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Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life by [Gretchen Rubin]

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Gretchen Rubin

Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life Kindle Edition

by Gretchen Rubin (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 3,816 ratings

Goodreads Choice Award nominee

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Happiness Project and “a force for real change” (Brené Brown) examines how changing our habits can change our lives.

“If anyone can help us stop procrastinating, start exercising, or get organized, it’s Gretchen Rubin. The happiness guru takes a sledgehammer to old-fashioned notions about change.”—Parade

Most of us have a habit we’d like to change, and there’s no shortage of expert advice. But as we all know from tough experience, no magic, one-size-fits-all solution exists. It takes work to make a habit, but once that habit is set, we can harness the energy of habits to build happier, stronger, more productive lives.

In Better Than Before, acclaimed writer Gretchen Rubin identifies every approach that actually works. She presents a practical, concrete framework to allow readers to understand their habits—and to change them for good.

Infused with Rubin’s compelling voice, rigorous research, and easy humor, and packed with vivid stories of lives transformed, Better Than Before explains the (sometimes counterintuitive) core principles of habit formation and answers the most perplexing questions about habits:

• Why do we find it tough to create a habit for something we love to do?
• How can we keep our healthy habits when we’re surrounded by temptations?
• How can we help someone else change a habit?

Rubin reveals the true secret to habit change: first, we must know ourselves. When we shape our habits to suit ourselves, we can find success—even if we’ve failed before.

Whether you want to eat more healthfully, stop checking devices, or finish a project, the invaluable ideas in Better Than Before will start you working on your own habits—even before you’ve finished the book.

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March 17, 2015
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Popular Highlights in this book

What are popular highlights?

Habits make change possible by freeing us from decision making and from using self-control.
Highlighted by 5,464 Kindle readers
Self-measurement brings self-awareness, and self-awareness strengthens our self-control.
Highlighted by 3,403 Kindle readers
In other words, habits eliminate the need for self-control.
Highlighted by 3,298 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

Review

“We are totally comfortable calling Gretchen Rubin’s new book, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, life-changing.”
—Better Homes & Gardens

“If anyone can help us stop procrastinating, start exercising or get organized, it’s Gretchen Rubin. The happiness guru takes a sledgehammer to old-fashioned notions about change.”
—Parade

“It’s exciting to find a self-help book that’s not only full of eye-opening insight but also provides practical tips to help you procrastinate and stress less, exercise and eat more healthfully, and spend time on activities that matter. We’re really glad that Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, decided to investigate her affinity for habits, because in the process she’s come up with a great guide to help us lay the foundation of a more satisfying life. Best of all, Better Than Before is a really fun read—Rubin’s friendliness, candor, and humor mirror a lively conversation with a best friend.” —Apple iBooks

“The Happiness Project lays out life’s essential goals…Her new book, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, serves as a kind of detailed instruction manual on how to achieve them.” —New York Times Sunday Book Review

“In Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, Gretchen Rubin picks up where [William] James left off, integrating a wealth of insight from psychology, sociology, and anthropology in an illuminating field guide to harnessing the transformative power of habit in modern life.”
—Brain Pickings

“Change can be good. Particularly if it helps us live longer, healthier, indeed, happier lives — the objective of Rubin’s latest project.”
—Chicago Tribune

“Author Gretchen Rubin says most people fall into one of four motivation types. Knowing yours is key to taking on new habits.”
—Lifehacker

“Gretchen Rubin… [is] lighthearted and inviting—full of insights that sound familiar and advice that sounds less like what you should do and more like what you want to do.... With her focus on taking first steps and creating early successes, this is a refreshing take on how to change stubborn patterns that limit what we can enjoy about our lives.” —Audiofile Magazine

“Do you have a bad habit you’re trying to shake, or a good one you wish you could cultivate? Gretchen Rubin is one of the most charming and erudite authors of her generation. Here, she uses her gifts to help you eat right, sleep well, stop procrastinating, and start enjoying all that life has to offer.”
—Susan Cain, New York Times bestselling author of Quiet

“Gretchen Rubin combines deep research and observations from her own life to explain how habits emerge and—more important—how they can change. It’s indispensable for anyone hoping to overhaul how they (almost unthinkingly) behave.”
—Charles Duhigg, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit

“Filled with insights about our patterns of behavior, Better Than Before addresses one of life’s big and timeless questions: how can we transform ourselves? In a way that’s thought-provoking, surprising, and often funny, Gretchen Rubin provides us with the tools to build a life that truly reflects our goals and values.”
—Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post and New York Times bestselling author of Thrive

“Is there a habit in your life you’d like to change? If so, here’s your first step: Read this book. It’s loaded with practical, everyday tips and techniques that will guide you to success.”
—Dan Heath, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Made to Stick, Switch, and Decisive

“Almost everyone wants to be ‘better’—slimmer, smarter, better looking, more interesting, more productive—and we want to know we’re improving, we want the reinforcing evidence. Gretchen Rubin’s new masterpiece, Better Than Before, shows us how. Unlike other books on habits, Rubin’s book gives us the specific tools and a blueprint for getting back on track—the fast track.”
—Brian Wansink, Ph.D., New York Times bestselling author of Slim by Design and Mindless Eating

“With bold and original insights, Gretchen Rubin reveals the hidden truths about how to change our habits—from resisting junk food and hitting the gym to ending procrastination and saving money. Better Than Before is a gem, and the first habit you should form is reading a chapter every night.”
—Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take

“Gretchen Rubin’s superpower is curiosity. Luckily for us, she’s turned her passionate inquiry to the topic of making and mastering habits. Weaving together research, unforgettable examples, and her brilliant insight, Better Than Before is a force for real change. It rearranged what I thought I knew about my habits, and I’m better for it.”
—Brené Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Daring Greatly andThe Gifts of Imperfection

About the Author

Gretchen Rubin is one of the most thought-provoking and influential writers on the linked subjects of habits, happiness, and human nature. She’s the author of many books, including the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, Happier at Home and The Happiness Project. Rubin has an enormous following, in print and online; her books have sold more than a million copies worldwide, in more than thirty languages, and on her popular daily blog, gretchenrubin.com, she reports on her adventures in pursuit of habits and happiness. Her podcast "Happier with Gretchen Rubin" was an iTunes "Best of 2015" pick. Rubin started her career in law, and was clerking for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor when she realized she wanted to be a writer. She lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters.

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A NOTE TO THE READER
Better Than Before tackles the question: How do we change? One answer—by using habits.
Habits are the invisible architecture of daily life. We repeat about 40 percent of our behavior almost daily, so our habits shape our existence, and our future. If we change our habits, we change our lives.

But that observation just raises another question: Okay, then, how do we change our habits? That’s what this book seeks to answer.
But while Better Than Before explores how to change your habits, it won’t tell you what particular habits to form. It won’t tell you to exercise first thing in the morning, or to eat dessert twice a week, or to clear out your office. (Well, actually, there is one area where I do say what habit I think is best. But only one.)

The fact is, no one-size-fits-all solution exists. It’s easy to dream that if we copy the habits of productive, creative people, we’ll win similar success. But we each must cultivate the habits that work for us. Some people do better when they start small; others when they start big. Some people need to be held accountable; some defy account- ability. Some thrive when they give themselves an occasional break from their good habits; others when they never break the chain. No wonder habit formation is so hard.

The most important thing is to know ourselves, and to choose the strategies that work for us.
Before you begin, identify a few habits that you’d like to adopt, or changes you’d like to make. Then, as you read, consider what steps you want to try. You may even want to note today’s date on your book’s flyleaf, so you’ll remember when you began the process of change.
To help you shape your habits, I regularly post suggestions on my blog, and I’ve also created many resources to help you make your life better than before. But I hope that the most compelling inspiration is the book you hold in your hands.

I see habits through the lens of my own experience, so this ac- count is colored by my particular personality and interests. “Well,” you might think, “if everyone forms habits differently, why should I bother to read a book about what someone else did?”

During my study of habits and happiness, I’ve noticed something surprising: I often learn more from one person’s idiosyncratic experiences than I do from scientific studies or philosophical treatises. For this reason, Better Than Before is packed with individual examples of habit changes. You may not be tempted by Nutella, or travel too much for work, or struggle to keep a gratitude journal, but we can all learn from each other.
It’s simple to change habits, but it’s not easy.

I hope that reading Better Than Before will encourage you to harness the power of habits to make change in your own life. Whenever you read this, and wherever you are, you’re in the right place to begin.

IT'S NOT ENOUGH TO BEGIN
Some habit-formation strategies are familiar and obvious—like Monitoring or Scheduling—but others took me more time to understand. As I studied habits, I slowly began to recognize the tremendous importance of the time of beginning.

The most important step is the first step. All those old sayings are really true. Well begun is half done. Don’t get it perfect, get it going. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Nothing is more exhausting than the task that’s never started, and strangely, starting is often far harder than continuing.

That first step is tough. Every action has an ignition cost: getting myself to the gym and changed into my gym clothes can be more challenging than actually working out. That’s why good habits are a tremendous help: they make the starting process automatic.
Without yet having a name for it, in fact, I’d invoked the power of the Strategy of First Steps as I was starting to write this book. I’d spent months reading and taking copious notes, and I had a giant document with a jumble of material about habits. This initial period of research for a book is always exhilarating, but eventually I have to begin the painstaking labor of actual analysis and writing.

What was the most auspicious date to start? I asked myself. The first day of the week, or the month, or the year? Or my birthday? Or the start of the school year? Then I realized that I was beginning to invoke tomorrow logic.

Nope. Begin now. I was ready. Take the first step. It’s enough to begin.
Now is an unpopular time to take a first step. Won’t things be easier—for some not-quite-specified reason—in the future? I have a fantasy of what I’ll be like tomorrow: Future-Gretchen will spontaneously start a good new habit, with no planning and no effort necessary; it’s quite pleasant to think about how virtuous I’ll be, tomorrow. But there is no Future-Gretchen, only Now-Gretchen.

A friend told me about how she used tomorrow logic: “I use a kind of magical thinking to procrastinate. I make up questionable rules like ‘I can’t start working at 10:10, I need to start on the hour’ or ‘It’s already 4:00, it’s too late to start working.’ But the truth is that I should just start.” It’s common to hear people say, “I’ll start my new habit after the holidays are over/I’ve settled into my new job/my kids are a little older.” Or worse, the double-remove: “I’ll start my new habit once I’m back in shape.”

Tomorrow logic wastes time, and also it may allow us to deny that our current actions clash with our intentions. In an argument worthy of the White Queen, we tell ourselves, absolutely, I’m committed to reading aloud to my children, and I will read to them tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow—just not today.

The same tendency can lead us to overcommit to responsibilities that take place in the comfortably distant future—but eventually the future arrives, and then we’re stuck. My father-in-law has a mental habit to correct for that kind of tomorrow logic. He told me, “If I’m asked to do something—give a speech, attend an event—I always imagine that it’s happening next week. It’s too easy to agree to do something that’s six months off, then the time comes, and I’m sorry I agreed to do it.”

When taking the first step toward a new habit, a key question from the Strategy of Distinctions is “Do I prefer to take small steps or big steps?”

Many people succeed best when they keep their starting steps as small and manageable as possible; by doing so, they gain the habit of the habit, and the feeling of mastery. They begin their new yoga routine by doing three poses, or start work on a big writing project by drafting a single sentence in a writing session.

As an exercise zealot, I was pleased when my mother told me that she was trying to make a habit of going for a daily walk.

“But I’m having trouble sticking to it,” she told me.

“How far are you going?”

“Twice around Loose Park,” she told me, “which is about two miles.”

“Try going just once around the park,” I suggested. That worked. When she started smaller, she was able to form the habit.

Small steps can be particularly helpful when we’re trying to do something that seems overwhelming. If I can get myself to take that first small step, I usually find that I can keep going. I invoked this principle when I was prodding myself to master Scrivener, a writers’ software program. Scrivener would help me organize my enormous trove of notes, but I dreaded starting: installing the software; synchronizing between my laptop and desktop computers; and most difficult, figuring out how to use it.

Each day gave me a new opportunity to push the task off until tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’d feel like dealing with it. “Start now,” I finally thought. “Just take the first step.” I started with the smallest possible step, which was to find the website where I could buy the software. Okay, I thought. I can do that. And then I did. I had a lot of hard work ahead of me—it’s a Secret of Adulthood: things often get harder before they get easier—but I’d started. The next day, with a feeling of much greater confidence and calm, I watched the tutorial video. Then I created my document. And then—I started my book.
However, some people do better when they push themselves more boldly; a big challenge holds their interest and helps them persist. A friend was determined to learn French, so he moved to France for six months.

Along those lines, the Blast Start can be a helpful way to take a first step. The Blast Start is the opposite of taking the smallest possible first step because it requires a period of high commitment. It’s demanding, but its intensity can energize a habit. For instance, after reading Chris Baty’s book No Plot? No Problem!—which explains how to write a novel in a month—I wrote a novel in thirty days, as a way to spark my creativity. This kind of shock treatment can’t be maintained forever, but it’s fun and gives momentum to the habit. A twenty-one-day project, a detox, a cleanse, an ambitious goal, a boot camp—by tackling more instead of less for a certain period, I get a surge of energy and focus. (Not to mention bragging rights.) In particular, I love the retreat model. Three times, I’ve set aside a few days to work on a book during every waking hour, with breaks only for meals and for exercise. These periods of intensity help fuel my daily writing habit.

However, a Blast Start is, by definition, unsustainable over the long term. It’s very important to plan specifically how to shift from the intensity of the Blast Start into the habit that will continue indefinitely.

There’s no right way or wrong way, just whatever works. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00NRQOR8K
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown; Reprint edition (March 17, 2015)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 17, 2015
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2656 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 322 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0385679459

Best Sellers Rank: #71,223 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #140 in Happiness
- #171 in Personal Transformation
- #622 in Self-Help (Kindle Store)

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Gretchen Rubin

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Gretchen Rubin is one of today’s most influential and thought-provoking observers of happiness and human nature.

Her previous books include the #1 New York Times bestseller THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, as well as the bestselling books BETTER THAN BEFORE, HAPPIER AT HOME, THE FOUR TENDENCIES, and OUTER ORDER, INNER CALM. Her latest book is LIFE IN FIVE SENSES.

She’s the host of the popular, award-winning podcast "Happier with Gretchen Rubin," where she and her co-host (and sister) Elizabeth Craft explore strategies and insights about how to make life happier. As the founder of The Happiness Project, she has helped create imaginative products for people to use in their own happiness projects.

She has been interviewed by Oprah, eaten dinner with Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman, walked arm-in-arm with the Dalai Lama, had her work reported on in a medical journal, been written up in the New Yorker, and been an answer on Jeopardy!

Gretchen Rubin started her career in law, and she realized she wanted to be a writer while she was clerking for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Raised in Kansas City, she lives in New York City with her family.

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Artist Strong - Carrie Brummer

Do you wish to build a better artist habit into your life? Applying this book to creatives...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 6, 2017

Verified Purchase

Do you wish to build a better artist habit into your life?

Many of you talk about finding time or making time for your art every day. If you want to learn how your personality influences the way you cultivate habits, you are in the right place. I’ve recently read Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin and here are today’s Top Takeaways:

You are likely an obliger or questioner.
Most people fall into these two tendencies. More rare are rebels and upholders. Want to discover your tendency? Take Rubin’s free quiz to find out.

Habits are something we cultivate to forget about.
Do you think about brushing your teeth every morning? No, you likely just do it. Why? Because it’s a habit: it’s part of a routine so you don’t have to think about it. Habits give our brains a bit of a break and get us repeating behaviors without a whole lot of work.

No one is “bad” at habits.
It’s like if you struggle to create a habit that a) the topic just isn’t that important to you or, b) you are NOT using strategies that suit your tendency. For example, I’m an upholder. Calendars and lists work really well for me. They are not so useful for rebels, who do not enjoy following rules or systems.

Strategies for habit formation must suit your tendency.
Obligers have difficulty meeting internal expectations but do fine meeting outside expectations, thus, it would be useful for an obliger to join our FB Group and announce an art intention. Because we would all know said intention and goal, s/he knows we can ask about the project and see if they are following through on the goal/project/task.

I don’t have to think about brushing my teeth every morning, I just know to do it.

Let’s apply the tendencies to our creative practice.

One of the biggest obstacles you all face is making time for your art. So, how can you utilize your tendency to help you create more time for your art?

Obligers need someone to check in on them or someone to make art alongside. Knowing they have to “report in” or that someone else is counting on them to be there with them making art will make it easier to make art!

Questioners need to understand how making regular time for their art will yield results. Or, why a certain time of day would best suit their desire for daily art practice. Understanding and buying into the logistics and idea behind a goal will help them create the habit.

Upholders love checklists. My accountability calendar is great for this. I know it holds me accountable to a near daily art practice and I love the feeling of ticking off a box saying, “Yes! I did this!”

Rebels need to create from a place of freedom. Art needs to be a space to express freedom. If the idea of daily practice empowers them and their art to feel independent and free, this can motivate consistent work.

How can habits cultivate your creativity? A review of the Book Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin and apply it's ideas to creative process.

Who knew that by developing habits we might set ourselves free to be our unique, valuable, creative self?!

How can the tendencies impact the way we share or sell our art?

If you wish to get a large social media following, or regularly sell your art, it would be wise to consider the tendencies of your potential audience and buyers.

Obligers are not strong at follow through for things just for themselves, unless they have burnt out on saying yes to others. They need to know how purchasing your art, or sharing your art will help others. Can it be a gift for someone? Do you contribute money from each art you sell to a cause? Or, do you have a special message that can spread goodwill? These ideas will likely appeal to an obliger.

Questioners will want to know the answers to any potential objections to buying or sharing your work. How does shipping work? Where is it shipped from? How long does it take to arrive? And some other, more big picture questions could include: why is the artwork valuable? Why should people care about your art? Think of every question someone could ask you about your art and have answers at the ready for your questioner audience.

Upholders will likely want to know about your accolades and achievements. Where have you exhibited your art? What awards have you won? Is the work part of a larger project or goal? How is that going? How does the way you work on the art show your special dedication and service to the work itself? To progress in the arts? Upholders are driven by achievement and will likely connect if you frame conversations about your work in this way.

Rebels operate from a place of freedom. How does your work convey a sense of personal independence, expression and freedom? As soon as their is a “should” or some rule to abide by rebels want to break the rule or ignore the “should.” How does your art break rules or push the boundaries of “the system?”

Many tendencies need the support and help of others in their life to develop and keep habits. Be sure to know the tools that will help you succeed. And use them.

How you can help each tendency.

Obligers need your expectations. Check in with them and ask about their art. It will help them make more of it.

Questioners need your reasoning. If you offer feedback about an artwork, don’t just say what you see, explain why you think it’s important.

Upholders need your help to slow down and savor the little things. They can be too busy achieving to enjoy their art. Give them homework that involves art PLAY.

Rebels need no expectations. Don’t tell them how to do something or what should be done. Instead ask: what will set you free?

(From my article on ArtistStrong)

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Mike Mertens

Individual Flourishing, Human Happiness – and developing a path to making habits serve our lives and well-being

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 21, 2015

Verified Purchase

I really loved this book by Gretchen Rubin. It is a very fast-paced, well-written book that gives many practical suggestions on how to leverage habits to serve our long-term well-being and happiness.

She begins with the importance of self-knowledge. She lays out a simple framework based on how individuals generally respond to internal and external expectations (Upholders, Questioners, Obligers and Rebels) and then makes some distinctions for each of us to think through in order to better understand ourselves. She does not offer a one-size-fits–all solution. Rather, she advocates that we use self-knowledge to understand how we can apply habits in the service of our lives.

After self-knowledge, she discusses 4 Pillars of Habits. These are:
• Monitoring – self-measurement brings awareness and it prevents us from fooling ourselves.
• Foundations – we need to focus on “first things first” and she notes the areas that will most directly strengthen self-control – sleeping, movement, eating and drinking right, unclutter. One of my favorite ideas from this section was the one-minute rule (if you can do a task in less than a minute, do it) – and I have already used it to my benefit
• Scheduling – scheduling makes us confront the time limits of the day and realize that we need to make choices. It can even help by making sure we schedule time for leisure. Her is a great quote: “How we schedule our days is how we live our lives.”
• Accountability – we must actually follow the habit

The best time to begin is now. She discusses the danger of “tomorrow logic” – the key is to take the first step and then make the temporary permanent. Throughout the book she offers many “secrets of adulthood”, 2 of my favorites are on how to make habits more convenient:
• “The biggest waste of time is to do well something that we need not do at all”
• “Make it easy to do right, and hard to go wrong”

She has a lot of useful ideas on how to make sure we keep habits on track. Here are a few that I found useful:
• Anticipate and minimize temptation – plan for failure (a good technique in this regard that is not covered in the book is Gary Klein’s idea of the pre-mortem – he discusses it for projects but the same concept could be applied to habits)
• Use If-then planning to stick to good habits
• Avoid Loopholes – she notes 10 categories of loopholes including moral licensing (permission to do bad because I was good), the tomorrow loophole, and the one-coin loophole (which is quite fascinating)

She also covers the danger of rewards. We can see a reward as a finish line and that marks a stopping point. Continuous progress is the opposite of a finish line. Making the habits we want rewarding in themselves is important if we want them to last a lifetime.

We need clarity of values and clarity of action to support habit formation – when we have conflicting goals, we don’t manage ourselves well. This is one of the reasons that self-knowledge is so important. We need to be clear on our values so we can understand how to connect the habit to the value that it serves. We want habits that serve our lives – as she notes early in the book “habit is a good servant but a bad master.”

I really enjoyed reading this book and I recommend it highly. I have already starting working some of the ideas into the fabric of my life (such as the one minute rule). I am thinking about a question she posed late in the book: “What change would add more happiness to my life?” – that is an important question for each of us to ask so we can develop that habits we need across a lifetime in order to achieve our own self-fulfillment. My thanks to Gretchen Rubin for writing a valuable work for “mastering the habits of our everyday lives.”

Note #1: I took extensive notes while reading the book over the last three days and I was able to begin using ideas right from the start. This is a book I will definitely be coming back to in the future.
Note #2: Remember that her framework notes general tendencies, details will vary for each individual
Note #3: She provides lots of great personal examples throughout the book
Note #4: I recommend the reader also consider these other books on self-control, habits and mindsets: Willpower by Baumeister and Tierney, The Willpower Habit by McGonigal, Mindset by Dweck, The Power of Habit by Duhigg.
Note #5: One’s values are very important but how to think about what one should value is not covered in the book – I think the virtue ethics tradition aligns nicely with this work (for example, Aristotle)
Note #6: There are great quotes at the start of each chapter – several from Samuel Johnson and Montaigne have me more interest in their writings as well.

16 people found this helpful

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Blondie

Superficial on a psychology level

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 14, 2019

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I struggle with this book, it operates in the principles of either/or, you are a starter or a finisher, you love simplicity or abundance, novelty or familiarity. People are more complex than that. It can depend on a whole host of factors (situation, mental state, recent events etc). So it kind of lost me quite quickly. Perhaps it goes in to say not everybody is one thing or another all the time, but for me this was not signposted clearly enough.

9 people found this helpful

Maccer

Habits

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 27, 2018

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Habits are fascinating indeed and this is the first time I have read a serious view of them.Interesting and I guess to many people very helpful.At my advanced years I have already discovered most of the suggestions given.The author’ s own personality is a bit too dominant in my opinion. However an informative book

7 people found this helpful

mans1503@hotmail.com

Does what it says on the tin!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 30, 2022

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I bought this book a while ago but still find that bits stick in my mind to help me. I love how Gretchen Rubin writes as she doesn't pretend that she is perfect or that you can/will be perfect too. She realises that we are all human and all different and encourages you to celebrate that and work with it rather than trying to get yourself in a box that might be the wrong shape.
An easy read and deifinitely recommended!

Pyronik

It's an easy, interesting read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 8, 2018

Verified Purchase

I am still reading this. Key for me is her explaining that we all need what works for us, that we're all different. It's not a just a "here's what I did & this is what works". It's an easy, interesting read. I read the 4 tendencies first which I think definitely helps, & I would recommend doing that.

7 people found this helpful

Mrs. M. S.

Worthwhile purchase

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 6, 2017

Verified Purchase

Interesting book, well researched and written, haven't finished reading it all the way through yet but is already making me think differently about why I struggle to break old habits and make new ones

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Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life Kindle Edition

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