This book emphasizes the importance of habits in determining outcomes and results in any field and how habit change is not an impossible task as it often seems. The author divides the book into three parts describing the importance of habits in an individual’s life, in an organization, and in a society and provides a lot of real life examples to put his points across. The narratives he uses as examples are captivating – ranging from Phelps’s swimming to Luther King’s protests - and that makes it very easy to understand the points he is trying to make by being able to visualize them in a real life setting.
I found the first part very useful as it hammers the central message of the book – that of a habit being a combination of a cue, a routine, and a reward - into readers’ minds. The second and third parts about the importance of habits in business and in society are, despite being very understandable, not very useful for a layman unless one is interested in bringing about some change in one’s society or firm.
The last chapter on the neurology of free will serves as an epilogue and is the best chapter of the book in that it raises some very interesting points on how we have the freedom as well as a responsibility to change those of our habits that we realize are bad for us and that we need to change. The author ends with explaining a practically applicable method to change one’s habits, and this summarizes the entire science behind habit change.
If you are in a hurry to read this book, I would suggest to read the first part and then skip to the last chapter. Else go through all the chapters, it is a swift and easy read. It almost feels like a collection of short (and sometimes inspirational) stories.