Controlling the bigger parts of life is possible only when we focus our attention on the little things, to the atomic granularities...

Article: [The Secret to Better Habits in 2021](https://ryanholiday.net/habits-2021/)

### Think Small
- "Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death. Indeed, against misfortunes as well." -- Seneca
- Incremental, persistent, consistent efforts pay huge dividends. Start with things that make up the whole system.
- Just start doing it. The rest will fall into place eventually. Just the act of doing something small and building up from it gives enough motivation to keep the streak going.

### Think Long-Term
- Reference to Atomic Habits' topic of "The Plateau of Latent Potential"
- The bamboo waits 5 years before it shoots up 90 feet in the span of 6 weeks. The ice cube does not melt until it is 32ºF.
- Just because the thing that we want to happen is not happening, does not mean that our efforts are wasted. Continue putting efforts that you know will get you to the goal that you want to achieve.
- Greatness is achieved by small things, but greatness is not a small thing.

### Develop the muscle
- In order to get rid of a bad habit, start by giving up a relatively easier bad habit. In this process of letting go of the bad habit, you will develop a muscle to resist temptation. This will help you reinforce your decision to quit the habit and form a new, better one.
- If you want to be able to write a book, start by writing a journal for 15 minutes every day when you wake up. If you want to create a product that inspires millions of people, start by making a simple, yet powerful to-do app.

### Use good habits to drive out bad habits
- Epictetus said, “Since habit is such a powerful influence, and we’re used to pursuing our impulses to gain and avoid outside our own choice, we should set a contrary habit against that, and where appearances are really slippery, use the counterforce of our training.”
- When a bad habit reveals itself, counteract with a good habit instead of falling into the trap of repeating the bad habit and never getting rid of it.
- If you find yourself running a kilometre less, or coding less than before, or studying less than before, tell yourself, "Okay. I am going to go even further or do even better than this."

### Build a routine
- The greatest people that we admire are prisoners of their rigid schedule.
- A good schedule gives you clarity and limits your decisions to a minimum, giving you the time and the energy to focus on the task at hand that was pre-planned.
- Be deliberate about the things that you do every day. Wake up. Journal. Exercise. Clean up. Stick to a diet. Create order.

### Use incentives
- Promise yourself a treat or a punishment in return for the deed that you want to do. For example, you could donate Rs 100/- every time you break the habit. You can reward yourself with a treat or a pair of clothes or anything that you like if you stick to the habit that you set your goal towards.

### Put up reminders
- Keep reminding yourself why you're doing something and where you are going by doing what you are doing.
- Put up reminders everywhere you go. Your phone, computer, room, everywhere. That will help you fall back on the ideology that you have set for yourself without having to question everything that you see.
- You should not waste any time re-contemplating the reason for the work that you are doing because you have already put in your time and energy in deciding the reason for the same. Write down the reasons that you have thought of. Make a note of them. Make them accessible. Go through them regularly.

### Choose your surroundings wisely
- A man is the product of the people that he spends his time with. We are what we spend our time with.
- Make sure that the people that you talk to, the places that you go to, the events that you attend align with your goal to make yourself better than yesterday.
- A kid who spends time with other kids who do not want to achieve anything in life will probably never achieve anything in life too. Remember this. Spend time with people who want to become better and achieve greater heights.

### Hand yourself over to a script
- Tell yourself that you are going to do a specific set of tasks each day and do them in that order. This reduces chaos and decision making power. This helps you to know that every day is already planned to be a different day, and my duties for that day have already been decided prior.
- Plan your meets, events, dates, everything in a calendar at least a week prior. This gives you room to breathe and live life the way it should be lived.
- 21 days. 3 weeks. That's it. This is enough to cultivate a new habit. How hard is it going to be? Just keep showing up, Pancham. You can do this.

### Keep going back to it
- There will be times when you fail to achieve your goals and miss the tasks that you have set for yourself. But that is okay. It is okay to fail unless you continue to fail and create a failing streak instead of a streak of wins.

Habits for moving into 2021

In this article review, I take a look at David Perell's brilliant writing to consider the world around me...

*Originally written on January 12, 2021,*

- [Link to Article](https://perell.com/note/the-paradox-of-abundance/)

### Introduction

Information abundance has led to a rise in dumb people and smart people alike. It is bad for an average person and great for a smart person. People who consume a lot of content be it news, political articles, videos, audios, etc tend to develop an echo chamber of thoughts and find it extremely difficult to get out of it. Whereas people who use the same media judiciously tend to develop a more balanced and open-minded view about what read online.

This is applicable to everything in life. While the fast-food chains have increased multiple folds in the last couple of decades, people have started consuming more and more processed food making them obese, while people who consume healthy options and maintain good health have increased too. This is called the paradox of abundance: On one hand, the median population is falling in the lower half of the optimal nutritional value range, small groups of people have managed to be in the top 10%.

### Gresham's Law

It is a law commonly used in financial markets where it is said that bad money drives out good money until there is only bad money left. This very thing applies to information, food, work, and many more areas.

Let's consider an example of news. News outlets today have what it seems like a clickbait-y title competition where the only objective is to generate clicks on their articles. This means that the quality of content that is available on these media outlets is deteriorating day-by-day. Due to this, more and more people consume bad content and this cycle continues indefinitely.

The reason for this, what I personally think, is that it is easy to consume unhealthy information/food/content because it requires no effort and it adheres to the idea of comfort. More and more people want comfort in their lives and it makes them choose McDonald's over farmers' market.

### How to succeed in the world of abundance?

Be mindful of the things that you consume. Rebel against the algorithms, look for legible news sources, read the hard stuff instead of BuzzFeed. For a conscious consumer, there hasn't been a better time to be alive. As Komal would say, "Choose wisely. Live well."

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