Charles Duhigg

New York Times reporter and author

A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, Charles has been a frequent contributor to This American Life, NPR, The Colbert Report, PBS’s NewsHour, and Frontline.

Charles led the team that won the 2013 Pulitzer prize in explanatory journalism for “The iEconomy,” a series that examined the global economy through the lens of Apple. That series included examinations of such topics as the factories in China where iPhones and iPads are manufactured.

Author Website

Philosopher's Notes on Charles Duhigg's Books

LockedPhilosopher's Notes

Smarter Faster Better

by Charles Duhigg

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning NY Times journalist (and Harvard MBA) who wrote the best-selling book The Power of Habit in which he walked us through the science of building better habits. In this book, he walks us through the science of being productive so we can be smarter, faster and better at everything we do. It’s a great book packed with fascinating stories and practical applications. Big Ideas we explore include the 2 keys to motivation, how to build your focus, the best way to set goals (think: Stretch + SMART), why disfluency helps learning and how productivity is all about choices.

LockedPhilosopher's Notes

The Power of Habit

by Charles Duhigg

Habits. They’re powerful. And, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg is a very cool look at why we have them, how they work, and what we can do to change them. The book is an incredibly well-written, fun read and it’s packed with great stories and wisdom and I think you’ll dig it. In this Note, we’ll take a quick peek at the basic aspects of a habit loop (cue + routine + reward), how you can get a cue, what a keystone habit is (and why you should care), the importance of believing you can change and the fact that every habit is malleable. Fun!

Quotes by Charles Duhigg

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Where should a would-be habit master start? Understanding keystone habits holds the answer to that question: The habits that matter most are the ones that, when they start to shift, dislodge and remake other patterns.

Charles Duhigg

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Dozens of studies show that willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success.

Charles Duhigg

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The evidence is clear: If you want to change a habit, you must find an alternative routine, and your odds of success go up dramatically when you commit to changing as part of a group. Belief is essential, and it grows out of a communal experience, even if that community is only as large as two people.

Charles Duhigg

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Once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom—and the responsibility—to remake them. Once you understand that habits can be rebuilt, the power of habit becomes easier to grasp, and the only option left is to get to work.

Charles Duhigg

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As people strengthened their willpower muscles in one part of their lives—in the gym, or a money management program—that strength spilled over into what they ate or how hard they worked. Once willpower became stronger, it touched everything.

Charles Duhigg

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Productivity, put simply, is the name we give our attempts to figure out the best uses of our energy, intellect, and time as we try to seize the most meaningful rewards with the least wasted effort. It’s a process of learning how to succeed with less stress and struggle. It’s about getting things done without sacrificing everything we care about along the way.

Charles Duhigg

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In addition to having audacious ambitions and plans that are thorough, we still need, occasionally, to step outside the day-to-day and consider if we’re moving toward goals that make sense. We still need to think.

Charles Duhigg

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In the age of automation, knowing how to manage your focus is more critical than ever before.

Charles Duhigg

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There is a fine line between an ambition that helps people achieve something amazing and one that crushes morale. For a stretch goal to inspire, it often needs to be paired with something like the SMART system.

Charles Duhigg

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Every choice we make in life is an experiment. Every day offers fresh opportunities to find better decision-making frames.

Charles Duhigg

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In short, we need stretch *and* SMART goals. It doesn’t matter if you call them by those names. It’s not important if your proximal goals fulfill every SMART criterion. What matters is having a large ambition and a system for figuring out how to make it into a concrete and realistic plan.

Charles Duhigg