Habit Stacking: 127 Small Changes to Improve Your Health, Wealth, and Happiness

The new version of Habit Stacking by prolific author Steve Scott doesn’t disappoint. I read the first version last year and the 2nd version is twice as good with more actionable content that can flip your productivity and organization around within days.As the book promises from the very beginning: “The people who succeed in the game of life understand the important power of small actions.”By introducing small actions [habits] into your life, you can create a compound effect that takes place over an extended period of time. The overall force behind this book is simple: Group small actions together.Steve Scott gives readers a systematic approach that works, by adding a few simple but effective routines to your schedule without being overwhelmed. The content of the book is divided up into 12 sections that cover:1. Part 1: General overview and Intro2. Part 2: Talks about GOALS3. Part 3: briefly covers the psychology behind habit stacking4. Part 4: shows you how to get started with habit stacking.5. Part 5: on improving your productivity, increasing your business revenue, and implementing the habits that help you do better at your job.6. Part 6: Covers the finance habits.7. Part 7: Goes over health habits that are important for maintaining a balance of physical fitness.8. Part 8: discusses the leisure habits vital for improving the quality of your life.9. Part 9: IX Talks about the organizing habits that provide structure to your surroundings in a mindful way10. Part 10: cover the relationship goals that help you enhance interactions with the important individuals in your life.11. Part 11: Covers spiritual habits, which includes a wide range of topics like meditation, prayer, and yoga.12. Part 12: Provides nine examples of habit stacks you can build and how to overcome the six challenges you might encounter when building a routine.Getting into the real content of this book, as you can see from the section list above, there is a lot of material that covers a lot of simple strategies you can implement right away and make a difference in your life without waiting too long.The basic concept of Habit Stacking is, you focus on a few action tasks as part of your routine, and you perform them consistently until they become part of your routine.The material in Habit Stacking is definitely action-oriented. It is set up in a way that you have no choice but to take action every day. But the actions are simple enough that you are not required to bend your current routine or make any major shifts to your lifestyle. That is what I love about the Habit Stacking course.The course dives in with the Goal Habits. As Steve states from the beginning: “The best way to build a habit stack is to combine actions related to what you want from life.”This is a fantastic way to start off the book, discussing goals that include: career, finance, health, leisure, organizing, relationship and spirituality.By answering the Goal Specific questions that follow, you can identify what you want from life and then, build your habit stack routine into it. But that isn’t all.Next we learn the 3 types of habits that support your Habit Stacking routine. They are:1. Keystone Habits2. Support Habits3. Elephant HabitsThe author Steve doesn’t leave anything out when he covers the Habit Stacking program. Next he covers the psychology of habits and what keeps us stuck. This boils down two 2 major obstacles we learn about that gets us to take action and build better habit routines.The book moves into the prolific meat of the subject by covering:1. The 9 rules for building a habit stacking routine.2. 13 steps for building a habit stacking routine.3. 4 Questions about habit stackingThen, the really good stuff begins…What I love about this book is how Steve Scott really covers the areas of habits and goals that people are most engaged in with their everyday routines. In the following description of each habit area, I give a few of my favorite parts of each section, BUT, there are many more strategies than listed here. Check out the book for the complete list of action tasks.Moving past the “Goal Habits #1-20,” we get into the career goals where Steve talks about: scheduling your day identifying your MITs [Most Important tasks] chunking down projects creating an interruption free environment.Next:Financial Goals [#21-39]: In this section you will learn how to: Track your expenses Review your budget Check your billing statements Conserve utilities Pack a meal or snack Plan your mealsHealth Goals: #40-60 Maintain a food journal Take daily vitamins Practice good postureLeisure Habits: #61-74 Read a book chapter Draw in a coloring book Create a bucket listOrganizing Habits: #75-90 Identify a home base every possession Clean your office desk Scan your paperworkRelationship Habits: #91-108 Talk to someone new Give a compliment Practice active listeningSpirituality Habits: #109-127 Practice gratitude Practice creative visualization Practice mindful walking Dress for successThis system is amazing in the way that Steve Scott provides so much detail in how to do the actions. He just doesn’t “tell you” to do it but he shows you.The last chapter is GOLD. It discussed the 6 challenges that might hold you back from taking action. Have you ever procrastinated because you weren’t sure if you were doing the right thing?After reading through and learning how to confront your pain points keeping you stuck, I am confident that you’ll be putting Habit Stacking into action.******The Bottom Line on “Habit Stacking”******If I had to pick any book to work on productivity and enjoy the process at the same time, this would be it. Steve Scott offers a ton of actionable tasks and shows you how to implement each one for success. I also love the easy access to multiple apps that you can download right off the page and set up quickly to start working on goals.You don’t need to read a dozen books on habits or how to change your life. What we need are tasks that we can do without taking too much time and can become part of our routine, just like the strategies in Habit Stacking.I’ve read plenty of books on productivity but right now, this is my #1 choice.

This book does not say anything that has not been said before. But Scott says it in a way that is familiar to us. Easy to grasp. Meaningul. And therefore it can have a really significant impact on our lives. Most of us are not great entrepreneurs or geniuses. We are "just a guy" that seeks to make the most of our lives, enjoy it and share the joy of it with our family and friends. This book is for us, most of us. And of course, also for great entrepreneurs and geniuses.The most important lesson I learned from this book is to order my daily mini chores in piles that take about half an hour, ending with one of my keystone habits. That was my biggest "aha moment": to end up with an important habit like working out, doing my most difficult or important task of the day, etc.There is a great little change that I am adding to my life thanks to this book: take my ordinary daily tasks and stack them in the right order and time of day, sometimes adding one or two tasks that I have not thought of before. This has helped me make a great change: I start and close every moment of my day doing what is most important to be productive and have a clear mind. I have 6 stacks, 2 for every moment of my day: before work, work, after work. My previous efforts to take control of my life are very easy to handle now. I'm getting more results with the tools I've been using for a while (Getting Things Done, Bullet Journal, Konmari method, etcetera).I have not finished reading the list of 127 habits, but I think the concept of stacking habits and the advice that Scott gives to make it more fruitful are useful even if anyone is only going to take his or her daily tasks and order them in a new way, more fluent and more productive. There is no need to incorporate new habits to improve your life using this book. But surely I am taking more than one of the 127 habits to add even more value to my life. Thank you!This book doesn't say anything that hasn't been said before. But it says it in a way that is familiar to us. Easy to grasp. Meaningful. And therefore it can have a really significant impact on our lives. Most of us are not great entrepreneurs, nor geniuses. We are "just a guy" looking to make the most out of our lives: to enjoy it and share the joy of it with our family and friends. This book is for us, most of us. And of course, for great entrepeneurs and geniuses too.The most important lesson that I learnt from this book is to order my daily mini tasks in stacks that take about half an hour, ending with one of my keystone habits. That was my major "aha moment": end your stacks with one important habit like working out, doing my most difficult or important task of the day, etc.There's a big small change that I'm adding to my life thanks to this book: taking my ordinary daily tasks and stacking them in the right order and moment of the day, sometimes adding one or two tasks that I haven't thought of before. This has helped me to make one big change: I start and close every moment of my day doing what is most important to be productive and have a clear mind. I have 6 stacks, 2 for every moment of my day: before work, work, after work. My previous efforts to take control of my life are much easy to manage. I'm getting more results with tools that I've been using for a while (Getting things done, Bullet Journal, Konmari method, etcetera).I haven't finished reading the list of 127 habits, but I think that the concept of habit stacking and the tips that Scott gives to make it more fruitful are useful even if you just are going to take your daily tasks as they are now and order them in a new, more fluent, and more productive way. There's no need to incorporate new habits to improve your life using this book. But surely I'm taking more than one of the 127 habits to add even more value to my life. Thank you!

I really like the idea and principles of this book. But it is very repetitious and you can get the main points of the book by reading a summary of it online. Or get it out of the library. This is not a book I need to keep when I have way too many books already.

Steve has nailed the concept in this interesting and comprehensive book about improving your life experience with the acquisition of some very beneficial habits, easily incorporated with his methods. He explains very clearly, and has a real enthusiasm for life skills. The power of small...that's a strong and encouraging line! Small new habits are cleverly linked to some you already have, in manageable "stacks". He explains the psychology behind lack of motivation, or lack of remembering, and then exactly how to make effective habit stacks for yourself. Initially it takes a bit of thought and sorting out to do this, but with a little time, some of his 127 stackable habits could be permanently making a difference in your life.I realised I already do this to some extent, as many of us may do. And a lot of the suggestions are common sense - we know, but do we always do? Steve can help with that. I loved the "done" list, and the habit categories are separated, so going back to read again was easy. I would highly recommend this book as a useful, life enhancing read. Thanks, Steve.

I was made aware, especially through Organize365.com, that building habits was beneficial for productivity and saving time. It also puts your brain on autopilot so that it's not having to use up your thinking capacity for mundane things. Habits can take care of that. But, I wanted proven examples of habits I could incorporate into my life. Thank you, Mr. Scott! I'm doing the start of work Habit Stack and it's really helping.

Decent book with some good insights into hasbit forming. I particularly liked it's categorization of habits as bring either Keystone (a habit that leads to a series of other habits); support (a habit with the primary hope of encouraging another habit); and elephant (large habits that require chipping at, and gradual change e.g. changing your bedtime). The concept of habit stacking makes good logical dense and should help redu e the resistance involved in forming a habit.

Not an awful lot of info to be fair. The 127 changes are basically possible habits you may or, more likely, may not want to implement and how to "stack" these habits so that they run into each other sensibly.The one positive I did take from this book was the anecdote of what Warren Buffet told his pilot, which I found interesting. That said, I could've just googled that.

A very good book - perhaps a little brief in parts (hence four stars instead of five) but it does a great job of explaining a very useful idea.

Read previous edition. More in-depth advice. Recommended for those who procrastinate!

I would recommend everyone buy this book, it’s well written and I can’t wait to start my good habits and get rid of the old