• Some habits matter more than others in remaking our lives.
• These are ‘keystone habits’, and they can influence how people work, eat, play, live, spend, and communicate.
• The habits that matter most

• We know that a habit cannot be eradicated. Instead, it must be replaced. Most habits are most malleable when the golden rule is applied:

• To change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward...

• Cues can be almost anything, from a visual trigger to a time of day, an emotion, a sequence of thoughts, the company of particular people, etc.

• Routines can be incredibl...

• This is how new habits are created: By putting together a cue, a routine, and a reward, and then cultivating a craving that drives the loop.

• To create a new habit (such as running each morning), you need to choose a simple cue (e.g. leaving your gym clothes out,...

Obviously, changing some habits is more difficult than this, but the framework is a good place to start.

Once you understand how a habit operates — once you diagnose the cue, routine and rewards — you gain power over it.

• There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is wa...