a walk each day
• save at least 10 percent of your income
• read every day
• drink more water and less of everything else
• leave your phone in another room while you work

Mastery requires both impatience and patience. The impatience to have a bias toward action, to not waste time, and to work with a sense of urgency each day. The patience to delay gratification, to wait for your actions to accumulate, and to trust the process.

Curiosity is crucial. Increasingly, I feel an eagerness to learn is one of the most crucial skills in life. If you’re not curious, I’m not sure if there is much others can do to help you. But if you’re eager to learn, even if you aren’t particularly talented, then so much is possible.

Entrepreneurship is never as sexy on the inside as it appears on the outside. Whoever your entrepreneurial idols are, they have plenty of headaches behind the scenes.

You are only as mentally tough as your life demands you to be. Life will throw plenty of challenges your way, but there will be easy days too. An easy life fashions a mind that can only handle ease. Like a muscle that atrophies without use, mental strength fades unless it is tested. When life doesn’t challenge you, challenge yourself.

The margin between your best performance and your average performance is less than you think. In 2017, I averaged 15.7 workouts per month. In 2018, I averaged 11.7 workouts per month. At first glance, I considered it a modest difference. Only 4 workouts less each month? That’s about one less per week. And I was still making it into the gym consistently.

But then I realized I didn’t set a personal record in any major lift in 2018. Conversely, I hit PRs in nearly every major lift in 2017. One workout per week doesn’t sound like much, but that was the difference between my average performance and my best performance.

Move toward the next thing, not away from the last thing. Same direction. Completely different energy.

No is a decision. Yes is a responsibility. When you say no, you are only saying no to one option. When you say yes, you are saying no to every other option. One of my key themes in 2019 is to think carefully about what I say yes to and make sure I protect my time.

That’s it! As always, thanks for reading. Happy New Year! 1

The Annual Review Archives

This is a complete list of Annual Reviews I have written.

This article includes an excerpt from Atomic Habits, my New York Times bestselling book.

If you want to stick with a habit for good, one simple and effective thing you can do is keep a habit tracker.

Here’s why:

Elite performers will often measure, quantify, and track their progress in various ways. Each little measurement provides feedback. It offers a signal of whether they are making progress or need to change course.

Gabrielle Hamilton, a chef in New York City, provides a good example. During an interview with the New York Times, she said, “The one thing I see that consistently separates the chef from the home cook is that we taste everything, all the time, before we commit it to the dish, right down to the grains of salt. We slurp shot glasses of olive oil and aerate them in our mouths as if it were a wine we were trying to know. We taste the lamb, the fish, the butter, the milk before we use it… we chew salt to see how we like it in our teeth, on our tongues, and to know its flavor, its salinity.” 1

For the chef, tasting the ingredients tells them whether they are making progress toward their desired end goal. It provides the immediate feedback they need to get the recipe just right.

Like a chef improving a recipe through trial and error, we often improve our habits through trial and error. If one approach doesn’t deliver the desired effect, then we adjust—like a chef tweaking the amount of an ingredient.

However, there is an important difference between getting feedback while cooking a meal and getting feedback while building a habit. When it comes to building a habit, feedback is often delayed. It’s easy to taste an ingredient or to watch bread rise in the oven. But it can be difficult to visualize the progress you are making with your habits. Perhaps you’ve been running for a month, but you still don’t see a change in your body. Or maybe you managed to meditate for 16 straight days, but you still feel stressed and anxious at work. 2

Habit formation is a long race. It often takes time for the desired results to appear. And while you are waiting for the long-term rewards of your efforts to accumulate, you need a reason to stick with it in the short-term. You need some immediate feedback that shows you are on the right path.

And this is where a habit tracker can help.

The Habit Tracker: What It Is and How It Works

A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit.

The most basic format is to get a calendar and cross off each day you stick with your routine. For example, if you meditate on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, each of those dates gets an X. As time rolls by, the calendar becomes a record of your habit streak.

To make this process as easy as possible, I created the Habit Journal, which includes 12 habit tracker templates—one for each month. All you have to do is add your habit and start crossing off the days.

Placing an X on each day is the classic look. I prefer something a little more design-oriented, so I shade in the cells on my habit tracker. You could also use checkmarks or fill your habit tracker with dots.

No matter what design you choose, the key point is your habit tracker provides immediate evidence that you completed your habit. It’s a signal that you are making progress. Of course, that’s not all it does…

Habit tracking is powerful for three reasons.

1. It creates a visual cue that can remind you to act.
2. It is motivating to see the progress you are making. You don’t want to break your streak.
3. It feels satisfying to record your success in the moment.

Let’s break down each one.

Benefit #1: A habit tracker reminds you to act.

Habit tracking naturally builds a series of visual cues. When you look at the calendar and see your streak, you’ll be reminded to act again.

Research has shown that people who track their progress on goals like losing weight, quitting smoking, and lowering blood pressure are all more likely to improve than those who don’t. One study of more than sixteen hundred people found that those who kept a daily food log lost twice as much weight as those who did not. A habit tracker is a simple way to log your behavior, and the mere act of tracking a behavior can spark the urge to change it.

Habit tracking also keeps you honest. Most of us think we act better than we do. Measurement offers one way to overcome our blindness to our own behavior and notice what’s really going on each day. When the evidence is right in front of you, you’re less likely to lie to yourself.

Benefit #2: A habit tracker motivates you to continue.

The most effective form of motivation is progress. When we get a signal that we are moving forward, we become more motivated to continue down that path. In this way, habit tracking can have an addictive effect on motivation. Each small win feeds your desire.

This can be particularly powerful on a bad day. When you’re feeling down, it’s easy to forget about all the progress you have already made. Habit tracking provides visual proof of your hard work—a subtle reminder of how far you’ve come. Plus, the empty square you see each morning can motivate you to get started because you don’t want to lose your progress by breaking your streak.

Benefit #3: A habit tracker provides immediate satisfaction.

Finally, tracking feels rewarding. It is satisfying to cross an item off your to-do list, to complete an entry in your workout log, or to mark an X on the calendar. It feels good to watch your results grow and if it feels good, then you’re more likely to endure.

Habit tracking also helps keep your eye on the ball: you’re focused on the process rather than the result. You’re not fixated on getting six-pack abs, you’re just trying to keep the streak alive and become the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts.

Habit Tracker Ideas

Alright, those benefits sound great, but it’s not necessary to fill your habit tracker with every habit that makes up your day. In fact, if you’re already sticking to a habit, then it seems like extra work to me to track it as well. So what should you measure in your habit tracker?

Habit tracking can help kickstart a new habit or keep you on track with behaviors that you tend to forget or let slide when things get busy.

In Atomic Habits, I recommend using the Two-Minute Rule, which suggests you scale your habits down until they take two minutes or less to perform. You can track whatever habits you want in your habit tracker, but I recommend starting with these super small habits to make sure that you are at least showing up in a small way each day. I’ll share some examples below and break them out by daily, weekly, and monthly habits.

Common daily habits to track:

• journal 1 sentence
• read 1 page
• meditate 1 minute
• do 1 push up
• stretch for 1 minute
• write 1 thing I’m grateful for
• make your bed
• wake up by [TIME]
• go to bed by [TIME]
• take a shower
• floss teeth
• weigh myself
• take medication
• take vitamins/supplements
• play [INSTRUMENT] for 1 minute
• contact 1 potential client
• prioritize to-do list
• say “I love you” at least once
• put all dishes put away
• take a walk outside
• call mom
• walk the dog

Notice that most items on this list can be completed in two minutes or less. Make your habits so easy that you can stick to them even on the hard days.

For something to become truly habitual, you need to repeat it frequently. As a result, most habits are daily. But it can also be helpful to use a habit tracker for various weekly or monthly routines. These behaviors won’t become “automatic” like tying your shoes or brushing your teeth, but a habit tracker can remind you to complete them nonetheless.

Common weekly habits to track:

• publish blog post
• vacuum
• take out trash/recycling
• do the laundry
• water the plants
• tidy up your bedroom
• write a thank you note

Monthly habits:

• review finances
• transfer money to savings account
• pay off credit cards
• pay bills
• deep clean the house

You can also use a habit tracker to simply count how often you do something. For example, if you want to keep track of how many days you travel for work each month.

Other ideas:

• days spent traveling
• conduct weekly review
• conduct monthly review

Finally, you can use a habit tracker to measure what you don’t do. I call these “habits of avoidance” (that is, behaviors you are trying to avoid).

Habits of avoidance:

• no alcohol
• no Netflix
• no online purchases
• no soda
• no sugar
• no caffeine
• no smoking

Again, the Habit Journal offers a proven template and the fastest way to create your habit tracker. No need to spend an hour drawing your own grid. Just write your habits down and you’re ready to go.

How to Get in the Habit of Using Your Habit Tracker

Despite all of the benefits, a habit tracker is not something that makes sense in every situation or for every person. Many people resist the idea of tracking and measuring. It can feel like a burden because it forces you into two habits: the habit you’re trying to build and the habit of tracking it. That said, nearly anyone can benefit from habit tracking in one form or another—even if it’s only temporary.

What can we do to make habit tracking easier?

First, manual tracking should be limited to your most important habits. It is better to consistently track one habit than to sporadically track ten. I tend to keep my habit tracker simple and limit it to my three or four most important habits.

Second, record each measurement immediately after the habit occurs. The completion of the habit is the cue to write it down. (This is a twist on the “habit stacking” approach I discuss in Chapter 5 of Atomic Habits.) 3

Here’s the basic formula: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [TRACK MY HABIT].

For example:

• After I hang up the phone from a sales call, I will mark the “call 1 potential client” column.
• After I finish meditating, I will fill the “meditate for 1 minute” column.
• After I put my plate in the dishwasher, I will complete the “put all dishes away” column.

Basically, what we are talking about here is getting in the habit of using your habit tracker. These little rules help you remember to pick up your habit tracker and mark off another accomplishment.

How to Recover Quickly When Your Habits Break Down

Finally, I want to discuss what to do when you fall off the wagon.

Every habit streak ends at some point. Perfection is not possible. Before long, an emergency will pop up—you get sick or you have to travel for work or your family needs a little more of your time. Whenever this happens to me, I try to remind myself of a simple rule:

Never miss twice.

If I miss one day, I try to get back into it as quickly as possible. Missing one workout happens, but I’m not going to miss two in a row. Maybe I’ll eat an entire pizza, but I’ll follow it up with a healthy meal. As soon as one streak ends, I get started on the next one. I can’t be perfect, but I can avoid the second mistake.

Generally speaking, the first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. As I write in Atomic Habits, “Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.”

Too often, we fall into an all-or-nothing cycle with our habits. The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.

Sure, a perfectly filled-in habit tracker looks beautiful and you should strive to achieve it whenever possible. But life is messy. In the long run, what matters is that you find a way to get back on track.

How Long Do I Need to Track My Habits?

One of the most common questions I get is “How long does it take to build a habit?”

You’ll see all kinds of answers: 21 days, 30 days, 100 days. One popular answer right now is 66 days because there was one study that found that, on average, it took 66 days to build a habit. However, even within that study the range was quite wide depending on the difficulty of the habit.

I find that people are really trying to get at something else when they ask, “How long does it take to build a habit?” What they often mean is, “How long until it’s easy? How long until I don’t have to put much effort in anymore?”

Look, all habits get easier with practice. But this line of questioning ignores the real purpose of building better habits in the first place.

How long does it take? The honest answer is: forever. Because once you stop doing it, it is no longer a habit.

A habit is a lifestyle to be lived, not a finish line to be crossed. You are looking to make small, sustainable changes you can stick with for years. And a habit tracker is one tool in your toolbox on the road to behavior change. It is an effective way to visualize your progress and motivate you to show up again tomorrow.

This article is an excerpt from Chapter 16 of my New York Times bestselling book Atomic Habits. Read more here.

In this article, I’d like to share 30 “one-sentence stories” about building better habits. (They are not all exactly one sentence, but they are very short.)

None of these stories are mine. They were sent to me by readers of Atomic Habits. My hope is that these examples will illustrate how real people are putting the book into practice. They will show you what people are actually doing to build good habits and break bad ones. And hopefully, they will spark some ideas for how you can do the same.

I have divided the stories into categories that roughly correspond to different sections or ideas in the book.

Identity-based habits

One of the central ideas in the book is the concept of building “identity-based habits”, which essentially recommends focusing on the type of person you wish to become rather than the outcome you wish to achieve.

One reader named Roland used the idea to improve his eating habits.

“I stopped eating unhealthy food via identity change,” he wrote. “I tried many times in the past, but it became easy — natural — only after I had made the conscious decision that I want to be someone who eats healthy. Instead of aiming for I want to stop eating bad food, I tried changing the mindset to I am someone that eats healthy and lives a healthy life. It changes how you approach things.”

Another reader named Robert employed this idea to help him quit smoking. He wrote, “I recently stopped smoking and the difference between I don’t smoke and I can’t smoke is a powerful trainer of my brain. The positive message of I don’t smoke is that I have not “given up” anything. I am not sacrificing a pleasure. I am investing in my future happiness and wellbeing.”

Like most strategies in the book, the concept of identity-based habits can be combined with other habit building tactics. For instance, one reader used an external reward of $10 to reinforce the desired identity. “I told myself, I am no longer a drinker. Then, after each day of non-drinking, I gave myself $10 to buy something nice rather than poison (like clothes and household items). Today, I no longer need the allowance and I’m six years sober.”

Chapter 2 of Atomic Habits covers these strategies in much greater detail.

Changing the Cues

Another way you can change a habit is by identifying and altering the cues that prompt your behavior. This is precisely what many readers have done.

One woman named Lisa cultivated a reading habit by increasing her exposure to books. “I’ve read more books by continually having 20-30 books on hold at the library,” she said. “It saves time on browsing for books. I always have new things to read with a three-week deadline.”

Heather used a similar strategy to reinforce the simple habit of drinking more water. “I use color and placement for visual reminding and motivation. I poured water in a bright aqua water bottle – my favorite color – and placed it on my nightstand so I couldn’t miss it when I woke up.”

Other readers have done the opposite. They reduced exposure to negative cues. One man named Max managed to eliminate his e-cigarette habit. “I quit e-cigarettes with a combination of determination and also quitting coffee at the same time, which was a trigger for me as I’d smoke and drink coffee together in the morning.”

Habit Stacking

Another popular tactic in the book is something I call “habit stacking.” It’s strategy I first learned from Stanford professor B.J. Fogg. He refers to it as “anchoring” because you anchor—or stack—your new habit onto a current habit.

One reader used habit stacking to create a simple rule for learning a new language.

“When I first moved to China and started to learn Mandarin, I committed to strike up a conversation with the taxi driver whenever I went into a cab (I took a lot of cab rides, 5+ daily). I did it for 2 years no matter the time of day or how tired I was. I now speak fluent Chinese.”

Similarly, a reader named David told me, “I meditate for 20 minutes after brushing my teeth in the morning. Linking new habits onto a keystone one seems to work.”

You’ll find all sorts of habit stacking examples in Chapter 5 of Atomic Habits.

Environment Design, Part I

I have written about the power of the environment and the importance of choice architecture in the past. The simple truth is our environment often shapes our behavior. Many readers are using this fact to their benefit by installing some of the environment design strategies I share in the book.

For starters, you can break a bad habit by increasing the friction in your environment.

One woman named Cyd curtailed her snacking habit with the following strategy. “My husband still loves his Pringles, as do I, but they’re now kept in a locked car that’s parked in the cold. It works!”

Multiple readers are learning to wake up earlier.

One reader named Daniel told me, “I jump out of bed every morning without any hesitation. The reason? The only way to turn off my alarm is to scan a QR Code I keep in the bathroom. This worked wonders for me.”

Chris utilized both environment design and habit stacking to stop sleeping in. He wrote, “I have a bad habit: Hitting snooze. To eliminate it, I “made it hard” and put phone in the bathroom. The phone then became a habit stack. The first thing I do when I wake up: turn off alarm, go to bathroom, brush teeth, etc.”

One of my favorite examples was sent to me by J. Money, the personal finance blogger. He wrote, “I brush my teeth right after putting my kids to bed every night (8pm), which has prevented me from eating or drinking (alcohol) at night for years… ‘Cuz who wants to re-brush them again!”

It’s a great example of creating just enough friction to keep your bad habits at bay.

Environment Design, Part II

Typically, we think of designing physical spaces, but you can use the same principles to shape your digital environment as well. For instance, a reader named Matthew wrote to me and said, “I significantly cut down on mindless Instagram time. Simply logging out of the app makes a big difference.”

Another reader named Viet went even further. “I used my own laziness to my own advantage with my bad habit of browsing Facebook. Deleting Facebook and having to go through the one extra step of going to website and logging in manually was enough barrier for me to not get back on.”

And Rahul did something similar to kill his video game habit. “For gaming addiction, I removed my graphic card,” he wrote. “For excessive net surfing on mobile, I uninstalled apps and removed the Chrome browser.”

Environment Design, Part III

On the flip side, you can foster good habits by reducing the friction in your environment.

Natalie started picking up her cluttered clothes and building better cleaning habits simply by reducing the number of steps between her and the laundry basket. “I quit leaving my socks all over the floor by putting a little basket beside the door to collect them in.”

Similar strategies can be particularly useful for building new exercise habits.

One reader named Justin sent me the following message: “I started going to a gym that was less than a mile from my house. This took away the time and inconvenience excuses. I was never consistent at exercise, but now I work out 8-10x a week. Crossfit, running, and cycling. I’ve been going strong for 2.5 years.”

Another reader wrote, “I’ve been running at 6 A.M. for the past two years. I always put my running gear (Garmin, compression sleeves, shoes, etc.) into a neat pile the night before. When I get up, I just get dressed and go out the door.”

I’ve even heard from readers who go to sleep wearing their running clothes. All they have to do is stumble out the door in the morning.

For more on environment design, see Chapters 6 and 12 of Atomic Habits.

Habit Substitution

In many cases, it can be more effective to replace your bad habit than to merely try to eliminate it.

The beautiful thing about habit substitution is that you can build a good habit and break a bad one at the same time. One reader told me, “At home I would go out to my backyard to smoke, so I put a weight bench out there and every time I wanted to smoke I’d go out and do some reps instead. After that, my craving was reduced.”

I thought the following idea was interesting. One reader replaced biting their nails with cutting their nails. “I stopped biting my fingernails mostly by making sure clippers were always close at hand – especially at work.”

Many readers have substituted a new habit in a “stair step” fashion. They gradually shift from the old habit to something healthier.

Mark, for example, shared the following strategy. “I significantly cut back on beer consumption. I used flavored sparkling water to replace the beer and I asked my wife to stop having beer in the fridge for a while. Once I replaced the habit (it was mostly stress drinking after work), I was able to add beer back into my life.”

And another reader, also named Marc, curtailed his drinking in a similar way. “I replaced drinking beer every day in a succession of replacements, going through fruit juice, then iced tea, then seltzer water. I did it over about nine months by having one less drink a week. Once I finally quit, I got past the cravings in only two weeks. I haven’t had a drink in over a year now.”

Shawn used this approach to stop smoking. “I decided to quit smoking and used a fun-sized Snickers candy bar as a substitute until the major cravings went away. I’m still smoke-free years later.”

Substitution can even be useful in a broader sense. Suraj wrote, “I was addicted to drugs and alcohol. To beat my addiction, I started working out. Now I am planning to compete in powerlifting meets.”

To a certain degree, habit substitution allows you to look for a healthier obsession. Some people are hooked on alcohol. Others are hooked on exercise. Either one can be unhealthy if taken too far, but generally speaking it’s a lot better to spend a few hours exercising each day than to spend a few hours drinking each day.

Mindset Tricks

Sometimes I like to employ clever little mental tricks to stick with a good habit.

One reader named Caelan wrote, “I quit smoking by assigning my cheat days progressively farther in the future. I never quit “for good,” I only quit until my next cheat day. This helped with cravings, because the choice wasn’t between “right now” or “never,” it was “right now” or “later.”

Ken applied a similar strategy to his habit of eating fast food. “I started small when I quit bad habits like eating McDonalds all the time and drinking soda. I told myself I’d take a week off, then said two weeks. That continued. This month, I made it four years without McDonalds and 15 months without soda.”

Another person used the Pointing-and-Calling strategy I discussed in Chapter 4. They wrote, “I quit smoking by saying a mantra out loud every time I wanted a cigarette (“your brain tricks you”) which I think changed my thinking from the subconscious part of my brain to the logical part.”

Qiana used a little math and a clever visual trick. “I stopped drinking soda,” she wrote. “I added up all the sodas I drank for the week and counted how many tablespoons of sugar were in those soda cans and bottles. I began to scoop the amount of sugar into an enormous bowl The visual did it for me. I had to break that habit.”

Habit Tracking

Finally, I’d like to close with one of my favorite strategies: habit tracking.

Here’s how a few readers are using it…

Cindy sent me an email saying, “I purchased a large wall calendar and started building the chains. This really works for me. I like to build that chain. There are 6 months of red X’s on my calendar. I am healthier, have lost 30 pounds, feel stronger, exercise more, garden, read more, work on my small business, and practice my French.”

The easiest way to start tracking your habits is to use the templates provided in the Habit Journal. It will make the whole process a breeze.

My favorite approach is to pick a very tiny version of your habit and track that. For example, I have been tracking the habit of “reading 1 page” for the last month. One reader named Günter did something similar. “I’ve done a simple workout every day for over half a year now. I managed to stick to it by changing the scope: when I don’t have time for a full set or don’t feel like it, instead of skipping altogether, I do an abbreviated session. I also mark it in my calendar.”

Hopefully, these short stories give you some ideas on how to build better habits in your own life. If you’d like to learn more about the strategies discussed above, check out Atomic Habits. And if you’re interested in a notebook that makes it easier to build better habits, try the Habit Journal.

But no matter what, keep taking action in small ways each day. It is so gratifying for me to see people making real changes in their life because of these ideas. As always, thanks for reading.

One year ago today, Atomic Habits was born.

The last 12 months have been a wild ride:

• 1.1 million copies sold worldwide
• 12 consecutive months on the New York Times best seller list (currently #3)
• Repeated appearances on the Audible, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller lists
• Over 20,000 reviews on Audible (4.8/5 stars)
• Over 1,300 reviews on Amazon (4.9/5 stars)
• Translated into 40+ languages (browse international editions)
• 35+ keynote speeches in 13 countries

…and so much more.

I’m incredibly thankful for your support. I’ve been given so much this year and to celebrate Atomic Habits’ 1st birthday, I put together 3 special bonuses for you.

3 GIFTS FOR YOU

I. Price drop.

Now you can get my best work at a lower price. This week, Amazon dropped the price of Atomic Habits. If you’ve been thinking of grabbing a copy (for yourself or someone else), but haven’t pulled the trigger yet, then right now is a great time to do it.

You can currently get the hardcover for:

The audiobook is also on sale through Audible.

 

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II. Special interview with Cal Newport.

Cal Newport is the author of popular business books like Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, and So Good They Can’t Ignore You. Many readers have told me that Cal’s work pairs nicely with Atomic Habits.

The two of us recently recorded a 1-hour discussion on topics like focus, habits, and productivity.

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III. Birthday Bundle! 

To finish off this special celebration, we partnered with Baron Fig to create a “birthday bundle” featuring some of our best habit-building products.

The bundle includes:

• Atomic Habits
• The Clear Habit Journal (now available in two sizes!)
• Habit Squire pen (voted #1 pen by New York Magazine)

It’s the ultimate habit-building package and makes a beautiful birthday or holiday gift.

Click here to see the full bundle.

Finally, let me close by saying thank you and reaffirming my commitment to you and all of my readers.

Time is precious. As always, I appreciate you sharing some of your day with me by reading my work. I will do my very best to send useful and valuable ideas your way.

Another year complete. Here’s a quick recap of 2019, which also happened to be one of the craziest years of my life.

As always, this Annual Review will answer three questions.

1. What went well this year?
2. What didn’t go so well this year?
3. What did I learn?

Before we begin, it is worth noting that every Annual Review is a personal process. This is simply an overview of what my year looked like, not advice for how you should live your life. (That said, you are always welcome to use this general format for your own Annual Review.)

1. What went well this year?

I had a lot to celebrate this year.

Book sales. Atomic Habits launched in October 2018, which meant that 2019 was the first full calendar year it had been available. I came in with big aspirations, but I think it’s fair to say that book sales have outpaced my expectations.

As of December 2019:

• Over 1.3 million copies sold worldwide
• 12 consecutive months on the New York Times bestseller list
• 4.8/5 stars on Amazon with over 1,800 reviews
• 4.8/5 stars on Audible with over 25,000 ratings
• Over 15 national TV segments in the United States, Canada, and Australia
• Translated into 40+ languages

This has been a wild ride to say the least.

Of course, the greatest reward has been hearing from readers. It seems like nearly every day someone tells me that Atomic Habits helped them lose weight or start a business or make some positive change in their life. People are finding real value in the ideas and it feels great to produce something useful.

3-2-1 Newsletter. My new project for 2019 was launching the 3-2-1 newsletter, which shares 3 ideas from me, 2 quotes from others, and 1 question to ponder each week. I had been struggling to write consistently during the first half of the year (discussed below) and this new format offered something I knew I could stick with despite a busy schedule. (Sometimes I have to take my own medicine and scale my habits down.)

I didn’t realize it at the time, but it turns out to have been a good idea. I feel good because I’m producing new work each week and the response from subscribers has been quite favorable. Many readers tell me it’s the only newsletter they actually read as soon as it hits their inbox.

Audience growth. I didn’t write many new articles this year, but thanks to the buzz generated by Atomic Habits and the momentum of the 3-2-1 newsletter, audience growth remained strong.

Here’s what the year looked like:

• 5 new articles published this year (fewest ever; discussed in next section)
• 353,970 new email subscribers in 2019
• 586,638 total email subscribers as of December 31, 2019
• 10,848,250 unique visitors in 2019
• 47,308,712 total visitors since launching on November 12, 2012

Even after doing this for a few years, the scale of the internet still blows me away. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to share my work with so many people.

Twitter and Instagram. I didn’t put much energy into social media for a long time, but the web has evolved in the last five years and social media plays an important role now. This was the first year I put consistent effort into Twitter and Instagram, and it paid off. My audience doubled on both platforms this year. Feel free to join the fun and follow me on Twitter and on Instagram.

Travel. This was the craziest travel year of my life and, in all likelihood, the craziest I will ever have. I spent a total of 158 nights away from home this year, which means I spent 43% of the year not sleeping in my own bed. It’s a pace I will probably (hopefully?) never match again.

Here’s the rundown…

18 states (0 new) – Arizona, California (5x!), Colorado (2x), Florida (2x), Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois (2x), Indiana (3x), Maryland, Nebraska (2x), Nevada, New York (5x!), Ohio, Pennsylvania (3x), Tennessee (2x), Texas (2x), Utah, and Virginia.

14 countries (7 new) – Australia (2x!), Canada (2x), Croatia, Denmark, Greece, England, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates.

While I love traveling, I did feel a bit guilty about the number of flights I took this year and the resulting pollution. In response, I decided to buy carbon offsets not only to cover my flights, but also to be entirely carbon neutral for 2019. I bought mine through Project Wren, and it wasn’t nearly as expensive as I expected.

New restaurants. Whenever I travel to a new city, I like to ask for restaurant recommendations on Twitter. Oh man, did you all set me up this year. I had so many great meals thanks to reader suggestions.

I feel compelled to repay you all by sharing some of my favorites (in no order):

• Los Angeles, CA — fundamental LA
• Denver, CO — Mercantile Provisions
• Honolulu, HI — Marukame Udon
• New York, NY — Manhatta (my meal of the year)
• Philadelphia, PA — Zahav (runner up)
• Melbourne, Australia — Chin Chin
• Sydney, Australia — NOMAD
• Sydney, Australia — Mr. Wong
• Toronto, Canada — PAI
• Dubrovnik, Croatia — Pantarul
• Dubrovnik, Croatia — Taj Mahal
• London, England — Nopi
• London, England — Dishoom
• Athens, Greece — Atitamos
• Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — Village Park Restaurant
• Singapore — Artichoke
• Singapore — Maxwell Food Court
• Madrid, Spain — El Charrua
• Madrid, Spain — Ten Con Ten

For more ideas (including specific dishes), check out my full list of recommended restaurants.

Speaking. I delivered 31 paid keynote speeches in 2019. This is far and away the most I’ve ever given in a calendar year. Obviously, this is tied directly to the success of Atomic Habits, but I’ve improved my speaking skills as well. My biggest takeaway is that if you write about a topic for years and are forced to clarify your thinking in a well-structured book, then speaking about that topic for one hour becomes much easier to do. (Note: If you’d like me to speak at your company or event, you can submit a request here.)

2. What didn’t go so well this year?

Many wonderful things happened in 2019, but I suffered plenty of growing pains as well.

Writing. For years, my business was built on the consistency of my writing. I published a new article every Monday and Thursday from 2012 to 2015. From 2016 to 2018, I spent most of my time writing Atomic Habits. Overall, those six years were filled with writing.

Then 2019 arrived and the book began to sell far and wide. My attention shifted to promotion mode: interviews, speeches, book signings. It was all great, but there was very little time left for writing. Honestly, I probably wrote more words on Twitter last year than in new articles.

Thankfully, I began to course correct during the second half of the year by writing the 3-2-1 newsletter (as mentioned previously). We’ll see what things look like in 2020, but if I’m going to write another book at some point, I will need to carve out more time to write.

Weightlifting. Everything has a tradeoff. It turns out that it is hard to maintain consistency in the gym when you are on the road for nearly half the year. In 2019, I completed 91 workouts for an average of 7.6 per month, which is better than nothing, but a steep drop off from previous years.

Workouts per month in 2019:

• January – 16
• February – 6
• March – 4
• April – 8
• May – 4
• June – 2(!)
• July – 12
• August – 8
• September – 9
• October – 15
• November – 1(!)
• December – 6

When looking at these numbers, the thing that sticks out to me is that my worst months were the months I had lots of international travel (March, June, and November). I’ll need a better plan for exercising in foreign locations in the future.

Given how inconsistent things were, I didn’t bother with max lifts this year and just did rep work most days. As a result, my best lifts of the year were:

• Back Squat – 330 lbs (150 kg) for 5 rep
• Bench Press – 245 lbs (111 kg) for 5 rep
• Deadlift – 415 lbs (188 kg) for 5 rep

This marks the second year in a row when I failed to hit an all-time PR in any major lift. Admittedly, it’s unlikely you’re going to reach a personal best every year anyway, but nonetheless I have a lot of catching up to do in the gym in 2020.

Email. I joked earlier this year that my email response time is either 3 minutes or 3 months. Problem is… it’s not really a joke. I’m terrible at answering email. Honestly, this wouldn’t bother me except for one reason: it bothers other people.

My poor email response times came back to burn me multiple times this year. Sometimes it was a missed opportunity due to a delayed reply. Other times people became annoyed or frustrated, or thought I was intentionally ignoring them.

I’m not sure the best way to handle this. I get more email than I can manage and answering emails is certainly not as important as writing the next article or book. And yet, people expect responses within a day or two. One thing is for sure, I’ll probably need a new email approach in 2020.

3. What did I learn this year?

Some of my major lessons from this year include:

Move fast. The importance of moving fast was clarified for me over the last year. The original release date for Atomic Habits was set for March 2019. I pushed to move the date forward six months to October 2018 because I didn’t want to miss out on holiday sales around Christmas. My publishing team agreed, everyone worked their tails off, and we had a fabulous launch in October.

What happened next was even more important: The book was available in January when everyone was thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. As a result, Atomic Habits jumped out to a very strong start during the fall and winter. By the time we arrived at the original launch date in March, we had already sold nearly 500,000 copies.

In this case, the difference between waiting and acting was massive. We all know exactly what would have happened if we had waited: time would have flown by, somehow planning the launch would have expanded to fill all of that time, and six months of sales would have vanished.

Growing up takes time. For the last three years my business has been stuck in that awkward pre-teen stage where one minute it acts like a full-fledged adult and the next minute you realize it’s covered in pimples and doesn’t know how to control all four limbs at the same time.

But in 2019—maybe!—it turned a corner. The to-do list is still endless, but that’s what running a business is like. It does feel like I’m starting to find my footing, however. The strategy is becoming more clear. The products are gaining a foothold. The fog is lifting ever-so-slightly. I have spent nearly a decade as a full-time entrepreneur, but I’m finally uncovering a clear roadmap of what the future of the business looks like.

A life well-lived is a life well-edited. My biggest area of growth this year was prioritization. I had to become much better at saying no— and I’m still not very good at it!

In short: Prune away the inessential. Pour yourself into what remains.

That’s it! As always, thanks for reading. Happy New Year! 1

The Annual Review Archives

This is a complete list of Annual Reviews I have written.