The Silent Cost of Bad Habits

What's the two-minute rule? Take whatever habit you're trying to focus on and scale it down to something that takes 2 minutes or less to do. You know, I have this reader. He started going to the gym and he lost over 100 lbs. It's kept off for more than a decade now. But when he first started to go, he had a rule where he wasn't allowed to stay at the gym for longer than 5 minutes, right? It sounds like kind of ridiculous. Like, oh, clearly this is not going to get the guy the results he wants. What you realize is he was mastering the art of showing up. A habit two-minute rule 是什么？把你想专注培养的那个习惯，缩小成只要两分钟或更短就能做完的事。我有一位读者。他开始去健身房，减了超过 100 磅。到现在已经维持十多年了。 但他刚开始去的时候，有一条规则：不准在健身房待超过 5 分钟。听起来有点荒唐。你会想，哦，这显然没法让他得到想要的结果。可你后来会明白，他是在掌握「到场」这门功夫。一个习惯

James Clear must be established before it can be improved. You need to standardize before you optimize. 必须先建立，才能改进。你要先标准化，再去优化。

主持人 And then once we've identified a habit that we want to replace or eliminate, what is the mechanism by which we can do that? 那当我们已经找出一个想替换或消除的习惯，机制是什么？我们怎么做到？

James Clear Broadly speaking, I think there are four things that you should do if you want to build a habit. And I think one of the best things you can do early on, this is if I could actually add one thing to atomic habits that wasn't in it, it would probably be this. 大体上说，如果你想养成一个习惯，我认为有四件事该做。而且我觉得早期最有用的一件事——如果我能给 Atomic Habits 再加一条当时没写进去的，大概就是这条。

James Clear What is the role that identity plays in terms of habit formation? 身份认同在习惯养成里扮演什么角色？

主持人 Ultimately, I feel like identity may be the most important thing with habits. Um, your habits are how you embody a particular identity. So, when you make your bed, you embody the identity of someone who is clean and organized. If you study biology for 20 minutes on Tuesday night, you embody the identity of someone who is studious. The act of doing it is proof that you are that type of person. And eventually you start to build up this body of evidence for being that way. You have every reason in the world to believe it. So one of the core lessons of atomic habits is that every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become. So, when you show up at the gym today, you are casting a vote for being the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. When you sit down and make one sales call, 归根结底，我觉得身份认同可能是习惯里最重要的一件事。你的习惯，就是你如何把某种身份活出来。所以你铺床的时候，你活出的是一个干净、有条理的人的身份。如果你周二晚上学了 20 分钟生物学，你活出的是一个好学的人的身份。去做这件事，本身就是你属于那种人的证据。慢慢地，你就会积累起一整套「我就是这样的人」的证据。你有充分的理由去相信这一点。所以 Atomic Habits 的核心教训之一是：你采取的每一个行动，都像是在为你希望成为的那种人投一票。所以，你今天出现在健身房，就是在为「那种不会错过训练的人」投票。当你坐下来打一通销售电话，

主持人 you are casting a vote for being a salesperson. When you write one sentence, you are casting a vote for being a writer. And no, doing one push-up does not transform your body, but it does cast a vote for that identity. It does provide evidence for being that type of person. And eventually, as you build up that body of evidence, you start to take pride in being that way. And I think that's where you get to this really resilient place in terms of building your habits. When you start to take pride in being that type of person, you will fight to maintain the habit. You know, it becomes the opposite situation. Now, instead of trying to force yourself to do it, you're trying to maintain it uh because it's a part of your identity that you believe in and that you, you know, want to to keep. You know, if you take pride in the size of your biceps, you never skip arm day at the gym. Now, if you take pride in how your hair looks, you have this long hair care routine, you do it every day. we wouldn't know but you know it's like um and so 你就是在为「我是销售员」投票。当你写下一个句子，你就是在为「我是写作者」投票。对，做一个俯卧撑不会改变你的身体，但它确实是在为那个身份投票。它确实提供了你属于那种人的证据。等到证据积累够了，你就会开始为成为那样的人感到骄傲。我认为，习惯真正变得坚韧，就是到了这个阶段。当你开始为成为那样的人感到骄傲，你就会为维持这个习惯而战斗。局面会反过来。现在你不是硬逼自己去做，而是想保住它，因为它已经是你相信、也想继续保有的身份的一部分。如果你为二头肌的尺寸感到骄傲，你就不会在健身房跳过手臂日。如果你为头发的样子感到骄傲，你会有一套很长的护发流程，每天都做。我们可能不知道，但 就是这样。所以

主持人 um really the goal is not to read a book the goal is to become a reader you know the goal is not to run a marathon it's to become a runner the goal is not to do some silent meditation retreat it's to become a meditator it's to install and adopt this identity that this is the type of person that I am and I think ultimately that's why small habits matter so much you know behavior and belief is like two-way street. You know, what you believe will influence the actions that you take, but the actions that you take can also influence what you believe about yourself. And you know, every time you show up and do it in some small way, you prove to yourself a little bit, hey, maybe I am that kind of person. And so, my encouragement, my suggestion is to let the behavior lead the way. To start with some small action and then prove to yourself in your in that moment that you were that kind of person. And as you start to foster and build that identity, um, sticking with 真正的目标不是读一本书，而是成为读者。目标不是跑一场马拉松，而是成为跑者。目标不是去做一次静默冥想闭关，而是成为冥想者。是把「我就是这种人」的身份装进去、接纳下来。我认为，归根结底，这就是小习惯如此重要的原因。行为和信念像是一条双向路。你相信的东西会影响你采取的行动，但你采取的行动，也会影响你对自己的看法。每次你以某种很小的方式出现并去做，你都在向自己多证明一点：嘿，也许我就是那种人。所以我的鼓励、我的建议是：让行为走在前面。从某个小行动开始，然后在那个当下向自己证明，你就是那种人。当你开始培育、建立这个身份，坚持

主持人 the habit becomes easier. 这个习惯就会更容易。

James Clear I I like the idea of the small, you had 1% better in your book, too. Y, 我喜欢这种小的想法。你书里也有每天好 1%。对。

主持人 uh, these small changes leading to big results. I think where people go astray 这些小改变会带来大结果。我觉得人们走偏的地方

James Clear is the lack of patience sort of changes the outcome. So, I know I want to be healthier, but I know it's a lot of work and a lot of time. If I eat healthier, I go to the gym more. I I just live a healthier lifestyle. And that's where we get in trouble, but we do it with everything. It's not just 是缺乏耐心，会在某种程度上改变结果。我知道我想更健康，可我也知道那要很多功夫、很多时间。如果我吃得更健康、更常去健身房，我就只是在过一种更健康的生活方式。我们就是在这里出问题，而且每件事都是这样。不只是

主持人 lack of patience changes the outcome. That's a good phrase. Um it's definitely true. I think there are two ways people can go astray. So there's there's what you just mentioned, which is not being patient enough and sticking with it. We'll talk about that in a minute. The other one is um small changes can really matter, but only if they're oriented in the right way. You know, we we know we all know people who spend time on minutia and trivial things. You know, you kind of waste time on small stuff that doesn't really matter. And I think one of the distinctions is are your small actions accumulating or are they evaporating? You know, are you doing small things each day that are oriented toward a larger outcome or are you doing small things each day that are just kind of like one-offs and don't really add up? In a lot of ways, I feel like the two time frames that matter most in life are 10 years and 1 hour, you know? So, like 10 years is just shorthand for the big meaningful things that you want to do in life. Where do you want to be in a 缺乏耐心会改变结果。这句话很好。这肯定是对的。我觉得人们会从两条路走偏。一条就是你刚才说的，不够耐心、没法坚持。这个我们稍后再谈。另一条是，小改变确实可以很重要，但只有方向对了才行。我们都认识那种把时间花在琐碎小事上的人。你把时间浪费在并不真正重要的小事上。而我认为一个区分是：你的小行动是在积累，还是在蒸发？你每天做的小事，是指向一个更大结果，还是只是一次性的、加不起来的？在很多方面，我觉得人生里最重要的两个时间尺度是 10 年和 1 小时。10 年只是一个简称，指你人生里那些真正有意义的大事。十年后你想站在哪里？

主持人 decade? You know, I sometimes I like to encourage people to don't let a day pass without doing something that will benefit you in a decade. Um, and one hour is how can I do something today right now that is oriented toward where I want to be in 10 years. And if you can kind of live in that simultaneously in those two modes of thought, if you can both be thinking long term but acting short term, then you start looking for little changes, little adjustments that do add up, that do accumulate, that are not trivial and, you know, um, meaningless. So, um, I think that's one way people go astray is their their small actions are not oriented toward the larger outcome. They're not accumulating. The second way that they go astray is what you just mentioned, which is um lack of patience changes the outcome. I one of the examples I give in atomic habits is thinking about an ice cube, you know. So you walk into a room, it's cold, you can see your breath, and the ice cube sitting on the table, you start heating the room up one degree, 十年后你想成为什么样？我有时会鼓励人们：不要让任何一天过去，却没做一件十年后会让你受益的事。而 1 小时是：我今天、此刻，怎样做一件指向十年后目标的事。如果你能同时活在这两种思维方式里，既想得长远，又做得眼前，你就会开始寻找那些会叠加、会积累、并不琐碎、也并非毫无意义的小调整。所以，人们走偏的一种方式，是小行动没有指向更大结果，它们没有在积累。第二种走偏，就是你刚才说的：缺乏耐心会改变结果。我在 Atomic Habits 里举过一个冰块的例子。你走进一个房间，很冷，能看见自己的呼吸，桌上放着一块冰。你开始把房间一度一度地加热，

主持人 another degree, another degree, ice cube's still there, and eventually you get to this tipping point, this phase transition. The ice cube starts to melt. It's this like onederee shift, no different than the shifts that had come before, but you hit this transition and things change. 再一度，再一度，冰块还在。终于你到了那个临界点，发生相变。冰块开始融化。这一度的变化，和之前那些一度没有什么不同，但你碰到了这个转折，事情就变了。

James Clear And habits are like that a lot of the time. You know, you'll hear people say things like, you know, I've been running for a month. I can't see a change in my body. Or, we've been meeting every Friday for 6 months and we still haven't shipped this feature yet. And it's like,yeah, that work is not being wasted. It's just being stored. You know, it's kind of like complaining about heating an ice cube up a little bit and it not melting yet. It's like, well, you just haven't hit the phase transition. So, but that's where people give up. 习惯很多时候就是这样。你会听到有人说，我跑了一个月，身体看不出变化。或者，我们每周五开会开了六个月，这个功能还没上线。这就像是，对，那些功夫并没有浪费，只是被储存起来了。有点像抱怨你给冰块稍微加热了一点，它还没融化。你只是还没碰到相变。可人们就是在这里放弃。

主持人 Yes. Yes. I The San Antonio Spurs have uh a quote hanging in their locker room where it says, you know, they've won five NBA championships. And it says, "When I think about giving up, I think about the stone cutter who takes his hammer and bangs on the rock a hundred times without it splitting in two. And at the 101st blow, it cracks. And I know that it wasn't the 101st that did it, but all the hundred that came before." And so many in things in life are like that. You know, it's not the last workout that got you fit. It's all the hundred that came before. It's not the last sentence that finishes the novel. It's all the hundred that came before. It's not the last conversation that closes the sale. It's all the hundred that came before. It's this willingness to keep showing up and hammering on the rock and knowing that at some point you are going to hit that 对。对。圣安东尼奥马刺队更衣室里挂着一句引言。他们拿过五次 NBA 总冠军。那句话大意是：当我想放弃的时候，我会想到那位石匠，他拿着锤子砸那块石头，砸了一百下，石头还没裂成两半。到第一百零一下，它裂了。我知道不是第一百零一下砸开的，而是前面那一百下。生活里很多事都是这样。不是最后一次训练让你变强壮，是前面那一百次。不是最后一个句子写完小说，是前面那一百句。不是最后一次谈话成交，是前面那一百次。就是愿意继续出现、继续砸那块石头，并且知道到某个点你就会碰到那个

主持人 phase transition. You are going to hit that, you know, that new um level, but you need enough persistence to keep doing it. 相变。你会到达那个新的层次，但你需要足够的坚持才能一直做下去。

James Clear Are there tips or tricks you have? Because like when I'm working out, I'm getting better, but I'm getting better internally. I just don't I can't visual. It's not visible, 你有没有什么技巧或窍门？因为我锻炼的时候，我确实在变好，但那是内在的变好。我只是看不见。它不是可见的。

主持人 but it is in like I can't see it, but it's happening. Yes. Are there tips or tricks you have that we can 但它确实在发生，我只是看不见。对。有没有心理上或实践上我们可以用的技巧或窍门？

James Clear uh use either psychologically or practically speaking? 这是习惯里很重要的一课：改进不明显，。

主持人 This is one of the big lessons for habits, which is just because improvements aren't noticeable. Doesn't mean improvement isn't happening. You know, you're not going to see a change on the scale every time you work out. You're not going to see a change in the number of subscribers every time you publish an episode or whatever. Like, it's, you know, it takes a while. Um, but the tricky part is if something's not working, it also takes a while. You know, you just keep banging your head against the wall. So, how do you know when you need to be patient and how do you know when you need to try something 并不等于改进没有发生。你不会每次锻炼都在体重秤上看到变化。你不会每发一集就看到订阅数变化。这需要时间。但棘手的是，如果某件事行不通，同样也需要时间才能看出来。你可能一直在撞墙。那你怎么知道什么时候该耐心，什么时候该换一种

主持人 different? And um sometimes you'll hear people say like try try again. I actually think it should be rephrased to try try differently. You need to keep trying, but you need to keep trying different lines of attack. This is I think Naval has something where he says you know it's not 10,000 attempts it's 10,000 iterations. You know an iteration is a different way of doing it. So you need you need some adjustment to the approach. 做法？有时人们会说，再试一次。我其实觉得应该改成：再试，但换一种试法。你需要继续试，但要用不同的进攻路线。Naval 好像说过，不是一万次尝试，而是一万次迭代。迭代意味着换一种做法。所以你需要对方法做一些调整。

James Clear And um I don't think you need to do it 10,000 times. Usually just doing it five different ways or 10 different ways is enough to see oh one of these is working better than the other. So this is the second kind of insight which is when something goes well usually it goes pretty well from the beginning. It's not. Now, that does not what that does not mean is that you'll always have the results you want right away or that you will immediately get the outcome that you're you're hoping for. But what it does mean is that you should this was one of the best pieces of advice given to me early in my entrepreneurial career. Somebody told me you should try things until something comes easily. 而且我不认为你需要做一万次。通常只要用五种或十种不同方式去做，就足以看出哪一种比其他的更有效。这是第二个洞见：当事情进展顺利时，通常从一开始就相当顺利。这并不意味着你马上就会得到想要的结果，也不意味着你立刻就能拿到你希望的那个结果。但它的意思是，你应该——这是我创业早期收到的最好建议之一。有人告诉我：你应该一直试，直到某件事变得容易。

主持人 Now, that doesn't mean that it will be easy, but it does mean that it results will come easier than the other things that you have been trying. And so in a lot of ways I think what you kind of one of the big quests for life is to experiment enough to find what comes easy for you 这不是说它会很容易，而是说结果会比你试过的其他事情来得更容易。所以在很多方面，人生的一大课题，就是做足够多的实验，去找出对你来说变得容易的那件事，。

James Clear and then work really hard on what comes easy because if you work hard on the thing that you have some skill set for some strength for some natural aptitude for then you're very hard to compete with. So it's just your classic explore exploit trade-off. you know, early in the process, you need to explore more and experiment more. And then eventually you start to discover, okay, of the 10 things I've tried, these are the two that work best. Now you need to double down on what's working and start exploiting some of the things that um that are actually getting you results. 然后在那件容易的事上非常努力地干。因为如果你在自己有技能、有优势、有天然禀赋的事情上拼命干，别人就很难跟你竞争。这就是经典的探索与利用权衡。过程早期，你需要多探索、多实验。然后你开始发现，好，我试过的十件事里，这两件效果最好。现在你需要加码押在正在起作用的事情上，开始利用那些真正给你结果的东西。

主持人 Peter Thiel gave a talk a while ago and one of the things he said that really stood out to me was we underestimate when something's working, we underestimate how long it can go for and how powerful it can be. So often we change habits that are working for us too where we change we tinker with things that are working. Peter Thiel 不久前做过一次演讲，有一句话让我印象很深：当某件事正在起作用时，我们会低估它能持续多久、能有多强。所以我们常常会去改那些其实正在起作用的习惯，去摆弄那些已经有效的东西。

James Clear Man, there's so many places in life where this is true. Like I so um two examples, one in the gym. I have a friend who was very strong, really good lifter, um squatted over 500 lb and we were training together and he was doing this squat program and it went great. He made a lot of progress over like this three-month span and then I had to travel or something. I didn't see him for a little while, whatever. I I came back maybe I saw him like 6 months later and I said oh hey are you still doing that squat program? He's like no. I was like oh did it like did you stall out or something? He was like no I just got 人生里有太多地方都是这样。比如两个例子，一个在健身房。我有个朋友，非常强壮，举铁很厉害，深蹲能超过 500 磅。我们一起训练，他在做一套深蹲计划，进展很好。大概三个月里进步很大。后来我要出门之类的，有一阵子没见到他。大概六个月后我回来见到他，问：嘿，你还在做那套深蹲计划吗？他说没有。我问：是停滞了吗？他说没有，我只是

James Clear bored. Um and you're like man it like all the time you know it happens everywhere. People just um the quest the desire for novelty um overpowers the you know the desire to get results. It's like we just can't keep sticking with it. So, um, doubling down on what's working. In a lot of ways, I feel like the process is actually quite simple. Try a number of things, right? So, experiment with a number of things. Run a number of small experiments. Once you find something that works, double down on it and then keep doing it until it stops working, which is the step that a lot of people skip. Um, and then once it stops working, go back to the start and try a lot of small experiments again. And it's really it's really not more it doesn't need to be more complicated than that. But people shortcut each step. They either don't try enough experiments. They try one or two things and they say, "Well, this didn't work for me." You're like, "Well, it's not enough to try two. 觉得无聊了。 这种事到处都在发生。人们对新鲜感的渴望，压过了想拿到结果的渴望。我们就是没法一直坚持。所以，加码押在正在起作用的事情上。在很多方面，我觉得这个过程其实相当简单。先试一些事情。对一组事情做实验。做一批小实验。一旦找到有效的，就加码押上去，然后一直做到它不再有效——这一步很多人会跳过。等它不再有效，再回到起点，重新做一批小实验。真的不必比这更复杂。但人们会在每一步都抄近路。要么实验做得不够，试了一两件就说「这对我没用」。可试两件并不够。

James Clear Like maybe you need to try 20, you know." Um and then once they find something that's working, they maybe they don't double down on it enough. That seems once you've tried a lot of things, you're kind of diversified. Doubling down feels kind of risky, you know, to just go all in on something. But you need to be able to flip that switch and fully commit. And then once you're fully committed, people get bored and so they don't stick with it until it stops working. Keep doing it if it doesn't work. This is part of the reason why I have not published another book yet. Um, Atomic Habits is working really well. And so I'm trying to take my own advice and don't stop until it stops working. Um, and so 也许你需要试 20 件。然后一旦找到正在起作用的，他们可能又加码得不够。试了很多件之后，你等于已经分散了。把全部押在一件事上，会觉得有风险。但你需要能把那个开关扳过去，彻底投入。彻底投入之后，人们又会觉得无聊，于是没法坚持到它不再有效。如果它还有效，就继续做。这也是我还没有出版下一本书的部分原因。 Atomic Habits 现在非常有效。所以我试着听从自己的建议：在它停止有效之前，不要停。

主持人 dude, that might be forever. 伙计，那可能是永远。

James Clear Yeah. Eventually, eventually you realize that it's not just about results, right? It's also about how do you want to live your life? What do you want to spend your time on? Um but uh but yeah, so I think those those three steps probably should be taken more seriously than they are. 是啊。到后来你会意识到，这不只是结果的问题。还有你想怎样过日子，你想把时间花在什么上。所以我认为这三步，值得被比现在更认真地对待。

主持人 How do we create an environment that makes behavior change inevitable? 我们怎样创造一个环境，让行为改变几乎不可避免？

James Clear I think that's one of the best questions. How can I create the conditions for success? You know, how can I how can I design an environment where my desired change is easy? In a lot of ways, that's one of the driving questions of atomic habits is to say there's this I came across this body of research when I was working on the book about willpower and self-control. And a lot of the surface level conversations about habits that people have are about discipline and willpower. You know, people will look at a professional athlete and they'll say, 我觉得这是最好的问题之一。我怎样创造成功的条件？我怎样设计一个环境，让我想要的改变变得容易？在很多方面，这就是 Atomic Habits 的核心问题之一。我写这本书时读到一批关于意志力和自我控制的研究。人们谈习惯时，表层对话很多是关于纪律和意志力。人们看着职业运动员会说，

James Clear "Man, if I was just as disciplined as them, but I, you know, I talked to one guy who played for the Philadelphia Eagles and um he said, you know, during my career, everything was designed for us. You know, we went, we would go to the stadium and we have professional trainers and nutritionists. The food is prepared for us. the you know all the workouts are designed coaches are on us every day to do the right drills in the right order and to you know like everything is there's this environment where the conditions for success have been fully created and he's like after I retired that was the hardest time for me to stick to it like people would look at me as a professional athlete and think wow how disciplined are you but in fact you know what I was is I was benefiting from my environment and all of us are like that and so I I think you can look around your own environment and say how can I do a better job of creating the conditions for success. Let's forget about me being a more disciplined f 「天哪，要是我有他们那样的纪律就好了。」但我跟一位为费城老鹰队打过球的人聊过。他说，在职业生涯里，一切都是为我们设计好的。我们去球场，有专业训练师和营养师。食物是准备好的。训练都设计好了，教练每天盯着我们按正确顺序做正确的练习。一切都处在这样一个环境里：成功的条件已经被完全创造出来。他说，退役之后，那才是最难坚持的时候。人们会把我当职业运动员，觉得我多么有纪律。可事实上，我受益的是环境。我们所有人都是这样。所以你可以看看自己的环境，问：我怎样能更好地创造成功的条件？先别谈我要成为一个更有纪律的

James Clear person or being, you know, someone with superhuman willpower and let's try to make it as easy as possible for me to do the things I want to do each day. So, a couple questions I think are helpful. One is walk into the rooms where you spend most of your time each day, your office, your living room, your kitchen, bedroom, and just look around and ask yourself, what is this space designed to encourage? You know, what behaviors are obvious here? what behaviors are easy here? And you'll start to notice that it's designed for certain things. Um, you know, a lot of people feel like they watch too much TV, but walk into any living room, you know, like where do all the couches and chairs face? What is this room designed to get you to do? And I'm not saying you need to rearrange your entire house, but you know, you can notice that if you put the healthy food out on the counter and it's visible, you're much more likely to eat it. Like I one of the examples in the book is that I used to buy apples and I would put them in the crisper in the bottom of the fridge and I would kind of like forget that they were there. They were 人，或拥有超人意志力，先尽量让我想每天做的那些事变得尽可能容易。有几个问题我觉得有帮助。一个是：走进你每天待得最久的房间——办公室、客厅、厨房、卧室——四处看看，问自己：这个空间是被设计来鼓励什么的？这里什么行为是显而易见的？什么行为是容易的？你会开始注意到，它是为某些事情设计的。很多人觉得自己电视看得太多，但走进任何客厅，沙发和椅子都朝向哪里？这个房间是被设计来让你做什么的？我不是说你要把整栋房子重新布置，但你会注意到：如果把健康食物放在台面上、看得见，你就更可能去吃。书里有一个例子：我以前买苹果，会把它们放进冰箱底层的保鲜抽屉，然后几乎忘了它们在那儿。它们被

James Clear just tucked away in the drawer and then I'd find them in like a week and like two of them had gone bad and I'm like I'm wasting food and I'm wasting money. So instead I just bought this little display bowl and I put them in the counter uh on the counter just visible and now you grab one whenever you walk in and they're like gone in two days. And so it's just a change in the environment. What is obvious? You know, are you creating conditions where the change that you want or the behavior that you want is obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying? And the more that you can do that, the more likely it is that you'll follow through. You want to be able to walk into the rooms that you're in each day, and the good habit is the path of least resistance. It's the easiest thing to do. And a lot of the time you walk into rooms and it's the distractions that are easier to do and you feel like you're swimming upstream and trying to fight your environment to make a change happen. So that was one question. What's the other one you had around environment? 塞在抽屉里。大概一周后我才找到，其中两个已经坏了。我既浪费食物，也浪费钱。于是我买了一个小展示碗，把苹果放在台面上，一眼就能看见。现在你一走进去就会拿一个，两天就吃完了。这只是环境的改变。什么是显而易见的？你有没有创造条件，让你想要的改变或行为变得显而易见、有吸引力、容易、令人满足？你越能做到这些，就越可能跟下去。你希望走进每天待的那些房间时，好习惯就是阻力最小的路，是最容易做的事。很多时候你走进房间，更容易做的反而是那些分心的事，你会觉得自己在逆流而上，在跟环境打架，才能让改变发生。这是其中一个问题。你另一个关于环境的问题是什么？

主持人 I like am I creating the conditions required for success? What is this room designed to encourage? Um and then how can I make this behavior more obvious? 我喜欢我有没有创造成功所需的条件？这个房间是被设计来鼓励什么的？然后，我怎样让这个行为更显而易见？

James Clear And there are there are a number of ways that you can do that. Like some of it is just, you know, uh if you want to go for a run, take your running shoes and your clothes, set them out the night before. I have I have one guy who um he sleeps in his running shorts, so he just gets up, all he has to do is put his shoes and a shirt on, then he's out the door. 办法有很多。有些很简单：如果你想去跑步，前一晚就把跑鞋和衣服摆出来。我认识一个人，他穿着跑步短裤睡觉，起床只要穿上鞋和一件上衣，就能出门。

James Clear You know, he's just trying to make it as frictionless as possible. I found that uh to give you like another example, if I buy a six-ack of beer and I put it on the, you know, shelf where I can just see it as soon as I open up the door, I'll grab one each night and have one at dinner just cuz it's there. But if I tuck it down on the lowest shelf and like put it in the back, I gotta like bend down to see it. Sometimes I'll forget that it's there. It'll be there for like two weeks, you know, and it's just about what is obvious. Um what is in front of you, 他只是想让摩擦尽可能小。再举一个例子：如果我买一打六瓶装啤酒，放在一打开冰箱门就能看见的架子上，我每天晚上都会拿一瓶配晚餐，只因为它在那儿。可如果我把它塞到最下面那层、再放到后面，我得弯腰才能看见，有时我会忘了它在那儿，能放上两个星期。这就是「什么是显而易见的」。什么就在你面前，

主持人 just like the apples. 就像那些苹果。

James Clear Yes. Right. And yeah, it's just the inverse of that. Um and so, uh I'm not saying that that's enough to change like an addicted behavior or anything like that, but so many of your behaviors will curtail themselves possibly to the desired degree if it is less obvious. if it's not as accessible. Another little rule that I follow is I take my phone and I try to leave it uh in another room until lunch each day. So that just gives me from like 9 to noonish where I can work on my own agenda and not respond to everybody else's agenda. You know, I'm not interrupted. And if if I have my phone next to me, I'm like everybody else. I'll check it every 3 minutes just cuz it's there, right? But I have a home office and so I put it in a different room. It's just down the hall. It's only like 30 seconds away, but I never go get it. And so many behaviors are like that. It's like, well, did you want it or not? 对。这只是反过来。我不是说这足以改变成瘾行为之类的事，但你的很多行为，只要不那么显而易见、不那么容易拿到，就可能自行收敛到你想要的程度。我还有一条小规则：我会把手机尽量放到另一个房间，直到每天午饭。这样我大概从 9 点到中午，可以按自己的议程工作，而不是回应别人的议程。我不会被打断。如果手机就在旁边，我和别人一样，每 3 分钟就会看一眼，只因为它在那儿。但我有家庭办公室，所以我把它放到另一个房间。就在走廊那头，只要 30 秒，可我从来不会去拿。很多行为都是这样。你到底想不想要它？

James Clear You know, like in the one sense, you wanted it so bad that you would check it every 3 minutes when it was next to you, but in another sense, you never wanted it bad enough that you would work for 30 seconds and walk down the hall to get it. And so, a little bit of friction can sometimes go a long way in shaping a behavior. 从一个意义上说，你想要得那么厉害，它在旁边时你会每 3 分钟看一次；从另一个意义上说，你又从来没有想要到愿意花 30 秒走到走廊去拿。所以一点点摩擦，有时就能在很大程度上塑造行为。

主持人 What would you say to somebody who doesn't have the confidence to start? Anytime you do something new, by definition, you are doing something you're unqualified for. It can't it can't be if you've already done it. If you already have some type of qualification or skill set or experience, then you're qualified for it. It can't be new. It's just something you're repeating that you've done before. So, you have to realize that there is some level of uncertainty that comes with anything that is new. So, I think just accepting that is a good starting place. The the second thing is that you don't need to figure it all out today. Like one of the frameworks that I like, I think I heard this originally from Sean Puri. He said ABC. Okay, so A 如果有人没有信心开始，你会怎么说？任何时候你做新的事，从定义上说，你都在做一件自己还不具备资格的事。如果它不能是新的——如果你已经有某种资格、技能或经验，那你就是有资格的，它也就不是新的了。那只是你在重复以前做过的事。所以你必须意识到，任何新事物都会带来某种程度的不确定。我认为先接受这一点，就是一个好的起点。第二件事是：你不必今天就把一切都想清楚。我喜欢的一个框架，我最初好像是从 Sean Puri 那儿听到的。他说 ABC。好，A

主持人 is an honest assessment of your current situation. Look, try to look at your current reality with clear eyes. Z is where you ultimately want to end up. And B is your next step. And all you need to know is A, B, and Z. You don't need to know steps C through Y. But so often people will convince themselves, well, I don't know what steps C through Y are. or even if they realize they're not going to plan it all out, they're like, "Yeah, but I kind of want to know what C, D, and E are." You know, they want to be able to see a little bit further into the future. But you have to become comfortable with some level of uncertainty. There's that quote, I just shared it in my newsletter recently. I think it's from Ian Wilson. He was a GE executive where he said, "No amount of information is going to allay the fact that all of your knowledge is about the past and all of your decisions are about the future." It's just a fundamental reality of life. Knowledge is purely about the past and what has been learned 是对你当前处境的诚实评估。试着用清楚的眼睛看清当下的现实。Z 是你最终想到达的地方。B 是你的下一步。你只需要知道 A、B 和 Z。你不必知道 C 到 Y 的每一步。可人们常常会说服自己：我不知道 C 到 Y 是什么。即使他们明白自己不会把整条路都规划好，他们还是会说：可我还是想知道 C、D、E 是什么。他们想再多看见一点未来。但你必须能对某种程度的不确定感到自在。有一句引言，我最近刚在 newsletter 里分享过。我想是 Ian Wilson 说的，他是 GE 的一位高管。他说：再多的信息，也无法消除一个事实——你所有的知识都关于过去，你所有的决定都关于未来。这就是人生的一个基本现实。知识纯粹关于过去，关于已经学到的东西；

主持人 and decisions are purely about the future and what cannot be predicted. And so you have to become okay with with that reality. In a lot of ways, I actually think the most powerful form of mental toughness, the most powerful or resilient form of preparation is a mindset that can handle uncertainty. You know, it's the we all we all try to resist this, you know, we try to control reality. We try to predict scenarios and outcomes. We try to figure out what's going to happen ahead of time. But really all you need is not to predict the future. What you need is the confidence that you can handle uncertainty. That that whatever happens, I will be able to figure it out. I think if I was going to encapsulate entrepreneurship in a nutshell, I would say it is the trust and the willingness that you can figure it out. Um, it's the it's there's always going to be some point on the curve with your business where you're like, well, we're not quite sure what the future's going to bring. 决定纯粹关于未来，关于无法预测的东西。所以你必须能接受这个现实。在很多方面，我其实认为最有力的心理韧性、最有力或最有弹性的准备，是一种能处理不确定的心态。我们都会抵抗这一点。我们试图控制现实，试图预测场景和结果，试图提前弄清楚会发生什么。但你真正需要的，并不是预测未来。你需要的是一种信心：我能处理不确定。无论发生什么，我都能想办法。如果我要用一句话概括创业，我会说：它就是信任和意愿——相信你能想出办法。在你的业务曲线上，总会有某个点，你说：我们还不太确定未来会带来什么。

主持人 You know, I have a podcast and who knows how AI is going to change that, but if you're if you trust that you can figure it out, great. You can be an entrepreneur. You'll make, you know, you'll figure it out along the way. 我有一个播客，谁知道 AI 会怎样改变它。但如果你信任自己能想出办法，很好，你就可以做创业者。你会在路上想出来。

James Clear How do we develop that mindset practically? Like 我们怎样在实践中培养这种心态？

主持人 I think that it's practiced in small ways and then it accumulates over time. So, um, I don't think sports is the only way to do this, but it's the way that I did it. So, I'll use it as an example. There are many ways you could do it. Um,one thing that's great about sports is that you have to fail publicly. Um, you know, so you I played I played baseball all the way through college, played it for 17 years of my life and um, you know, the early years you're in T-ball or little league or whatever and you're playing and then you make an error. That does not feel good, right? Like you let the whole team down, but you realize that life goes on. You failed publicly and you move forward. Um later when I was in college, you know, we're not only 我认为它是从小处练习的，然后随时间积累。体育不是唯一的办法，但这是我走过的路，所以我拿它当例子。办法可以有很多。体育很好的一点是：你必须当众失败。我打棒球一直打到大学，打了 17 年。早期是 T-ball 或少年联赛，你上场，然后你犯错。那感觉不好。你让全队失望，但你会发现生活还在继续。你当众失败了，然后往前走。后来到了大学，我们不只是

主持人 playing games together, we're also training together in the gym. You show up in the gym, you look at the guy next to you, you realize he's a little bit stronger than you. That doesn't feel great. You see that? Then you're like, "Well, let me try to set a new PR. I'll throw five more pounds on the bar." You fail in front of everybody. You miss that lift. 一起比赛，也一起在健身房训练。你出现在健身房，看看旁边那个人，发现他比你更强壮。那感觉也不好。然后你想，我来冲击一个新的个人纪录，再往杠上加 5 磅。你在所有人面前失败了。你没举起那一下。

James Clear That doesn't feel good. But 那感觉不好。但

主持人 you move on. 30 seconds later, you get back to it and you go do the next thing. And it happens again and again in small ways. But failing publicly trains your mind. It teaches you that what matters most is not that you always win, but that you always keep reaching, that you always keep striving. In a lot of ways, the real important question to ask is not what can I succeed on or what can I achieve, but what is worth reaching for, you know, and that's really what you want is to keep reaching, to keep striving. And as you train that muscle and develop it in all those little small ways, eventually you get to a point where you can handle it in big ways. You 你继续。30 秒后你回来做下一件事。这种事一次又一次以很小的方式发生。但当众失败会训练你的头脑。它教你：最重要的不是你永远赢，而是你永远继续伸手去够，永远继续努力。在很多方面，真正该问的重要问题，不是我能在什么上成功、我能达成什么，而是什么值得去够。你真正想要的，是继续伸手、继续努力。当你在所有这些小事上训练这块肌肉，最终你就能在大事上也扛得住。

主持人 know, I remember my senior year, my my final season, um I said like, I don't want us to lose, but if we're going to lose, I want to be the one who's playing, you know, like put me out there. I can handle I can take the loss, you know, I don't want to lose, but I can handle it. Um and I feel that way now, too, about stuff that I do, you know, in business. I put everything that I had into the Atomic Habits launch, you know, like I we started planning that launch 15 months ahead of time. Um, and I in a lot of places in life, good enough is good enough, but every now and then you find an area where good enough is not good enough and you want to do it the best you can do it. And I decided that for me, that was one of those things that I was going to try to do as good as I could possibly do it. And that comes with risk. That comes with vulnerability. You know, you're going to spend your next year and a half 我记得大四最后一季，我说：我不想输，但如果我们要输，我希望上场的人是我。把我放出去。我扛得住这次失败。我不想输，但我扛得住。我现在对自己做的事、对生意，也是这种感觉。Atomic Habits 的发行，我把我能给的都给进去了。我们提前 15 个月就开始规划那次发行。人生很多地方，「够好」就是够好。但偶尔你会找到一个领域，「够好」并不够好，你想做到自己能做到的最好。我决定，对我来说，这就是那样一件事，我要尽可能把它做到最好。这伴随着风险，也伴随着脆弱。你要把接下来一年半

主持人 promoting and pushing and talking about this thing that you poured three to five years of your life into. What if people hate it? What if the reviews aren't any good? You know, what if you secure big interviews and you go on morning shows and then the book flops and it doesn't sell? Um, what if the publisher is mad at me because they paid me in advance or they were expecting it to do well and then it doesn't perform? And like you sit with all those questions and my thought I think partially because I had trained that muscle uh over time was I can handle it you know like if it if we lose I'll I'll deal with it you know and you'll be fine. Um but you have I think once you have that confidence then you have the confidence to go for it fully you know the problem is if you don't have that confidence you start talking yourself out of it. You water it down. You know you don't promote it all the way. you don't do all the things you could do because you're kind of scared 用来推广、推动、谈论这件你投入了三到五年生命的作品。如果人们讨厌它怎么办？如果评价不好怎么办？如果你谈成了重要采访、上了早间节目，书却砸了、卖不出去怎么办？如果出版商因为预付款、因为预期它会很好，结果表现不好而生我的气怎么办？你会带着所有这些问题坐着。而我的想法——部分是因为我长期训练过那块肌肉——是：我扛得住。如果我们输了，我会处理，你会没事。但我认为，一旦你有了这种信心，你才有信心全力去冲。问题是，如果你没有这种信心，你就会开始把自己劝退。你会把它稀释掉。你不会推到尽头，不会做你能做的所有事，因为你有点害怕

主持人 of what the result could be. What if it doesn't go well? So then I don't go all the way in and then it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because it for sure isn't going to work that well if you don't give it everything you have. 结果可能怎样。如果进展不好怎么办？于是你不全力投入，然后这就成了自我实现的预言：你不把能给的都给出去，它肯定不会那么好。

James Clear As you're saying that, the thing that comes to mind is like the difference between playing to win and playing not to lose 你说这些的时候，我想到的是「为赢而打」和「为了不输而打」的差别，以及「为了不输而打」带来的犹豫，对比直接冲上去。

主持人 and the hesitation that comes with playing not to lose versus like just going for it. 是啊。几年前女足世界杯决赛，美国队

James Clear Yeah. There's in the World Cup final, women's World Cup a couple years ago, uh the US beat Japan and Carly Lloyd scored like three goals in that game. Um and I think the third of her goal she kicked from midfield. It was like just super long, but she the cool thing about that play is that she saw the opportunity to go for it and she went for it right away. She never talked herself out of it. It was a shot that you would never take in most circumstances. It's not a good shot. It's not a high percentage shot. Um, but she saw an opening and she went for it. There was 击败日本，Carly Lloyd 那场进了大概三个球。我记得她的第三个球是从中场附近踢出去的，非常远。但那个球酷的地方在于：她看见了可以冲的机会，立刻就冲了。她从来没有把自己劝退。那是大多数情况下你绝不会选择的射门。那不是好球，命中率不高。但她看见了开口，就冲了。没有

James Clear no hesitation. Um, similarly, totally different domain. Uh, one time my wife and I, my wife's, I'm not very musical at all, but my wife is, and we were listening to Zack Brown Band play a song, and she was like, "One thing I love about listening to him sing is that there's no hesitation in his voice. When he when it comes time to sing the lyric, he's like fully in it. Um, he's not like secondguessing himself or doubting himself. There's like singing with confidence." And so in all these different domains, sports, music, business, you can't have that hesitation. You know, you don't want to be the one talking yourself out of it. I think uh for me, I try to not be my own bottleneck. You know, I I don't want to have I don't want to be the first person to tell myself no. 犹豫。完全不同的领域，还有一次，我和妻子——我自己几乎不懂音乐，但我妻子懂——我们在听 Zack Brown Band 唱歌。她说，我喜欢听他唱的一点是：他声音里没有犹豫。轮到唱那句词的时候，他是完全投入的。他没有在事后猜测自己、怀疑自己。那是带着信心在唱。所以在所有这些不同领域——体育、音乐、商业——你不能有那种犹豫。你不想做那个把自己劝退的人。对我来说，我尽量不做自己的瓶颈。我不想成为第一个对自己说不的人。

主持人 You know, I want the world to tell me no first and then I'll and then I'll adjust based on the feedback that I get, but I don't want to talk myself out of it. One of my little sayings internally is like I try to work backwards from magic. So what would the magical outcome be and then let me try to figure out a couple different paths that could potentially get me there and I'll start to take steps forward and then I'll get feedback from the world. You know, I don't tell myself no. Maybe the world will tell me no and I need to adjust the course. But I start with the magical outcome and then go from there. And what you find, I mean, I see it with family. I see it with friends. Like so many people that I'm around, 我想先让世界对我说不，然后我再根据得到的反馈调整，但我不想把自己劝退。我心里有一句小口头禅：我试着从「魔法」往回推。神奇的结果会是什么，然后试着找出几条可能到达那里的路，开始往前走，再从世界得到反馈。我不对自己说不。也许世界会对我说不，我需要调整路线。但我从那个神奇结果开始，再往下走。你会发现，我在家人身上看到，在朋友身上看到，我身边那么多人，

James Clear almost always you talk yourself out of it before the world actually prevents you from doing it there. It's very rare that you truly run up against a hard stop in the world where they say, "Sorry, this isn't possible. What you're trying to do is it can't happen. There's almost always somebody else you could have talked to, another approach you could have taken, another attempt you could have gone for, and you're the one who talks yourself out of doing it. Um, not the world." And so I try to not be that person. I try to, you know, give myself permission to go for it and then adjust along the way. 几乎总是你先把自己劝退了，世界其实还没有阻止你。你真正撞上世界里那道硬门槛、对方说「抱歉，这不可能，你想做的事发生不了」的情况非常少。几乎总是还有另一个人可以谈、另一种方法可以试、再一次可以冲，而是你自己把自己劝退了，不是世界。所以我尽量不做那种人。我试着给自己许可去冲，然后在路上调整。

主持人 I love these little sayings you have. You move like thunder, 我喜欢你这些小口头禅。你像雷一样行动， 从魔法往回推。此刻还有哪些对你很有共鸣的内在口头禅？

James Clear you know, work backwards from magic. What other internal sayings do you have that really resonate with you in this moment? 我从祖父那里学到最大的一件事，是他的口头禅 PMA，positive mental attitude，积极心态。任何情境里，你都试着保持积极的看法，不管当下处境如何。这

主持人 Um, one of the biggest things I learned from my grandfather was he his little saying was PMA, positive mental attitude. So in any scenario you try to have a positive outlook regardless of the current circumstances. And that sounds a little kind of woo wooey sometimes or you know always think positive or whatever but I have tried to become better at practicing it and teaching my kids how to practice it. So, one way that you can do it is when you run up against something that feels kind of difficult or feels like um you don't feel confident about it, you try to rehearse it visually and you emphasize the good portions of what could happen. And this can this can happen either in 有时听起来有点玄，或者「永远正向思考」之类的。但我一直在试着更好地练习它，也教孩子们练习。一个办法是：当你碰到觉得困难、或你对它没有信心的事，你试着在脑中预演，并且强调可能发生的好的部分。这既可以发生在

主持人 retrospect or it can happen uh previsualization before the thing happens. So, I'll give you two examples. In retrospect, when I played baseball and I was like 10 or 12 or 14, after each season, we would go sit on the back deck at my parents house and my dad and I would talk about the g the year and we would talk about the good plays from the year, my best plays, my best games, the games that we won. We would we would try to highlight I didn't know this at the time, but what he was doing was he was helping me highlight the wins from, you know, small and big from that last season. And uh I can remember some of the conversations that we had like one I got into high school and I was never the best player on any team that I was on. But he was like, "Look, if you just keep sticking with it, what you're going to find is that guys will drop off each year, you know, and so by just by there's this power of longevity of staying in the game that will benefit you." And he was right. I I became a 事后回顾，也可以发生在事前预演。我举两个例子。事后回顾：我打棒球，大概 10 岁、12 岁或 14 岁，每个赛季结束后，我们会坐在父母家后院的露台上，我和爸爸谈这一年，谈这一年的好球、我最好的表现、最好的比赛、我们赢下的场次。我们试着去强调——我当时不知道，但他在做的是帮我把上个赛季大大小小的胜利标出来。我还记得一些对话。上高中后，我从来不是任何一支球队里最好的球员。但他说，听着，只要你一直坚持，你会发现每年都会有人退出。仅仅靠留在局里的那种持久力，就会让你受益。他是对的。我每多打一年，就成了

主持人 better player every year that I played. Um so that's like a retrospective one. you are you emphasizing your wins and then the looking forward if you do like a previsisualization version of it. So, I have a couple kids. Um, one of them is three and starting preschool. And, uh, he went to preschool on the first day. He had a hard drop off. He he didn't like it. Don't, you know, don't leave me. I don't know what this place is. It feels, you know, scary, whatever. So, he had a tough day getting dropped off the first time. Second day comes, same thing. Kind of cries a little bit. Has a tough day when he gets dropped off. So, the third day, um, I get them up in the morning and I get get them ready and get them breakfast and stuff. So, I'm in the kitchen. I said, "All right, guys. Today's a preschool day." And immediately he was like and I was like hold on hold on hold on. Um you like your teachers, right? Miss Jaylen, Miss Caitlyn, don't you like them? He's like, "Yeah." And I was like, "Okay. Um what did you guys do yesterday? You got to play with the crayons and the glue sticks. Like that was fun, wasn't it?" He was like, "Yeah." Um I said, "You have snack time 更好的球员。这是回顾的一种：你在强调自己的胜利。然后是往前看，如果你做事前预演。我有几个孩子。其中一个三岁，开始上学前班。第一天去学前班，分别很难。他不喜欢。别走，别留下我，我不知道这是什么地方，觉得可怕。所以第一次被放下，他过得很艰难。第二天也一样，会哭一点，被放下时很难过。到了第三天，我早上叫他们起床，帮他们准备、吃早餐。我在厨房里说：好了，今天是上学前班的日子。他立刻就……我说等等、等等、等等。你喜欢老师，对吧？Jaylen 老师、Caitlyn 老师，你不是喜欢她们吗？他说喜欢。我说，好。你们昨天做什么了？你们玩了蜡笔和胶水棒。那很有趣，对不对？他说对。我说，你有点心时间

主持人 and lunch. Like that those are good things." He's like, "Yeah." And then I said, "After school, you go play on the playground. You get to go down the slides and everything." He's like, "Yeah, yeah." And that was all I said, you know, but what I'm trying to do is to get him to emphasize the positive portions of what's about to come, to imagine what it would be like for the day to be good. And um he went I don't know, maybe we just got lucky, but he went and he had a great drop off that day, you know, and he's he's loved it every day since. He's he's been fine. And so you can see how that skill can be applied throughout life. You know, they're in fourth grade and they're getting ready to give their first presentation and they feel nervous about talking in front of the class. Great. let's walk through this and emphasize what the good parts are going to be. Um or you know they're getting they're in eighth grade and they're going to go to their first school dance and they feel weird and awkward about it. Like let's talk about what a good night would look like. And so so many of your problems in life come from your brain overemphasizing 和午饭。那些都是好事。他说对。然后我说，放学后你可以去游乐场，可以滑滑梯。他说对、对。我就说了这些。但我试着做的，是让他强调即将到来的正面部分，去想象这一天会很好是什么样子。也许我们只是运气好，但他那天分别得很顺利，从那以后每天都喜欢。他没事了。所以你会看到这项技能可以用在整个人生里。他们上四年级，准备第一次做报告，在全班面前讲话会紧张。很好，那我们走一遍，强调会有哪些好的部分。或者他们上八年级，第一次去学校舞会，觉得别扭、尴尬。那我们谈谈一个好的夜晚会是什么样子。人生里那么多问题，都来自你的大脑过度强调

主持人 minor details, the wrong minor details. And what I'm trying to do with both myself and my kids and the people around me is to encourage them to emphasize good minor details. um you know to what portion of the day are you latching on to and what story are you telling yourself and so the more that you can do that I it's kind of like a muscle the more that you do it the better you get at it and that's ultimately that goes back to that PMA positive mental attitude that you know my grandpa taught me um and so that's another one of my little 次要细节，而且是错的那些次要细节。我试着对自己、对孩子、对身边的人做的，是鼓励他们去强调好的次要细节。你抓住一天的哪一部分，你在对自己讲什么故事。你越这样做——它有点像肌肉——做得越多就越熟练。这最终又回到祖父教我的 PMA，积极心态。所以这是我另一条小口头禅。

James Clear I love that I want to talk about reputation I want to hear maybe I'll just say the word and like you can riff on it for a few minutes 我喜欢这个。我想谈谈声誉。也许我只说这个词，你可以即兴讲几分钟。

主持人 reputation like my reputation or how I think about it how I think about reputation I don't really think about it that much. Um I'm not I'm not that worried about it. Um I guess the main way that I think about it is I want to be known as someone who is useful. You know, like useful is a word that I come back to a lot. If you uh Josh Kaufman has a good framework. It's like three things. I think it's true, useful, and clear. Um you know, it's like you want to write things that are true and accurate. You want to write things that are useful and actionable. And you want to be clear and understandable in how you do it. I think that that does describe a lot of my approach and how I'm trying to focus on, you know, putting work into the world. Um, all right. So, I guess I don't think about my reputation that much, but this 声誉，像我的声誉，或我怎么想它。我怎么想声誉。我其实想得不多。我没那么担心它。我想，我主要的想法是：我想被人知道为一个有用的人。useful 是我经常回到的一个词。Josh Kaufman 有一个很好的框架，大概三件事：真实、有用、清楚。你想写真实、准确的东西。你想写有用、可执行的东西。你想在做法上清楚、好懂。我觉得这确实描述了我很多做法，以及我怎样把作品放到世界上。所以，我大概没那么想自己的声誉，但

主持人 is how I generally think about reputation, status, brand, whatever. Ultimately, your reputation will be the work, the quality of the work that you do. So, it is, I think Brent Behore said at one point, it's like the range of outcomes that you can expect from a brand. Um, and so the more that you do things that are high quality and useful and valuable and actionable, the more that you will become known for that. Now, there is a little bit of priming that can go on. So, like at the top of 321, my newsletter, it says uh the most wisdom per word of any newsletter on the web. I'm trying to set an expectation there, right? Like it's when somebody signs up and subscribes and they read that. Now you see that and you're like, "Okay, I'm about to read something that has a lot of wisdom and is like dense and informative. There's a lot of signal and very little noise." That's the the tone I'm trying to set. Now, the flip side of that is you have to deliver. 我一般是这样想声誉、地位、品牌这类东西的。归根结底，你的声誉会是你的作品，是你做的作品的质量。Brent Behore 有一次好像说过，它像是你能从一个品牌预期的结果范围。所以你越做高质量、有用、有价值、可执行的事，你就越会因此被认识。当然，也会有一点预热。比如我 newsletter 3-2-1 的顶部写着：网上每个字含智慧最多的 newsletter。我是在设定预期。有人订阅、读到这句话，就会想：好，我即将读到的东西智慧很多、密度高、信息量大，信号多、噪音少。那是我想设定的语气。反面是：你必须交得出货。

James Clear And so if you if you set that expectation and you don't actually deliver, well, it's not going to go very well. And so I'm also putting the responsibility on me a little bit. You know, there's like nothing to hide behind. I do this with my Instagram account. It's like a very weird Instagram account. you know, there's no photos of me. It's just text. Um, but it's kind of like a peacock's tail, you know, in the sense that it's a very useful hindrance. Like, it's very visual visual and it shows which peacocks are uh strong enough to have this kind of superfluous tail to still survive and escape predators. Those are the ones that have great genes. Well, when you can't hide behind anything else on your Instagram account and it's just words, the ideas have to be good enough. you know, it's a it's a useful uh hindrance. It's a useful um blockage to getting people's attention. And so I'm like, 所以如果你设定了那个预期，却交不出货，就不会顺利。我也等于把责任放回自己身上。没什么可躲的。我的 Instagram 账号也是这样。那是一个很奇怪的 Instagram 账号。没有我的照片，只有文字。但它有点像孔雀的尾巴：一种很有用的妨碍。它非常视觉化，能显示哪些孔雀强壮到即使拖着这种多余的尾巴，仍能生存、逃脱捕食者。那些才是基因好的。当你的 Instagram 账号没有任何别的东西可以躲，只剩文字，想法就必须足够好。这是一种有用的妨碍，一种有用的、拦住别人注意力的障碍。所以我等于在说，

James Clear well, if it's just going to be words, they better be pretty good. So, um I think about setting those priming those expectations and setting those standards and then also trying to reach them. But ultimately, it's just about the quality of the work that you do. And so, the more that you show up with value and useful ideas, uh the more you become known for that. Um, I think I also, this is kind of connected to reputation, but I I don't think about shaping it for me that much, but the lens should be mostly focused on the reader, not on yourself. I think if you think a lot about reputation and you're trying to like cultivate this image, that's the energy is focused in the wrong direction. Um, if you're focused on the reader, then you start asking different questions. How can I create something that's incredibly useful for somebody? How can I make it more actionable? How can I make it easier to understand and simpler? How can I make it easy enough that I can 如果只剩文字，它们最好相当好。所以我会想设定那些预期、那些标准，然后也试着达到它们。但归根结底，还是你做的作品的质量。你越带着价值和有用的想法出现，就越会因此被认识。这也和声誉有关，但我不太去替自己塑造它。镜头应该主要对准读者，而不是你自己。如果你想很多声誉、想培养某种形象，能量就用错方向了。如果你对准读者，你就会开始问不同的问题。我怎样做出对某人极其有用的东西？我怎样让它更可执行？我怎样让它更好懂、更简单？我怎样让它简单到我能

James Clear teach it? Um, now all those questions are focused on the reader, you know, view or their from their position. And then there's also just questions like what do people need right now? You know, like what what is what does somebody what would Yeah, what are people asking for? Um, and trying to pay attention to that. So, for the most part, I think reputation takes care of itself if you try to take care of other people. Um, and if your if your lens is focused on them, then it ends up, you know, working just fine for you. 教出去？现在所有这些问题都对准读者，从他们的位置看。还有一些问题，比如人们现在需要什么？人们在问什么？试着去注意这些。所以大体上，我认为如果你试着照顾别人，声誉会自己照顾自己。如果你的镜头对准他们，它最终对你也会运转得很好。

主持人 I love that. Thanks. What about positioning? 我喜欢这个。谢谢。那定位呢？

James Clear Positioning is critical. Um, positioning is something that I think a lot about. I don't think I have it figured out yet, but I have seen how powerful it can be. Um, so let me give you a couple examples. I'll start with positioning for books and then I'll start talking about positioning for life. So any product, the way that it is positioned and packaged is probably 50% of its success. Um, a couple examples from books. Atomic Habits has a chapter later in it where I talk about deliberate practice. It could have been a book about deliberate practice where I talk about habits, but instead it's a book about habits where I talk about deliberate practice. And I think the way 定位至关重要。定位是我经常想的事。我不觉得自己已经想明白了，但我见过它能有多强。我举几个例子。先从书的定位开始，然后再谈人生的定位。所以任何产品，它被定位和包装的方式，大概占成功的 50%。书的几个例子。Atomic Habits 后面有一章谈刻意练习。它本来可以是一本关于刻意练习、顺便谈习惯的书，但它是一本关于习惯、顺便谈刻意练习的书。我觉得这两种书

James Clear those two books would sell, the difference is enormous. Um, if you don't know what deliberate practice is, it takes 30 seconds to unpack it and describe it. How is it different than regular practice and so on. You don't get 30 seconds when somebody's thinking about buying a book. You're not there at the store to explain it to them. So, the packaging, the positioning of the book, which I would describe as pretty much anything that you see on the cover, has to sell itself in 7 seconds, you know. 会怎样卖，差别会非常大。如果你不知道刻意练习是什么，要拆开解释、说明它和普通练习有何不同，大概要 30 秒。可当有人考虑买一本书时，你没有 30 秒。你不在店里向他们解释。所以书的包装、定位——我把它描述为封面上你能看到的几乎所有东西——必须在 7 秒内把自己卖掉。

James Clear Um, and just by virtue of growing up in society and being part of the world, you know that having good habits is favorable and having bad habits is unfavorable. And I don't need to sell anybody on that. All I need to sell you on is, hey, if you only read one book about habits, Atomic Habits should be the one. And that's a much different pitch. Um, and so the positioning and packaging makes a big difference. Another example, one that, um, so Author's Equity is this book publisher that I helped co-found. We have a book coming out uh called the overthinkers's guide to making decisions and that is basically a book about choices. It's a book about choosing and making decisions. It could have been called something else you know it could have been called the decision guide or the power of choice or something you know it could have been called that. But the overthinker's guide to making decisions is a great package. It's a great frame. I have told multiple people about it and they the reply to me has been oh I need 而仅仅因为你在社会里长大、活在这个世界里，你就知道好习惯是有利的，坏习惯是不利的。我不需要向任何人推销这一点。我只需要向你推销：嘿，如果你只读一本关于习惯的书，Atomic Habits 就该是那一本。这是完全不同的推销。所以定位和包装差别很大。另一个例子：Author's Equity 是我参与共同创办的这家图书出版社。我们有一本书要出，叫 The Overthinker's Guide to Making Decisions。它基本上是一本关于选择的书，关于如何选择、如何做决定。它本可以叫别的名字，比如 The Decision Guide 或 The Power of Choice。但 The Overthinker's Guide to Making Decisions 是一个很好的包装，一个很好的框架。我跟好几个人提过，他们的反应都是：哦，我需要这个。

James Clear that. Um and that's usually a sign that you got the packaging right is that you know people are interested in that way. So um those are two examples of positioning for products and I think any product the positioning and packaging is a critical part of the success. Um before I go on to positioning about life I just want to mention a few things that make uh for good positioning. So a lot of this is are principles from direct response copywriting. It's a good domain to study or good a good place to look for examples. But one of the core principles of direct response copywriting is that you should try to solve or address a timeless and enduring desire that people have. 而这通常是包装做对了的信号：人们会以那种方式感兴趣。所以这是产品定位的两个例子。我认为任何产品，定位和包装都是成功的关键部分。在谈到人生定位之前，我想先提几点，什么样的东西构成好的定位。很多原则来自直接反应文案。那是一个值得研究的领域，也是找例子的好地方。直接反应文案的核心原则之一是：你应该试着解决或回应人们一种永恒而持久的欲望。

主持人 And so many books and other products, but I I think a lot about books. So many books um are kind of adjacent to a desire people have. They're not the actual desire. And then you're kind of in this uphill battle where you're trying to convince somebody to pay attention to something that they don't actually care about. But you want to address a timeless and enduring desire. So, um, a lot of what makes for a really good book title is part of what makes for good packaging. So, good book titles usually have three or four qualities. The first quality is it addresses a timeless or enduring desire. The second quality is it tells you what the book is actually about, which sounds kind of obvious, but a lot of the time people 那么多书和其他产品——我常想的是书——那么多书只是挨在人们欲望旁边，它们不是那个真正的欲望。然后你就处在一场上坡战里，你在说服别人去注意一件他们其实并不在乎的事。但你想回应的是一种永恒而持久的欲望。所以，真正好的书名，部分就是好包装的构成。好书名通常有三到四个特质。第一个特质是它回应一种永恒或持久的欲望。第二个特质是它告诉你这本书实际上在讲什么。这听起来很明显，但很多时候人们会

主持人 kind of like keyword stuff titles, you know, they say like how to make millions, be happy, and live the dream. And you're like, that's not even what this book is about, but whatever. Um, the second thing that or the third thing that they do is that they are an unmistakable or an ownable phrase. So, what that usually means is that it's a little bit weird when you first hear it. M 做关键词堆砌的书名，比如「如何赚百万、快乐、活出梦想」。你会想，这甚至都不是这本书在讲的，但随便吧。第三件事是：它是一个不会被认错、可以据为己有的短语。这通常意味着你第一次听到时会觉得有点怪。很多真正标志性的书名，都是你在别处听不到的短语。

James Clear a lot of the really iconic book titles they are phrases that you do not hear elsewhere in life. So um man's search for meaning basically you only hear that in the book title. Nobody uses that phrase in daily life. 你在生活别处听不到。Man's Search for Meaning，基本上你只在这个书名里听到。日常没人用这个短语。

主持人 How to win friends and influence people even to even now describing it as winning friends sounds kind of odd you know but it's it's odd enough that there's no mistaking what you're talking about. They can own the real estate in the reader's mind. How to Win Friends and Influence People，即便到现在，把交朋友说成 winning friends 听起来也有点怪。但它怪到不会弄错你在说什么。他们能占据读者脑子里的那块地产。

James Clear Atomic habits. Before the book came out, you would not describe a habit as atomic. You might have said it was little or small or tiny or something like that, but you wouldn't say atomic. It It's a weird way to describe a small habit, but that's good because you can own that phrase. So, um, unmistakable uh, addresses a timeless or enduring desire, tells you what the book is actually about. And the final piece is that usually there's an element of contrast, some element of surprise. So, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, or um the life-changing magic of tidying up. I thought tidying up was a small thing. Atomic Habits。书出来之前，你不会用 atomic 来描述一个习惯。你可能会说小、微小、tiny 之类，但你不会说 atomic。用它来描述小习惯是一种奇怪的说法，但这很好，因为你能拥有这个短语。所以：不会被认错；回应永恒或持久的欲望；告诉你书实际上在讲什么。最后一块通常还有对比的成分，某种意外。比如 Rich Dad, Poor Dad，或者 The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up。我以为整理是件小事。

James Clear Now you're telling me it's life-changing. Um 现在你告诉我它能改变人生。

主持人 atomic habits, tiny changes, remarkable results. You know, you want some kind of contrast between sometimes it's small to big, sometimes it's the easy thing, the easy thing you can do to accomplish the hard thing. But there needs to be some form of contrast. A good example that's not like a self-help book or a business book is um astrophysics for people in a hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. I thought astrophysics was something that was going to take seven years in a PhD. No,actually just read this book in an hour and a half. Atomic Habits，微小改变，惊人结果。你需要某种对比：有时是从小到大，有时是用容易的事去完成难的事。但需要有某种对比。一个不是自我帮助或商业书的好例子，是 Neil deGrasse Tyson 的 Astrophysics for People in a Hurry。我以为天体物理学要读七年博士。不，其实只要一个半小时读完这本书。

James Clear And so the contrast is um is something that's compelling. 所以对比是有吸引力的东西。

主持人 So if you have those four elements that usually leads to good positioning and packaging. 如果你有这四个要素，通常就会带来好的定位和包装。

James Clear All right. So that's just on the product side. Separately there's a whole other discussion about positioning which is like life positioning. 好，这只是产品这一侧。另外还有一整套关于定位的讨论，就是人生定位。

主持人 Yeah. How can you put yourself in good positions for things to happen? And there are so many ways that you could do this. I'm sure that you can think of many, too. Um, sometimes it's just about putting yourself in positions for good things to happen. So, we talked earlier about sharing your work publicly. Every episode that you publish, every blog post that you put out, every social media post that you put up is a little bit of surface area that somebody could discover and you could, you know, have some interesting interaction. um for Atomic Habits on launch day. I had an interview on CBS this morning and um 对。你怎样把自己放到好事容易发生的位置上？办法非常多。我相信你也能想到很多。有时就是把自己放到好事可能发生的位置上。我们前面谈过公开分享作品。你发布的每一集、发出的每一篇博客、发出的每一条社交媒体，都是一点点表面积，可能被人发现，你们可能有有趣的互动。Atomic Habits 发行当天，我上了 CBS This Morning。

James Clear I remember that. Yeah, it was it was a big um it was a big moment for me because it changed the launch of the book from hey some guy is releasing a book to this is a thing you know here's a piece of national media it's people are paying attention basically it made it feel credible and real and the way that it happened is I wrote an article blog post on my site four years earlier uh called the physics of productivity and it was just me trying to be clever taking Newton's three laws and applying them to productivity And it sat there for four years and it was fine. It was an average article. It didn't go viral or anything, but it did fine. And then a year before Atomic Habits came out, a reporter at the New York Times stumbled across my website and liked it and they linked to it in an article. Well, some producer at CBS read that article and was like, "Hey, can we have you come on and talk about those productivity principles?" So, I went on and I did a segment for CBS about a year 我记得。那对我是一个很大的时刻，因为它把这本书的发行从「有个家伙出了本书」变成「这是一件事」。这是全国性媒体，人们在关注。它基本上让这件事显得可信、真实。它发生的方式是：我四年前在自己网站上写过一篇博客，叫 The Physics of Productivity，当时只是我想耍点小聪明，把牛顿三定律用到生产力上。它在那儿待了四年，还行，一篇普通文章，没有病毒传播，但表现还过得去。然后 Atomic Habits 出版前一年，纽约时报的一位记者偶然看到我的网站，喜欢它，在一篇文章里链到了它。CBS 的某位制片人读了那篇文章，说：嘿，你能来谈谈那些生产力原则吗？于是我去了，大概在书出版前一年，为 CBS 做了一段节目。

James Clear before the book came out. It was it was maybe like 10 months or something. And um I did that segment for like three minutes, just a little interview. And as soon as it got done, I went to Gail King and I said, "I have a book coming out in 10 months, and I want to come back on the show and talk about it when it's ready." And she said, "Sure, we'll have you back on. You just need to be make sure that we're your first interview. Like, we want to have the first, you know, release." I said, "Deal. What's your email address?" Um and so I got her email and I sent it to um my publisher and we got it all linked up. So when I wrote that article four years earlier, I had no idea that that was going to work out like that, you know, but it was a little bit of surface area. I was putting myself in a position for good things to happen by trying to create something of value in an enduring format. You know, again, we talked about what has a long halfife. That blog post had a halfife of at least four years. 大概是十个月前之类。那段大概三分钟，只是一个小采访。一结束，我就去找 Gail King，说我十个月后有一本书要出，我想书准备好时再回来谈。她说，当然，我们会请你回来。你只要确保我们是你的第一次采访，我们想要第一次发布。我说成交。你的邮箱是什么？于是我拿到她的邮箱，发给出版商，全部对接上。所以我四年前写那篇文章时，完全不知道会变成这样。但它是一点点表面积。我在试着以一种持久的形式创造有价值的东西，从而把自己放到好事可能发生的位置上。我们又谈到什么东西有长半衰期。那篇博客的半衰期至少有四年。

主持人 Um and um I put myself in a good position for things to break my way. you don't know how it's going to happen, but you know if you try your best each time and you keep creating some surface area, you're going to catch a break at some point. So that's like a business example. Um there are tons of examples with margin of safety, especially with finances. You know, if you give yourself a large margin of safety, in other words, your expenses for your life are much less than what you're taking in,you can handle a lot of things coming your way. And so that is positioning yourself well for the unexpected elements of life. Um you know we have a family um situation with some medical stuff and there were you know there was some customized medical equipment that somebody needed because of what they were dealing with and it's $200,000 and it's like it's a huge expense. Um but if you give yourself a huge margin of safety and you've been saving for years, 我把自己放到一个好事可能朝我这边破开的位置。你不知道它会怎样发生，但如果你每次都尽力、不断创造一些表面积，到某个点你会赶上一次好运。这是商业上的例子。安全边际的例子也非常多，尤其是财务。如果你给自己很大的安全边际，也就是你的生活开支远低于你的收入，你就能扛住很多朝你而来的事。这就是把自己放到能应对人生意外因素的位置上。我们家里有过一些医疗方面的情况，因为对方正在面对的状况，需要定制医疗设备，要 20 万美元，是一笔巨大的开支。但如果你给自己巨大的安全边际，而且已经存了很多年，

主持人 you don't know what that's going to be, right? It could be that. It could be I so one of my little things that I'll say sometimes is like life is going to come for you. 你不知道那会是什么。可能是那个。可能是别的。我有时会说：生活会来找你。

James Clear You just don't know when you don't know when it will be your turn, but it will come for you. There will be something. Um so that that expense was not our turn. But a couple years later, my wife fell and broke her knee into four pieces and I had to take six months off of work. I'm like super thankful to previous James, right? like James from 10 years earlier that built this business where I could actually take six months off of work to take care of her and the kids because what was I going to do if I didn't have that margin of safety? But I put myself in a position where I was able to make that happen. And so each year I look at my position both in terms of like flexibility and in terms of finances and I just I don't really even care about our net worth that much. What I care about is am I in a stronger position this year? you know, 你只是不知道什么时候轮到你，但它会来找你。会有某件事。那笔开支并不是轮到我们。但几年后，我妻子摔倒，膝盖碎成四块，我不得不停工六个月。我超级感谢以前的 James，十年前的那个 James，他建立起这份事业，让我真的能停工六个月去照顾她和孩子们。如果我没有那个安全边际，我该怎么办？但我把自己放到了能做成这件事的位置。所以每年我都会看自己的位置，包括灵活性和财务。我其实不太在乎净资产有多少。我在乎的是：今年我是否处在更强的位置？

James Clear like as long as each year it's getting a little bit stronger, the margin of safety gets a little bit larger, um the ability to handle stress or uncertainty gets a little bit better, then you know, you're positioning yourself better each year. And so there are lots of ways to apply that positioning concept. 只要每年都强一点，安全边际大一点，处理压力或不确定的能力好一点，那你每年都在把自己放得更好。这个定位概念有很多应用方式。

主持人 Just a slight off track here. Um how are you investing that money these days? 稍微岔开一下。你现在怎么投资那些钱？

James Clear Um yeah, I don't know that uh I don't know that I want to talk about my personal investments, but I will talk about my personal philosophy. I guess I'll say that. Yeah, 我不确定自己想谈个人投资，但我会谈个人哲学。我最终意识到：你可以打败市场，但你会输掉自己的人生。我的意思是，拿到超额回报是可能的，但你必须把全部时间花在这上面。而我不想做 VC，不想做投资顾问，也不想成为下一个 Buffett 或 Munger。那不是我想把时间花在的地方。你只有一次珍贵的人生，

主持人 I um eventually I realized uh that you can beat the market but you will lose your life. Um and so what I mean is that it is possible to get outsized returns but you have to spend all your time doing it. And I don't want to be a VC or an investment advisor or you know like somebody who's I don't know trying to be the next Buffett or Munger or whatever. It's not how I want to spend my time. You know you only get one precious life and I want to spend it on other things. I want mostly I want to spend it creating, you know, trying to make things that didn't exist before um and spending time with family. And so I'm kind of optimizing for that. So if you can be okay with that, then you realize, well, maybe there's very different ways or simpler ways to invest your money. Like um I'm a huge advocate of J. Collins and the simple path to wealth that that book um he his approach I think is great, which is mostly just 我想把它花在别的事情上。我主要想花在创造上，试着做出以前不存在的东西，以及和家人在一起。所以我是在为此优化。如果你能接受这一点，你就会意识到，也许有非常不同、也更简单的方式来投资。我非常推崇 J. Collins 和 The Simple Path to Wealth 那本书。他的方法我觉得很好，基本上就是

主持人 like dump it in Vanguard and let it ride. Um, but it's incredibly simple and I get all my time back. And if I'm making 12% a year rather than 15% a year, who cares? Um, you know, like I'd rather trade the 3% a year and get to spend my hours the way that I want. So, um, a lot of my a lot of my approach is based around that, around simplifying and trying to make sure that I protect my time more than trying to squeeze out um, additional percentage points beyond what the market makes. You know there I heard this other phrase once which is remember that the goal is not to beat the market. The goal is to end up wealthy. Um you know like so many people are focused on beating the market that they lose all their time um and uh end up I don't know in many cases not even beating the market. Yeah. So um it just gives you gives you a little bit of a 把钱扔进 Vanguard，让它自己跑。它极其简单，我拿回了全部时间。如果我一年赚 12% 而不是 15%，那又怎样？我宁愿用那每年 3% 换回按自己方式度过的那些小时。所以我很多做法都围绕这个：简化，并且更努力保护自己的时间，而不是去挤出超过市场的那几个额外百分点。我听过另一句话：记住，目标不是打败市场。目标是最终变得富有。那么多人专注于打败市场，结果输掉了全部时间，很多情况下甚至都没有打败市场。所以这会给你一种稍微不同的

主持人 different approach. And I think also I investing in Vanguard is incredibly diversified because you got a slice of every company. I have realized that I do not have the ability to predict what is going to go well. 做法。而且投资 Vanguard 也极其分散，因为你持有每一家公司的一小片。我已经意识到，我没有能力预测什么会好。

James Clear Yeah. 对。

主持人 And I feel even more that way now than I did a year or two ago. Things are moving so fast. The rise of AI, whatever. Like I really I cannot tell you what companies are going to be at the top of the Fortune 500 in three years or 10 years. Like I I have no confidence in 我现在比一两年前更这样觉得。事情走得太快。AI 的兴起，诸如此类。我真的没法告诉你，三年后或十年后哪些公司会在 Fortune 500 的顶端。我对此完全没有信心。

James Clear they may not even exist. 它们甚至可能不存在了。

主持人 Yeah. I I I have no confidence in it. So um I I would rather not try to pick the winners and instead just play the general trend. I wanted to ask you about your reading habit and how you take what you're reading and incorporate it into what you're doing or thinking about or make it top of mind. It's so easy to read something and sort of put it down and then forget about it. 对。我完全没有信心。所以我宁愿不去挑选赢家，而是去跟上总体趋势。我想问你的阅读习惯，以及你怎样把读到的东西纳入你正在做的、正在想的，或让它留在脑子前面。太容易读完一样东西，放下，然后忘掉。

James Clear I wrote two articles a week for three years when I started out um every Monday and Thursday. And about a year in I hit 100,000 subscribers and I had this conversation with myself. I don't know why but I got kind of in my head about that number and I thought well now a lot of people are paying attention so it needs to be really good. 我起步时每周写两篇文章，写了三年，每周一和周四。大概一年后我到了 10 万订阅，然后我跟自己有过一次对话。不知道为什么，我对那个数字有点过脑子，心想：现在很多人在看了，所以必须写得非常好。

主持人 What I should have just said was things are going very well. Just keep doing what you're doing. Right. But um but I thought, well, if I really want to make it good, then I should spend more time writing it, 我本该说的是：事情进展很好。继续做你正在做的。但我想：如果我真想写好，就该花更多时间去写。

James Clear right? 对。

主持人 And what happened is things got worse, not better. And eventually what I realized is that um if I want to be a better writer, what I needed was not to write more, but to read more. And it's kind of like uh filling a car up with gas. You know, reading is like filling the car up. Writing is like driving and going on a journey. And you need both. You know, like the point is not just to sit at the gas station all day and keep filling the car up. Like the tank is already full. Yeah. You should go go out and see something. But if you just keep driving, you end up stranded on the side of the road. And so for me, reading is the primary way that I generate inspiration and ideas. Almost every thought that you have is downstream from what you consume. It's so rare. There's even a debate among neuroscientists whether it's even possible to have a spontaneous thought, 结果事情变得更差，而不是更好。最终我意识到：如果我想成为更好的写作者，我需要的不是写得更多，而是读得更多。有点像给车加油。阅读像加油，写作像开车去旅行。两者都需要。重点不是整天坐在加油站继续加油。油箱已经满了。你该出去看点东西。但如果你只是一直开，你会抛锚在路边。所以对我来说，阅读是我产生灵感和想法的主要方式。你几乎每一个念头，都在你所消费内容的下游。真正自发的念头非常少。神经科学家甚至还在争论，是否可能有真正自发的念头。

主持人 truly spontaneous thought. 你对我说了什么、问了我一个问题，就会点燃一个念头；有人在路上加塞，会让你有某种感觉。那只是你整天对情境和输入作出反应的无尽链条。所以我们通常不会给它这么大的权重，但当你选择在社交媒体上关注谁、听哪些播客、读哪些书，

James Clear You know, you say something to me or ask me a question and that sparks a thought or somebody cuts you off in traffic and that makes you feel a certain way or whatever. But it's just an endless string of you responding to the situations and inputs that come to you throughout the day. So, we don't usually give it this amount of weight, but when you choose who you follow on social media, when you choose what podcasts to listen to, when you choose what books to read, you are choosing your future thoughts. 你是在选择自己未来的念头。

主持人 Yeah. 对。

James Clear And if you want better, more productive, more creative thoughts, you need better, more productive, more creative inputs. And so, uh, choosing what to read or choosing what to listen to or who to subscribe to is actually a very weighty decision. And it's a very important decision. Um I I find that my reading habit now there's there's some quote about Emerson I think where he says he reads like a hawk flying over a field scanning for prey. Um and I kind of feel like that's how I read a lot of the time. I'm almost reading for like ideas or for chapters, not for books. You know, I'm looking for the piece that is relevant to what I'm writing about at the time or what I'm trying to learn at the time. uh I'm not just sitting down and saying well let me read and unpack this argument for fun. I maybe when I do if I am at a stage in my 如果你想要更好、更有产出、更有创造力的念头，你就需要更好、更有产出、更有创造力的输入。所以选择读什么、听什么、订阅谁，其实是一个很有分量的决定，也是一个很重要的决定。我发现自己现在的阅读习惯——Emerson 好像有一句话，说他读书像鹰在田野上空飞过、搜寻猎物。我很多时候就是这样读。我几乎是在为想法或章节而读，不是为整本书。我在找和我当时正在写、正在学的东西相关的那一块。我不是坐下来纯粹为了好玩去拆解这个论证。也许当我人生到了某个阶段，

James Clear life at some point where I'm doing less writing maybe I will read for that that way more you know just for enjoyment or for uh knowledge for knowledge's sake but right now I'm kind of reading more for knowledge uh for an outcome which is for me to distill it and apply it in some actionable way and then share it with the world. 写得更少，我会更多地那样读，为了享受，或为了知识本身。但现在我更多是为了某种结果而读：把它提炼出来，用可执行的方式应用，再分享给世界。

主持人 So what does that look like? Like you're reading a book, are you highlighting? Are you taking that highlight and putting it into like a word document? 那具体是什么样？你在读一本书，你会划线吗？你会把划线放到 Word 文档里吗？

主持人 Like if I read a book that's really good and relevant to what I'm working on at the time, it's very hard for me to make progress on it. I will it might take me like seriously I might spend I mean at this point I'm I'm not working as much cuz we have all these kids. But um uh but I like it might take me four hours to get through three pages like because there's I'm reading I'm at a point in the book where it's just really hitting on what I've been like kind of stewing on and thinking about and it's sparking ideas. So I'll read a sentence or a paragraph and I'm like I got to write about this for a second and then I you know I I may end up writing two pages and then I go back and I read some more and then I you know write some more. um when it's not as intense as that uh then it'll be more what I do is I I prefer to read physical books. I also audio can also be helpful for me especially if I'm in the car a lot or something. It's just a you know obviously it's a better way to do that but um it can be helpful for 如果我读一本非常好、又和我当时正在做的事相关的书，我很难往前推进。说真的，我现在因为有这些孩子，工作没有那么多。但可能要花四个小时才读完三页，因为我读到书里某段，正好打中我一直在炖、一直在想的东西，它在点燃想法。所以我会读一句或一段，然后想：我得先写一会儿。可能写出两页，再回去多读一点，再写一点。当没有那么强烈时，我更喜欢读纸质书。音频对我也有帮助，尤其是经常开车的时候，那显然是更好的方式。它也可以有帮助，

主持人 me especially if a book is kind of dense. I find audio is better because it doesn't if the book is really dense, I will slow myself down too much as I'm reading it in print, but audio just keeps rolling and I still get the idea, but I don't slow myself down through the writing. So, I find some authors to be better for me in audio. But, um, my preference is to read the physical book as I roll through. I find passages that interest me and I put a parenthesy open parenthesis at the beginning of the passage, close it at the end and then I put a star in the margin so that if I just leaf through the book, I find the stars and I can easily identify those passages. 尤其当一本书比较密。我发现音频更好，因为如果书很密，我读纸质会把自己放得太慢；音频会继续往前走，我仍然能拿到那个想法，却不会在文字里把自己拖慢。所以有些作者对我来说更适合听。但我的偏好是读纸质书。往前翻的时候，我会找到让我感兴趣的段落，在段首标开括号，段末标闭括号，然后在页边打一颗星。这样我只要翻书，就能找到那些星，很容易认出那些段落。

James Clear And then once I finish the book, I will go back through and take photos of each of those and highlight the photo uh on my iPhone and just copy and paste it into uh like an Evernote file or you know, Google Doc or wherever I'm storing that stuff at. So, um, that's my typical approach. So, I that's how I end up with like usually if I read a book that I highlight a lot on, maybe it'll have 50 or something passages and all those get dumped in at the end. 读完之后，我会回去把每一处拍照，在 iPhone 上把照片划出来，复制粘贴到 Evernote，或 Google Doc，或我当时存这些东西的地方。所以这是我典型的做法。如果我读一本划线很多的书，大概会有 50 段左右，最后全部倒进去。

主持人 I just have to ask one follow-up to that, which is and then what? So, it goes into Evernote. Now, a lot of people do this. They capture these notes, but then they never Yeah. 我必须追问一句：然后呢？它进了 Evernote。很多人会这样做，捕捉这些笔记，然后再也

James Clear revisit them. They never do anything with them. 不会回去看，不会拿它们做什么。

主持人 I don't like having I I tried this for a while. I've I mean, you know, I've been 我不喜欢那种。我试过一阵子。我用 Evernote 已经很久了。

James Clear Evernote. I've been well I've been doing it for a long time. Um it's just it's just 12 years old, you know. Um Notion wasn't even around when I was getting started. But um so I just have a lot of stuff in there now. But um I tried for a little while doing it based on the book. So I would I would finish a book and then I would put all the highlights into the book dock, you know, and so I just have all the notes from that book in one place. Um, but what happened was what you just described, which is then it would just sit there and I would never really look at it. Occasionally I would work on an article and I would like search for terms in Evernote and then find a passage from a book and maybe pull it in or something, but it was pretty rare that that would happen. Instead, what I find more useful now is to have a project that I'm working on and a um a dock for the project. So like the next book I'm writing for example and then I'm reading books that are relevant to 它大概才 12 年历史。我起步时 Notion 甚至还不存在。所以我现在里面东西很多。我试过一阵子按书来整理：读完一本书，把所有划线放进那本书的文档，所有笔记都在一个地方。但发生的就是你刚才说的：它会躺在那儿，我几乎再也不看。偶尔写文章时我会在 Evernote 里搜词，找到某本书的一段，也许拉进来，但那种情况相当少。现在我觉得更有用的，是有一个正在做的项目，以及这个项目的一份文档。比如我正在写的下一本书。然后我读和那个项目相关的书，

James Clear that project and I take the passages and I drop them into the appropriate place in that doc. So usually the way that I start writing a book I try to have the concept the big picture concept nailed at the start. Like I knew Atomic Habits was going to be a habits book from the beginning. It was going to be a book about building good habits and breaking bad ones. So that can go at the top of the dock. 把段落丢进那份文档里合适的位置。所以我开始写一本书时，通常会先把大概念钉住。我从一开始就知道 Atomic Habits 会是一本关于习惯的书，关于养成好习惯、打破坏习惯。那可以放在文档最上面。

主持人 Then I start at first at the very very beginning I just collect notes and ideas. It's just and maybe it gets to be 20 or 30 pages and it's just a bunch of random stuff. But eventually once you get enough material in there, I start grouping it by section and eventually those sections become chapter chapters. And that's usually for most of the process that's usually what the doc looks like is it's just sort of a loosely structured chapter. This is a chapter about leverage. This is a chapter about tailwinds. This is, you know, whatever. And when I read and I have something that's relevant to a chapter, it gets copied and pasted into there. So it starts to the chapters end 然后一开始我只是收集笔记和想法。也许到 20 或 30 页，就是一堆随机的东西。但材料够了之后，我开始按部分归组，那些部分最终变成章节。在大部分过程里，文档看起来就是结构松散的章节：这章关于杠杆，这章关于顺风，诸如此类。当我读到和某一章相关的东西，就复制粘贴进去。所以章节会逐渐

主持人 up the part of my process that's that part is just a lot of fun. What I just described to you that that's just fun to me. I get to read. I'm excited about it. I dump it all in. It gets organized. That that part can be great. 长出来。我过程里的那一部分非常有趣。我刚才描述的那些，对我来说就是好玩。我能读，我为此兴奋，全部倒进去，再整理。那部分可以很棒。

James Clear Um I have two manuscripts right now. One is 500 pages, one is 600 pages. That is just that. It's just a bunch of stuff that I've read that is organized around the book concept. The very unfun part is taking it from 600 pages of roughly organized notes and turning it into chapters that can be readable. Um, and it gets compressed along the way from 600 pages down to 200. And so that takes a lot more work, 我现在有两份手稿，一份 500 页，一份 600 页。就是那样：我读过的一堆东西，按书的概念组织起来。真正不好玩的部分是把 600 页大致整理过的笔记，变成可以读的章节。它会在过程中被压缩，从 600 页压到 200 页。那要多得多的功夫，

主持人 but that work is what makes it so easy for the reader to read. 但正是那些功夫，让读者读起来那么容易。

James Clear Yeah. Yeah. That's what makes it good. Um, and that's that's also what's hard. I mean, sometimes people will complain and say, "Oh, you know, writing is hard." And like, yeah, writing is hard, but also that's kind of the point, you know, like it's it's also like lifting. It'd be like complaining about lifting weights and the weights being heavy. You're like, yes, the weights are heavy and that's what's getting you stronger. You know, like writing is hard because it's making you a better thinker. It is forcing you, the act of writing is forcing you to clarify your thoughts. The act of lifting the weight is forcing your muscles to get stronger. And so, it only works because it is hard. If it was easy, it would not require much thought, 对。那才让它变好。那也是难的地方。有时人们会抱怨：写作很难。是的，写作很难，但那也差不多就是重点。就像举铁。抱怨举铁、抱怨重量很重。对，重量就是重，而这正是让你变强的东西。写作很难，因为它在让你成为更好的思考者。写作这个动作在逼你把想法澄清。举起重量这个动作在逼你的肌肉变强。所以它之所以有效，正因为它难。如果它容易，它就不需要太多思考，

James Clear which means it also doesn't require much reorganization in your mind, and you're not learning very much or clarifying very much. 也就不需要在脑子里做太多重组，你学到的、澄清的也就不多。

主持人 After the success of Atomic Habits, the inbound must be crazy. How do you maintain the focus on the things that you want with all these opportunities available to you? Atomic Habits 成功之后，找上门的一定很多。有这么多机会，你怎样把焦点维持在自己真正想做的事情上？

James Clear I'm kind of a slow learner, honestly. Like, I it took me a while to figure it out, and I don't know that I have it fully figured out now. it seems like the bar keeps changing or moving. You know, partially I think it's a good thing. If you're really successful and things are going well, then every year your opportunity cost should increase. But what that also means is every year you should be saying no to things that you were saying yes to the previous year. And so I feel like I'm always 3 to 6 months behind on what I should be saying no to. Um, when the book came out, it it did well from the start, but it really 说实话我学得比较慢。我花了很长时间才摸到一点门道，也不确定现在已经完全想明白。好像那根横杆一直在变、一直在移动。部分我觉得这是好事。如果你真的很成功、事情进展很好，每年你的机会成本都应该上升。但这也意味着，每年你都该对去年还在说「好」的事情说「不」。所以我总觉得自己对「该说不」这件事，落后了三到六个月。书刚出来时，一开始就还不错，但真正

James Clear didn't take off till about a year in. So, it it hit the bestseller list the first week, then nothing um until New Year's week, and then nothing for like six more months. And it wasn't really till like the summer of the second year that it started appearing every week. Um, so 2019 was the year, 2018 it came out, 2019 was the year that like everything changed. And um there was a stretch in like 2019 and early 2020 where I just felt like I'm on the hook for all these things that I should have said no to. Um eventually I had to do like harder things like put the email inbox on an autoresponder and like uh like that runs like kind of counter to what I wanted to do, you know, like I for the first 10,000 people who signed up to my email list, I emailed each of them individually and said like hey thanks so much for joining, you know, I'd love to have you in the community. I'll be writing about this, you know, whatever. And then, you know, you get to 100,000 or a million or, you know, you 起飞大概是一年后。第一周上了畅销榜，然后没有，直到新年那一周，然后又大概六个月没有。直到第二年夏天，它才开始每周都出现。所以 2019 年是那一年。2018 年出版，2019 年一切都变了。2019 年到 2020 年初有一段，我只觉得自己被钩住了，要应付所有这些我本该说不的事。最终我不得不做更硬的事，比如给邮箱设自动回复。那和我想做的有点相反。前 1 万个订阅我邮件列表的人，我都单独给他们写信：非常感谢你加入，很高兴你在这个社区里，我会写这些内容，诸如此类。然后你到了 10 万、100 万，你就

James Clear just can't do that stuff anymore. So, um, yeah, it's like best possible outcome, right? Like, you don't want to complain about it. It's what could be better. But, um, also it just takes a lot of learning and reminding yourself that you have to continue to increase that filter. 没法再做那些了。所以这像是最好的可能结果。你不想抱怨。还能要什么更好的。但它也需要很多学习和不断提醒自己：你必须继续提高那个过滤器。

主持人 Are there any lessons that you took away that you wish you would have known sooner about filtering or selecting opportunities? There are lots of things that I think about now strategically for what I want to focus on that I didn't really have a language for at the time. You kind of like follow your gut or you your intuition, but so I'll give you a couple. Um, not everything that you do can match all the qualities that check all the boxes that I'm about to cover, but I think about each of these boxes and how do they weave together? So like one thing is leverage. How can I get more output out of each unit of effort? And so some things are much higher leverage than others. You know, like writing, let's just take writing as an example. Writing 关于筛选或选择机会，有没有？什么教训是你希望自己更早知道的？我现在会从策略上想很多我该把焦点放在什么上，而这些在当时我并没有。真正的语言去说。你有点跟着直觉走。我举几个。不是你做的每件事都能对上我接下来要说的所有格子，但我会想这些格子怎样织在一起。比如杠杆。我怎样从每一单位努力里拿到更多产出？有些事的杠杆比另一些高得多。就拿写作为例。写作

主持人 in a journal or a diary is fine. It's very useful for you. It might help you think more clearly. Like writing has lots of benefits. But if you choose to take what you write and share it publicly, well, now all of a sudden you have a lot more leverage with that. Other people can find it. It becomes this kind of like honeypot that attracts like-minded people. You know, I I like to say that sharing your work publicly is like a magnet and it just draws other people to you who are interested in the same thing. It's probably one of the most useful things you can do for networking is it's not actually networking. It's just sharing your knowledge and trying to be useful in public. Um so leverage is one thing to think about. How can I get more output out of the hours that I'm putting in? Um one question that I really like is what is the work that keeps working for me once it's done? Mhm. 写在日记里很好。它对你很有用，可能帮你想得更清楚。写作有很多好处。但如果你选择把写的东西公开分享，突然之间杠杆就大多了。别人能找到它。它变成吸引同类的蜜罐。我喜欢说：公开分享作品像一块磁铁，会把对同一件事感兴趣的人吸过来。这大概是你能为建立人脉做的最有用的事之一：它其实不是在社交，只是公开分享知识、试着变得有用。所以杠杆是要考虑的一件事：我怎样从投入的小时里拿到更多产出？我很喜欢的一个问题是：什么工作一旦做完，还能继续为我工作？做这次播客采访就是一个好例子。Atomic Habits 出来时，我大概六个月里做了 200 场采访。

James Clear So like doing this podcast interview is a good example. I when Atomic Habits came out I did like 200 interviews in like 6 months and um some were podcast and some are radio and I don't really do radio interviews anymore. And it's not really cuz I have something personal against radio. It's just that once we get done with that 5 minute segment or 10-minute segment, we're off the air and that work is not working for me anymore. You know, the the time I just put in evaporated. But this will get recorded, you know, and somebody will watch it today and then somebody will watch it in a month. And you know, it's um it's almost like there's two versions of James out there. You know, there's like 有些是播客，有些是广播。我现在不太做广播采访了。不是我对广播有什么私人成见，只是那 5 分钟或 10 分钟节目一结束，我们下了广播，那份工作就不再为我工作了。我刚投入的时间蒸发了。但这次会被录下来。有人今天会看，一个月后还会有人看。几乎像是外面有两个版本的 James。一个是

James Clear the version that's out there living his daily life and then there's the one that got recorded right now that can keep working each hour after it's done. So that's that's one filter. Another thing that I think about is sequencing. So doing things in the right order or doing things in an order where it accumulates for you. I debated about whether to self-publish Atomic Habits or traditionally publish for like a year, year and a half. I I was like really close to trying to self-publish. Um, and ultimately at the time, it's a little bit easier now, but still quite hard to hit a bestseller list as if you're self-published. And I decided, well, if I'm really going to go for it and try to hit the New York Times list, I might as well do it with my first book because then I can be a New York Times bestselling author for the rest of my career. Um, there's no guarantee I was going to do it, but it's like if you're going to try, you might as well try early and then you can get the benefit 过着日常生活的那个，一个是此刻被录下来、做完之后每个小时还能继续工作的那个。这是一个过滤器。另一件我会想的是排序。按正确的顺序做事，或按能让它为你积累的顺序做事。我纠结了大概一年、一年半，要不要自行出版 Atomic Habits，还是走传统出版。我当时真的非常接近去自行出版。当时比现在更难，现在也仍然很难以自行出版打进畅销榜。我决定，如果我真的要冲纽约时报榜，不妨用第一本书去做，因为那样我接下来整个职业生涯都可以是纽约时报畅销书作者。没有保证我能做到，但如果你要试，不妨早试，然后你可以拿到那个

James Clear of that status marker for the next 50 years rather than self-publishing your first like five books and then doing it, you know, in 20 years. So, that's just kind of a, you know, a sequencing thing. The other thing that I think about a lot is how do I like it when the work that I'm doing, every project that I'm touching feeds each other in some way. They kind of like cross-pollinate. Um so a few examples I you know I'm writing there's there's uh it's almost fractal the way that you can think about this. So like the small version is I write an idea that idea could go on Twitter and be used as a tweet. It could be in a newsletter that I publish each week. It could get repurposed onto Instagram as like a quote card or something. Maybe if it's good it could become the seed of something that's a chapter in a book or whatever. But it gets repurposed in lots of ways. So that one hour again kind of like leverage it's working for you in more ways. How does it how does it 地位标记接下来 50 年的好处，而不是前五本书都自行出版，20 年后才去做。所以这是一种排序。另一件我经常想的是：我喜欢我正在做的工作、我接触的每个项目，以某种方式互相喂养。它们会交叉授粉。举几个例子。写作这件事几乎是分形的，你可以这样想。小的版本是：我写下一个想法，这个想法可以上 Twitter 当一条推文，可以进我每周发的 newsletter，可以再做成 Instagram 的金句卡片。如果它够好，可以成为书里某一章的种子。它以很多方式被再利用。所以那一个小时，又有点像杠杆，在用更多方式为你工作。它怎样

James Clear accumulate? How does it cross-pollinate? You can also do it with platforms. So like all of the platforms that I have for my business point to each other, you know, like when I post on Instagram, at the bottom of each post says, you know, want to learn more ideas like this? Sign up for the newsletter at jamesclair.com321 or go to jamesclair.com for more. Um the book points to things. you know, you read Atomic Habits and then at the end of each section it says, you know, if you want to get a PDF guide that summarizes these key ideas, go to atomichabits.com and, you know, you can download it or whatever. So, the book's pointing to the website, the website's pointing to the book, the newsletter is pointing to social media, social media is pointing to the newsletter. It's all like this web where everything is kind of cross-pollinating. I think some people that people get that and they do it like once or twice or seven times, but like you need to do it every time, you know, like you're building this very tight web. It's you're building this network of things that all accumulate together. And then 积累？它怎样交叉授粉？你也可以对平台这样做。我业务里所有平台都互相指向。我在 Instagram 发帖，每条底部会写：想学更多这样的想法？去 jamesclear.com/321 订阅 newsletter，或去 jamesclear.com 看更多。书也指向东西。你读 Atomic Habits，每个部分结束会说：如果你想要一份总结这些关键想法的 PDF 指南，去atomichabits.com 下载。所以书指向网站，网站指向书，newsletter 指向社交媒体，社交媒体指向 newsletter。这一切像一张网，所有东西都在交叉授粉。我觉得有些人懂这个，他们做一两次或七次，但你需要每次都做。你在织一张很紧的网，在建一个所有东西一起积累的网络。然后

James Clear you can do it at an even larger level. So like we we have the the writing idea, the tweet idea, you have the platform idea that's still within one business, but you can even do it across businesses. It's like I have my business as a writer, you know, I'm an author and I have my platforms, but I also co-founded a publishing company, Author's Equity. And so now the brand that I have as an author helps me meet other authors and talk to them. And if it's a good fit, they can come and publish with us. And so those two things feed each other. I publish my books through Author's Equity. Like it's, you know, it's a way for those two businesses to help each other. Um, and then I have a I even have like a side project which is this cabin in the woods that I I built. you know, are building this cabin and it can be a retreat center for authors, you know, like we can bring authors out there and we can meet for two or three days and talk about how to write books and launch books and build your platform and some of those people can publish with authors equity and you can like see how everything kind of feeds each each 你还可以在更大一层做。写作的想法、推文的想法、平台的想法，还都在同一门生意里。但你甚至可以跨生意做。我作为作者有自己的事业，有自己的平台，我也共同创办了出版公司 Author's Equity。于是我作为作者的品牌帮我认识其他作者、和他们交谈。如果合适，他们可以来和我们出版。这两件事互相喂养。我通过 Author's Equity 出版自己的书。这是让这两门生意互相帮助的一种方式。我甚至还有一个副项目：我在林子里建的这座小屋。它可以成为作者的静修中心。我们可以把作者带去，待两三天，谈怎样写书、发行书、建立平台。其中一些人可以和 Author's Equity 出版。你会看到所有东西怎样互相喂养。

James Clear other. So, it doesn't all work perfectly together like that every time, but I like when things can kind of check multiple boxes. And then one of the one of the other ones that I'll mention and then I'll take a break for a second is um tailwinds. So like I always think about email lists. I don't we you know you and I both have lots of friends who have email lists and people are growing at different rates, but basically everybody I know's list is getting bigger. I don't I don't know that I know anybody whose list is shrinking. Um unless it's like they're intentionally, you know, trimming subscribers or something. But uh more and more people come online each day. More there still are like you know a billion people in the world that need internet access and are coming on. So there's just this huge tailwind of readers that and the internet continues to grow and people continue to subscribe to things. And so it's just a good like place to play um because there are lots of forces working 不是每次都能完美地这样配合，但我喜欢事情能同时勾上多个格子。另一件我要提、然后先停一下的，是顺风。我总是会想邮件列表。你我都有很多朋友有邮件列表，大家增长速度不同，但基本上我认识的每个人的列表都在变大。我不知道有谁的列表在缩小，除非他们在有意清理订阅者。每天都有更多人上网。世界上大概还有十亿人需要上网、正在上来。所以有一股巨大的读者顺风，互联网继续增长，人们继续订阅东西。这就是一个很好的场域，因为有很多力量在为你

James Clear for you. So if you put all of those things together you're like all right there's a big tailwind on the internet and building an audience. If you share your work publicly, you gain leverage and you can attract more people to your work and you can, you know, become more known or your work can get out there. Um, if your platforms cross-pollinate, they can kind of grow each other. That same dynamic of a tailwind for, you know, email list is also true for social media and, you know, other platforms online. And if you do this early in your life and you build an audience early, then you have tons of flexibility and how you can use that and where you can direct the attention or what you know what businesses you want to build or what projects you want to work on. So all of that collectively just makes it feel like all right, if you're doing things that are in that zone, then it's probably a really high leverage way to spend your time. And I'm not saying that's the only way you should spend your time. Probably the the single 工作。如果你把这些放在一起：互联网和建立受众有大顺风。如果你公开分享作品，你获得杠杆，能把更多人吸引到你的作品上，你和你的作品能被更多人知道。如果你的平台交叉授粉，它们可以互相带动增长。邮件列表的那种顺风，对社交媒体和其他线上平台同样成立。如果你在人生早期就做这些、早期就建立起受众，你就会有大量灵活性，去使用它、引导注意力、去建你想建的生意、做你想做的项目。所有这些合在一起，会让你觉得：如果你在这个区间里做事，那很可能是一种杠杆很高的时间用法。我不是说这是你唯一该花时间的方式。我们还没谈过的、大概最

James Clear biggest thing that we haven't talked about is are you excited about it? You know, are you interested? are you passionate about it? But um those are some of the ways that I think about focus and prioritization and selecting and when things blew up, you know, we put all this together and Atomic Habits did really well. And then when things blew up and my time got tight, you're like, "Okay, you have all these." It felt like for 10 years it was me trying to knock on every door and window and be like, "Hey, will you please pay attention? Maybe like can you read this?" And then all of a sudden overnight it was like, whoa, way too many people are paying attention. Um, and so now I have to be more strict about which things check those boxes and where where I direct my time and attention. 大的一件事是：你是否为此兴奋？你是否感兴趣？你是否有热情？但这些是我思考焦点、优先级和选择的一些方式。当事情爆发——我们把这些放在一起，Atomic Habits 做得非常好——当事情爆发、我的时间变紧，你会想：好，你有这么多。感觉像十年里我一直在敲每一扇门、每一扇窗：嘿，请你注意一下？能不能读一下这个？然后突然一夜之间，注意的人多得过头。所以现在我必须更严格，看哪些事能勾上那些格子，以及我把时间和注意力导向哪里。

主持人 I love a couple of the themes we talked about. I just want to circle back to longevity of content. 我喜欢我们谈过的几个主题。我想绕回内容的持久性。

James Clear Um, we published an interview this summer, republished an interview that was recorded six years ago 我们今年夏天发布过一次采访，重发的是六年前录的。

主持人 and nobody had any idea. So when you think of like content and the long tail of it, it's really fascinating. We don't talk politics. We don't talk anything topical. One of the reasons we do that is we have great longevity of content. 没有人看出来。所以当你想到内容和它的长尾，真的很有意思。我们不谈政治，不谈时事。其中一个原因就是内容有很好的持久性。

James Clear Yeah. 对。

主持人 I think that that's really important. 我觉得这非常重要。

James Clear So that's one that I didn't mention, but I do think about a lot. This I think this is a little bit more my style and what I'm interested in personally, but it does, you know, there are ways that you could apply it probably whatever you're focused on, which is what's the halflife of this idea. You know, you want I like to work on things that have a very long halflife. They they just persist. And I even like to work in formats that have a long half-life. Like social media has a very short half-life. And that's fine. It can serve a role in the business, but I'm never going to make it my central thing because something like a blog post has a little bit longer halfife, but a book really has a long halflife. And so, um, I like 这是我刚才没提、但我经常想的一点。这更符合我的风格和我个人感兴趣的东西，但它大概也能用到你专注的任何领域。就是：这个想法的半衰期有多长。我想做半衰期非常长、能一直存续的事。我甚至喜欢在半衰期长的形式上工作。社交媒体的半衰期非常短。这没问题，它可以在生意里扮演角色，但我永远不会让它成为中心，因为博客的半衰期会长一点，而一本书的半衰期真的很长。所以我喜欢

James Clear formats that are durable and persist in that way. And so, you can Yeah. you start to put all those different elements together and I think you can end up with something that's pretty evergreen. 那种耐久、能这样存续的形式。你开始把这些不同要素放在一起，我认为你能得到相当常青的东西。

主持人 One thing you mentioned that I thought was really interesting was the word sequencing 你提到的一件我觉得很有意思的事是排序，。

James Clear and I'm wondering how you think about that in terms of accomplishing your goals but also in terms of like different eras of your life. 我想知道你怎样把这个用在达成目标上，也用在人生不同阶段上。

主持人 Are your 20s different than your 30s, your 30s and your 40s and your 40s and your 50s? 你的 20 岁和 30 岁不同吗，30 岁和 40 岁，40 岁和 50 岁？

James Clear Yeah, that's a great question. I I don't know why, but I've been thinking a lot about this recently. I guess you could call it like life strategy or something, but think about most of the big really meaningful things in your life, you know, like um raising a family that you're proud of, building a great marriage, creating a successful company, getting in the best shape of your life, you know, starting some new initiative, or you know, giving back in some big way. Like whatever it is, it's probably a multi-year thing. You know, all the those really big meaningful movements in 这是个好问题。不知道为什么，我最近一直在想这个。这件事。你可以叫它人生策略之类的，但想想你人生里那些真正有意义的大事：养一个让你骄傲的家，建立一段很好的婚姻，做成一家成功的公司，把自己练到一生最好的状态，启动某个新计划，或以某种很大的方式回馈。无论是什么，大概都是要做很多年的事。那些真正有意义的大动作

James Clear life are three, five, 10, sometimes longer. you know, it's like it's a lot of years. And if you just look broadly at your adult life, you're like, well, if I'm lucky enough to get to live to say 80, I've got maybe five or six of those, you know, 10-year movements in there. Um, so what are you going to spend those five or six on? You know, they it's a limited number, whatever it is. Some things five or six alone is limited, but it's even more limited than I think you realize at the beginning because certain things don't make sense in certain decades, you know, like if you want to travel around the world for a while and party in a visa, like you probably aren't going to do that in your 70s, you know, like it's probably better for your 20s or 30s. And um so the sequencing of things starts to to matter, too. Um building a company, I think, is another one. you can do it whenever you want, you know, like there's no there are no rules, but man, 人生都是三年、五年、十年，有时更长。就是很多年。如果你大致看一眼成年之后的人生：如果我够幸运能活到 80 岁，大概只有五六个这样的十年动作。那这五六个你打算花在什么上？数量本来就有限。五六个本身已经有限，但比你一开始意识到的还要更有限，因为某些事在某些十年里并不合适。如果你想环游世界一阵子、去 Ibiza 玩，大概不会放到 70 岁去做，更适合 20 岁或 30 岁。所以事情的排序也开始变得重要。创办一家公司也是这样。你什么时候做都可以，没有规定，但说真的，

James Clear it sure is nice to like do it early and then you get some of the advantages of that uh as you go on. It seems that responsibilities uh and obligations tend to increase throughout life. Each day that goes by is an opportunity for 早点做会很好，后面就能拿到一些优势。责任和义务似乎会随着人生增加。每过一天，都是一次机会，

主持人 a responsibility to come into play or an obligation or an obstacle that you didn't foresee to come up. And so, if you're waiting till your 40s or 50s to start a company, again, there are no rules. You can do it then. It's just that you're playing the game on hard mode a little bit uh or a harder mode. I always say like I started my first business when I was 24 and I had no kids and I wasn't married. It was as easy as it could be and it was still really hard. Yeah. 让某种责任、义务或你没预见到的障碍出现。所以如果你等到 40 岁或 50 岁才创业，再说一遍，没有规定，那时做也可以。只是你是在更难的模式上玩游戏，或者说更难一点的模式。我常说：我 24 岁做第一门生意，没有孩子，也没结婚。已经是能有的最容易的条件了，可还是很难。对。

James Clear Um you know so anyway that's I I think about sequencing in that way. Um and some of the questions I like to ask to there are two that really feel relevant to this. The first is what season am I in right now? You know, life has different seasons and um sometimes you want to focus on earning money. Sometimes you want to focus on time with family. Sometimes you want to focus on creativity or you know creative freedom, the ability to choose what projects you work on. Sometimes you just want it to be a personal season, you know, and it's less about work. But whatever the answer is, it's probably really specific to you. And um it helps to figure out what 所以我是这样想排序的。我喜欢问的问题里，有两个和这个很相关。第一个是：我现在处在什么季节里？人生有不同的季节。有时你想专注赚钱，有时想专注和家人在一起，有时想专注创造力，或创作上的自由，能选择做什么项目。有时你只想要一个个人季节，少谈工作。无论答案是什么，大概都非常针对你自己。弄清楚

James Clear season you're in right now because when your seasons change, your habits often need to change. You know, what you focus on often needs to change. And so the the question that I think is closely tied to this, which is a a good one from Derek Civers, is what am I optimizing for right now? And so I, you know, if I don't know what to optimize for, I feel like it's good to optimize for enthusiasm. What lights me up? But whatever that answer is right now, what are you optimizing for? It helps you determine what season you're in. And I found that a lot of the time when I'm struggling or I'm facing some sort of uh I feel like I'm facing a lot of friction, it's because I'm trying to force fit old habits into a new season. You know, I keep I keep trying to do things the way I was doing it and then eventually I realize, oh, okay, stop being a dummy about this. Like you're in a new season now. So, I think sequencing um starts with self-awareness. It starts with knowing what season you're in and what you're optimizing for, what's 你现在处在哪个季节会有帮助，因为季节一变，习惯往往也要变。你专注的东西往往也要变。和这个紧紧连在一起的一个问题，是 Derek Civers 的一个好问题：我此刻在为优化什么？如果我不知道该优化什么，我觉得优化热情是好的。什么让我亮起来？但无论此刻答案是什么，你在为优化什么？它能帮你判断自己处在哪个季节。我发现很多时候我卡住了，或觉得摩擦很大，是因为我在把旧习惯硬套进新季节。我一直试着用以前的方式做事，后来才意识到：好了，别再傻干了，你已经进入新季节了。所以排序始于自我觉察。始于知道自己处在哪个季节、在为优化什么、这个阶段什么

James Clear important to you at this stage of your life. And then once you realize that, you can start to figure out, you know, which pieces should I focus on next. 对你重要。一旦你意识到这一点，就可以开始弄清下一步该专注哪些部分。

主持人 Let's explore habits a little. Um, what exactly is a habit? 我们再稍微谈一下习惯。习惯到底是什么？

James Clear The one one that I like is that a habit is a recurring solution to a recurring problem in your environment. So something comes up again and again and your brain is trying to solve it. Another way to describe it is that it's like an automatic or a mindless behavior. If we were talking to a researcher or an academic, they would probably say a habit is like brushing your teeth or tying your shoes or biting your nails, you know, something you do really fast and mindlessly and you don't even really think about it. But if I were to ask you, hey Shane, what are some habits you're trying to build? Like you're probably going to say, oh, you know, I'm trying to go to the gym four days a week or I want to write every day or I'm trying to meditate for 10 minutes or something like that. And I know what you mean when you say that. You know, 我喜欢的一个定义是：习惯是对环境里反复出现的问题的反复解决方案。某件事一次又一次出现，你的大脑在试着解决它。另一种说法是：它像一种自动的、不用想的行为。如果我们在跟研究者或学者谈，他们大概会说习惯是刷牙、系鞋带、咬指甲这类事：你做得很快、不用想，甚至不怎么意识到。但如果我问你：嘿 Shane，你在试着养成哪些习惯？你大概会说：我想一周去健身房四天，或每天写作，或试着冥想 10 分钟之类。我明白你说的是什么意思。

James Clear you mean you want it to be this regular practice, this ritual. Now, technically, in some kind of academic sense, maybe that's not, you know, a habitual automatic behavior. But in a cultural sense, that's exactly what we mean when we talk about habits is we want them to be reliable repeated routines. And then the third way you could define it, and this one I think is quite useful, is that it's a behavior that is tied to a context in your environment. behav behavior that's tied to a particular context. So like your habit of watching Netflix at 7 p.m. is tied to the context of your house and your couch at that time of day. And so um what we start to see is that behaviors have a very strong link between environment and context. And that's a good way to adjust behaviors. But I think all of those are potential ways to define what a habit is. Ultimately, it's really just your brain trying to automate the problems and solutions of life and do things with more efficiency. You 你的意思是想让它成为规律的练习、一种仪式。从某种学术意义上说，那也许不算习惯性的自动行为。但从文化意义上说，我们谈习惯时要的正是这个：可靠、反复的例行。第三种定义我觉得相当有用：它是和环境里某个情境绑在一起的行为。绑在某个特定情境上。比如你晚上 7 点看 Netflix 的习惯，绑的是那个时间点、家里和沙发这个情境。我们会看到：行为和环境、情境之间有很强的联系。这是调整行为的好办法。但这些都可以用来定义习惯是什么。归根结底，它其实只是你的大脑在试着把人生的问题和解决方案自动化，把事情做得更有效率。你

James Clear mentioned seasons and tying that to habits. I'm wondering how do we know if a habit is working for us or if it's working against us. 提到季节，以及把它和习惯连起来。我想知道我们怎样判断一个习惯是在帮我们，还是在跟我们作对。

主持人 There's some debate among researchers about is there even such a thing as a good habit or a bad habit? Like all habits serve you in some way. You know, you smoke a cigarette because it serves or resolves some, you know, need that you have. Uh, and I understand what they're saying, but I think that we all know what we mean when we say a good habit or a bad habit. And the way that I like to define it is that the cost of your good habits is in the present. The cost of your bad habits is in the future. And so what you find is that a lot of things that typically get categorized as a bad habit, eating too many donuts or smoking a cigarette or something like that feels good in the moment, but it creates some kind of cost or consequence in the future. Um whereas a lot of good habits, going to the gym right now, it requires sweat and effort and it's hard. It has a payoff in the 研究者之间有些争论：到底有没有好习惯或坏习惯这种东西？所有习惯都以某种方式为你服务。你抽烟，是因为它满足或解决了你的某种需求。我明白他们在说什么，但我觉得我们都知道说好习惯或坏习惯时是什么意思。我喜欢的定义是：好习惯的代价在当下。坏习惯的代价在未来。你会发现，很多通常被归为坏习惯的事，吃太多甜甜圈或抽烟之类，当下感觉很好，但会在未来制造某种代价或后果。而很多好习惯，现在去健身房，要出汗、要用力、很难。它的回报在

主持人 future. I think one way to determine whether a habit is serving you or not is it giving me more of what I want in the future or less of what I want. 未来。判断一个习惯是否在为你服务的一个办法是：它让我在未来得到更多我想要的，还是更少？

James Clear It's almost like it's first order negative, second order positive if it's a good habit and then the inverse is true. 几乎像是：如果是好习惯，一阶是负的，二阶是正的；反过来则成立。

主持人 I I think as a general rule that probably can be true. The real trick is to figure out how to make it first order positive and second order positive. And you know, a lot of atomic habits is about this, which is trying to make habits as easy as possible to do so you don't feel as much friction in the moment while also aligning them with your identity and the type of person that you want to be. And so working out is like a classic example, but everybody wants to work out so that they look better in the mirror and so that they get fit. They want the the results of it, which is fine. The second order outcome is going to be great, but it's hard in the moment and you don't always feel like going and sometimes it's, you know, difficult or whatever. The real trick and where I have eventually gotten 作为一般规则，这大概可以成立。真正的窍门是怎样让它一阶也正、二阶也正。Atomic Habits 很大一部分就是在谈这个：尽量让习惯容易做，这样你当下不会觉得那么多摩擦，同时又让它们对齐你的身份认同、对齐你想成为的那种人。锻炼是经典例子。每个人想锻炼，都是为了镜子里更好看、为了变健康。他们想要结果，这没问题。二阶结果会很好，但当下很难，你并不总想去，有时就是困难。真正的窍门，也是我自己

主持人 to myself after 10 or 15 years of training is I like how I feel when I'm working out. And so it's not even I yeah, I want the same results everybody else does. But it's also about being the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. And I know that if I'm in the middle of a set, I can feel good about being that person and being who I am. So now all I have to do is do the thing and I don't have to wait for the outcome. The outcomes are also good further down the line, but it's more about showing up and being that type of person. 练了 10 年或 15 年后走到的地方是：我喜欢锻炼时的那种感觉。所以不只是——对，我也想要别人想要的那些结果。但也是要成为那种不会错过训练的人。我知道如果我正在做一组，我可以为成为那样的人、为自己是谁感到舒服。所以现在我只要去做就行，不必等结果。后面的结果也很好，但更重要的是到场，成为那种人。

James Clear Is there like a specific framework that you use to evaluate if this habit is serving you or getting in your way and then you should replace it with a different habit? 你有没有一套具体框架，用来评估这个习惯是在为你服务，还是在挡你的路，然后该用另一个习惯替换它？

主持人 I said earlier that habits are the repeated solutions to recurring problems in your environment. Right? So, let's say that you go to work and it's a long day. You get home, it's like 5:30 or 6:00 and you're exhausted. that happens again and again and you feel tired after a long day of work. So that is a recurring problem that's resurfacing and people have different solutions to that problem. You know, one person might play video games for 30 minutes, somebody else might go for a run, a third person might smoke a cigarette, but you can see some of these, they're all solving the same recurring problem, but some solutions are better than others. And what you find is that like early in your life, a lot of the solutions that you come up with are just things that you either inherited from your parents or saw modeled and started to repeat. 我前面说过，习惯是对环境里反复出现的问题的反复解决方案。对吧？假设你去上班，这一天很长。你回家，大概 5 点半或 6 点，精疲力尽。这反复发生，漫长工作日后你觉得累。这就是一个反复浮现的问题，而人们对这个问题有不同的解决方案。一个人可能打 30 分钟游戏，另一个人可能去跑步，第三个人可能抽烟。你可以看到，它们都在解决同一个反复出现的问题，但有些方案比另一些更好。你会发现，人生早期，你想出的很多方案，只是从父母那里继承来的，或看到别人示范后开始重复的。

James Clear And you get to be about 22 or 25 or something like that. And what are the odds that your current solution is the best solution? Just mathematically, it's very unlikely that the way that you're solving the repeated problems in your life right now is the optimal way to do it. So as soon as you have that realization, it becomes your responsibility to try to figure out a better way. And I think one of the best things you can do early on, this is if I could actually add one thing to atomic habits that wasn't in it, it would probably be this, which is to ask, 等到你大概 22 岁或 25 岁。之类。你当前的方案刚好是最佳方案的概率有多大？单从数学上说，你现在解决人生里那些反复问题的方式，极不可能已经是最优的。一旦你有这个认识，找出更好办法就成了你的责任。我认为早期最有用的一件事——如果我能给 Atomic Habits 再加一条当时没写进去的，大概就是这条——去问：

James Clear what would this look like if it was fun? You know, like for any habit that you're trying to build, just sit down and ask, "What would it look like if it was fun?" And try to brainstorm 10 or 20 or 50 different solutions to it. Um, there's not always a thousand ways to do everything, but there is almost always more than one way. And so, a lot of people, the most common New Year's resolution is to go to the gym and work out. 如果这件事很有趣，会是什么样子？对任何你想养成的习惯，坐下来问：「如果它很有趣，会是什么样子？」试着头脑风暴 10 种、20 种或 50 种不同方案。不是每件事都有一千种做法，但几乎总有不止一种。很多人最常见的新年决心，就是去健身房锻炼。

主持人 And I kind of feel like a lot of people are in the gym in January just cuz they feel like they should be in the gym or society wants them to be in the gym or something like that. 我有点觉得，很多人一月出现在健身房，只是。因为他们。觉得自己该去，或社会希望他们去之类。

James Clear But we can come up with a long list of what it looks like to live an active lifestyle. You can rock climb or kayak or, you know, do all kinds of stuff. Um, and I think it's worth it to spend 20 minutes and try to come up with that list and then look at it and say, "Which one of these sounds like the most fun to me?" And so that helps I think that helps you get closer to what the optimal answer is for you. Because if it's not fun, if it's not engaging or interesting, if it doesn't feel good, you're not going to stick with it when it gets tough. I mean, this is probably one of the great lessons for life, which is if you're having fun, then then you're dangerous, right? Then you're hard to compete with. You don't want to go up against the person who's having a good time doing it because if it feels like a hassle or a chore, that's the person who gives up when it gets difficult. But the person who's having a great time at the start, they're much more likely to stick with it when it gets hard. 但我们可以列出很长一张清单：活跃的生活方式可以是什么样子。你可以攀岩、划皮划艇，做各种各样的事。我觉得值得花 20 分钟列出那张清单，然后看着它问：「这里面哪一件对我来说听起来最有趣？」这能帮你更接近对你来说最优的答案。因为如果它不好玩、不吸引人、没意思、感觉不好，事情变难时你就不会坚持。这大概是人生里很重要的一课：如果你玩得开心，你就变得危险，对吧？别人很难跟你竞争。你不想去对抗那个做这件事时很享受的人，因为如果感觉像麻烦、像杂事，那个人一变难就会放弃。但从一开始就很享受的人，变难时更可能坚持。

主持人 Do you think of fun as binary or is it how do I make I want to work out? So like how do I make working out more fun versus like fun? 你觉得「有趣」是非此即彼的，还是。怎样让——我想锻炼，那我怎样让锻炼更有趣，而不是「有趣」本身？

James Clear Yeah, it's so Well, everything in your life is not going to feel like going to a concert or something, right? like it's never going to be it may not be the most fun thing in your day or something like that, but anything can be more engaging or more fun than maybe the default would be. And so I think about it more like that. How can I try to make this more enjoyable? Not necessarily saying it's going to be the most fun part of my day. 对。人生里不是每件事都会像去听演唱会那样。它可能不是你一天里最有趣的事，但任何事都可以比默认状态更吸引人、更好玩。我更多是这样想：我怎样试着让这件事更享受？不一定说它会成为一天里最有趣的部分。

主持人 And then once we've identified a habit that we want to replace or eliminate, what is the mechanism by which we can do that? 那当我们已经找出一个想替换或消除的习惯，机制是什么？我们怎么做到？

James Clear Broadly speaking, I think there are four things that you should do if you want to build a habit. And this is true if you want to, you know, replace an old one and install a new one. So, roughly speaking, what you want is your habit to be obvious. So, you want it to be easy to see, easy to notice, easy to um, you know, get your attention. You want it to be attractive. So, something that's appealing or fun to you, as we were just saying. Um, you want it to be easy, simple, frictionless, you know, easy to apply and uh, install. And you want it to be satisfying. The more enjoyable or satisfying a habit is, the more likely you are to stick with it in the future. So, I call these the four laws of behavior change. Make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying. And you don't need all four every single moment of the day or every habit that you build. But the more that 大体上说，如果你想养成一个习惯，我认为有四件事该做。想替换旧的、装上新的，也是这样。大致来说，你希望这个习惯是显而易见的：容易看见、容易注意到、容易抓住你的注意力。你希望它有吸引力：对你来说是吸引人的、有趣的，就像我们刚才说的。你希望它容易、简单、没有摩擦，容易应用、容易装进去。你还希望它令人满足。一个习惯越享受、越满足，你未来就越可能坚持。我把这些叫做行为改变的四定律：让它显而易见，让它有吸引力，让它容易，让它令人满足。不是一天里每个时刻、每个习惯都需要全部四条。但你越能让

James Clear you have those four forces working for you, the more likely you are to stick with it. And in fact, we can actually learn something very compelling about our habits by looking at behaviors that we often call bad or like that we waste time on. And you see what do those things have in common? they often are very obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. Those are the things that get them to stick. Um, you know, like if you just take scrolling social media for example, it's obvious because your phone is on you all the time. It's often the first app that your thumb gravitates to and you tap open. It's attractive because the algorithm has curated content for your very interests. Um, it's e it's so easy that like a couple years ago, Instagram when you would scroll and somebody put up an album, they and if you came back to Instagram like five minutes later, if you had already seen that post, they would auto swipe to the second slide. So, you don't even need to use your thumb anymore, right? They would just keep showing you new content for you. They 这四种力量为你工作，就越可能坚持。其实，看看那些我们常叫坏习惯、或觉得在浪费时间的行为，也能学到很有说服力的东西。这些事有什么共同点？它们往往非常显而易见、有吸引力、容易、令人满足。正是这些让它们粘住。就拿刷社交媒体来说，它显而易见，因为手机一直在你身上。它常常是拇指最先滑向、点开的那个 app。它有吸引力，因为算法按你的兴趣策展了内容。它容易到：几年前，Instagram 上如果你在滑，有人发了相册，你五分钟后再回来，如果已经看过那条，它会自动滑到第二张。你甚至不用再动拇指。它们会继续给你看新内容。它们

James Clear were trying to make it that easy to consume. And then it's satisfying because it kind of satisfies the interest that you have and so on. Um, get that dopamine hit and whatever. So, uh, I'm not trying to like criticize Instagram too much or anything, but I'm just saying if you wonder why is it so easy for me to do that, you know, nobody's sitting around saying, "How can I just find the willpower and the motivation to check Instagram more?" You know, but a lot of people are saying, "Oh, I wish I just had the willpower and the discipline to go to the gym or something like that." Well, you know, one of these is obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying, and one of them is not. And so you need to try to find ways to make your habits more obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. 就是在试着让消费变得那么容易。然后它令人满足，因为它满足了你的兴趣之类。拿到那一下多巴胺，诸如此类。我不是想过度批评 Instagram，我只是说：如果你在想为什么这件事对我这么容易——没有人坐在那儿说，我怎样才能找到意志力和动力去多看 Instagram。可很多人在说：哦，我要是有意志力和纪律去健身房就好了。对，其中一个显而易见、有吸引力、容易、令人满足，另一个不是。所以你需要想办法让自己的习惯更显而易见、更有吸引力、更容易、更令人满足。

主持人 And then the opposite being make the ones that you don't want harder. 反过来，就是让那些你不想要的变得更难。

James Clear You just in you just invert each of those four. So rather than making it obvious, make it invisible. So unsubscribe from emails. Don't keep junk food in the house. For the social media example, I have so I've done this for the last year. I just deleted all social media apps off my phone. And I what I told myself was if you really want to use them, you can just download them and log in. And I I don't even know that I've really done that that much, but maybe I've done it once or twice. Um I log in, I use it, and then I delete it after I get done. So I log out and delete it again. And then the next time I want to use it, I got to download it again. But it's just it's not obvious anymore, you know. Um rather than making it attractive, make it unattractive. 你只要把这四条反过来。不是让它显而易见，而是让它看不见。取消订阅邮件。家里不要放垃圾食品。社交媒体这个例子，我已经这样做了过去一年。我把手机上所有社交媒体 app 都删了。我跟自己说：如果你真的想用，可以再下载、再登录。我甚至不确定自己有没有真的那样做过很多次，大概做过一两次。我登录、用一下，用完再删。登出，再删掉。下次想用，又得再下载。它只是不再显而易见了。不是让它有吸引力，而是让它没有吸引力。

James Clear That one is the most difficult of the four and probably the place that I would recommend focusing on the least because it's hard to change your desires. It's hard to change your expectations about what things are attractive and what are not. It is possible. We can talk about it if you want, but it's it's hard. The third um is to make it difficult instead of making it easy. So, increasing friction, adding steps between you and the behavior. Again, deleting the app off the phone is a good example of that. And then the fourth is rather than making it satisfying, make it unsatisfying. You need to layer on some kind of consequence or cost to the behavior. And um if you do those four things, you're much more likely to avoid. Before we keep going with habits, I do want to take a little sidetrack here into social media. And sure, 这一条是四条里最难的，大概也是我最不建议优先做的，因为欲望很难改。很难改你对什么有吸引力、什么没有吸引力的预期。这是可能的，如果你想我们可以谈，但很难。第三条是让它变难，而不是让它容易。增加摩擦，在你和行为之间加步骤。把 app 从手机上删掉，又是一个好例子。第四条是：不是让它令人满足，而是让它不满足。你需要给这个行为叠上某种后果或代价。如果你做这四件事，就更可能避开。继续谈习惯之前，我想稍微岔到社交媒体。当然可以。

主持人 so you're not reading anything online. You're sort of like ignoring all the 所以你不在网上读任何东西。你有点像在忽略所有

James Clear It's been awesome. It's It's been so great. Um I It's one of those things that I find that there are some changes that sound easy, but actually are very hard in practice, and then there's other things that sound like they would be difficult, but actually they're not hard at all. The the hard part is convincing yourself to do it. Um deleting social media off my phone was one. I did that for like a year. About six months in, I was like, "What if I did it for email?" And so, I deleted email off my phone. That sounded like it was going to be really hard to me, but it has been so so much easier than I thought. Um, again, I just have the same rule, which is if I really need it, I'll download the app 这太棒了。真的非常好。我发现有些改变听起来容易，实际却非常难；另一些听起来会很难，实际却一点也不难。难的部分是说服自己去做。从手机上删掉社交媒体就是其中一件。我那样做了大概一年。大约六个月时我想：如果对邮件也这样呢？于是我把手机上的邮件也删了。那对我听起来会很难，实际却比我想的容易太多。同样一条规则：如果我真的需要，我就下载这个 app

James Clear and log into Gmail and do what I need to do. And I, you know, I've only downloaded it twice in the last like year. Once I was at the airport and I had to send an email before my flight and the other time I was getting ready to go to a show and I needed to download the tickets while we were in line. Um, but after I get done, I just delete the app again and I'm like, well, I'll just download it if I need it. And it has been so nice because if you had looked at my behavior on the phone before that, I think my average time on Instagram before I deleted it was like 42 minutes a day or 48 minutes a day, something like that. So, you look at that and you're like, well, there's only 24 hours in the day. This is getting like 120th or 130th of his time. Um, you would look at that and think, this must be pretty important to him. You know, this must be a pretty important part of his life. And in fact, it just evaporated as soon as I deleted it. It wasn't it wasn't actually that difficult. So, 登录 Gmail，做我需要做的事。过去大概一年里我只下载过两次。一次是在机场，起飞前必须发一封邮件；另一次是准备去看演出，排队时需要下载门票。做完我就再把 app 删掉，心想：需要时再下载就好。这非常好，因为如果你看我以前在手机上的行为，我记得删之前 Instagram 的平均使用时间大概每天 42 分钟或 48 分钟之类。你看着这个数字会想：一天只有 24 小时，这已经占了他时间的二十分之一或三十分之一。你会觉得这对他一定很重要，一定是他人生里相当重要的一部分。可事实上，我一删，它就蒸发了。其实没那么难。

主持人 and you didn't miss it. 而且你并不想念它。

James Clear No. And now I think the one interesting question to play with is what do you do when there's nothing to do? 不想念。现在我觉得一个有意思的问题是：你做什么当没事可做的时候？

主持人 So, a lot of people when they are standing in line at the grocery store or they're waiting for the gas to fill up in the car or something like that, what do they do? Well, they pull their phone out, you know. Um, last night I went to a restaurant. every single person who was waiting in line for a table, you go in, you check in, you okay, we'll seat you in five minutes. Every single person pulled their phone out. Um, and so what do you do when you have nothing to do? And for most of us, a lot of the time it's check your phone, check your uh, you know, check social media. So you do need something to fill that space. So maybe, you know, what I did was I moved Audible to the home screen of my phone and I just said, well, I'll just listen to an audio book when, you know, when I'm usually doing that. you some try, you need something frictionless to fill that gap. Um, and I don't know what it should be for each person, but I think it's it's good to have a qu an answer to that question because otherwise you're going to have to just sit with, you know, there's nothing to do. 所以很多人在超市排队，或等汽车加油时做什么？他们把手机掏出来。昨晚我去一家餐厅。每一个等座位的人，你进去、报到，好，我们五分钟后安排你。每一个人都掏出了手机。所以没事可做时你做什么？对我们大多数人来说，很多时候就是看手机、看社交媒体。所以你确实需要某种东西去填那个空隙。我做的是把 Audible 移到手机主屏幕，跟自己说：平常会做那件事的时候，我就听有声书。你需要某种没有摩擦的东西去填那个空档。我不知道每个人该是什么，但我觉得最好有一个答案，否则你就只能坐在那儿面对：没事可做。

James Clear And what are your strategies on a desktop instead of a phone? 那在电脑上而不是手机上，你有什么策略？

主持人 Desktop, I'm okay with having social media. Um, I actually stay logged in on most of uh the social media accounts except for uh Twitter actually. I just I can't I'll I'll spend too much time on it. So, I forced myself to be logged out. Um, I also have tried to install um some additional barriers, which is I can't log in to any of my social accounts on my own. I have to text my assistant to send me the login because it's tied to a separate phone. Um, it's I can't even get past the two-factor um because it doesn't go to my phone anymore. So, there's just uh yeah, it's just me trying to like moderate my own behavior. 电脑上，我可以接受有社交媒体。大多数社交媒体账号我其实保持登录，除了 Twitter。我就是忍不住，会花太多时间。所以我强迫自己登出。我也试着加了一些额外障碍：我没法自己登录任何一个社交账号。我必须发短信给助理，让她把登录信息发给我，因为它绑在另一部手机上。我甚至过不了两步验证，因为验证码不再发到我的手机。所以这就是我在试着调节自己的行为。

James Clear I love it. what upstream habits are most important for people to think about or create 我喜欢这个。哪些上游习惯最值得人们去想、去建立？

主持人 that. So the I I didn't mention this earlier but I think this is also related to sequencing which is just asking you know what things are upstream from the outcomes that I want or from the habits that I want. It's a good it's a good way to a good frame for thinking about what you should focus on. You should generally try to do the things that are upstream first. Um probably the single most important habit that is upstream of all the other ones is some kind of habit of reflection review. The habit of thinking um it is 这个。我前面没提，但我觉得这也和排序有关，就是问你自己哪些事处在我想要的结果、或我想要的习惯的上游。这是思考该专注什么的一个好框架。一般应先做上游的事。大概所有习惯里最重要的上游习惯，是某种反思、回顾的习惯。思考的习惯。

主持人 so unlikely that um whatever you are working on now is the best use of your time is it's almost impossible. And so I think Sam Alman has some line where he says you should have a very high bar for working on anything other than thinking about what to work on. Um because that's going to be the biggest point of leverage is choosing a better thing to focus your attention on. 你现在正在做的事刚好是时间的最佳用法，这种可能性极低，几乎不可能。Sam Altman 好像有一句话：除了思考该做什么之外，你对着手做任何事都该设很高的门槛。因为最大的杠杆点，就是选出更好的一件事去把注意力放上去。

James Clear And so many people are, you know, I I was like this too. If you have if you're the type of person who has a very good work ethic and hard work has benefited you a lot in your life, you get to a point where you start to use it as a crutch because you're like, well, I'll just work my way out of it. You know, I'll just I'll just work harder and that's a way to solve this problem. But you cannot outwork the person who's working on a better thing. And so um it is possible if you really grind maybe you can work 10% harder or 20% harder 所以很多人——我自己。也是这样。如果你是那种职业道德很好、努力工作让你受益很多的人，你会走到一个点，开始把它当拐杖：我只要更努力就能走出来。我只要更拼命干，就能解决这个问题。可你拼不过那个在做更好事情的人。所以，如果你真的死磕，也许能比现在再努力 10% 或 20%，

James Clear than you are now. But if you work on the right thing you get 100x of the results or thousandx the results. And so what you need I I almost feel like we should change the definition of what it means to work hard. It should not only mean putting in the hours. It should also mean outthinking the other person. If you're not outthinking them, you're not outworking them. And so, um, a habit of reflection review is probably the single most important habit. You need to create some time in your week to sit down and think, am I spending my precious time and energy, my one precious life on the things that I want to be spending it on? And I don't know any other way to do that than to make some space to think. you know, if you just keep your head down and work hard, it's just really unlikely that you're going to be spending it in the right way. So, I have a couple different ways I do it. Um, I do a weekly review every Friday where I 但如果你做对的事，结果可能是 100 倍或 1000 倍。所以我几乎觉得，我们应该改一改「努力工作」的定义。它不该只意味着投入小时数，也该意味着比对方想得更深。如果你没有想得更深，你就没有比对方更努力。所以反思、回顾的习惯，大概是最重要的习惯。你需要在一周里腾出时间坐下想：我是不是把宝贵的时间、精力和这一次珍贵的人生，花在了我想花的事情上？除了给思考留出空间，我不知道还有别的办法。如果你只是埋头苦干，极不可能刚好花对地方。我有几种做法。每周五我会做一次周回顾，

James Clear sit down that's mostly related to business stuff. So, you know, it's looking at metrics and how things are going and, you know, subscribers and revenue and expenses and all that stuff. It's just a quick check-in. Most weeks, nothing happens. I just look at stuff and it's fine. But occasionally you'll get a week where you see a trend and it's like, "Oh, that's been going down for 3 weeks straight, like what's going on there?" or something like that. So, it's just a way to kind of notice red flags when they come up. Um, the more important one is I do an annual review and the annual review is more about values. It's more about what do I say is important to me? Who am I the type of person or you know, who am I trying to be as a person? and then looking at how I spent my last year and saying,"Well, did that match up or not?" My calendar plays a really critical role there. I go 坐下主要看生意方面的事。看指标、事情进展、订阅数、收入、开支之类。就是一次快速核对。大多数星期什么也不会发生。我看看，一切正常。但偶尔会有一周你看到趋势：哦，这个已经连降三周了，怎么回事？之类。所以这是一种注意到红旗的办法，当它们出现时。更重要的是年度回顾。年度回顾更多关于价值观。我口中什么对我重要？我是哪种人，或者说我在试着成为哪种人？然后看过去一年我怎样花时间，问：这两者对得上吗？日历在这里非常关键。我会

James Clear through my calendar in detail. I look at how many workouts did I do last year, how many did I do each month, what was my average per month? I look at how many places did I travel to, how many nights did I spend away from home, is that enough or not enough, like how did that feel? Um, I look at how many articles I published or newsletters I published, you know, things like that. And so it's kind of the chance for me to check in on my production and time for the last year. And then you look at your values and you say, "Well, you said this was important to you. Is that actually where you spent your time?" And so it's a way to course correct. Um, the last two years it's been kind of interesting because I I usually do that annual review in December and I have continued to keep the document open all year long and I keep coming back to it and trying to write like new principles at the top of it or whatever to help me course correct. 详细过一遍日历。看去年练了多少次、每个月多少、月均多少。看去了多少地方、离家过了多少夜，够不够，感觉怎样。看发了多少篇文章或 newsletter。这是我核对过去一年产出和时间的机会。然后你看自己的价值观，说：你说过这对你重要。时间真的花在那里了吗？所以这是一种校正航向的办法。过去两年有点意思，因为我通常在 12 月做年度回顾，然后整年把那份文档开着，不断回去，试着在顶部写下新原则之类，帮自己校正。

主持人 Um, 比如我的一条——我甚至不确定它是否真的说得通——过去一年的一条原则是。

James Clear like one of my I don't even know if it really makes sense, but one of my principles for the last year was like move like thunder. Um, and so it's like you don't really see it, but then all of a sudden there's this big crash. And um, that's the that's kind of like I'm trying to do fewer things but with a bigger impact. And so I just have little lines like that that are at the top to try to keep me on track with, you know, what I'm hoping to do that year. 像雷一样行动。你不太看得见，然后突然有一声大响。意思是：我试着少做一些事，但每一件冲击更大。所以顶部就有这类短句，试着让我这一年对准想做的事。

主持人 Do you have a check-in with your wife? 你会和妻子做核对吗？

James Clear Yeah, we um, we don't have like a formal check-in. I don't treat it like a one-on-one that you would do like in a company or something like that, but what we have, you know, like a board meeting. 会。我们没有那种正式核对。我不会把它当成公司里那种一对一，或董事会那种。

主持人 Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It just feel it just feels like too structured and weird, you know. Um, but the biggest thing that we've done the last couple years is a monthly date night and just making sure that that actually happens every month, which we have for like probably I don't know probably, you know, 24 to 30 straight months now. Um, has been huge. It's the one time what we say is it's the one time that we actually talk, which sounds silly because we're talking all the time,right? But everything is logistics. It's all tasks and figuring out what to do with the kids and you know it's like there's all these things that need to be done. It's all jobs to be done and then um you go out for a couple hours and you're like oh now we it's actually we can actually talk you know so I think that has been uh that's been really valuable. 对。对。不知道，就是觉得太结构化、太怪。但过去几年我们做的最大一件事，是每月一次约会夜，并确保每个月真的发生。大概已经连续 24 到 30 个月了。这非常重要。我们说，这是我们真正谈话的那一次。听起来有点傻，因为我们一直在说话，对吧？但全是后勤。全是任务、弄清孩子们怎么办。有那么多事要做，全是待办的工作。然后你们出去几个小时，才会觉得：哦，现在我们真正能谈话了。所以我觉得这非常有价值。

James Clear I think that's so important. 我觉得这非常重要。

主持人 What popular habits do you think are garbage? 哪些流行的习惯你觉得是垃圾？

James Clear H the only one that's coming to me right now is consuming the news. um and browsing social media. Those are the two that I just feel like I wonder, you know, we have a uh one of our grandparents is in their her 90s and um we talked to her and it's kind of like, oh yeah, we smoked when we were younger, but like nobody knew, you know, like they're like we didn't realize like everybody did it. It wasn't, you know, it was just like how it was. And I wonder like when I'm 94, like what am I going to be saying where it's like we were all on social media, nobody knew, you know, like we didn't realize. And I don't mean to criticize social media too much because like obviously there are benefits from it. But um I do I do wonder what we're going to look back on and be like yeah we didn't quite realize the full effect of all of it. Um and it was kind of like you know messing with our minds. So increasingly, I mean, we're moving to a world, I don't think people quite realize it yet, where if 此刻想到的只有看新闻，以及刷社交媒体。就是这两件。我会想：我们有一位祖辈已经 90 多岁，我们跟她聊，她会说：哦对，我们年轻时抽烟，但当时没人知道。我们没意识到，大家都抽，就是那样。我在想，等我 94 岁的时候，我会说什么：我们当时都在社交媒体上，没人知道，我们没意识到。我不是想过度批评社交媒体，它显然也有好处。但我确实会想，我们回头看时会不会说：对，我们当时没完全意识到这一切的全部影响。它有点在扰乱我们的头脑。所以越来越——我们正在进入一个世界，我觉得人们还没完全意识到——如果你

James Clear you and I open the same article in the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, it's going to be two different versions of that article that's based on our browsing history, our political preferences. And I'm not saying they're doing that today, but you can see the technology is sort of formulated. 和我打开《华尔街日报》或《纽约时报》同一篇文章，会是基于浏览历史和政治偏好的两个不同版本。我不是说他们今天已经在这样做，但你可以看到技术已经差不多成形了。

主持人 I kind of feel like the only way to win is to not play the game, 我有点觉得，唯一能赢的办法就是不玩这个游戏。

James Clear you know? So that that's why I've sort of checked out in a lot of ways. Um, we have two friends who are our age who have never had social media accounts and I'm like, man, I kind of wonder what it's like sometimes. Like that's kind of I I I don't necessarily like envy them, but I do look at that and I'm like, that's kind of a refreshing way to live, you know? 所以我在很多方面已经退出了。 我们有两个同龄朋友，从来没有社交媒体账号。我会想，天哪，我有点好奇那是什么感觉。我不一定羡慕他们，但看着会觉得：那是一种很清爽的活法。

主持人 And it is interesting how uh essential it feels in the moment. It feels like, oh, I can't really give this up because this is a really big important part of my life. But if you can get yourself to give it up for a month or something, you realize actually life goes on just fine. Um there's you can still live a very rich and full and fulfilling life and it plays no no role in it. So um yeah, giving I think giving that up has been good. 有意思的是，当下它感觉多么必不可少。你会觉得：哦，我没法放弃这个，因为它是我人生里很大、很重要的一部分。但如果你能让自己放弃一个月之类，就会发现人生其实照常过得很好。你仍然可以过一种非常丰富、完整、充实的生活，而它完全不在其中扮演角色。所以我觉得放弃这个是好的。

James Clear What's the two-minute rule? two-minute rule 是什么？

主持人 Two-minute rule is very simple. It just says take whatever habit you're trying to focus on and scale it down to something that takes 2 minutes or less to do. So read 30 books a year becomes read one page or do yoga 4 days a week becomes take out my yoga mat. You know sometimes I mention those examples to people and they kind of resist it a little bit. You know one guy who's like okay buddy. You know like I know the real goal isn't just to take my yoga mat out. You know I'm actually trying to do the workout. So I understand where people are coming from. But the two-minute rule does something important. You know I have this reader. His name was Mitch. I mentioned him in Ato atomic habits and he started going to the gym and he lost over 100 pounds. He's kept off for more than a decade now. But when he first started to go, he two-minute rule 非常简单：把你想专注培养的那个习惯，缩小成只要两分钟或更短就能做完的事。所以「一年读 30 本书」变成「读一页」，「一周做四天瑜伽」变成「拿出瑜伽垫」。有时我跟人们提这些例子，他们会有点抵触。有个人会说：好吧伙计。我知道真正的目标不是只把瑜伽垫拿出来。我其实是想完成那次训练。我理解人们从哪来。但 two-minute rule 做了一件重要的事。我有一位读者，叫 Mitch。我在 Atomic Habits 里提到过他。他开始去健身房，减了超过 100 磅，到现在已经维持十多年了。但他刚开始去的时候，

主持人 had a rule where he wasn't allowed to stay at the gym for longer than 5 minutes. So he get in the car, drive to the gym, get out, do half an exercise, get back in the car, drive home. And it sounds silly, right? It sounds like kind of ridiculous, like, oh, clearly this is not going to get the guy the results he wants. 有一条规则：不准在健身房待超过 5 分钟。所以他上车、开车去健身房、下车、做半个动作、再上车、开车回家。听起来很傻，对吧？听起来有点荒唐：哦，这显然没法让他得到想要的结果。

James Clear But what you realize is he was mastering the art of showing up. you know, he was becoming the type of person that went to the gym four days a week, even if it was only for 5 minutes. And I think this is a very deep truth about habits, which is a habit must be established before it can be improved. You know, it has to become the standard in your life before you can scale it up and optimize and turning it into something more. You need to standardize before you optimize. 可你后来会明白，他是在掌握「到场」这门功夫。他在成为那种一周去健身房四天的人，哪怕每次只有 5 分钟。我认为这是关于习惯的一个很深的事实：一个习惯必须先建立，才能改进。它必须先成为你人生里的标准，你才能放大、优化，把它变成更多。你要先标准化，再去优化。

主持人 Yeah. 对。

James Clear And the two-minute rule helps you do that. It helps push back on that perfectionist tendency, that feeling that you need to have it all figured out or to do it perfectly to do it at all. I don't know why we do that with our habits. We get very all or nothing about them. You know, we're so focused on finding the best sales strategy, the perfect business idea, the ideal diet plan. We're so focused on optimizing that if we can't find the perfect one, we're like, well, I need to keep researching. But you need to master the art of showing up. You know, like if you can't go to the gym for five minutes four days a week, who cares how good the 45minute workout plan is? You know, it's just a theory at that point. Ed Latimore has that phrase or that quote where he says the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door. two-minute rule 帮你做到这一点。它帮你顶回那种完美主义倾向，那种觉得必须全部想清楚、必须做得完美才能开始的感觉。我不知道我们为什么对习惯会这样。我们变得非常非此即彼。我们太专注于找最好的销售策略、完美的商业点子、理想的饮食计划。我们太专注于优化，找不到完美的就说：那我得继续研究。但你需要掌握「到场」这门功夫。如果你一周四天、每次五分钟都去不了健身房，那 45 分钟训练计划再好又有什么用？到那一步它只是理论。Ed Latimore 有一句话：健身房里最重的重量，是大门。

主持人 Yeah. 对。

James Clear Like there are a lot of things in life that are like that. You know, the hardest step is the first one. The most difficult action is the first movement. So, you need to master the first step, master stage one, and then advance. I I just like this principle of you should try to use your current advantages to gain new advantages. So, you know, early on, like if I look at my entrepreneurial career, um, early on, I had very few advantages. You know, I had no money, no resources, no connections. But what did I have? I had time. And so, for the first three years, I wrote a new article every Monday and Thursday. And I would spend on average, I would spend between like 15 and 20 hours on each article. The short the fastest I ever did one was eight hours. Um, the longest was like 40 something, but that was rare. Um, but you know, if you if you spend 20 hours on two articles a week, that's 40-hour week right there. And most people are not spending that much time on a 2,000word article. And so my mission was just to try to make it the most useful, 人生里很多事都是这样。最难的一步是第一步。最难的动作是第一个动作。所以你要先掌握第一步、掌握第一阶段，然后再推进。我喜欢这条原则：你应该试着用当前的优势去换新的优势。看我创业早期，一开始优势很少。没有钱、没有资源、没有人脉。可我有什么？我有时间。所以头三年，我每周一和周四各写一篇新文章。平均每篇花 15 到 20 小时。最快一篇是 8 小时。最长大概 40 多个小时，但那很少见。如果你一周两篇、每篇 20 小时，那就是一周 40 小时。大多数人不会在一篇 2000 字的文章上花那么多时间。所以我的任务只是尽量让它成为尽可能有用、

James Clear valuable, actionable article it could be. And if you do that a hundred times, you end up with a lot of really good content on there. And that helped the audience grow. So then I then I used my current advantage, which was time to create something of value. That helped grow the audience. Now I have 100,000 email subscribers. Now I have a new advantage um which is I have an audience. And so then that kept growing. I think once I got to around 200 is when I got the book deal for Atomic Habits. 有价值、可执行的文章。你这样做一百次，就会积累很多真正好的内容。那帮受众增长了。于是我用当时的优势——时间——去创造有价值的东西。那帮受众增长。现在我有 10 万邮件订阅。现在我有了新优势：我有受众。然后它继续增长。大概到 20 万左右时，我拿到了 Atomic Habits 的出版合约。

James Clear So you use your new advantage to gain another one. Now I have a book deal um and spent the next three years writing the book. Um then you have a bestselling book. That's another advantage. And you can just, you know, you see how you try to like lever up um one after the other and you start to accumulate these these new advantages and it puts you in a much different position. Um now there's obviously some patience that needs to come with that, right? Like I just described something in 30 seconds that took like seven years, you know? Um so it takes a while. But sometimes uh people will say, "Oh, how did Atomic Habits become this bestseller or whatever?" And really what you're seeing when the book comes out is the release of potential energy that was built over like five years prior. You know, it's not like it happened overnight. It was the five years of building an audience of hundreds of thousands of people, meeting other authors, going on podcasts 于是你用新优势再换下一个。现在我有出版合约，接下来三年写这本书。然后你有一本畅销书。那又是一个优势。你会看到你怎样一个接一个地杠杆上去，开始积累这些新优势，把自己放到一个完全不同的位置。当然这需要耐心，对吧？我刚才用 30 秒描述的这件事实际花了大概七年。所以这需要时间。但有时人们会说：哦，Atomic Habits 怎么就成了畅销书？你真正看到的，是书出版时释放出来的势能，那是前面大概五年建起来的。不是一夜之间发生的。是五年里建立起几十万受众、认识其他作者、上播客

James Clear and doing interviews. You know, all that stuff was released around the same time, but it was it took a while for it to get built up. So anyway, that's just another one of my little principles, which is use your current advantages to gain new advantages. One of the things that prevents people from doing things is they just don't feel like it. How do we become stronger than our feelings? I think it's okay if you don't feel like it. Um I think sometimes it's a signal, you know, like you should procrastination is not always a bad thing. If you're procrastinating on something, something sometimes it's a signal that you don't actually want that thing. Uh which is fine. I for a long time I so I I was good in school. I got good grades. It was like a game for me that I tried to win. You know, I didn't really care about whether I was learning. I cared about was I getting A's, you know, am I am I succeeding? Um, which may not be the way that you want to go through school, but that's, you know, that's how I treated it at the 做采访。那些东西大约同时释放出来，但建起来花了很久。所以这是我另一条小原则：用当前的优势去换新的优势。阻止人们去做的一件事是：他们就是不想做。我们怎样变得比自己的感觉更强？我觉得不想做也没关系。有时那是一个信号。拖延并不总是坏事。如果你在拖延某件事，有时那是一个信号：你其实并不想要那件事。这没问题。很长一段时间——我在学校成绩很好。对我来说像一场要赢的游戏。我不太在乎自己有没有在学，我在乎的是有没有拿到 A，我有没有在成功。这也许不是你想过学校的方式，但当时我就是这样对待它的。

James Clear time. And, um, so for a long time, if you asked me when I was in college, what are you going to do? I said I was going to go to medical school. Um, it was something that I I liked. I do think I would like a lot about being a doctor or a surgeon. There's I think there's a lot about that profession that would I would align with who I am. But there's also probably 30% or 40% that would not have been a good fit for me. And um I kept saying that because it's the type of thing that you can say and never be criticized for. You know, like you go home at Thanksgiving or Christmas and people are like, "What are you going to do?" And you're like, "I'm going to go to medical school." And everybody says, "That's great." You know, um and you know, some people should be doctors, but what I kept procrastinating on was studying for the MCAT. the entrance exam and that was kind of a sign, you know, it was it was a sign that I didn't really want to do this because I wasn't fully in. Um, and I ignored that for a 所以很长一段时间，大学时如果有人问我以后做什么，我说我要去医学院。那是我喜欢的事。我确实觉得当医生或外科医生，有很多我会喜欢。那份职业里有很多会和我是谁对齐。但也大概有 30% 或 40% 不会适合我。而我一直那样说，因为它是那种你说了永远不会被批评的事。感恩节或圣诞节回家，人们问你以后做什么，你说我要去医学院，每个人都会说太好了。有些人确实该当医生。可我一直在拖延的，是准备 MCAT，入学考试。那其实是一个信号：我其实并不想做这件事，因为我没有完全投入。而我把那个信号忽略了

James Clear long time. Um, and took it and didn't do that well and you know, but it's like yeah, like this wasn't that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It was a sign that I realized at some intuitive level that this isn't actually what I wanted and it was just a story that I kept saying. Um whereas other stuff like writing about habits for example I I was interning at an orthopedic medical practice over the summer and I got to do a lot of cool stuff. I went in on like 35 surgeries and got to like shadow that and watch it. That was really neat. I did some back-end billing stuff for the practice. But each afternoon I usually ended up with about two hours where I was supposed to be working till 5:00 and I didn't have anything to do. And so I sat down and I started writing about habits. I just had this word doc. It was just kind of like James' thoughts on habits and it got to be about 60 pages long and I was like you should publish something of this you know this is kind of ridiculous keep writing about all this like what are you going to do it for kind of back to my earlier point 很久。后来去考了，考得也不好。但这不一定是坏事。它是一个信号：我在某种直觉层面已经意识到，这其实不是我想要的，只是我一直在讲的一个故事。而另一些事，比如写习惯——那年夏天我在一家骨科诊所实习，做了很多很酷的事。我进过大概 35 台手术，去观摩、看着。那真的很有意思。我也帮诊所做一些后台账单。但每天下午我通常会剩大概两个小时，本该工作到 5 点，却没什么可做。于是我坐下开始写习惯。就是一份 Word 文档，有点像 James 对习惯的想法，后来大概有 60 页。我就想：你该把其中一些发表出来。一直写这些有点荒唐，你到底要拿它做什么。这又回到我前面说的

James Clear about you should share your work publicly and nobody asked me to do that you know um but I so it's kind of like what are you what are you doing on nights and weekends what are you doing with your free time maybe that's what you should be doing during the week 你应该公开分享作品。没有人要求我那样做。所以有点像：你晚上和周末在做什么？你把空闲时间花在什么上？也许那才是你工作日该做的。

主持人 and it was like very much that sort of energy and So you look at medical school and you're like, well, I was procrastinating on a key part of it. And then you look at the habits and like writing part and you're like, well, you were doing this and nobody was even asking you to. Um, and so those are two very different forms of energy. And I think trying to find the things where you are uh running toward the next thing, not away from the last thing. Like same same direction, totally different energy. What are you naturally running toward? What is naturally pulling you in? And those are the places that you should double down on. One of the things that you said that stood out to me there was nobody could argue with the fact that I was I was pursuing this 就是那种能量。所以你看医学院：我在拖延它的一个关键部分。再看习惯和写作那一块：你在做这件事，甚至没人要求你做。所以这是两种非常不同的能量。我认为要找的是那些你在朝下一件事跑、而不是在逃离上一件事的地方。同一个方向，完全不同的能量。你自然在朝什么跑？什么在自然把你拉过去？那些才是你该加码的地方。你刚才说的一件让我印象很深的是：没有人能反驳我在追求这个

主持人 goal and so many people seem to optimize their life in in this way, right? Where I'm not standing out. I'm not spiky. I'm nobody can 目标。那么多人似乎都在这样优化人生，对吧？我不突出，我没有棱角，没有人能

James Clear what will you not be criticized for? How do we develop the courage to I mean the book the courage to be disliked but basically the courage to um yeah it's kind of the I have started to call it internally to myself I've started to call it the tyranny of labels you know it is the the tyranny of being beholden to a label it's the need to be described in a certain way to need to be called a best-selling author or a surgeon or a lawyer or whatever the label is. If you need that label, then you are beholden to doing it that way. 你做什么不会被批评？我们怎样培养那种勇气——我是说 The Courage to Be Disliked 那本书——基本上就是那种勇气。我开始在心里把它叫做标签的暴政。就是受制于一个标签的暴政：需要被用某种方式描述，需要被叫做畅销书作者、外科医生、律师，或无论那个标签是什么。如果你需要那个标签，你就受制于必须那样做。

主持人 But if you can release yourself from the label and instead ask yourself, what type of lifestyle do I want or what type of impact do I want to make regardless of what the actual label is? Now, all of a sudden, a ton of options open up. So, as an example, like I have a couple friends and family members who are professors. If you need to be a professor, if you need to have that label, you're very limited in what your job options are. But if instead you ask yourself, well, what kind of lifestyle do I want? Okay, well, a professor's off in the summer. I like the flexibility of that lifestyle. Or what type of impact do I want to make? Well, professors get to teach. They teach concepts to other people. Well, if you say, if you just 但如果你能从标签里松开自己，转而问：我想要什么样的生活方式，或我想做成什么样的影响，不管。实际标签是什么？突然之间，大量选项就打开了。举个例子：我有几位朋友和家人是教授。如果你必须当教授、必须有那个标签，你的工作选项就非常有限。但如果你问自己：我想要什么样的生活方式？好，教授夏天放假，我喜欢那种灵活。或者我想做成什么样的影响？教授能教书，把概念教给别人。那如果你只是说：

主持人 say, I want a flexible life where I get to teach people. There are tons of options. You could be a podcaster, you could be a YouTuber, you could write, you could do, you know, you can do almost infinite, you could be a coach. There's so many different ways to teach um and to have a flexible life. But if it needs to be about the label, now all of a sudden your subset of options is very limited. And um I have seen this again and again with people who I think are very talented and intelligent but they kind of restrict themselves because they have to have the label. 我想要一种灵活的生活，并且能教别人。选项多得是。你可以做播客、做 YouTuber、写作，几乎无限，你可以当教练。教人、过灵活生活的方式非常多。但如果必须关于那个标签，选项子集突然就变得很窄。我一次又一次看到：有些人我觉得非常有才华、非常聪明，却因为必须有那个标签而限制了自己。所以如果你能放下那个，松开那种必须被某种方式描述、必须有某种地位标记的需求，转而问自己：我想做成什么样的影响？我想要什么样的生活方式？突然之间，你实现它的选项就多得多。

James Clear And so I think if you can give that up, if you can release that need to be described in a certain way, to have a certain status marker, but instead ask yourself, what type of impact do I want to make? What type of lifestyle do I want to have? Now all of a sudden you have a lot more options for making it happen. 很多人消费的是某件事的大意。比如 James，你读完整本书，也许只带走一个想法，再把那个想法压成一条

主持人 A lot of people consume the gist of something. So if you think of uh James, you know, you read a full book, you might take away one idea from that book, you you compress that idea into a thought, you post that thought on Twitter. Yeah. 念头，发到 Twitter 上。对。

James Clear Somebody reads that thought 有人读到那个念头。

主持人 and they think that they understand at the same level that you do, but you've distilled all this experience into that. How do you think about when it's okay to have the gist of something versus when you need to deep dive and it's actually important to go into the weeds on things? It seems I I'll put this in context. It seems more and more people are refusing to deep dive and we're just sort of like skimming on the surface of knowledge. 就以为自己理解到了和你同样的层次，可你是把全部经验蒸馏进去的。你怎样判断什么时候有大意就够了，什么时候需要深潜、真正钻进细节？我把它放进这个背景里：越来越多人拒绝深潜，我们只是在知识的表面滑过去。完全正确。很大一部分是媒介还是人的问题，有点像「媒介即信息」。Twitter 或 Instagram 的形态会把你逼进去。那不是一个能展开整本书论证、甚至 30 分钟论证的地方。一切都被压成标题或一条推文。所以很难一边玩那个游戏，

James Clear That's absolutely right. Uh a lot of that is kind of a is it the medium or the me? The medium is the message sort of thing. You get forced into it by the shape of Twitter or the shape of Instagram or whatever. It's not it's not a place where you can unpack a booklength argument or even a 30 minute argument. You know, it's everything is compressed to a headline or a tweet. So, it's hard to play that game to be browsing on there for 30 minutes or 60 minutes or an hour and a half a day and uh also be nuanced. You know, you need to you need to play a different game if you want the nuance. Um but separately thinking about this for me you're right that is a big part of what I do is I try to so I I when I was working on Atomic Habits I had 12 chapters at the time there ended up being 20 but at the time there were 12 and I wrote the chapter 每天在上面逛 30 分钟、60 分钟或一个半小时，同时又保持细腻。如果你想要细腻，就得玩另一种游戏。但分开来说，对我而言你说得对，这是我工作很大一部分：我试着——写 Atomic Habits 时，当时有 12 章，后来变成 20 章，但当时是 12 章。我把章节

James Clear title on an index card for each of them. I laid all 12 out on the floor and then I went to my bookshelf and I grabbed each book that was relevant to that chapter and usually there were like four or five or six for each chapter. So I had these little stacks of books by each index card and then I looked at each of those books and I said, "How can I take everything that is genuinely useful from this book?" Like when you sit down, you read these 200 pages, what are the two or three ideas that you actually remember or that made an impact or what are the 20 pages that really drove that point home? Can I take everything that's actually useful about this book and compress it into this chapter? And so that if you read this one chapter now, you don't have to read those six books. And I actually think that is a good measure for what makes a great non-fiction book is how many other books can you make irrelevant by writing this. Now that you've read Atomic Habits, you don't need to read these other 30. Um, and I don't know if I actually hit that measure or not, right? Like that's for 标题分别写在索引卡上。把 12 张都铺在地板上，然后走到书架，把和那一章相关的每本书都拿下来，通常每章有四五本或六本。于是每张索引卡旁边都有一小叠书。然后我看着那些书问：我怎样把这本书里真正有用的东西都拿出来？你坐下读这 200 页，真正记住、真正产生影响的两三个想法是什么，或者真正把那个点打进去的是哪 20 页？我能不能把这本书里真正有用的东西全部压进这一章？这样你读完这一章，就不必再读那六本。我其实觉得，衡量一本出色非虚构作品的一个标准是：你写完之后，能让多少其他书变得不必再读。现在你读了 Atomic Habits，就不必再读另外那 30 本。我不知道自己有没有真正达到那个标准，对吧？那是给

James Clear the readers to decide. But you're never going to hit it unless you strive for it. And so that was part of the objective was to take everything that was useful and to compress it into this higher signal um, you know, piece. The first draft of Atomic Habits was like 700 and 12 pages or something like that. Um the final one was, you know, 230 or whatever. And so, um, it got compressed a lot and I my goal was for it to be,um, as high signal as as it could possibly be. So, that is a big part of what I do. Um, and you're right that if you just read the compressed version, you don't necessarily have the same nuance or depth that somebody else has. It's tricky to figure out like when do you need that and when can you just have the short version because like I said earlier in many areas of life good enough is good enough. And so giving somebody the compressed and actionable 读者来判断的。但你不去争取，就永远达不到。所以目标的一部分，就是把所有有用的东西压进这篇信号更高的作品。Atomic Habits 初稿大概 712 页之类。定稿大概 230 页。所以压了很多。我的目标是让它信号尽可能高。这是我工作很大一部分。你说得对，如果只读压缩版，你不一定拥有别人那种细腻或深度。很难判断什么时候需要那个，什么时候短版就够，因为我前面说过，人生很多地方「够好」就是够好。所以把压缩过、可执行的版本给人，

James Clear version is enough for them to get what they want. And then really the way to honor that is to let them have all the rest of their time back. You know like that's one of my big principles is that don't waste the reader's time. You need to have an extreme respect for the reader's time. Almost like a obsession over the reader's time. Every word that you write is actually an obstacle that the reader does not want to have to go through. Your book is an obstacle between them and the result that they want. And so every word needs to earn its place in that way. Um and if you take that seriously then it forces you to make sure that the the book is even better. Um but certainly there is a time for nuance and depth. And I think that's one of the nice things about um books is that they provide that space. So my strategy for it is I try to have the 就足以让他们得到想要的。真正尊重这一点的方式，是把其余时间全部还给他们。这是我一条重要原则：不要浪费读者的时间。你需要对读者的时间有极度的尊重，几乎像一种执着。你写的每一个字，其实都是读者不想穿过的障碍。你的书是他们和想要的结果之间的障碍。所以每一个字都需要以那种方式挣到自己的位置。如果你认真对待这一点，就会倒逼自己把书做得更好。但细腻和深度当然也有它们的时刻。我觉得书的一个好处，就是提供那个空间。所以我的策略是：我试着既有

James Clear compressed version which is like the sound bite that's sticky and that people can remember they can walk around with it in their mind. So things from atomic habits like every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. Great. That's kind of sticky. You can remember that as you go throughout your day whether you're working on a fitness habit or a parenting habit or a writing habit. you know, you can be like, "Okay, I'm trying to cast a vote for who I am." It's like a little shortorthhand that you can take with you, but then the whole chapter is 20 pages. You know, we're unpacking why identity is powerful and how habits and identity intertwine with each other and why that's useful in some of the research and so on. So, the book gives you the space to make the argument, but the sound bite gives you something sticky that you can walk around with, you know, or like you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. I mean, a lot of people like that phrase or, you know, a lot of companies or teams have used get 1% better every day. It's so it's good to have the compressed versions because they it's nice to have that 压缩版，那种粘得住、人们能记住、能带在脑子里走的金句。比如 Atomic Habits 里：你采取的每一个行动，都像是在为你希望成为的那种人投一票。很好，这粘得住。你一天里无论在做健身习惯、养育习惯还是写作习惯，都能记住。你会想：好，我在为自己是谁投票。这是你可以随身带着的小速记。但整章有 20 页。我们在展开为什么身份认同有力量，习惯和身份怎样缠在一起，以及一些研究为什么有用。所以书给你展开论证的空间，金句给你能带着走的粘性。或者像：你不会上升到目标的高度，你会下落到系统的水平。很多人喜欢那句话。很多公司或团队用过「每天好 1%」。所以有压缩版是好的，因为有那种

James Clear shortorthhand as you go through your day to keep you on track, but the book gives the real estate to unpack the full argument. 速记帮你一天里保持对准，而书提供展开完整论证的地产。

主持人 Why do you think that we focus on complexity when simplicity usually carries most of the outcome? 为什么我们会盯着复杂性，而简单通常才承载大部分结果？

James Clear We have a very strong desire to believe that there's a secret. You know, people want to know what the secrets are. um like The Athletic ran this article a couple years ago about um Michael Phelps and his breathing techniques and it was one of the most popular articles that you know they had and people people want to believe oh there's a secret that he's doing that I'm not doing and if I knew what that was then you know it would make the difference and I'm not saying that they don't make a difference they probably did help him but also you know he's 6'6 and built like a fish and you know like he's perfectly designed for this, you know, for this outcome. Um, and so, uh, yeah, was it the breathing techniques or 我们有很强的欲望去相信存在某个秘密。人们想知道秘密是什么。比如 The Athletic 几年前发过一篇关于 Michael Phelps 和他呼吸技术的文章，是他们最受欢迎的文章之一。人们想相信：哦，他在做某个我没做的秘密，如果我知道那是什么，就能拉开差距。我不是说那些没有用，它们大概确实帮了他。可他也身高 6 英尺 6 英寸，体型像鱼，几乎是为这个结果完美设计的。所以，是呼吸技术，还是

James Clear was the fact that he like didn't miss a swim for like, you know, 16 straight years? He's in the pool, like, you know, there's there's so many other pieces of it. Um, so we want to believe that there's some secret behind it, but a lot of it is like I sometimes when people will come to me and ask about building an audience or um, you know, launching a newsletter or writing a book, getting in shape even, a lot a lot of habits are like this. Um, I'll say like, well, you know, don't miss a workout for two years and then get back to me, you know, like go write write two articles a week for two years and then get back to me, you know, like have you done the simple version yet? You know, like have you done the very go from 99.8 to 99.9, but they're they're actually at 45. 他连续 16 年几乎没有错过一次游泳这个事实？他就在泳池里。还有那么多其他部分。所以我们想相信背后有某个秘密，但很多时候——有时人们来问我怎样建立受众、怎样推出 newsletter、怎样写书，甚至怎样健身，很多习惯都是这样。我会说：好，你两年里不要错过一次训练，然后再来找我。每周写两篇文章，写两年，然后再来找我。你做过简单版了吗？你是在从 99.8 走到 99.9，可他们其实还在 45。

主持人 Yeah. Yeah. Um, you need to I I guess the one way to think about it is, especially in the beginning, the primary bottleneck to results are are you doing the obvious things? You know, do do the obvious stuff first. There's probably only two or three pieces that you just need to do like are you showing up consistently? are you do? You know, just do the obvious things and that will get you 80% of the way there. And then once you're there, now you're in the arena. Now you're showing up each day. You've got plenty to optimize. But by trying to make it too complicated at the start, you have kind of like shortcut yourself or shortcircuited it. Um and you've also 对。对。一种想法是：尤其在开始时，结果的主要瓶颈是你有没有在做那些显而易见的事？先做显而易见的。大概只有两三块你需要做：你有没有持续到场？你有没有……先做显而易见的，那就能带你走完 80%。等到了那里，你才进了场。你每天都在到场，有的是可以优化的。但从一开始就搞得太复杂，等于自己抄了近路，或把自己短路了。你也把自己

主持人 put yourself in a um you've put yourself in a worse position because now you're focused on the wrong things and you're not doing the things that are going to get you the majority of the result. So u master the basics to start and then advance from there. 放到了更差的位置，因为你现在专注的是错的事，而没有做那些能给你大部分结果的事。所以先掌握基础，再从那里推进。

James Clear Somewhat related to that and actually related to the investing conversation we're having is how do you think about the relationship between outcome and ego? So our ego wants us to be the investor that beats the market but the actual outcome we want is maybe if the outcome is beating the market over a long period of time and we could do that in a way but there's no ego in buying Vanguard. 和这个有点相关，其实也和我们刚才谈投资有关：你怎样看结果和 ego 之间的关系？我们的 ego 想让我们成为打败市场的投资者，但我们真正想要的结果也许是：如果结果是长期打败市场，我们其实可以用某种方式做到，可买 Vanguard 没有 ego。

主持人 Yeah. Well, some sometimes I think we we think the outcome we want is one thing, but actually the outcome we want is the ego to be stroked. You know, it's like I wonder if like how many people would be VCs if you weren't allowed to tell people what you invested in. 对。有时我觉得，我们以为想要的结果是一件事，实际想要的却是 ego 被抚摸。我会想：如果不允许告诉别人你投了什么，还会有多少人去做 VC。

James Clear Oh yeah. 哦对。

主持人 Like if you couldn't tell people I was an early investor in Uber, you know, if you couldn't tell them I, you know, I invested in Facebook, would you still do it or you like how much of it how much of it is that label um that you like? So certainly some of it is the returns, but a lot of it is the social status and the praise. So there's and that's fine. I'm not necessarily criticizing that. Like we are social creatures, you know, we are primates that want to climb the social hierarchy. Like there's nothing odd about it. It's part 如果你不能告诉别人我是。 Uber 的早期投资人，不能告诉他们我投了 Facebook，你还会做吗？这里面有多少是你喜欢的那个标签？当然一部分是回报，但很大一部分是社会地位和称赞。这没问题。我不一定在批评这个。我们是社会性生物，是想爬社会层级的灵长类。这并不奇怪。它是

主持人 of human nature. But um I think we should at least admit it, you know, admit admit what's what's actually going on. Um we crave the the status as much as we crave the outcome. So, but back to your point about trying to balance ego and outcome and figuring out how to like walk that delicate dance between the two and not let your ego lead you astray. Some of the little phrases I try to remind myself of are like I I've been saying this a lot recently with one of the projects I'm working on. 人性的一部分。但我觉得至少该承认，承认实际在发生什么。我们对地位的渴望，和对结果的渴望一样强。回到你说的：怎样在 ego 和结果之间走那条细的舞步，不让 ego 把你带偏。我试着提醒自己的几句小话——最近在做一个项目时我常说：

主持人 I'll sit down to with the team and I'll tell them I don't need to be right. I just want us to get it right. Okay. So, it does I'm going to generate a lot of ideas and I'm going to share my thoughts on it but I don't need us to pick my idea. that is not the goal is not for we us to do what James says the goal is for us to get it right so what do we need to do you know to get there and then another follow-up question that I will often ask I I find it helpful for me to keep asking this question if I only ask it in one meeting it doesn't do it but if I ask it again and again it's what is not being said right now that needs to be said 我会和团队坐下，告诉他们：我不需要自己是对的。我只想我们把事情做对。我会产生很多想法，会分享我的看法，但我不需要选中的是我的想法。目标不是按 James 说的去做，目标是我们做对。那我们需要做什么才能到那里？然后我常问的一个后续问题——我发现要反复问才有用，只在一次会上问不够——如果我一次又一次问：此刻有什么该说却没被说出来的？

James Clear you know like what there's so many times when people you know I look at them I say what are you thinking right now that in two years because I'm a slow learner and I don't know yet, but I'll figure it out. And then you're going to be like, James isn't going to like that in two years, you know, but you can see it right now. I just don't I'm just not smart enough to ask about it yet. So, what needs to be said that isn't being said. Um, and I find that that question helps. But doing both of those things, saying I don't need to be right. I just want us to get it right. And then, what needs to be said right now that's not being said, it sets the table so that people can, you know, open up and share what they need to share. Um, so I come back to those two a lot. The other one that I come back to is telling myself, this is mostly just a reminder for myself that I am not right. I am trying to be less wrong. And if you start with the 有那么多次，我看着他们说：你现在在想什么——因为我学得慢，两年后我才会明白，然后你会想：James 两年后不会喜欢这个。可你现在就能看见。我只是还不够聪明，还问不到。所以，什么该说却没被说出来？我发现这个问题有帮助。但把这两件事都做了——说我不需要自己是对的，我只想我们做对；再说此刻有什么该说却没被说出来——就摆好了桌子，让人们能打开、分享他们需要分享的。所以我经常回到这两句。另一句我常对自己说的，主要是提醒自己：我不是对的。我是在试着少错一点。如果你从

James Clear position that I am already wrong, I don't know everything. I'm getting something that I believe right now is off, but I'm trying to become less wrong, then you're you're more in a position where you're trying to learn and less in a position where you're trying to defend. You know, if you believe that you're right, what's that line? It's like the fastest way to stop learning something is to believe you already know it. 这个位置出发：我已经是错的，我并不什么都知道，我现在相信的某件事是偏的，但我在试着少错一点——那你就更多处在学习的位置，更少处在防守的位置。如果你相信自己是对的，那句话怎么说的？停止学习某件事最快的办法，就是相信自己已经知道了。

主持人 Yeah. 对。

James Clear You know, it's like if you already believe that you're right, now you're not open to receiving. But if you believe that you're wrong and you're just trying to improve now, now you can come at it from a much more humble place and it doesn't need to be about you. So I those are I don't always get that stuff right, but those are those are things that I try to center myself with. Jeff Bezos had this saying that stuck with me ever since I heard it, which was basically, and I'm paraphrasing, that the people who are right a lot change their mind a lot. 如果你已经相信自己是对的，你就不会打开去接收。但如果你相信自己是错的，只是在试着改进，你就可以从一个谦卑得多的位置来面对，不必关于你自己。这些我并不总能做对，但它们是我试着用来把自己定住的东西。Jeff Bezos 有一句话，我一听到就记住了，大意是——我是在转述——经常对的人，经常改主意。

主持人 And they're rarely right at the beginning, but they're right at the end. And there's a huge difference between being right at the start and being right at the end. 他们很少一开始就对，但最后是对的。一开始对和最后对，差别非常大。这很好，因为一开始就对太难了。你的第一个想法刚好能成、刚好正确，这种可能性极低。你需要愿意在路上调整。那种灵活程度我认为至关重要。

James Clear Well, that's great because it's so hard to be right at the start. So unlikely that your first idea is the one that works, you know, or the one that's correct. I mean, you need to be willing to adjust along the way. And so that level of flexibility is I think critical. 你怎样看一致性和强度的关系？

主持人 How do you think about the relationship between consistency and intensity? 强度能造就好故事。比如：哦，我去做了一周静默

James Clear Intensity makes for a good story. You know, it's like, oh, I went to a silent meditation retreat for a week, you know, or I um I ran a marathon. Um you know, we launched this product faster than any other had been launched or what, you know, intensity makes for a good story, but consistency makes progress. You know, it's not about like, oh, I did a silent meditation for treat for a week. It's no, I, you know, I have a meditation practice. I do it for five minutes each morning. It's part of how I start my day. You know, that's when it's kind of part of your identity. Or, you know, I I go for a run three days a 冥想闭关，或者我跑了一场马拉松。我们推出这个产品比任何其他产品都快。强度能造就好故事，但一致性造就进步。不是「哦，我去做了一周静默冥想闭关」，而是：我有一套冥想练习，每天早上做五分钟，是我开启一天的一部分。那才有点成为身份的一部分。或者：我一周跑三天。

James Clear week. I really love how it makes me feel. 我真的很喜欢它给我的感觉。

主持人 Um, you know, that now it's it's part of your lifestyle. So, I think uh you can kind of draw this distinction between intensity is often about the story that you get to tell. Consistency is about the lifestyle that you live. And really what matters is how do you want to spend your days? You know, how do you want to show up as a person? What kind of identity do you want to have? And the great thing is that if you do a good job with the consistency, it develops your capacity to manage the intensity or to handle it. You know, I I like this saying, consistency enlarges ability. M 现在它成了你生活方式的一部分。所以可以这样区分：强度往往关于你能讲的故事。一致性关于你过的那种生活。真正重要的是：你想怎样度过每一天？你想作为什么样的人到场？你想有什么样的身份？很棒的是，如果你把一致性做好了，它会发展你管理强度、扛住强度的能力。我喜欢这句话：一致性放大能力。

James Clear by being more consistent, you enlarge your ability to handle the intense moments, to do the peak performances, to do the more impressive things. But it needs to start with a focus on consistency and lifestyle. And by doing it in that way, you flex those muscles sometimes literally uh and develop that ability. 更一致，你就放大了扛住高强度时刻、做出巅峰表现、做更令人印象深刻之事的能力。但需要从专注一致性和生活方式开始。这样去做，你就在锻炼那些肌肉——有时是字面意义上的——并发展出那种能力。

主持人 One thing you've written on recently is the relationship between belonging and accuracy. And I'm wondering if you can riff on that for a second. Humans are very social creatures. You know, we care a lot about what other people think about us. We are focused on status and prestige. We want to rise up the social hierarchy and be praised and rewarded. And all of that is very natural and makes a lot of sense. You know, people a lot of the time people will tell you don't care what other people think about you. But we all care what other people think often for a very good reason, which is if people think well of you, it benefits you in life. it, you know, it puts you in a good position. You are rewarded for it. It helps you accomplish things. It makes you safer. It it it just feels good. Um and so belonging is a critical part of being human. Um however, 你最近写过归属和准确性的关系。我想请你即兴讲一下。人类是非常社会性的生物。我们非常在乎别人怎样看我们。我们盯着地位和声望。我们想爬上社会层级，被称赞、被奖励。这一切都很自然，也很说得通。很多时候人们会告诉你：别在乎别人怎么想。可我们都在乎别人怎么想，而且常常有很好的理由：如果别人对你评价好，人生会受益。它把你放到更好的位置。你会因此被奖励。它帮你做成事。它让你更安全。它就是感觉很好。所以归属是作为人的关键部分。然而，

主持人 especially in the modern world, the desire to belong can offer often run counter to the desire to understand or be accurate. Um, and so if you have to choose between, well, I could believe this thing and be ostracized or criticized or outcast from my community, or I could believe this other thing, which may not be that accurate, but it will get me praised and rewarded and accepted by my community. A lot of the time, the desire to belong overpowers the desire to understand. It puts you in a position where you're like, well, you know, I could believe this fact that may or may not impact my daily life, or I could keep a good relationship with my wife and my best friend and my, you know, co-workers and so on. Um, and a lot of people choose 尤其在现代世界，归属的欲望常常会和理解、或准确的欲望对着干。所以如果你必须选：我可以相信这件事，然后被排斥、被批评、被自己的社区赶出去；或者我可以相信另一件事，它也许没那么。准确，但它会让我被称赞、被奖励、被社区接纳。很多时候，归属的欲望会压过理解的欲望。它把你放到这个位置：我可以相信这个也许影响、也许不影响日常生活的事实；或者我可以保住和妻子、最好的朋友、同事等人的关系。很多人会选择

主持人 the belonging over the accuracy. 归属，而不是准确性。

James Clear Do you think that applies outside of social groups too to our identity? Like if I identify as a Republican or Democrat, then this thought has the exact same impact. So earlier in this conversation we talked about the power that identity can have in building habits right like as you start to practice a habit you foster an identity and that puts you in a stronger place because once you take pride in being that kind of person you will fight to maintain the habit you fight to be the type of person who doesn't miss workouts the type of person who meditates each day or the type of person who writes consistently or whatever it is um because it's part of who you see yourself to be. But now we see that there's also a flip side to this or a dark side, a shadow side to identity, which is the tighter you cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it. And so once you have started 你觉得这是否也适用于社交群体之外，适用于我们的身份认同？比如如果我认同自己是共和党人或民主党人，这个念头会有完全一样的影响。所以这次谈话前面我们谈过身份认同在习惯养成里能有的力量：你开始练习一个习惯，就会培育一种身份，那会把你放到更强的位置，因为一旦你为成为。那样的人感到骄傲，你就会为维持这个习惯而战斗。你为成为那种不会错过训练的人、每天冥想的人、持续写作的人而战斗，无论那是什么，因为它是你看待自己的一部分。但现在我们也看到它有另一面，有暗面、阴影面：你把一种身份抓得越紧，就越难成长到它之外。所以一旦你开始

James Clear to identify as a certain type of person, once you adopt that label, oh, I am a member of this group or I am the type of person who believes this thing, it becomes hard to stretch and grow outside of that. And so eventually what you realize is that you simultaneously need to have two things. You need to be casting votes for the type of person that you wish to become, building up evidence of that identity that you want. But you also need to realize that your identity does not have to be fixed. You know, identity is an interesting word because there's pieces of it that you can't really get around. Like I am a male and a father and tall and those are all aspects that I'm not going to change about my identity. But there are other aspects of my identity that can be adjusted and can be, you know, uh, refined. So, you know, I'm a writer. I don't always have to be a writer. That's part of my identity right now. I could shift to something else. 认同自己是某种人，一旦你采纳那个标签：哦，我是这个群体的成员，或我是相信这件事的那种人，就很难伸展、成长到那外面。最终你会意识到，你需要同时拥有两件事。你需要为希望成为的那种人投票，积累你想要的那种身份的证据。但你也需要意识到：身份不必是固定的。身份是一个有意思的词，因为有些部分你绕不开。比如我是男性、是父亲、个子高，这些我都不会改。但身份的其他方面可以调整、可以打磨。比如我是写作者。我不必永远是写作者。那是我此刻身份的一部分。我可以转到别的。

主持人 And so, I sort of view it as like a painting that's always being retouched and kind of edited. And so, you're slightly adjusting the picture. And what you realize is that progress, both physical progress, but also mental internal progress requires unlearning. 所以我有点把它看成一幅。一直在被修、被改的画。你在轻微调整画面。你会意识到：进步，无论是身体上的进步，还是内心的进步，都需要忘却。

James Clear It requires the willingness to unlearn some of the identities that we have. And you see that when people are not willing to do that, they often get stuck. You know, it's like the it's the surgeon who you can imagine a surgeon who's done an operation a certain way for 20 years and then all of a sudden a new form of robotics comes in or something that changes it and they say, "Well, look, I have all these patients that I've served well for 20 years who had good outcomes. I'm not going to switch, but 5 years later, they're behind the curve." um or a teacher who has the same lesson plan they've been doing for 15 years and then all of a sudden they should update and use new tools or bring YouTube in or whatever and they don't and now all of a sudden they're starting to lose the 它需要愿意忘掉我们持有的某些身份。当人们不愿意那样做，他们常常会卡住。比如那位外科医生：你可以想象一位外科医生用某种方式做手术做了 20 年，然后突然来了一种新的机器人技术或某种改变，他们说：听着，我这 20 年服务过的那些病人结果都很好，我不会换。可五年后，他们就落在曲线后面了。或者一位老师用同一份教案教了 15 年，突然该更新、用新工具或把 YouTube 引进来，他们不改，然后突然开始失去。

James Clear students. 学生。

主持人 And it goes back to that that line where the only bad mindset is the one that you're fixed in. 这又回到那句话：唯一糟糕的心态，是你被钉死在里面的那种。

James Clear You know, it's the one it's the one that you can't get out of. If you're stuck in this one way of thinking or one form of an identity, then you're not growing anymore. And so, uh, identity is both a powerful driver of change and a force that can help you establish a habit, but it also can be a pitfall to uh the next round of change and a reason that you use to prevent yourself from moving forward. 就是你出不来的那种。如果你卡在这一种思维方式或这一种身份形态里，你就不再成长了。所以身份既是改变的强大驱动，是帮你建立习惯的力量，但它也可以成为下一轮改变的陷阱，成为你用来阻止自己往前走的理由。

主持人 What's your exact process for learning new subjects as an adult? 你作为成年人学习新主题的具体过程是什么？

James Clear I don't know that I have an exact process. Uh although now that you say that so okay this is kind of interesting. I don't have an exact process in the sense that I haven't written it down. I I don't have I don't have like some template to give you but I do have a pattern that I go through very consistently when I'm trying to learn something new. Um I think some of this is my personality and how it gets expressed uh or maybe maybe like a strength even. Um and some of it is probably applicable to everybody. So I really like living by this little principle of broadfunnel tight filter. 我不确定自己有一套具体过程。不过你这么一说——好，这有点意思。我说没有具体过程，是指我没有写下来。我没有一份可以给你的模板，但我在学新东西时，有一套非常一致的模式。我觉得一部分是我的性格以及它怎样表现出来，甚至可能是一种优势。一部分大概对每个人都适用。我很喜欢按这条小原则生活：宽漏斗，紧过滤。

主持人 And so I try to cast a really wide net when I'm learning something new. I want to read and consume an enormous amount of information. It's very common for me to have like 40 tabs open. You know, I just I'll I'll do a search like here here's an example from when I was working on Atomic Habits. I I found Reddit really helpful when I was working on certain sections of the book. So, I would search things like, uh, what's the best habit you've ever built, Reddit, or what's one habit that you struggled with, Reddit. And if you you search those terms, it'll pull up, you know, 20 or 30 different threads. And so, I would open all of those. So, I'd have like 50 tabs open on there. And then I would go through and I would read all the comments in each thread. And a lot of it wasn't really that relevant, but I would probably find after I do that, I would probably find six or seven or eight phrases that I really liked that I was like, "Oh, that's a good description of like a real problem somebody had." And then I put all those into a list together. And so what I'm doing, I mean, 所以学新东西时，我试着撒一张很宽的网。我想读、想消费海量信息。我很常见会开着大概 40 个标签页。我会搜索——举一个写 Atomic Habits 时的例子。写书某些部分时，我发现 Reddit 非常有用。我会搜：你养成过的最好习惯是什么 Reddit，或你挣扎过的一个习惯是什么 Reddit。你一搜这些词，就会拉出二三十个不同帖子。于是我全部打开，大概开着 50 个标签页。然后我把每个帖子里的评论都读一遍。很多其实不太相关，但做完之后，我大概会找到六七句或八句我真正喜欢的：哦，这很好地描述了某个人真实碰到的问题。然后我把它们收进一张清单。所以我在做的是——

主持人 what I'm learning is I'm learning what people struggle with with habits. I'm learning, you know, where did they succeed and where did they fail? And so I do that broad funnel and then I have a really tight filter for what gets out. Look at 50 tabs, end up with eight sentences. And I just would run that cycle again and again and again. So maybe I do it on Reddit for some stuff. I do it on I ran a survey with my audience for another. Um look at social media comments. Look at comments on I used to a long long time ago I used to have comments on my website. So maybe look at that. Go to the newsletter, go to my inbox, look at the replies that I've gotten from people through the newsletter. Like that's another one. So you you just do these really broad data sets and then you have a really tight funnel for what uh for what gets through and you end up with some really high quality stuff that way. The tricky part about learning that way is it requires a lot of persistence. 我在学的是人们在习惯上卡在哪里。我在学他们在哪里成功、在哪里失败。所以我用那个宽漏斗，然后对放出去的东西用很紧的过滤。看 50 个标签页，最后剩下八句话。我就一遍又一遍地跑这个循环。有些在 Reddit 上做，另一些对我的受众做问卷。看社交媒体评论。看评论——很久以前我网站上曾经开过评论。也许看看那些。去 newsletter，去收件箱，看人们通过 newsletter 给我的回复。那又是一个。所以你就是做这些非常宽的数据集，然后对穿过的东西用很紧的漏斗，最后得到一些质量很高的东西。那样学的棘手之处是：它需要很多坚持。

James Clear This is where I I said like I think some of it's my personality. Uh one strength for me something I'm good at is I can concentrate on something for a very long time. So I I could do that for 8 10 12 hours in a day and I would just spend it doing that and I will just go through all those tabs and do the whole thing. A lot of people don't like that. The flip side of that, a weakness for me is I'm not as good at compartmentalizing. So if I had that same eight hour day, but it was split up on like six different meetings, I don't I don't like that. I don't I'm not good at the task switching between each one. Uh it's too much. My 这就是我说的，我觉得一部分是我的性格。我的一个优势、我擅长的一件事是：我可以在一件事上专注很长时间。我可以一天做 8、10、12 小时，就花在那上面，把那些标签页全部过完。很多人不喜欢那样。它的反面、我的一个弱点是：我不那么擅长分舱。如果同样八小时被拆成六个不同会议，我就不喜欢。我不擅长在每一件之间切换任务。太多了。我的

James Clear mind feels really scattered. But if I can lock in and just do one task for the whole time, that feels great. So my approach to learning is usually something like that. Let me let me get a really broad data set and just read super widely and then I'm just going to try to identify the most meaningful piece in each one and gradually like collect that into one area. 头脑会觉得非常散。但如果我能锁定，整段时间只做一件任务，那感觉很好。所以我学习的方式通常是那样：让我拿到一个非常宽的数据集，读得非常广，然后试着在每一个里找出最有意义的那一块，慢慢收到一个地方。

主持人 I don't know if it was you that told me this or somebody else, but you had went through Amazon reviews for all these books as well. That was another big piece I so I went through um you know I am not the first person to write about habits right and I won't be the last and so I looked at some of the books that had come out before me power of habits seven habits of highly effective people you know books like this that had already been written on habits and I went to the three star reviews on Amazon one star review everybody hates it often for some stupid reason like the book showed up and it was dirty on the dust jacket or whatever um five star review everybody loves it um but the three star 不知道是你告诉我的还是别人，你还把这些书的 Amazon 评论都过了一遍。那也是很大一块。所以我过了一遍。我不是第一个写习惯的人，也不会是最后一个。于是我看了一些在我之前出来的书：The Power of Habit、The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People 这类已经写过习惯的书。我去看 Amazon 上的三星评论。一星评论人人都恨，常常是因为某个愚蠢原因，比如书送到时护封脏了之类。五星评论人人都爱。但三星

主持人 reviews or the four-st star reviews. Those are pretty useful. You know, it's usually a person who liked the book, but they had some complaint about it. And so, I would look at all these different reviews, not just for those two books, but other ones as well. And I was just trying to map the like habits book universe. What what have what has already been written? What do people like about what's been written and what feels like it's missing? And the primary thing that came up is these books are really good at explaining habits or they help me understand them but I still am left wondering how do I apply it. And so once I saw that enough times I thought all right I can be the practical guy you know I can be the one who translates this and makes habits actionable. And so my little objective was I'm going to try to write the most useful actionable guide on building good habits and breaking bad ones that's ever been written. And I don't know that I actually achieved that or not. But that 评论或四星评论相当有用。通常是喜欢这本书、但对它有某种抱怨的人。所以我会看所有这些不同评论，不只那两本，还有其他的。我只是在试着画出习惯书这个宇宙的地图。已经写过什么？人们对已有的内容喜欢什么，缺的又感觉是什么？最常出现的一点是：这些书很擅长解释习惯，或它们帮我理解了，可我还是在想怎样应用。所以我看到足够多次之后就想：好，我可以当那个实用的人，我可以当那个把它翻译出来、让习惯可执行的人。于是我的小目标是：我要试着写出有史以来关于养成好习惯、打破坏习惯最有用、最可执行的指南。我不知道自己是否真的做到了。但那

主持人 was the objective, right? It's back to what we talked about earlier. If you don't strive for that, you're never going to just stumble into that outcome. You know, you're not going to be like, well, I just decided to write a book and it turns out it was the most actionable one ever. You know, like it's not you need to actually try to reach for that. Um, and so I I decided that that was one project where I was going to do that. And research methods like looking at those reviews is one way to try to accomplish that. You don't get out of bed and become Michael Jordan, right? 就是目标，对吧？又回到我们前面谈过的。如果你不去争取，就永远不会碰巧走进那个结果。你不会说：我只是决定写一本书，结果它成了有史以来最可执行的那本。你需要真正伸手去够。所以我决定，那是一个我要那样做的项目。看那些评论这类研究方法，就是试着达成它的一种方式。你不会一起床就变成 Michael Jordan，对吧？

James Clear Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's so it's it's like the classic like I don't want to work out too much because I don't want to look like a bodybuilder. And you're like, you know, I'm like I've been trying to look like a bodybuilder for 15 years. I still am not there yet. You know, it's like it takes a long time. You need a lot of effort. 对。对。就是那种经典的：我不想练太多，因为我不想练成健美运动员。而你会想：我试着练成健美运动员已经 15 年了，到现在还没到。就是需要很长时间，需要很多功夫。

主持人 How do you think about prioritization? 你怎样看优先级？

James Clear Um, a lot of it comes back to what we talked about earlier about can I find things that have tailwinds, that have leverage, that accumulate, that feed each other. Um, and so if I find something that checks a lot of those boxes, that feels pretty high priority. I have this new thing I've been trying, which is I I bought a bunch of wooden clothes pins, uh, you know, the little like and they're like kind of flat on one side so you can write on them. 很大一部分回到我们前面谈过的：我能不能找到有顺风、有杠杆、会积累、会互相喂养的事。所以如果我找到某件事勾上很多那些格子，它就感觉优先级很高。我在试一件新东西：我买了一堆木头衣夹，那种一侧比较平、可以写字的。

主持人 And I hung a string from my office ceiling and on so I got like 50 of these and on each clothes pin. So, I wrote each of my kids' names on one and then I wrote working out on another one. And then I have all these projects that I want to do. You know, I've got I've got stuff that makes sense that you would want to do like, you know, writing another book or things that you would expect. And then I got like totally other stuff like a film idea that I would like or like some idea for a music label or, you know, things that are like outside of my my normal focus. But try to write all these ideas down and then I put like a red line across the string and the question is what earns its way above the line. Obviously my kids are going to go above it. 我从办公室天花板上挂了一根绳子，大概有 50 个衣夹。每个衣夹上——我在其中一个写了每个孩子的名字，另一个写了锻炼。然后我有所有这些想做的项目。有些是说得通、你会想做的，比如再写一本书，或你预期会有的那些。然后还有完全别的，比如一个电影点子，或某个音乐厂牌的想法，那些在我平常焦点之外的东西。试着把这些想法都写下来，然后在绳子上画一条红线，问题是：什么能挣到红线上面的位置。显然孩子们会在上面。

James Clear Obviously working out is going to go above it. But I have an incre what feels like I have every year especially with each additional kid you add. It feels like you have fewer and fewer hours. Yeah. 显然锻炼也会在上面。但感觉每年——尤其每多一个孩子——你拥有的小时数越来越少。对。

主持人 Right. 对。

James Clear Um and so the time is precious. And so I look at the rest of these projects and I say, "Is this good enough to earn its way above the line?" And um I need that visual reminder. One of the there are a lot of things in life that are like this, but one of the challenging things about the really important stuff in life is that they're endless battles. You know, if you do a good job focusing today and prioritizing today, you pick the right thing to focus on, it earns you no bonus points for tomorrow. Tomorrow you show up and uh if you spend all that time on YouTube or getting distracted or whatever, like that day is gone. And so other things are like that too. Like just because you worked out two weeks ago doesn't mean you don't need to do it today. You know, 所以时间很宝贵。于是我看着其余这些项目问：这件事够不够好，能挣到红线上面？我需要那个视觉提醒。人生里很多事都是这样，但真正重要的那些事，有一个难处是：它们是没完没了的战斗。如果你今天专注做得很好、优先级排得很好，选对了该专注的事，明天也不会给你加分。明天你到场，如果把时间全花在 YouTube 上或分心，那一天就没了。其他事也是这样。两周前练过，不意味着今天不用练。

James Clear just because you were a good spouse yesterday earns you no bonus points for today. You still need to show up for them. 昨天是个好配偶，今天也不会因此加分。你仍然需要为他们到场。

主持人 Um and so 所以

James Clear I'm trying to get comfortable with that endless nature of those things. A lot of the time we try to resist the endless nature of that stuff. Oh, I wish it wasn't that way. We want to We try to convince ourselves that it's like a finish line. Oh, if I just do this 21day cleanse, then I'll be a healthy person and I won't have to think about it anymore. Yeah. You know, oh, if I just, you know, buy her something nice for her anniversary, then I can like stop worrying about it and I don't have to, you know, it's like, no, it's not like that. It's, you know, it's endless. 我在试着对那些事没完没了的本性感到自在。很多时候我们试着抵抗那种没完没了。哦，真希望不是这样。我们想说服自己那像一条终点线。哦，只要做完这个 21 天排毒，我就会成为健康的人，再也不用想了。对。哦，只要纪念日给她买件好东西，然后我就可以不用再担心，就不用……不是那样的。它是没完没了的。

主持人 And as soon as you accept the endless nature, then you start looking at it differently. You say, okay, it's not about getting to a particular finish line. It's about living a daily life that feels sustainable and that I like and that I'm fully engaged in. So, it's about liking my days. Um, so I use all of that lens as I look at this string and ask myself which clothes pins get to go above the line. Um, and that's one way to prioritize it. Uh, and I I find that having the visual marker helps remind me the next day when I forgot that I just did that exercise and I feel like getting pulled into, you know, the next shiny thing. I I love that because it visualizes what so many of us uh are dealing with right now. 一旦你接受那种没完没了的本性，你就会开始用不同方式看它。你会说：好，这不是到达某条终点线。这是过一种感觉可持续、我喜欢、我完全投入的日常生活。所以这是喜欢我的每一天。于是我用这整套镜头去看这根绳子，问自己哪些衣夹能到红线上面。这是排出优先级的一种方式。我发现有那个视觉标记，能在第二天提醒我——那时我已经忘了刚做过那个练习，感觉又要被下一件闪亮的东西拉走。我喜欢这个，因为它把我们很多人此刻正在面对的东西可视化了。

James Clear One of the really key pieces of building a habit then getting it to stick is finding ways to visualize your progress. So if you look at technologies that are really good at building habits, they're great at visualization. You're playing a video game, you have a score in the top corner of the screen. It's increasing all the time as you go through the level. Um, every time you pick up a weapon or a ruby or a gem or whatever, there's a little jingle or a chime, there's some kind of power up. Um, even the pitterpatter of footsteps as you run through the level is a signal that 养成一个习惯、再让它粘住的一个真正关键部分，。是找到办法把进步可视化。你看那些很擅长养成习惯的技术，它们都擅长可视化。你在玩游戏，屏幕角落有分数，过关时一直在涨。每次捡起武器、红宝石或宝石，都会有一小段铃声或提示音，某种升级。甚至你跑过关卡时脚步的啪嗒声，也是一个信号：

James Clear you're progressing. So, you have all these signals of progress, visual audio, like it's very the feedback is immediate. And if you compare that experience of just like playing this level for 15 minutes to what it's like to sit down and try to write a blog post or record a podcast interview or do anything in the normal world um is very different. The feedback comes much slower in real life. You know, my parents, they like to swim. 你在前进。所以你有所有这些进步信号，视觉的、听觉的，反馈非常即时。把打这一关 15 分钟的体验，拿去对比坐下写一篇博客、录一次播客采访、或在正常世界里做任何事，差别非常大。现实生活里反馈来得慢得多。我父母喜欢游泳。

主持人 And you know, one of the challenges with swimming is your body looks exactly the same when you get out of the water as it did when you jumped in. If they if they're doing it for the visual results, I mean, it takes two years for your body to change in the mirror. Um, and so they have a little habit tracker where they just put an X down for each day they do their workout and then at the end of the month they count up how many workouts they did and compare that to the month before. And putting that X down at the end of the workout is like such a small little thing, but it's one little visual signal that we showed up and we did the 游泳的一个难处是：你出水时身体看起来和跳进去时。完全一样。如果他们是为了看得见的结果而游，镜子里的身体要两年才会变。于是他们有一个小习惯追踪器，每练一天就打一个 X，月底数一共练了多少次，再和上个月比。训练结束打那个 X 是很小的一件事，但它是一个小小的视觉信号：我们到场了，我们今天做了

主持人 right thing today, you know, that I I did what I was supposed to do. It's a way of visualizing your progress. And so finding ways to visualize your progress as you go through your habits um is important because a a hallmark of almost any compounding process is that the greatest returns are delayed. You know, it's it's not till later that you get to the hockey stick portion. So the in the moment right now, you do the right thing and you feel like I have nothing to show for it. So finding ways to visualize that can be helpful for getting habits to stick. 对的事。我做了我该做的。这是把进步可视化的一种方式。所以在过习惯的过程中找到办法把进步可视化很重要，因为几乎任何复利过程的一个标志是：最大的回报是延迟的。要到后面你才会碰到曲棍球棒那一段。所以当下这一刻，你做了对的事，却觉得没有什么可以展示。找到办法把它可视化，有助于让习惯粘住。

James Clear We always end with the same question which is what is success for you? I think the short version is success is having power over my days. That's, you know, if I if I have the the freedom and the ability to choose how I'm spending my days, that sounds that sounds great. What more could you want than that? You know, that means I would get to choose to spend time with my kids if I have kids. Before I had kids, it meant I could choose to travel or to work on projects that I wanted. Um, you know, after my kids are grown, it'll mean that I can choose to dive into new things. Like it, you know, what what more could you want than that than to have control over your time? So I think uh to have power over my days is the version for me internally and then um to contribute my little bit to the world around me is the external focus. What does what does success look like um on the outside? I think it's adding your little bit to the pile of knowledge for humanity. I mean 我们总是以同一个问题结束：对你来说，成功是什么？我觉得短的版本是：成功是对我的日子拥有权力。如果我有自由和能力去选择怎样度过每一天，那听起来就很好。你还能再要什么？那意味着如果我有孩子，我可以选择把时间花在孩子身上。有孩子之前，意味着我可以选择去旅行，或做我想做的项目。孩子们长大之后，将意味着我可以选择扎进新事物。你还能再要什么，比拥有对自己时间的控制更好？所以对我来说，对内的版本是对我的日子拥有权力；对外的焦点是为我周围的世界贡献我那一小份。外面看起来的成功是什么？我觉得是把你那一小份加进人类的知识堆里。

James Clear one of the one of the great gifts of humankind is that you get to inherit the lessons of the hundred billion people that have come before you. you know, my kids are going to school now and they start 30 years ahead of where I got to start. You know, all the things we've learned from the last 30 years are going to be taught to them when when they go and that's what helps them kick the ball of humanity forward. And so, you know, if I could add just some little bit to that, then I feel like that's that's definitely a success. 人类的一份大礼物是：你可以继承前面那一千亿人的功课。我的孩子们现在在上学，他们起步的位置比我当年超前 30 年。过去 30 年我们学到的东西都会教给他们，那会帮他们把人类这个球再往前踢。所以如果我能往里面再加那么一小份，我觉得那就是绝对是一种成功。

主持人 I love that. Thank you. This was awesome. This was a great conversation. 我喜欢这个。谢谢。这太棒了。这是一次很好的谈话。

James Clear You bet. Thanks so much for having me. 当然。非常感谢邀请我。