Charles Duhigg is a reporter for the New York Times and author of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. I picked this volume up out of sheer curiosity and was well rewarded for my reading time. This is an entertaining and informative book. The book falls into three major sections. In the first, Duhigg brings readers up to speed on current research about individual habits. Wait! Don’t let that discourage you from turning some pages in this book. It is really helpful material. In the next section, Duhigg applies what we are coming to understand about the development of habits to organizations. The most helpful chapter in this section concerns how Starbucks has institutionalized habits of success. In the final section, Habits of Societies, Duhigg describes how the Montgomery Bus Boycott came to be and how the pastor of Saddleback Church came to use habit to build his congregation. Both chapters are well worth the price of the book. Readers hoping to know how to break bad habits will not find direct advice. However, the book outlines how habits are formed and much can be gleaned from that perspective. I hope that Duhigg will follow this volume with others. His writing style is very good and his preparation is evident. The reading of Mike Chamberlain is excellent.

The writer expands the meaning of "habits" to cover most all of human behavior. The connections between some of his stories and how they relate to habits are weak. It's also annoying how he jumps from one story to the next without reaching a conclusion to the previous story and then comes back to it later. One story at a time please! The book was a lot longer than it had to be. It can all be summed up in a couple sentences...

Habits start with a cue and end with a reward. Identify the cue and reward and work hard to change the habit in between.

He doesn't even give methods on how to apply his ideas. Nothing helpful. Nothing groundbreaking.

I can't stop talking about the ideas in this book. They are profound, based on sound research and told in an entertaining manner.

Really interesting biographies of actual professionals and athletes that have used habit to excel in their fields

You realize how effective habits and shaping,creating habits can be

I have begun creating routines and sticking to them. It's work at first, but the book provides inspiration and insight so that you keep at it.

Really enjoyed this book. Very different from the usual self-help books.

Yes, if they wanted to change something in their life, or if they wanted to understand the power of habits.

N/A

This book does open your mind to the power of habits and their effect on our everyday lives. It offers some interesting ways to change habits that you have. Once you change one small habit in your life it becomes easier to start making big changes, and you would be surprised with how many things you do in life are driven by habit. Changing habits can help you to stop bitting your nails, and ultimately to change your view and outlook on everyday life and change your whole life for the better. Stories like how Paul O'Neil changed Alcoa do provide some evidence of how executives are using these techniques in business. Other stories are not as interesting or strong. Good length, good narrator.

A rule of thumb about attending conferences is that if you come back with at least one good idea, it was probably worthwhile to invest your time.

I feel the same way about this book. Divide the number of pages by three and you probably have the ideal length for the material presented. However, the core premise is sound and the supporting stories are generally interesting. (Exception: The Tampa Bay Bucs example just didn't fit, no matter how hard the author tried to pound that square peg into a round hole.)

Bottom line: It's a so-so read, but worth slogging through.

What a marvelous book! My husband and I listened to it over about 7 days and each night we would discuss what we had heard the night before at length. We learned to observe our own habits and think about which ones we wanted to change. The story is engaging; at times funny and other times tragic but the effect keeps the listener interested.
The author builds each chapter and the listener is satisfied at the end. I recommend this book to anyone who is curious about why we do the things that we do. Also, if you are a reader of Drs. Dan Arielly and Daniel Gilbert you will appreciate this book.
I always judge the value of something by what I have learned from it and I have learned a lot about my own habits after listening to and thinking critically about the points made in this book.

I consider this book to be the third part of an unofficial trilogy of related books: The Tipping Point, Made to Stick, and The Power of Habit. All three look into trends or habits, but each from a different angle. Tipping Point examines the WHY behind trends. Made to Stick, the WHAT behind trends & habits. But this book is the HOW to shape habits.

There is a significant research overlap between Made to Stick & The Power of Habit, so if you've read the former, you'll recognize a couple of stories in the latter. But get it anyway, because this is the best of the bunch.

If the author would have focused on the development of a person's habit forming processes as opposed to adding business culture development midway through the book. The business examples were short and unconvincing and I felt were manufactured to fit the author's thesis.

No

Easy listen

Read user reviews before buying. This book might not be what you are looking for.

The studies, themselves, were pretty good and interesting. However, the writing itself got a little repetitive, going over the points over and over again. I also disliked the spreading out of the lead story of each chapter, structurally.

The facts presented were a bit reductive. Both Habit and Culture are a bit more complex than presented. I guess for a layman, the book is good, but for someone looking to delve into the subject of habit as a psychological function then it falls short.

What the book actually does is explain habit to a layman and a bit about what makes them form, and so on. It's not self-help. It is not highly academic. In trying to make it simpler it does make a few minor factual errors. Culture is not a series of habits. And Habit is more complex than just culture. Separate things.

For that, I removed two stars. I liked the reading a lot though. It was very well done and pleasant to listen to.