What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More

Oh, my god, my house is like a non-stop self-help convention. The rotating cast of literary works cluttering my sofa is nauseating. I'm like "Baby, you're perfect, you can't improve on this model." She's all "You need to allow yourself to change! You're stifling yourself and by extension me! You're just like your father." Pshaw, whatever that means, back to XBox.

Loved Better Than Before and I have a bit of an obsession with journals that aren't simply blank; this is the best one yet! I wasn't sure what to expect but it came today and it is so nice! Beautiful hard cover, lots of organized information from the book (which I especially love for easy reference), weekly goals list with daily tally mark boxes, and lots of free space to journal and make notes! Really pleased!

I took the quiz and discovered that I'm a rebel which made a lot of my current, and past, behavior make a lot of sense. I resisted buying this book because I feared it would be like a lot of other "change your habits" books which leave me feeling annoyed, defeated, and even more frustrated. I finally bought it because I really thought it would break down each part, specifying how to apply each "trick" to each of the four motivation types. It did not do this at all. I don't feel like I have any better tools for mastering habits as a rebel after reading this, which genuinely disappoints me. The "pillars of habit" do not work for those who are rebels. I have tried scheduling out my day in the past, but to a rebel all this does is challenge me to not do it. There's a lot of stories about those who fall into each of the four categories and how they make/change habits, but not a lot of discussion about how YOU can achieve the same thing. I am no better than before.

Trust the one star reviewers on this one folks.
Wasted my time reading in its entirety, I'm not proud being that it was awful. This author is the worst, its too bad that Gretchen Rubin didn't write this on a roll of toilet paper as it would have served a better purpose that way.
I was surprised that the author didn't brag about never having a cavity in her life.

After all I had read about this book, I was sadly disappointed. I kept reading and waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the author to deliver on the book's promise: To help one understand habits and change them by keeping track of them. However instead it is a painful regurgitation of the author's various idiosyncrasies, peccadillos, and assorted other useless personal anecdotes such as her yoga pants, her relationship with her sister, and her diet. Reading this long winded run-on sentence of a book is an extremely frustrating experience.

If you're looking for a book that can give you tips on habits that you can translate into your personal and professional life, don't buy this one.

By the way - My wife was reading the "Happiness Project' at the same time by this author and when we compared notes, she had the exact same take-away of Rubin's writing style. As another reviewer put it: It's like reading her personal diary. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

I bought this book thinking it would help me identify my habit making personality and give me tips to use that to my advantage. I was sorely mistaken. It is basically a book with a bunch of stories about what she found out while trying to understand habit making

No research here, just anecdotes, perhaps even written largely by computer software. As fluffy as a Redbook magazine article. Sounds like the author got 3 or 4 of her friends together at a coffee klatche, and this book was the result. Duhigg's "Power of Habits" far and away the go-to book on this topic, in my opinion.

This book just blathers on really.. there's a lack of summarizing/organization of key points - which for me made it hard to follow. I read about 50% of it -- then/gave it away.

Too bad I wanted to like this book after catching the authors interview on NPR recently (which I really enjoyed).

Everything you need to know about habits.

On any issue Gretchen has approached habits from dozens of ways to look. I'm better than before for looking into the vastness of
personal habits and concomitant issues. As a sociology major in college I don't buy into her major four categories, partly because I am, according to her definitions a rebel. Having been in a church study group with a powerful and imaginative well prepared power point leader she
strengthened it for me by opening and closing Psalms and or a prayer. I also have a Masters degree from Princeton Theological Seminary.
This overcame for me Gretchen's highly rational approach to life except for Gretchen' valuing yoga and meditations in several places. -Paul Hackett

Although I've liked some of the stuff she's written previously, her dietary advice is truly moronic. She should do some research before advising the diets she recommends. I will never again buy anything she writes; giving such badly researched advice is very irresponsible!

Better Than Before, like Gretchen Rubin's previous books on happiness, is NOT a step-by-step guide, or a program, or a 'do this and you will change' sort of book. Instead, it's a more personal exploration of habit, and how we develop and change them. Gretchen starts with a question she had in her own life, a question many of us have had - how do we change our habits? She then explored all the latest research and thinking and presents us with her personal, yet still applicable, conclusions. If you are ready to make some changes, but just need a little more something to inspire you or inform you or give you something to ruminate on to clarify your thinking, this may be your book.

Personally, I LOVED it, and it has helped me tighten up my somewhat sporadic exercise routine. She starts from a framework that everyone is basically one of four kinds of habit-formers, and identifying which of those kinds of people you are can help you find good habit strategies, because different strategies work best for different people. One principle I'm finding very useful is the idea of 'decide, then don't decide' - in other words, make a plan and then stick to it, particularly being aware of when you are 'rehashing' the decision so you can tell yourself, 'no, I've already made this decision, I'm not going through it again'.

In each chapter, I swear at least once I'd find myself thinking, "Well, yes, this seems mostly correct, but sometimes THIS happens instead," and EVERY single time I thought that, within a few pages she would go on to address the very exception that I had been thinking of. It was almost uncanny :-) She's a very enjoyable, uplifting writer, and I will read anything she ever puts out!

I really enjoyed Gretchen Rubin’s books on happiness, but they weren’t anything special. Better Than Before is a superior book. I’ve read a lot about habits, some by researchers, some by practicing psychologists, some by motivational speakers and others. This book is by far the best. Rubin has read widely on the topic and given what she had read great consideration. The result is a truly useful, thorough look at habits. It’s focus is the METHODS of habit change. This is a one-stop book on habits. You can read this and would gain very little from reading anything else. It’s in here!

I’ll let Rubin summarize the book for us: Because self-knowledge is indispensable to successful habit formation, the first section of the book, “Self-Knowledge,” would explore the two strategies that help us to understand ourselves: Four Tendencies and Distractions. Next would come “Pillars of Habits,” the section that would examine the well-known, essential Strategies of Monitoring, Foundation, Scheduling, and Accountability. The section “The Best Time to Begin” would consider the particular importance of the time of beginning when forming a habit, as explained in the Strategies of First Steps, Clean Slate, and Lightning Bolt. Next, the section “Desire, Ease, and Excuses” would take into account our desires to avoid effort and experience pleasure – which play a role in the Strategies of Abstaining, Convenience, Inconvenience, Safeguards, Loophole-Spotting, Distraction, Reward, Treats, and Pairing…Finally, the section “Unique, Just Like Everyone Else” would investigate the strategies that arise from our drive to understand and define ourselves in the context of other people, in the Strategies of Clarity, Identity, and Other People.”

One big plus is that Rubin recognizes that people are different and that what works for one person may be wrong for someone else. She has considered these differences and come up with workable advice for different “types” of people. There are 5 different major areas that people differ in, as far as habits, and Rubin offers ideas tailored to our differences in these areas. As she writes, “Some people do better when they start small; others when they start big. Some people need to be held accountable; some defy accountability. Some thrive when they give themselves an occasional break from their good habits; other when they never break the chain.”

One key point of the book is that habits work by letting us decide ahead of time what we will do, thus “freeing us from decision making and from using self-control.” Better Than Before helps us figure out how to make this work for the person that we are (which isn’t the same as what might work for someone else).

Ms. Rubin thrives in the business of segregating people into frankly arbitrary groups and subgroups (obligers, rebels, questioners, moderators, over-buyers, etc) with extreme conviviality. I was sucked in by the promotion and the podcast -- she seemed genuinely informed and insightful.

Sadly, the book left me feeling like it was an exercise in smug self-promotion of the author. She derides a handful of anonymous friends with habits she disapproves of and decides to fix, fairy godmother style. Her disapproval is tacit, and also tacit is her disapproval of the average person who has trouble exercising enough or fulfilling personal goals because they've piled on too much onto their own plate.

She doesn't deal with the psychologies that underlie her many categories of people, and doesn't allow for the possibility that an 'obliger' might strive to become an 'upholder.' Instead, Rubin celebrates herself as being "very rare" and an "upholder" while repeatedly celebrating her own discipline to become an unemployed blogger living on the upper east side of New York City with a nanny and house cleaner (the existence of live-in help is disclosed in this profile:
[...].

You might be chagrined to find Rubin leaves out actual studies and data, and instead overuses pseudo-management school jargon that left me feeling drenched in the 'truthiness' of Gretchen Rubin. That is, it all sounds true, so why bother discussing the actual social science that informs the categories and lifehacks prescribed by Rubin?

A friend of a friend recommeneded this book in a post to my friend's FACEBOOK page, and I decided to buy this book. However, I am disappointed. Though the author writes in a nice chatty style, I quickly got bored. I believe the reason is because the ideas seem to be a summary of all the self-help books already published over the last decade. I have read too many of them and I kept feeling like I was re-reading something....I especially kept thinking about Marsha Beck and Stephen Covey, both authors I have read extensively. That being said, if you have never read any self-help or motivational books before, this is not a bad book to read. However, I did not find much that added to the discussion.

After reading several other 1 star reviews, I was in complete agreement on their points. The book is anecdotal based and not at all scientific (keeping in mind, medical doctors who practice anecdotal-based medicine, as opposed to evidence-based medicine, are typically discredited or get in a heap of trouble when something goes wrong with a patient). It is mostly figuring out Gretchen's opinions and how she thinks people should live. Her opinion may be correct at times, but that's not a self-improvement book; it's a diary detailing how judgment she is. Additionally, I would add that her assertions are predicated on first-world problems and specifically people that live in a nice, comfy bubble without real austerity or even awareness of it. All of her advice on how to avoid consumption and consumerism (really just tricks to counter marketing tactics and advertising to save us from ourselves) show just how soft of a world Gretchen lives in. There is nothing that comes close to approaching true growth through gaining character, virtue, and discipline. If you want a book to help you with bad habits (and not a book that tells you how to get yourself to check the mail every day...i.e., first world problem), read Change Anything by Kerry Patterson, et al, or Drive by Daniel Pink. This book is a personal diary that will only encourage you to be more self-absorbed.

Have you ever wondered:

* Why it's hard to form a habit we don't enjoy and hard also to form a habit we do enjoy?

* Why do some people resist habits and some adopt them eagerly?

* Do the same strategies work for changing simple habits and for complex habits?

* Why do we continue to eat foods which we know are bad for our health?

* If we were on the track team in high school, why is it hard to motivate ourselves to go running now?

These are some of the questions raised and answered in this book. That last question prompted the writing of this book when a friend of author Gretchen Rubin posed that question of Gretchen over lunch. If you are trying to make or break habits, consider reading this book.

Researching habits - how to create good habits and eliminate bad habits - and using her own life, and the lives of friends and family members, as a kind of laboratory on habit formation, Rubin has compiled an abundance of suggestions for readers. Most habits we want to change deal with seven specific areas Rubin informs us: 1) eat-drink more healthfully 2) exercise regularly 3) save-spend-earn wisely 4) rest, relax and enjoy more 5) accomplish more and stop procrastinating 6) simplify, clear, clean and organize and 7) engage more deeply in relationships with people, God and with the world.

She answers the questions folks have about habits, and writes about the four pillars which support good habits: monitoring-measuring, foundation - first things first, scheduling and accountability.

Some tips I found helpful in this book ~ you will enjoy finding your own:

* commercial cleaning - clean and declutter during commercials
* walk & carry - when you walk from room to room, see if there's something you could take with you to keep clean
* stand on one leg while brushing teeth - improves balance
* keep a daily time log - see where your time is going
* use the power of first steps - take little or big steps towards a goal today
* have "power hours" - do an hour of niggling chores you never get to for an hour every once in awhile
* pairing - pair something less enjoyable with something fun: exercise with watching British mysteries
* if sitting is the new smoking health-wise, set the timer to move every 45 minutes or so
* give yourself daily treats - not food, but spoil yourself with something as it increases will-power
* focus on actions, not outcomes
* what we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while
* it's easier to change our surroundings than ourselves
* once we're ready to begin, begin now

Rubin claims different habits work for different folks as we have different personal styles. However, if you're struggling with improving habits, this book should spark ideas which you would like to try. It is written in an approachable, conversational style. If you're wanting something different about your life, changing some habits is a good place to begin. I found this book inspiring and motivating.

Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Every Day Lives -- not quite sure this is a self-help book as much as it is a psychology/science/autobiographical book. But whatever label you stick on it, I really enjoyed it. The author is amazingly forthright and open in discussing her own practices and family life, which makes the book uniquely interesting and easy to read. And she shares quite a lot about her children, husband, sister, and parents -- all very revealing and insightful. She categorizes people into four tendencies, which describe how we respond to inner and outer expectations. I'm guessing that obligers and upholders would find a lot of useful information in this book. I fit into the rebel category -- so many of the tips and tricks in this book won't help me much, because I'm not driven to achieve self-imposed or externally-imposed markers. So I found a lot of interesting (as opposed to useful) information in the book. For a book about a topic as broad an nonspecific as habits, the text is remarkably well-researched.

Yes, I did receive this product. And everything seems to be in order! However, I think Gretchen Rubin is so spoiled and has way too much time on her hands, that she does not know what to do with herself, and pines forever after, for the grass growing greener on someone else’s lawn, that she does not know how to be happy with just being a human being, and feel the earth grip her feet as it rotates at 1000 mph at the same time hurtling though space in an orbit around the sun at 10000 mph, while the sun itself moves around the center of our own galaxy at 55000+ mph, and while yet still our own Galaxy is hurtling itself with a destructive rendezvous with the Andromeda Galaxy, in a cosmic intertwining dance of suns, and worlds to become something else entirely...
A she still frets at whether she is happy or not...

I'm giving this two stars because Rubin collated lots of useful research and made it readable and easy. And I really like her conversational writing style.

However, I'm not sure why she even undertook this task - she made it very clear that she didn't need help with any habits - she already gets up early, has good working habits, eats healthfully, has a clean home. And a personal trainer and housekeeper. And she and her husband both write from home. She does a disciplined four hours a day and shuts off social media when she's finished.

She was, however, on a mission to clean up everyone around her. There was "a friend" for every habit she preached about and she miraculously fixed them with her knowledge of habits, whether they were particularly wanting her help or not.

She has quite a condescending tone at times and made mention of her background on every other page. All of it was incredibly annoying to read. But I have a long-standing habit of finishing every book that I start.

After finishing, I realized that she is the daughter in law of Robert Rubin - of Citigroup and Goldman Sachs fame. Read up on his political career and you won't feel like paying for this book. I'm glad it was given to me.

See more of my reviews at www.hautemommyblog.com

I want to like Gretchin Rubin's books. There is a certain aspect I do enjoy. I think she does a fabulous job of categorizing people. (Lark/Owl, The Four Tendencies, etc.) From that aspect it is interesting to see where you fall as well as to compare your friends, family and random strangers to said categories. She does present some really vital elements of goals. The problem was follow-through. Very rarely does she give any tips that will work for anything more than one specific goal, for one specific person. To me, her constant reminder of "it's different for everyone" seemed a bit of a cop out. And heaven forbid you being a "Rebel." There is no hope for you, which you will see in the way Rubin closes out any discussion on the tricks for each tendency with a quick, "And there's not much you can do to ..." Had I read this book as a rebel I would have been greatly discouraged. Finally, Gretchen's holier than thou attitude about every single decision, habit and character trait is nauseating. At one point she claims drinking water isn't really necessary, that since she doesn't think diet soda is bad, it's not a bad habit ("I don't consider it a bad habit. Regular soda is terrible, but I never touch the stuff.") and finally that her modesty is what enables her to be unconcerned about others. ("Also, in all modesty, my lack of concern stems from modesty: I just can't imagine that others are paying much attention to me" - says a woman who writes best-selling memoirs of her posh life.) I enjoy a lot of what Gretchen says and writes about in her books, her blog, and speaks about on her podcast. However, I'm seeing more and more that she takes a few tired ideas, makes a chart for them, and sets out to revolutionize the world. Because I enjoy this genre, I was able to say, "It's okay", but for anyone who struggles with non-fiction and is in desperate straits to make a change to their habits, I'd look elsewhere.
I received this book in trade for an honest review from Blogging for Books.

This book is seriously bad. I picked it up in Hong Kong airport because I recognized the cover from the web, and I had a long flight ahead of me.

Ms Rubin scrutinizes her family and acquaintances as a scientist would a batch of Rhesus monkeys; monitoring their behavior, and drawing conclusions from their every move. From these “in-depth studies” she categorizes humanity into four groups, and views humanity through this self-created lens.

From the book you will learn that husband Jamie has hepatitis C, Sister Elizabeth has diabetes, and daughter Eliza sneaks candy bars and has an aversion of bathroom scales.

The success of Ms. Rubin’s books comes as no surprise to me. She started a blog to attract followers, offering snippets of homegrown advice, quizzes and giveaways. Then, with her audience in tow, she writes a book that is marketed on the internet. The content of the book is almost secondary. She employs an overworked pattern of Googling up a few quotes from original thinkers to place at the beginning of chapters for authority, and then presents her random verbiage as well thought-out argument.

The book is launched with all the fanfare of the Second Coming of Penicillin. It becomes an instant success because the hard work has already been done. She has followers. They buy the book.

This is a familiar trend these days, reaffirming that great authorship and original thought are dead.
Furthermore, the book reads as if it has been dictated rather than written. It is worm-holed with dead-end diatribe and endless, meaningless anecdotes that serve no purpose. All its “wisdom” could be distilled into a very thin pamphlet, sparing readers the agony of wading through pages of Ms. Rubin’s shallow thoughts.

The most stimulating part of the book is where Ms. Rubin confides that she does not drink alcohol because it makes her “belligerent, indiscreet and sleepy.” I imagine I would quite enjoy sitting across the table from Ms. Rubin, sharing a bottle of wine, and letting the belligerence begin.

If you bought “Better Than Before” to get a grip on your life by developing better habits, I suggest that “Mini Habits” by Stephen Guise is a far better starting point.

tl;dr alternative: Worth reading because it is jammed full of interesting and substantive observations about habits.

Love the title of the book. 'Better than before' perfectly captures the spirit of the writing and even, inadvertently, a certain degree of being all things to all people with prior exhortations being contraindicated a few sentences later. Nonetheless, people are complicated and being better than before is defined by *you* so *you* chose the parts that speak to your life and desires. I think that is what the author was shooting for and accomplished. Kudos to the author for exposing her readers to Taubes' fantastic book Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It and making her low carb life a part of the story. If only she'd also discovered Dr. Davis' book Wheat Belly the circle would be complete and perhaps her diabetic sister would be more successful with the LC life.

While most self-help books are instructional point A to point B manuals, Rubin's book treads the rocky path of being a cross between that and a non-fiction novel. It is interesting to hear a first person account of how she went about researching and applying what she'd learned in her own life and the lives of others but occasionally becomes exasperating, perhaps a bit tedious, with expository dialog. As a novel-like book there were two things that really were very distracting to me personally. Rubin is a labeling zealot so I quickly contracted a case of Label Fatigue Syndrome. The Other Thing that showed the Big Pitfall of crossing a self-help with a novel was capitalizing Big Ideas or Important Terms with a hedonistic abandon that Bodes Ill for flow and Internalization.

As a side note, I can't recall the last book I read that both casually and consequentially referred to so many studies without footnoting in either case. There is a Notes section at the end of the book but it is only indexed by chapter not page number with the sentence that relates to the study. If you live your life by Studies may I just point out that the author found a study to support everything she asserted. Either she is a genius or there is a study supporting practically any assertion you'd care to espouse. I had a minor case of Study Fatigue Syndrome.

Despite those criticisms I still think the book is five star material because of its thinking about thinking nature. It covers the typical self-help ground in the first section like self-assessment exercises and pro-tips on fostering successful application of the material covered.

"Habits make change possible by freeing us from decision making and from using self-control."

Indeed.

First, I really enjoyed this book. It is thoughtful and full of questions the reader should ask themselves, with practical advice for forming the habits we would like to form.

However, I really wish Gretchen hadn't so matter-of-factly disregarded sound health and fitness advice because she came across some study (or studies) that also disregarded it. She simply says she wishes people wouldn't worry about drinking enough water, you don't need 8 glasses. She also says many studies prove exercise doesn't help you lose weight (she says there are clear benefits but weight loss isn't one of them). She also talks about simultaneously drinking coffee and Diet Coke a page or so later. I believe she is a researcher, I trust that she tirelessly researched habits for this book. But I also feel if she were going to say such powerfully dismissive statements about fitness truths, she should have done more extensive fitness and health research, spoken to people in the fitness industry, and actually cited her sources to back her statements up more thoroughly. I know many people who struggle with their weight that need to focus on water intake and exercise more seriously and would read something like this and wonder why their journey just isn't working with a cleaner diet, and their usual coffee and Diet Coke.

I don't like writing negative reviews, and I would absolutely recommend this book. I simply wouldn't recommend it to someone wanting to build health and fitness habits that doesn't have a firm grasp of how weightloss as a whole truly works.

I think I went into this book with the wrong expectations. I didn’t realize that Ms. Rubin is a lifestyle blogger, and I thought this book would have more science to it. Or at least some science to it.

But instead, she builds an entire thesis and worldview based around her own experiences and those of her immediate family. In general and on a blog I think that this is fine, but when writing a self-help book that’s going to be read by thousands of strangers, it comes across as really myopic and self-righteous. This is especially evident when she starts to authoritatively break people down into categories. I love putting myself into categories (INFJ, Sanguine, Ravenclaw, etc), but I couldn’t make myself fit into any of the categories she laid out, categories which essentially boil down to “you’re either like me, or you’re like my husband, or you’re like my sister, or you’re like this hypothetical fourth person I’ve made up to round this out”.

I think what bothered me most was how dismissive she was over other people’s experiences and basic scientific facts. (The one that really made my blood boil was when she said that drinking more water doesn’t do anyone any good, completely disregarding years and years of scientific literature which says otherwise.) In order to be able to help people make big changes in their lives, you have to have empathy towards them. If someone tells you they enjoy napping on the couch in the evening because going to bed makes them feel anxious about work the next day, don’t just tell them they’re ruining their sleep cycle. They know that. It calls into question why you would write a self-help book in the first place, and whether it was because you actually want to help people or because you want to feel like an authority.

I am a big believer in using the power of habit to effect change in my life. In Better Than Before, Gretchen Rubin takes approach she applied to happiness and discovers the secrets of creating good habits and breaking bad habits to make our lives better.

When a subject catches her attention, Gretchen Rubin first studies it, then looks for ways to apply what she has learned to her life (and, sometimes to their pleasure, sometimes not, the people around her). She knows the research and shares findings with us, but she also shares lots of anecdotal evidence of these ideas in practice.

Rubin points out that people form habits differently, and identifies four personality types: (The Four Tendencies): Obligers, Upholders, Questioners and Rebels. As she discusses various habit formation techniques, she addresses which ones may work best for each of the four tendencies. Although you may not fit neatly into one category or another (I am mostly a Questioner, but have some Upholder characteristics) you will probably identify most strongly with one of the four.

As a writer, I liked that several examples of habit formation had to do with writing habits. However, you do not have to be a writer to benefit from the ideas here. There are tips and techniques that will help you form habits related to whatever aspect of your life you want to change: eating better, exercising, getting more sleep, being more productive, even enjoying more leisure time and more.

I like Rubin's personal approach to her subject. If you liked The Happiness Project, you will probably also enjoy Better Than Before. If you didn't like it, you probably won't like this book, either. If you haven't read anything by Gretchen Rubin before, give this one a try. She might even become a habit!

Because of the very small print, I didn't read much of it. Older readers such as I have a hard time reading small print. I'm sure the subject matter is worthwhile, but I'm disappointed that the small print hampered my reading.

I wonder if Gretchen Rubin reads her reviews? I hope so. I pray so. The woman doesn't have a clue. Her life is obviously conducted within about fifteen blocks on the UES of Manhattan where her rampant narcissism is allowed to reign unchecked. I can't think of anything more embarrassing than exhorting myself publicly and repeatedly to Be Gretchen while agonizing about my meta state of thinking more about my habits than living life.
To be fair I think she may have a social adjustment disorder, otherwise she's the most boring person ever to get a book deal. The fact I feel all this so strongly demonstrates that her book is not about habits, it is about her obsession with them (hers and those people she knows and wants to love better but they're all just soooo disappointing)
I'm half way through and I can't stand any more tedious emails between herself and her sister, any more references to the long suffering yet affluent husband, any more trite 'insights' masquerading as genuine research. For the first time I must abandon an e-book without finishing. But Gretchen already has my cash. I wish to god she would get a job, any mundane 9-5 job for a year. However she would probably force us to read a book about that afterwards too.

I checked this one out because... well... don't we all have some nasty habit we want to break? Don't we all have a better habit (or a dozen) that we want to adopt?

So, I plucked this book off the shelf for the same reason everyone else did.

The book is written in a very relaxed, honest and conversational style. Reading it feels like sitting in a coffeeshop discussing self-improvement with your new friend, Gretchen Rubin. Sometimes your friend listens. Sometimes she offers wisdom and meaningful feedback based upon extensive research. Sometimes your friend talks about herself. And sometimes your friend talks about herself A LOT. If you like the voice and tone of the conversation with the author, then I feel you will truly love and profit from this book. If not, then the words on the pages will start to grate, and you'll find yourself rubbing your eyes during that coffeeshop conversation, trying to find an excuse to leave.

The content is good--and if you read it honestly and with humility, it will provide some helpful ideas for self-improvement. As for me... I'm still working! We'll see if I can be 'better than before'!

This is not a typical self-help book. It's a hybrid of self-help manual and memoir. While there are some references to work done by people who have studied habit change, most of the book is anecdotal. In the words of the author:

"... I've found that I'm more likely to be persuaded by seeing one person's successful action than by the most impressive research. It's a data point of one--but for me that's a very persuasive data point."

Gretchen Rubin's favorite data point is herself, and her second favorite data point is her sister. This book is full of personal stories about Gretchen, her sister, and a few other people in her orbit. I thought I would find this annoying, but Rubin is a very engaging writer, and she is admits to many of her flaws, which buffered my tendency to be critical. I was able to enjoy the Gretchen-focused perspective of the book by seeing it not as a research based self-help book, but rather as a memoir that includes many suggestions for habit change.

Gretchen is most enthusiastic about things that have worked well for her, which is why a gluten-free diet gets far more attention than one would expect in a book about habit change. She also clings tightly to what she believes are the four types of people (Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, Rebel), and she methodically tailors her advice according to her beliefs about what each type would find most helpful.

Trying to combine the description of a personal exploration of habit change with a self-help book providing guidance for a wide range of people is quite a challenge, and the awkwardness of combining the two is evident in the book. Gretchen alternates between talking enthusiastically about what worked for her or for one of her friends, and then methodically describing what each of her four types should try when attempting habit change. From time to time she mentions the importance of finding what works for each unique individual, but then she reverts back to her four types.

Somewhat to my surprise, I enjoyed this book. Each time I found myself annoyed at her focus on the types, or her aversion to carbs, she would say something self-deprecating, and I was mollified. I think I will recommend this book to some women I know who are struggling with habit change. It might provide them with some ideas of things to try, and even if it doesn't lead to change, it might provide some (low carb) food for thought.

I used to have a bad habit of picking up every self-help book that came along until I realized that most of them contain watered down psychology, and began reading those books instead. This review is my penance for backsliding.

In this volume, Rubin covers very well-worn material that has been presented more concisely (and with humor and grace) elsewhere. What Rubin brings to her rehash of these concepts: a grating step-by-slow-step report of how each fragmentary insight managed to penetrate her apparently resistant noggin. The difficulty of mastering the material lead her, in turn, to pad out "Better Than Before" with copious sprinklings of self-absorbed teen-diary passages like the following:

"As I developed the framework of the Four Tendencies, I truly felt as though I were discovering the Periodic Table of the Elements--the elements of character. I wasn't making up a system; I was uncovering a law of nature." I suspect that her editor removed half a dozen exclamation marks from that passage.

And what was this new law of nature, this da Vinci Code of human character, "uncovered" by Rubin? In this instance, a list of four ways people tend to respond to expectations -- material that has been covered in greater depth, detail, insight, and humor elsewhere, by authors who laid out the bounty of their research while sparing us their "dear diary, I am so amazing" asides. The earliest I can recall is "Procrastinator's Success Kit", which covers a handful of additional emotional habits that tend to undermine our goal-setting, with examples on how to harness those tendencies instead of battling them. This is valuable insight, and is addressed in numerous self-help, anti-procrastination, and anti-self-sabotage books, articles, and blog posts. Rubin's claim to have "uncovered" it is frankly embarrassing, unless by "uncovered" she means "finally got around to reading" or "recognized as a lucrative publishing niche."

The remainder of the book is heavily padded with conversations with her friends and spouses, presumably because readers are incapable of using her esoteric "insights" without some heavily stage-managed "examples." As a bonus, the book is peppered with Rubin's very own "Secrets of Adulthood". An example "Secret of Adulthood": "I'm more like other people, and less like other people, than I suppose." (Whoa, slow down there, Confucius!) These conversations and "secrets" stand in painful contrast to the genuinely insightful epigraphs adorning the chapter headings.

So, this book is nothing more than a rehash of ideas covered better elsewhere, presented in a weak, self-absorbed style. I give it two stars because the ideas themselves are valuable, and this volume may make them accessible to people who don't read much or who are new to the genre.

This was my first book by this author, picked up because it's been getting a lot of press and rave reviews. I didn't find it to live up to the hype, and don't expect I'll be reading her other works.

If you read about habits or personality types at all, as I do, you'll probably find this to be something of a casual, anecdotal "Cliffs Notes" version of many much better, more in-depth and scientifically grounded books. There were a handful of lovely quotes, and some interesting language for discussing how we approach habits ("abstainers", "questioners", "upholders", etc.) that stood out, but beyond that much was left to be desired. (The author openly states in the book didn't get into the science behind any of this because she didn't find it interesting...??)

I strongly second the comments made by other reviewers as to the following:
- The author's writing is very circuitous and almost strictly anecdotal.
- There were definitely (and inexplicably) smug undertones to the writing. (I was listening to the audio version while working, and someone passing through who had no idea what it was actually commented on how annoying and snotty the audio sounded...)
- The author's logic and advice regarding nutrition and eating was horrific and should be completely disregarded!

I also was somewhat annoyed by what felt like the author's constant self-promotion, and inefficiency. She strongly recommends that people start BTB groups/clubs, or join clubs revolving around her other books. She's got a website and blog, yet invites readers to email her for copies of club starter guides and other seemingly basic information? Why are those things not just downloadable from her website?! Particularly when she talks in the book about being so inundated with emails that she no longer uses greetings, closings, or other niceties in her emails due to lack of time to respond to them all!

All things considered, I'd skip this one - no matter which aspect of the topic interests you, other authors have covered it far better and more enjoyably!

I've read all of Gretchen's books and have enjoyed each of them. Her books provide interesting insights written in a lively and engaging manner. As befits someone with a law degree, Gretchen says she starts a book project by reading just about everything related to the topic she can get her hands on and then distills it down. But far from being a dry research summary, her books come alive as she relates stories from her life, her friends, and even her blog readers. This book focuses on habits; how we can make them, strengthen them, the challenges we face in setting them up and keeping them, etc. With over 20 principles there is quite a lot of ground covered and to get the most out of the book I think it would be useful to refer back to it from time to time.

I must admit there is an issue I have with this book. The standard personality model is the 5-factor model but Gretchen invents her own "4-Tendency Model", referring to it throughout the book. Personally I found these of little predictive value. One "Tendency", for example, is Rebel. On page 23 "Rebels refuse to do what they are 'supposed' to do", but on page 25 "some Rebels gravitate towards institutions with many rules". Labels that are match any behavior seem more like astrology than science, so people say "yes, that's me!" when read a sign picked by a researcher at random.

Not to be too harsh, though, I think most readers will find several pearls in this book with the plethora of examples and suggested approaches. For me one stroke of insight came when she wrote "I vowed to adopt the habit of putting down a book as soon as I lost interest". I read a lot (the store reviewer, duh, right?) and this new habit alone is going to save me a lot of boredom. This, however, is not a boring book and I think most readers will feel the same way.

Rubin is a really smart woman and she puts her intelligence to good use in this book. By doing some research, much of it anecdotal, Rubin has realized over time that people generally fall into one of four categories when it comes to habit formation and maintenance: upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels. Once you know what category (or blend of categories) you fall into, you can tap into specific strategies to make it easier for you to make and keep habits. Are you an obliger? Then set up some kind of external accountability (schedule personal trainer sessions at the gym; join a book club). Are you a questioner? Then find persuasive (to you) reasons for every habit you want to make and keep. Are you a rebel? Then tie your habits into your strong sense of personal identity and freedom if you want to keep them. And if you’re an upholder, than you’re one of the lucky few who easily makes and keeps habits at the expense of being overly rigid, preachy, and generally no fun at all. For better or worse, I’m an upholder.

I found a lot of insights in here about why I’m able to make habits that others find difficult to make, and there is also a lot of great information about how we tend to destroy our own habits unintentionally (by setting deadlines or by giving ourselves external rewards, for example). This book will be most helpful to readers who are coming into it with a particular habit or habits they would like to start immediately. Without that specific application in mind, the book is very general and may not be as interesting or applicable.

I am a clinical psychologist, and I really enjoyed author Gretchen Rubin's first book THE HAPPINESS PROJECT. I appreciated the organization (addressing a different area each month) as well as the foundation in research on happiness and well-being.

I was hoping that Rubin's next book, BETTER THAN BEFORE, would be a sort of follow-up. In some ways, it is, this time with Rubin more specifically addressing how to manage habits in order to be more happy and satisfied. Unfortunately, I didn't like this book nearly as much; in fact, I found it was a slog to get through the whole thing.

My major problem with this book is something Rubin addresses in her "A Note to the Reader" at the start of the book. She says "I see habits through the lens of my own experience, so this account is colored by my particular personality and interests." And that is just it--i.e., Rubin's "study" of habits is almost wholly based on what has worked for HER and for people she knows. Her prior book utilized over-frequent quotes from her blog; this one relies on anecdotal stories from her family and friends.

Rubin attempts to make her theories adaptable to all by coming up with a theory of what she calls "the four tendencies," or basically, four different approaches to habits. She calls these the Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, and Rebel. I didn't find this model, which Rubin refers to throughout the book, to be at all helpful. Whereas Rubin may find herself solidly in the "Upholder" category, I personally was divided between Upholder and Questioner, and I didn't really respond to the suggestions for either.

Using this basic framework, Rubin goes on to create many, MANY more almost arbitrary categories. Are you a Lark or an Owl (again, I'm in-between). A Mararthoner, Sprinter, or Procrastinator? Underbuyer or Overbuyer? Simplicity Lover or Abundance Lover? Finisher or Opener? Familiarity Lover or Novelty Lover? Promotion-Focused or Prevention Focused? Small Steps or Big Steps? And ALL of that is only in the second chapter! It felt very bogged down, confusing, and often irrelevant, at least for me.

Rubin goes on to address the importance of monitoring habits and to discuss the foundation for creating habits. There are some solid, general tips in this section. But eventually, she falls back into creating forced categories, such as the series of "loopholes," or exceptions to habits. Again, there are some good ideas here and there, but they tend to get lost among the clutter.

One of Rubin's chapters is called "Data Point of One." This is probably the best way to view this book--that is, as one person's experience, with suggestions that may or may not relate personally. Given both that I don't see an overall general application to Rubin's theories and that I really didn't enjoy this book overall, I wouldn't recommend it.

This is not a how to guide on changing habits. Instead the author has created a way for YOU to figure out your tendencies in order to make changes according to your personal style. Mrs. Rubin has labeled people into four types:
1. Upholders
2. Questioners
3. Obligers
4. Rebels

The author is an Upholder, and therefore that category gets the most attention throughout. There is a quiz in the back of the book to figure out what you are, but you will also know just by reading the book. Her theory is that different people have different solutions.

The book reads as a memoir/quest to discover how and why we have the habits that we have, with Gretchen revealing her thought process and dialogs with others. It was a bit too much information for me, but I did enjoy the actual meat of the book and her examples.

She explains how to monitor yourself and your actions, habits, preferences, and what is important to us. And by preferences, I mean all preferences. She goes into if you are an early or late riser, do things on time or procrastinate, spending patterns, if you like new or what you’re used to, and the list goes on and on. If anything, she’s thorough. She then goes into how habits start, how some are a choice, and how some occur out of an event (lightning bolt).

I found the section Desire, Ease and Excuses the most interesting and pulled out some gems. “By guarding against excuses, justifications, and by making our habits as enjoyable as possible, we help ourselves succeed.” She explores abstaining (something I totally relate to) which is giving up something altogether rather than indulging moderately. I’m an all or nothing kind of gal, so this hit home for me. She also explains that most nutritionists are moderators because they are more the 80/20 type of people. See, that is how you discover who/what type you are by reading through the book.

There is a lot of useful information in this book, and I will be applying some. For example, she explains pairing habits together to get them accomplished. One woman only watches tv shows while at the gym on the treadmill. The pairing one non-preferred task to a preferred task enables her to get what she wants done. She also shows how some habits can cancel each other out, such as if you want to spend less time in the car, but you also are trying to sign your kids up for more after school activities.

Although this book is not a how to habit form book, it’s a dissection of habits and forces you to be self reflective. It’s not a quick read, and it’s not an easy How-To-Do-This Quickly kind of book. In conclusion, I believe it’s an asset for anyone who wants to make change and has felt stuck and it could be the help you need and use through your lifetime.

A fan of self-help literature, I look forward to each year’s crop of inspirational and motivational books. Right now, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives is at the top of my Favorites List.

New York Times best-selling author Gretchen Rubin has expertly woven research, anecdotes, and personal insights in this excellent study of habit formation. She does not provide a one-size-fits-all approach or prescribe specific habits. Instead, she explores how to develop sustainable habits that will help us achieve our own versions of Everyday Life in Utopia (a chapter title suggested by her daughter Eleanor).

Rubin starts by outlining The Four Tendencies—Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, Rebel—and then suggests appropriate strategies in the Pillars of Habits section. While the concepts of Monitoring, Foundation, Scheduling, and Accountability are not new, they are presented using a lively, conversational style aimed at increasing self-knowledge.

I paid special attention to the following strategies:

Foundation Four – Begin with habits that help us sleep, move, eat and drink right, and unclutter. These habits will serve as the foundation for forming other good habits.

Power Hour – To deal with the small, one-time tasks (e.g. creating a photo album) that Rubin kept putting off, she decided once a week, for one hour, she would work on these chores.

Clean Slate – Fresh starts such as a new apartment, job or school and changes in personal relationships wipe the slate clean and can help us launch a new habit with less effort. But a clean slate can also disrupt good habits or break positive routines.

Lightning Bolt – While this is a very effective strategy, it cannot be invoked. A new idea triggered by an inspirational book, milestone birthday, pregnancy or another event can instantly transform habits.

Blast Start – When small steps are not working, a blast start can help us take the first step. This kind of shock treatment cannot be maintained, but it can give momentum to a new project.

Bright-Line Rule – A clearly defined rule or standard that eliminates any need for decision-making can help us achieve greater clarity. E.g. Answering every email within 24 hours.

Throughout the book, Gretchen Rubin shares her own successes and challenges along with those of family members, friends, and blog followers. Intrigued and inspired by the low-carb diet she adopted and the ripple effect it created within her circle, I picked up a copy of Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It by Gary Taubes.

And I couldn’t resist classifying myself: I am an Upholder, Abstainer, Marathoner, Finisher, and Owl.

A disclaimer: I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

After this book, I'm planning to check out Rubin's other works because this one was so inspiring to me. She starts out saying that she's interested in how habits form and how people manage to stick to some but fail miserably at others. She uses other people (usually her sister) as guinea pigs to test out her theories as she goes, and I feel that she learned a lot from this process.

Gretchen talks about four categories ("tendencies") that classify most of us when it comes to meeting expectations: the Upholder, the Obliger, the Questioner, and the Rebel. Upholders meet all inner and outer expectations, Obligers meet outer expectations but resist inner, Questioners resist outer expectations but meet inner ones, and Rebels resist it all. She finds that Obligers and Questioners make up most of the general population with Upholders and Rebels making up a small percentage.

She breaks the book down into ways to develop habits, how to start new habits, ease and excuses, and some places where we stumble and fall. She talks about monitoring/keeping track of a task in order to make it stick, scheduling time for these activities, and having somebody hold us accountable in some way to get them done. She also claims that we do better at habits that help us sleep, move, eat/drink right, and uncluttered our living space.

Rubin claims that there are some common ways that people begin anew: clean slates, where a milestone of some sort (birthday, New Year's, anniversary, summer, etc.) help inspire people to begin a new habit; and lightning bolts that suddenly strike and force people to make an abrupt change (pregnancy, death, etc.). I could really relate to the lightning bolt claim because I feel that I've made some sudden changes in my own habits since my mom's death just 6 weeks ago.

Later, she talks about some of the ways people stick to and fail at making and keeping new habits. Like myself, Gretchen has to be an Abstainer in order to make changes last. She claims that she cannot just "have one bite" because one bite becomes the whole donut. She has to abstain from things that are bad for her 100%. Habits are easier to form when they're convenient, but they're also easier to keep if not keeping them becomes inconvenient. She recommends hiding the cues that tempt you into your old ways and distracting yourself from triggers. A lot of people fail because they create loopholes ("just one bite") or set rewards for meeting their goal ("I'll get an iPad if I stop smoking") that can lead people to revert to their old ways once the reward is obtained. She does, however, allow for small treats--doing or having things you like at random times "just because". She also found that it's easier to pair disliked habits like chores with habits you enjoy, like walking the dog through the park (exercise--dislike) with listening to an audiobook (reading for pleasure--like).
In the final part of the book, she talks about clarifying your goals. You cannot set the goal of giving 110% to both work and family, so which one suffers? Make sure you are clear about what you intend to work on when setting your expectations of yourself. She also says that identity plays a large role: are you a person who "doesn't eat fries" or that person who "always has a glass of wine"? If you have chosen to do or not do something, assume that identity. If you no longer want to eat fries, you'll have more success if you become a person who just doesn't eat them. Finally, how do others affect your habits? Do they tempt you away from them or support your endeavors? How can you deal with that?

This book is definitely a must-read. I usually read quite quickly and found it to take some time to get through, so expect to give this one some time and thought as you go.

Lately there's been some excellent and practical guides on the process of developing productive habits ranging from the grounded and detailed -- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business to the insightful and masterfully presented The Willpower Instinct. In 'Better Than Before' Gretchen Rubin takes an interesting approach on the topic by framing a narrative around her personal quest to better understand the science of behavioral changes and efforts to introduce and sustain healthy and positive habits into one's daily routine.

While not a practical guide of sorts (the book functions more as a personal tell-all on what she learned in the process, what worked, what didn't, efforts to improve family/friends, etc) the book manages to effortlessly break down a goodly assortment of current best practices on the subject and thus functions quite well as a starting point to those new to the topic. Those already well versed on the subject will likely not come across anything new here but still, a recommended read for those interested in the candid story of one person's journey toward self improvement.

I first heard about Gretchen from one of her blog posts on abstainers vs moderators and LOVED what I saw. The money spend on her book is worth every penny. Can't say enough good things about it, and the chapter on loopholes and excuses alone is worth your time and money if you find yourself paralyzed by the stories you tell yourself that stop you from reaching your fatloss, weightloss, or health and fitness goals.
If you're stuck in the endless diet cycle and want to make a meaningful change in your habits, this book is excellent

Excellent book about setting good habits. This definitely inspired me on some of the habits I've wanted to keep but didn't (learning a foreign language, running, publishing more papers, meditating) and why I have more difficulty keeping some more than others. Rubin divides people into four personality subtypes (an oversimplification as you can imagine, but perhaps a little bit useful) - obligers, upholders, rebels, and questioners. I identified as an obliger/upholder hybrid meaning that I meet external goals (eg., work and family obligations) but have more difficulty with internal ones (going running and learning a language are things I do for myself). For someone like me, external accountability helps (i.e. telling a friend about it, joining a group rather than going it alone). I can see now why some people (assuming novices and not experts) start blogs around seemingly mundane things like exercise or money-saving: it can be as helpful for them in terms of having an audience that they're accountable to, as it is to the person reading it. She also sets up and then knocks down common 'loopholes' or more accurately - excuses - that people use to avoid keeping a good, but challenging, habit such as "the tomorrow loophole", or saying you'll start your new habit tomorrow (which is always, conveniently, a day away). I felt myself identifying with Rubin - I don't have any major bad habits I want to break or big life-altering changes I'm aiming for, but more of small things that would make life more pleasant and fulfilling. This book helped with setting some intentions and hopefully seeing them through.

I've been a fan of Gretchen Rubin for several years. I've recently subscribed to her blog posts (in the last several months). So I jumped at the opportunity to read her newest book, and I am not disappointed.

She takes the subject of mastering new habits and breaks it down. She does NOT tell you, like many other books on habits, what habits to form. Instead, she talks about the habits of productive people and what makes it hard for others to form them. She writes about the correlation between habits and self-control and how people who practice good self-control are better able to maintain - and create - their habits, and habits and decision-making.

It's a fascinating read. It's not a regular self-help book that you can pick up, read in a few hours, and put down. It's meaty; it's full of substance. It made me stop and think - while I was reading the book, and also when I had to put it down only to eagerly pick it back up later.

Better than Before is divided into 5 sections, plus an introduction and a conclusion.

The introduction explains how she started on the journey to learning about habits, the questions she wanted to answer, and the "Essential Seven" habits that categories the habits we want to cultivate.

The section on Self-Knowledge is divided into 2 sections and describes how learning about your "self" and where you fit in with Gretchen's "Four Tendencies". How you react (or not) to things that happen in your life will define how you tackle forming new habits.

Pillars of Habits...
This section builds upon the first one - the Self-Knowledge one. You learn that successful people, use measurements to monitor their progress, and they do it constantly. That there are some habits that are easier to start with than others, and that we general tend to start or stop the most ridiculous habit when we've there are some real habits we need to make or break. My favorite part, mostly because I already use it, is scheduling habits. If I put something in my calendar, there's a 90% change it will get done. And the converse is also true, if it's not written down, it's out of my mind and it rarely gets done because I'm not likely to remember to do it. Accountability is also discussed, although I haven't found that it works for me. Putting it out there is public hasn't changed my behavior.

The Best Time to Begin...
This is all about how and when to start forming new habits, and how to overcome obstacles that we put in our way. This is the meatiest section simply because it addresses how you're going to either embrace your habits or shrug them off.
Desire, Ease, and Excuses...

Unique, Just Like Everyone Else (which cracks me up, by the way)...
This sections helps you to understand how to put your habits into perspective and how to tie them into other parts of your life. By assigning a value, something of importance to YOU, to your habit, you're more likely to continue it. It also talks about the other side - what you do to help enforce or downplay another person's habits.

Lastly, Gretchen doesn't leave you hanging. She circles back around to the issues and ideas she discussed in the introduction and provides a bit of clarity and closure - which is a good habit.

“When we change our habits, we change our lives.” says the author. People feel more in control and less anxious when engaged in habit behavior, of which the average person spends 40% of their day. Habits comfort us because we believe we are in control. This is about the methods of changing your everyday habits. It acknowledges that everyone is different and presents a wide range of solutions. We love our habits and hate them, they are good servants and a bad master she reminds us.

She organizes habits into the 4 foundation areas: sleep, move, eat/drink, unclutter. She classifies people into being one of these 4 habit types: rebels, upholders, obligers, and questioners.

This book is overflowing with how-to, practical advice, and some seemingly crazy approaches. This book should be the companion book to Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. The Power of Habit focus is more the science of habit, research, and explanation, with some how to. This book is written in a folksy personal way. We are invited into her life and that of her husband, sister, friends, and readers. She is such a great writer that even the sections that we might have already mastered or not care about, she makes interesting.

There are so many examples and suggestions. Some sections I found myself going, yes, yes, yes. She is very non-judgmental in her presentation of other’s habits. There is an interesting section on the habits of famous people.

I have two slight criticisms, first, the overabundance of telling us that her sister is a TV writer. I hope Elizabeth approved this script. There is a test to identify your habit type at the start of the book and then the habit types are used throughout. Since I classified myself in all 4 categories, I kept getting stuck when a habit type explanation was given. Maybe that makes me a questionnaire (I want to understand) Or an Obliger (I want to get it right for others) or a Rebel (I defy categorization) or Upholder (I must follow the rules).

It’s an excellent read, has interesting ideas and concepts, and helpful to change habits. I’ve adapted a handful of her suggestions, the biggest one is monitoring. I will be rereading sections as a reference. After reading this book, I’m convinced of the importance of good habits and how they shape your life.

If I could give this zero stars, I would. Lacks any kind of acknowledgement of cultural diversity. If you are not white and upper middle-class, you will find this book exclusionary and useless. I grew up Thai -- a culture in which Obliging IS upholding. In Thai culture (and probably all Asian cultures), we would all be Obligers according to Rubin. This is the dimension to which Rubin attributes the least degree of happiness and the greatest level of neuroses (Obligers eventually explode and shut down). In Thai culture, putting aside "Self" in the service of others is intrinsic to the culture and a foundational concept to living a fuller and happier life. Perhaps all self-help books suffer from this flaw: They are written for a very narrow target readership and any notion of cultural, ethnic, or socioeconomic diversity breaks their attempts to categorize. I just find Rubin's upper-class, privileged, white crowing to be particularly insulting. For any context except Rubin's own, this framework is reductive and one-dimensional. It claims a diversity of type that is based on an essential homogeneity of circumstances, upbringing, and worldview.

Video Review: https://youtu.be/FMPY7QtLG1U

As a fan of Gretchen Rubin's previous self help memoir, The Happiness Project, I was ecstatic to receive an advance readers copy of Better Than Before from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

All the advice and techniques described in the book were helpful and well thought out. I am certain that by following this advice, just about anyone can work towards their personal goals through healthy, lifelong habit-forming behavior. Personally, I have been inspired to work on my own habits and intend to "test drive" Rubin's advice in next couple of months. This is the kind of book I know I will revisit in the future when I need inspiration to start a new habit.

Rubin has clearly done her research, by conducting a thorough analysis of the process of forming habits. The main premise of the book is that different people develop habits differently so Rubin divides readers into four personality types, called The Four Tendencies. Using these labels, and other sub-labels, Rubin identifies how each category reacts to each technique. I found the topics of monitoring, scheduling, and creating accountability to be particularly valuable. Rubin also tackles the challenges of pitfalls and how to avoid them. The idea of making habits more or less convenient certainly hit home for me. In addition, Rubin addresses how to effectively utilize rewards when forming habits. Overall, this book contains valuable and fresh information, which was not been covered in her previous books.
(Note, I have not read The Happiness Project blog in recent years so I cannot comment on how that content compares with the content in her new book.)

As with Rubin's previous self help books, Better Than Before is a very personal piece of non fiction. Rubin writes about her own personal experiences and ultimately follows her commandment to "Be Gretchen". Even though I am quite different than Rubin, I still found her narrative to be very enjoyable and balanced. The book also offers anecdotal stories from different perspectives, which helps to round out the book with other people's experiences. While I did not always personally relate to Rubin, I frequently recognized myself in her friends and family. Likewise, even when I did not share the same goals, I could still extrapolate their experiences to fit with my personal situation.

Whether a reader is trying to break a bad habit or start a better a one, Better Than Before offers universal tips and tricks for turning any type of resolution into a lifelong habit. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who was a fan of the Happiness Project and is looking to improve his or her life in some way (big or small) by developing better habits.

I've read Gretchen's two previous books. I really enjoyed both The Happiness Project and Happier at Home. For that reason, I was eager to read Better Than Before. The difference in these books was that this one was much more research based (and dryer) than the previous two that were full of personal stories. Gretchen still included personal stories in this book but it was more theory than anecdotes. (After reading all three, I'd recommend the Happier books before this one.)

Better Than Before examines the practice of our habits. Gretchen asks the hard questions about habits. Why is it hard to create a habit for something we love to do? How quickly can we change a habit? Why can we change some habits overnight and others, we simply can't change? How do we keep our healthy habits when we're surrounded by temptations?

What I appreciated most about this book was that Gretchen does not tell you what habits you should or should not have. She encourages you to choose your habits yourself. She does go into detail explaining the science of habits. It was this part that became a bit dry at times. The book was well written but you do need time to work your way through it. Better Than Before is not a quick read.

From this book, I learned that I am an upholder and a finisher. I am also a morning person who needs some accountability. I like simplicity and can handle moderation (rather than abstain). All of these things, affect my habits. Now that I have read Better Than Before, I have a better idea of how to approach my habits. It was an interesting - and enlightening- read.

Please note that I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Gretchen Rubin in her book “Better than Before: What I learned about Making and Breaking Habits” brings to our attention the influence of habits in our lives, how mastering the cultivation of good habits can make our lives better, and gives us input on how we could build habits customized for each of us..

I wouldn’t say this is the best book on understanding habit cultivation, but the book definitely has a lot of knowledge in a condensed form. Gretchen begins the book presenting us with the importance of self-knowledge when it comes to habits, and then throughout the book presents us with twenty one strategies which can help us build the habits that suit you. The book is also written in a conversational style, and it keeps you entertained as you read.

The book contains four primary sections where the author goes through various aspects of habit cultivation. Beginning with self-knowledge, where she lists the types of tendencies each one of us falls under, when it comes to habit creation. She goes on to discuss “Pillars of habits”, which are monitoring, foundation, scheduling and accountability, then in remainder of the book, she lists us various strategies on how we can create habits that suit us and serve us.

This book reminds me of the books “Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success” by Kerry Patterson, et al, “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg, and “The Willpower Instinct” by Kelly McGonigal, which are original books based on scientific research. Since most of the content of this book overlap with the books listed above, in a certain sense, I would give a 4 stars out of 5 for this book if I were writing an the store review. This book is good and there is a lot to learn from this book. You can buy the book from the store here.

Disclaimer: I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

I've read a number of other books on habits, most notably Willpower and The Power of Habit, so I wasn't expecting much from this book, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Rubin's most important point is that building habits require a great deal of self-knowledge, which is pretty obvious, and yet easy to forget when you're making a list of New Year's resolutions. I was most interested in the idea of overbuyers and underbuyers and Abstainers vs Moderators.

Overall, the book's greatest strength - Rubin's casual, conversational tone - is also often its weakness. You have to dig through lots of chatty anecdotes and emails sent and received in order to pull out the helpful nuggets you might find most helpful. But it's a pleasant alternative to a book like Willpower, which, while readable, also felt dry and stiff at times.

If you're interested in making changes in your life, or if you enjoyed The Happiness Project, this is worth a read.

Hello, I got the earlier hardback version of this book out of the library and have also been listening to it on audio CD. This is the first experience I have had with Gretchen Rubin. As someone who is very busy, I got this book with the hope that I would get some hints on how to become more efficient in my life so I can get more things done in my elusive "free" time. Overall I liked the book. Gretchen Rubin's style is very easy to listen to and she explains things well. In the beginning, she makes a good case for developing habits since if you have your habits in place, then you don't need so much willpower to do the things you want to do. Her 4 categories I found interesting, although I don't think I agree with them (but need to give this more thought). I think they might be more creditable if she could back them up with solid research. On the other hand, I like the quotations she includes and her willingness to share her rules for living life. I also was tickled by the idea of the habit of standing on one foot to increase your balance; that sounds like so much fun! I especially loved the part towards the end where she shares her daughter's response to watching the movie Lost Horizons by writing a sequel to it called "Everyday Life in Utopia"; I thought that was wonderful. It reminded me of a small sign I inherited from my husband's father which says: "Another ho-hum day in Paradise". The book is written with joy and I think that is what many people are looking for in their lives: more joy and more happiness. When you have joy and happiness, spiritually and perhaps emotionally you are living in Utopia, and I think Gretchen's book gives some great ideas on how to get there. It makes sense. If we can do even little things that make our lives better than before, then we are going to feel better about ourselves because we have improved our lives.

I enjoyed both of Gretchen Rubin's earlier books. I already wrote about how The Happiness Project inspired me to start my YA book club. So I was very eager to read her newest book. And it did not disappoint.

This book is written in the same style as her other books. Rubin explores the principles of habit formation by using herself and her sister, Elizabeth, as the primary examples. While what you might take away from this book could be considered self help, it reads more like a blog. I enjoy hearing stories about Rubin and her family - especially as this is the third book I've read, I feel like I really know them. It's like getting advice from an old friend.

During most of the book I found myself thinking, "Oh yeah, I do that." There wasn't too much that seemed profound, but listening to it did inspire me to examine my own life and think about habits I'd like to form.

The greatest insight was her identification of the Four Tendencies and how different types of people respond to habits. It was helpful to classify myself before reading (well actually listening) to the rest of the book, so that I could better understand why trying to form certain habits had or had not worked for me in the past. It was also interesting to classify my son (a questioner like me) and to try to classify my husband. Although I couldn't figure him out, and when I told him about the tendencies, he thought they were stupid. Maybe he's a rebel?

I enjoyed Rubin's extensive references to Gary Taubes' Why We Get Fat, which was the same book that inspired me to eat low carb for almost two years (a habit I want to get back into).

She also talks about rewards vs. treats which was interesting to read as a parent. We use rewards so often with children, but Rubin questions their effectiveness. Something that was very pertinent as Jim and I are thinking about changing our rules about iPad watching time for Christopher.

The last point that struck me was her discussion of goals or "finish lines" as she calls them and how they can be counterproductive unless you are a serial goal setter. Once the goal has passed people typically stop the habit because they lose motivation. This explains why I have been able to run each fall before doing a Turkey Trot with my sister and brother-in-law, but I find it very hard to keep running when I return from vacation. I need to suck it up and sign up for a winter race as well this year.

(...)

This is an extremely thoughtful and self-reflective look at habits and how to acquire good ones that will be put into practice daily and potentially change our lives. Rubin also gives advice on how to break bad habits. I love how she uses her sister and father as sounding boards and shows how she makes an impact in the lives of those closest to her. She recognizes that everyone is different and that some can indulge in, for example, alcohol and candy-eating in moderation, and some need to take an all-or-nothing approach. She discusses rewards that are not connected with food and the importance of measuring and monitoring our habits. Basically, we have to know ourselves, and there is a quiz in the back of the book to help us learn whether we have the tendency to be "Upholders," "Questioners," "Obligers," or "Rebels." I like "The Habits Manifesto" in the beginning that includes #9: "We can't make people change, but when we change, others may change." With this book we can help others with their habits as well as ourselves. Because she also discusses language and habits, I'm going to go "play" Spanish, rather than "study" my Spanish now.

As a person who enjoyed Happiness Project AND being a person who finds loopholes around creating and keeping habits, I picked up this title, hoping that it would speak to me. It did. Rubin's thesis is that you can make and maintain habits when you understand your tendencies. She narrows them into 4 types:
--Upholders, who meet expectations and won't let anyone down, including themselves
--Questioners, who are motivated by reason, logic, and fairness; they only respond if they think the expectation makes sense.
--Obligers, who meet others' expectations, deadlines, etc., but struggle with their own. They are accountable to others, but not themselves.
--Rebels, who resist ALL expectations and act from a sense of choice and freedom. They make their own rules.
My favorite takeaways from Better Than Before include:
--It's mandatory to schedule the thing(s) you want to do on your calendar, thus showing their importance as equal to things you do for others.
--Lots of great examples of how we excuse ourselves from the desired habit (e.g. can't exercise because it's too hot/cold)
--Rather than pushing to resist temptation, it's better to anticipate those temptations and find ways to resist them.
--When setting a particular goal with an end-date (for instance, when I lose X number of pounds), you tend to change those ingrained habits because your goal is met.
I may buy my own copy (this was from the library) because Rubin's thesis makes sense to me (I'm pretty sure I'm an Obliger, with a sprinkling of Questioner!).

I was really looking forward to reading Gretchen Rubin’s newest book, Better Than Before as I truly loved her previous books, The Happiness Project and Happier at Home. For me, this book was less enjoyable than her previous two novels. I am an avid reader of self-help books and enjoy taking opportunities to self-reflect and enact positive change in my life. However, I don’t feel as if I took as much away from this book as I have from Gretchen’s previous books. Ms. Rubin begins the book with an introduction about habits. I found this quote to be inspiring and was immediately excited to read further, “Habits are the invisible architecture of daily life. We repeat about 40 percent of our behavior almost daily, so our habits shape our existence, and our future.” This quote was quite inspiring to me and made me truly think about my daily life and how often I complete the same tasks, and daily activities. However, on the next page, I disagreed with her thought of, “It’s simple to change habits, but isn’t not easy.” This statement deflated my excitement about embarking on a journey of habit formation and/or change.

Ms. Rubin is correct when she says in the next chapter titled Self Knowledge, that to shape our habits successfully, we must know ourselves. I too agree, this is key to habit formation. She undertakes a discussion about the 4 tendencies related to habit formation. These are as follows: upholders, obligers, rebels, and questioners. Upholders respond to outer expectations and meet inner expectations. Questioners will question all expectations and will meet an expectation if they believe it is justified. Obligers respond to outer expectations, but struggle to meet inner expectations. Rebels resist all expectations. I found these explanations of the types to be informational and was happy to see a quiz in the book to try to determine which tendency I most related to. I think that there should have been more of a discussion regarding the fact that one may waver or be in between two different tendencies. At least, I found this to be relevant to myself regarding different habits and or activities.

After discussion regarding the tendencies, Ms. Rubin provides 21 different strategies to utilize to put habits to work in your life. These strategies and explanations of each strategy were extremely helpful and I found her anecdotes amusing and interesting. The strategies discussed included the following: self monitoring, choice of habits to change/implement, scheduling, accountability, taking the first step toward making a habit, making a fresh start (clean slate), lightning bolt strategy to begin a new habit, strategy of abstinence, strategy of convenience, strategy of inconvenience, putting safeguards in place to ensure follow through, loophole spotting, using distraction, using rewards, using treats, using pairing to establish a new habit, strategy of clarity, defining our identity, and letting ourselves not be swayed/affected by other people. These are wonderful tidbits of information presented by Ms. Rubin, but I found some of the chapters to be too lengthy and repetitious. I felt that some of the information could be pared down. Additionally, I wish that she should have more clearly suggested which of the multitude of books at the end would be most helpful for follow up recommended reading. I did like that she offers additional resources on the subject of habits. She is always willing to interact with her readers and she shares “real life” examples and anecdotes and is always willing to share even more on her blog. While I enjoyed her other two books much more than this one, this one does have some valuable information and insights and would be very helpful to someone wanting to change/develop new habits. I will be anxiously awaiting Ms. Rubin’s next book. This book was provided to me by Blogging for Books for my honest review.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I received Better Than Before by best selling author Gretchen Rubin through a Birchbox Book Club giveaway. Although I have always been interested in the study of how the human mind works, this was the first book I've read of hers.
The book basically provides her personal insights and research into different traits and tendencies, providing techniques to better manage our habits, whether good or bad. I relate mainly as a Questioner although I favor many Upholder tendencies as well. Many believe it takes 21 days to form a habit but some say it can take up to 66 days. She explains that sometimes the habit of the habit is more important than the habit itself and that changing a habit may be simple, but not easy. As I read I recognized familiar notions such as that its easier to make and keep habits if they are at the least enjoyable..even if its an illusion, as well as the importance of when to start new habits and how to take advantage of a "Clean Slate". One thing I didn't expect for her to tie in was her move to a low carb diet and as she talked about her sister getting back on track from an overseas trip, her sister comments that she'd forgotten how much she enjoyed certain foods, like Goldfish. I was so munching on a lunch of Goldfish as I read this and decided to add the book that started her journey to my reading list. This book opened my eyes to the unlimited creativity we can have establishing or ridding ourselves of habits as well as helping others do the same. I felt this would come in handy especially when parenting my soon to be teen daughter.
I also enjoyed her touch of witty humor and chuckled at her tie in of jokes such as "How many shrinks does it take to change a lightbulb?" "Only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change."
Her obviously keen awareness for these subjects in everyday life and ability to dive so deeply into them and skillfully present them to us impressed me greatly. It left me thinking 'I need a Lightning Bolt'.

The things that help you maintain a habit are likely different than what helps someone else, due much to your personality type. So says Gretchen Rubin in Better Than Before.

Gretchen explains these “Four Tendencies” that greatly affect how we live our everyday lives.

1 Upholder—responds readily to both outer expectations and inner expectations
2 Questioner—questions all expectations, and will meet an expectation only if they believe it’s justified
3 Obliger—responds readily to outer expectations but struggles to meet inner expectations
4 Rebel—resists all expectations, outer and inner alike

Your intrinsic motivations and subsequent habit formations will differ according to your type. Gretchen explains,
“For an Upholder, a habit that’s a source of control might have special appeal; for a Questioner, curiosity; for an Obliger, cooperation; for a Rebel, challenge.”

Once you know your type, you can get better strategize to keep your habits.

Thus, “Self-Knowledge” is the first section in Better Than Before for creating a structure in your everyday life. Subsequent sections include:
* Pillars of Habits (Monitoring your habits; Laying a foundation; Scheduling; Accountability)
* The Best Time to Begin (Taking first steps; Starting with a clean slate; Making lighting bolt changes)
* Desire, Ease, and Excuses (Abstaining vs. moderating; Making it convenient; Setting up safeguards; Rewarding)
* Unique, Just Like Everyone Else (Making it specific; Creating a new identity; Influence from/on others)

I love having strong habits because it takes less self-control. Less decision-making. Once a habit is firmly established, you no longer have to think about it; you just do it.

There are many specific tips in this book, but also—and perhaps more importantly—there are many foundational ideas about why things work for us (or not), based on our type.

With this extra knowledge, we can better keep our habits in place. Not perfectly, but more reliably. As Gretchen says, “It’s simple to change habits, but it’s not easy.” But easy or not, it’s definitely possible.

I'm a big fan of Gretchen Rubin's books. I love that she actually tries, does and either fails or succeeds in what she writes about, thus saving me time and effort. Her new book, Better Than Before, is all about creating good habits. Gretchen provides a classification scale and quiz for you to decide where you fall as far as Tendencies go. Knowing your Tendency helps you best tailor practices to create good and great habits. Of the four types: Rebel, Obliger, Upholder and Questioner, I thought I was probably the Rebel type. And then I took the quiz and did the questions and found out I was profoundly in the Questioner camp. Now I know that I need the absolute reasons why I am doing something and it better make a lot of sense for me, otherwise, FAHGETABOUTIT! lol

Personally, I was obsessed with habits even before I got this book. I try to systemize everything so this topic could not be more appealing to me. Rubin takes the latest research from willpower and change camps and breaks it down to teeny tiny bite sized deliverables that you can apply to your everyday life.

My recent, in the last two years or so changes have included - daily workouts, green tea, meditation and waking up at 3:30 am most mornings. These have served me really well. I think it is important to find five or six things you would really love to change - eating, financial, relationships - endless material draw from and decide what to change and then go for it!

This is a farily easy read, very well thought out and organized. Take what works for you and your Tendency type.

I’m very lucky I wrote my own book about habits before reading this one. It would have discouraged me from tackling the subject.
It’s complete. It’s sincere. It’s witty. It’s well researched and to the point.
It’s brilliant!

I read ‘The Power of Habit’ and several S.J. Scott’s books, and they all have their place. I read a few positions about the brain’s topology and habits. But “Better Than Before” is absolutely fantastic. It covers every angle – developing good habits, New Year’s resolutions, and breaking bad habits. It tackles every obstacle, such as: going cold turkey, abstaining and avoiding temptations. It’s also full of practical advice. I felt like I was at the dinner table full of amazing dishes, and I was delighted.

It was written in a manner very close to my heart – in the first person, sharing stories, not quoting the university studies’ results and best of all– providing the whole range of techniques and approaches to each task.

My only reservation
to this book is the extensive vocabulary introduced during the whole text: Obliger, Abstainer, Questioner, Lark, Rebel… and so on. For the first half of the book, I think those nicknames are unnecessarily frippery, and girlish empty inventions. Then I grudgingly accepted the fact that the new vocabulary in this book actually makes some sense.

“Better Than Before” doesn’t focus on the specific ways to build good habits or break bad ones. It focuses on providing the whole spectrum of solutions and they have their place in relation to the individual’s personality quirks.

Some of us can indulge moderately and some cannot. Some actually like to be told what they should do, while others react to orders like a cat in a frenzy.

Realization
The key to successful habit management is knowing yourself; I realized this, thanks to reading “Better Than Before“. Now I know why I was able to introduce a few dozen daily habits within few weeks. I started from analyzing myself. The rest was an afterthought.

So, go and self-analyze yourself a bit. Once you get some self-knowledge, go back to this book and you will feel like a kid in a candy store. You will have a choice between the whole range of useful techniques of habit development (or destruction).

Genuine voice
As I’ve mentioned, I appreciated the author’s voice. She shared plenty stories from her life, as well as stories from the lives of her friends and readers. This made this hitherto technical and mundane subject more personal. When she talked about scientific research, she always immediately supported them with some personal story. She was quite generous in openly sharing her family life. Her transparency was touching.

I’m a Questioner. I’m skeptical about research and studies, and don’t trust their conclusions to be applicable in my life. They are great for describing mass behaviors, but they aren’t necessarily the best way to implement change in individual cases. Quoting researches usually annoys me. But Gretchen didn’t quote them. She translated academic jargon into understandable English and provided just a brief conclusion of each research (and also created an extensive appendix pointing out all her sources). Of course, she added great stories illustrating these conclusions.
I wholeheartedly recommend “Better Than Before” to anyone interested in habit formation. It’s a gem.

It’s doubly valuable for me, because I’m also starting a coaching practice. Previously, I was focused on what worked for me and tried to force it on my clients. After reading “Better Than Before” I got access to priceless information about different types of personalities, and how they react to different techniques of changing habits.

I’m a big fan of habit awareness. We don’t think about function of brushing our teeth, getting dressed, feeding ourselves every morning but somehow it happens. Habits are actions that you train yourself to perform that don’t take up mental bandwidth. Habits just become part of your routine- that knee jerk reaction that happens before we even have time to think about it.

A good read that will leave you contemplating how aware you are of your habits (which can be harder to identity than you think!) and equip you with research based actions and solutions to build and change your habits. I enjoy Gretchen’s writing style so I’m familiar with her topics of cultivating happiness and building habits and this book wasn’t life changing to the point where I’m suddenly up at 5am exercising every morning and living off off green juices but it did give me a lot to contemplate about why we do some of the things we do - and why we, sometimes, find it hard to change.

I found some of the personal stories a bit long so I skimmed over some of those parts to suggest of her research that give me more context and tolls to asses my own habits, consciously build the habits I want to build and how to break negative habits. What I liked is that she explained there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for making and breaking habits. You have to figure out what motivates you in order to most successfully make and/or break habits. Understanding what inspires action, when we strongest, our particular work/motivation style,and so on hers us to craft a stronger more efficient strategy for successful change.

I loved Gretchen's other two books and I was really looking forward to this one. Overall it was alright but definitely got wordy and kind of boring in the middle. I still got through it. Definitely some good nuggets and I will take a few key things away. I think the part that bothers me the most is that the type of person Gretchen is putting herself forward to be is one that is an upholder and will decide to make a habit and just do it. That is definitely not me and not anyone I know. It was hard to take advice from someone that has no problem following through and just doing it. She mentions that she understands we are not all like her but it was hard to read it as someone that wanted to come along side of the author in her struggles while I in no way felt that we had the same ones. For these books I feel as if I need to identify with the author more.

Like the other two books by Rubin that I've read, I really enjoyed this book. If you've never read a book by her, I suggest picking one up. This book helped me understand some things about my own personality (like how a stuffed fridge stresses me out, I'm a simplicity lover) as well as the people around me (like my mom's desire to have a full fridge, she's an abundance lover). I'm still not sure about my habit-forming type (when I was younger I was definitely an Upholder, but I'm not sure I still fit that mold). But even if you don't figure it out on first read, you can still pick up several good tips (such as her chart to track progress, I love that!).

BTB glosses over the inevitable costs associated with habit change, and I found this to be a serious oversight and made the book less relatable. Every change costs something- whether it's money, time, energy, health, occupation, relationships, view of oneself, etc. Every change also involves some level of rejection- how one was raised, entrenched belief patterns, what used to work, what works fine for someone else, and what should work but doesn't. Often these costs (or the fear of them) are what keep people stuck in unsatisfying yet familiar behaviors. To make it more difficult, the scales don't always balance towards the side of the "good" habit you're trying to cultivate. It takes courage and faith to push past the setbacks, when the costs feel too high for too little payoff; once the initial glow of the battle has faded and discouragement sets in.

Successful change requires acknowledging and making peace with these costs. The costs could be as nominal as the 1 minute it takes to floss or the lifestyle overhaul to beat an addiction, but they are real nonetheless. Making peace and forging ahead anyway is the psychological and spiritual work of habit change. It isn't as simple as entering a 10pm bedtime on the calendar or giving myself a gold star for a low carb dinner.

Two authors who have done excellent work in this area are Neil Fiore (The Now Habit) and Daniel Gilbert (Stumbling on Happiness).

I am a nonfiction junkie so this book was right up my ally.

Rubin takes a look at habits in this book. She begins by helping us to see more about our own habits and tendencies. She lays out four basic tendencies that most people fit into and discusses each one. There is a quiz at the back of the book to help you figure out where you fall. She elaborates on each one to help you understand them and yourself better.

From there she takes us through several "opposites" to determine how we approach situations in our lives... for example, are you are marathoner when it comes to a project you must complete, a sprinter, or a procrastinator? There is a whole chapter with these listed for you to work out your personal style and preference. She gives valuable tips to use each one to your advantage.

The second section takes us through some basic pillars of habits that most people experience. It is a section of "strategies" that are valuable in understanding more about how we should approach a habit. One example here that really spoke to me was the chapter on "abstaining" or "moderation". I learned that I do better with particular habits when I just abstain completely from something instead of trying an 80/20 approach. There are some things that I cannot do 80% of the time and let myself slide 20% of the time. For me, it is often all or nothing. Other people can do things in moderation but I find I am not one of those people. I loved this section because it made me work through paying attention to the things I do on a daily basis. Once one starts to see their patterns they can hone or change them to become more useful in one's everyday life.

She leaves no stone unturned as she talks us through our motives and excuses that prevent us from becoming better at forming good habits. It was very convicting to me to work through this section. She talks about how we interact with others and our environments. She talks about rewards and treats and how they can help us or hurt us as we work through habit formation.

This book is loaded with great information and practical help! Her information is well researched and her presentation of information is very friendly and encouraging. She also shares a great list of resources at the back of the book for further research and reading.

I have never read anything else by her but I will seek out some of her other books to try because I love her research based approach and friendly writing style very much.

If you're a fan of getting your information from blogs, this could be for you !

What you will find in browsing through this book, is that Ms. Rubin, like you, has life get in her way.Most of us have the best intentions in the world. We "intend" to treat our spouses better, be more receptive to our children, exercise more, be better listeners, life however, gets in our way ! Some days we hit our marks perfectly, others, not so much. This is the entire story Ms. Rubin tells you.

Whats' different...she quotes famous authors to start nearly every chapter, takes isolated ideas from people who have invested significant research in "personal planning", Charles Duhigg, Prof. Daniel Gilbert, a "happiness expert", what could that possibly mean, and has created a 'self-styled", 4 Tendencies, categories you may or may not fit into.

Ms. Rubin is doubtlessly a nice person, with whom I'd love to share a coffee in The Village someday, but if you're looking for advice on how to acquire or change habits, read any of the books she quotes for significantly better material.

This is a hard one to judge. It is filled with good advice which, in most cases,would be enough for this type of book. Yet I couldn't rid myself of the nagging feeling that the suggestions were too centered on her upper middle class lifestyle and rarely took the view point of regular working nonprofessionals. She is expert in diagnosing a type of Manhattan mover and shaker and creative but like a Woody Allen movie, you don't have examples of the other half. Many of the solutions were consumer based and not realistic for most people. Plus, it was tiresome for her to continually call herself an "under buyer" (or some such label) when she has 19 magazine subscriptions, buys her sister an expensive treadmill desk and solves many of her quandaries with her purchasing power. This is well researched and the author writes well about the people and places in her milieu. I just wish she could have left her comfort zone and made this relatable to a more broad spectrum of people.

This is the third book I’ve read from Gretchen Rubin and I was inspired and found out why I have trouble breaking or starting a habit. She shows us why it’s hard to break or start a habit based on our personality. She also tells us what she’s done to break or start a habit.

If you have trouble understanding why you can’t keep or break a habit then you will find out how to work out the conflict. She gives us her habits manifesto, which are 12 reasons to break or start a habit. There are four tendencies that will help you understand whether you are an upholder, questioner, obliger, and rebel. Once you know which you are then you can start working on the habits you want to adopt or get rid of.

I loved this book and think you will as well. Habits can be good or bad, but hard to start or break and this book will give you the first step to making your life better and happier.

I am a big Gretchen Rubin fan. Last winter, I discovered her bestseller, HAPPIER AT HOME, a follow-up to THE HAPPINESS PROJECT. I wasn’t sure what to expect based on the subtitle, “Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon Self-Control, and My Other Experiments in Everyday Life,” but what I didn’t bargain for was a book that had so many great takeaways and simple ideas for how to just, well, be happier at home! I really got a lot out of it and feature it regularly on my staff picks shelf at the bookstore where I work, and have also featured it in a book talk called “Five Books You Should Be Reading Right Now.”

Rubin is one of those authors who can take the seemingly mundane (think Malcolm Gladwell) and put in hours of research and intense thought into her subject to turn it into a highly readable book. In Rubin’s case, her books set out to help other people, maybe in just one or two little ways, change their lives for the better. I mean, really, habits? Who wants to read about how to start or stop habits? If you’ve learned to live with always being late to work, maybe you can easily say to yourself, “Hey! This is just how I am!” Chances are, though, that other people, including your boss and co-workers, can’t brush off your tardiness with such aplomb. So what do you do?

Rubin starts out by identifying the Four Tendencies, figuring out that self-knowledge is the first step to understanding personal habits. She gives succinct descriptions for the four categories people fall into:

Upholder --- meets both outer and inner expectations
Questioner --- resists outer expectations, meets inner expectations
Obliger --- meets outer expectations, resists inner expectations
Rebel --- resists both outer and inner expectations

I carefully read all four summaries and then found out I was an Obliger, who “may find it difficult to form a habit, because often we undertake habits for our own benefit, and Obligers do things more easily for others than themselves.” For a little while, I thought I was a Questioner, who “questions all expectations and responds to an expectation only if they conclude that it makes sense,” but after some reevaluation decided that Obliger fit best. I am definitely NOT an Upholder, like Rubin herself, or a Rebel (although I think my son is).

The next two sections deal with the Pillars of Habits, which Rubin has identified as Monitoring (think food diaries), Foundation (starting with a firm base), Scheduling (self-explanatory) and Accountability (Someone’s Watching); and the Best Time to Begin --- whether by taking that first little step towards better health by walking around the block one time; starting with a clean slate on a better diet by throwing out all the processed food in your pantry; or the “lightning bolt,” where a habit just suddenly makes so much sense you can’t ignore it.

Not surprisingly, the biggest section in the book is called “Desire, Ease and Excuses.” Rubin first outlines strategies that can “shape our habits by adjusting the amount of effort involved.” These strategies are:

Abstaining: Do you have trouble sticking to one or two glasses of wine? Maybe it is easier for you to just completely eliminate it from your life!
Convenience: Rubin tended to overindulge in her daily almond habit, so she bought a Costco-sized bag of individual portions of her favorite snack.
Inconvenience: If overspending on credit cards is an issue, don’t carry them in your wallet! Leave them at home.

My favorite part comes next: loophole spotting! I am trying to memorize these so I can easily identify them when I am employing one of these habit derailment methods. I recognized ALL of them and feel sure most readers will as well.

Moral Licensing Loophole: How much easier will it be to stop making an excuse if I know that it is a moral licensing loophole? “After all the work I’ve done today, I’ve earned a nice glass of wine.”
Tomorrow Loophole: Who doesn’t know this one? I’m having pizza with all the toppings and a glass of beer because my diet starts, you guessed it, tomorrow!
False Choice Loophole: I love this one. “I haven’t been exercising. Too busy writing.” One of her blog readers nailed my biggest problem on the head, saying, “I make to-do lists with some items that are easy and fun and some that are way too ambitious, then I do the easy, fun things but don’t have time for the hard things.”
Lack of Control Loophole: “I’d had a couple of beers.” This is directly related to the…
Arranging to Fail Loophole: Ever been on vacation and thought, “I don’t have to maintain my meditation practice, I’m on vacation!” Rubin identifies this one as the “This Doesn’t Count” loophole.

A few others are outlined as well, but I guarantee there will be more than one that most people recognize as either having employed or maybe employ more often than others. I’m hoping personally that by now knowing more about these loopholes, I’ll be less apt to put them into play when trying to justify breaking, or at least easing up on, a habit.

Lastly, “Unique, Just Like Everyone Else” is a section to help us understand ourselves better, in relation to other people. Utilizing the concepts of clarity, identity and how others affect our behavior, Rubin offers the last keys to unlocking a better path to creating and maintaining good habits, and terminating the bad.

If you are a Gretchen Rubin fan, or become one after reading this book, be sure to subscribe to her daily “Moment of Happiness” email. It’s just a short quote that arrives in your inbox every morning. I’m sure everybody finds different ones more applicable to their life than others, but I myself have had some that have spoken to me so loudly, it is as if she selected it just for me. She is also very active on Facebook and Twitter, and has a great podcast with her sister, Elizabeth Craft, who pops up regularly in her books.

I always walk away from a Gretchen Rubin book with much to think about, and my experience with BETTER THAN BEFORE is no different. I’ll keep it nearby for some time, referring to it as I try to employ her ideas and methods so that I, too, can become…better. Than before.

Reviewed by Jamie Layton.

better than before
We'll start where Mrs. Gretchen Rubin concludes:

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.

-William James, Psychology: Briefer Course

It's quotes like this that make the book worth reading. Rubin is obviously well-read and that itself makes this different than any other habit book out there.

I have a problem with these types of books in general. If you want to change a habit, there is only one way to go about it: stop doing the thing you don't want to be doing and start doing the thing you want to do.

Of course it's not that simple. Rubin introduces a simple framework and many stories that help us to think better about habits. For instance, she separates us all out into four categories:

Upholders have no problem doing whatever they say they'll do for no reason other than they'd said they do it.
Questioners need to have a solid reason to do something, otherwise they have no problem breaking off commitments.
Obligers find gumption easily when they're doing something for other people, not so much for themselves.
Rebels always have to feel like they have freedom, otherwise they just react against the "cage." (Or something.)
I kept wanting to put the book down, then she'd grab me with some story or, more often, with her quotes. Here are some of my favorites:

Andy Warhol said, "Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it's exciting, and if you do it every day it's exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it's not good any more." Gertrude Stein made a related point: "Anything one does every day is important and imposing."

"Habits gradually change the face of one's life as time changes one's physical face; & one does not know it." - Virginia Woolf

As architect Christopher Alexander described it: "If I consider my life honestly, I see that it is governed by a certain very small number of patterns of events which I take part in over and over again."

"It is well to yield up a pleasure, when a pain goes with it." - Publilius Syrus

"It is much easier to extinguish a first desire than to satisfy all of those that follow it." - La Rochefoucauld

"The sacrifice of pleasures is of course itself a pleasure." - Muriel Spark

"There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need do only inner work... that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself, he need only change himself... The fact is, a person is so formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings." -Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building

"The infancies of all things are feeble and weak. We must keep our eyes open at their beginnings; you cannot find the danger then because it is too small: once it has grown, you cannot find the cure." - Montaigne

And on and on with things that make you think: shoot, it really IS worth it to create a habit...

At the end of the day, that's probably all we need.

I got this book as an advance readers' copy directly from the publisher.

I found the book much more useful and interesting as providing some new insights into how people approach and adopt habit changes (or not), especially her categorization of the four types: Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, and Rebel. I especially appreciated how she illustrated them as an overlapping Venn diagram of four circles rather than four quadrants of a Cartesian graph to indicate that that the categories aren't clear cut.

But as a "Rebel," and the opposite of the author's Upholder type, I found a lot of her advice hard to swallow. I had hoped that she would elaborate in each chapter on what approaches would work best for my type, but she basically ended each chapter with a line that said, "Of course, if you are a Rebel, this would be much harder, and may not work for you at all." and washed her hands of the matter.

Loved the beginning. And then just when I thought the book would start repeating itself, the author surprised me with her intensity. Gretchen Rubin is fiercely determined to life-hack her way to humanity 2.0.

A couple of thoughts while reading:

- I appreciate Gretchen's methods. From her POV, all good habits are achievable in some form or another. Plus, she's diligent about self-evaluation. I don't have the mental energy to devote my time the way she does, which I suspect is part of her Upholder tendency. I prefer a play-to-your-strengths / leverage-your-energy approach. Take the habits that come easy and focus on those. Rethink the hard ones. In effect, don't swim against the tide.

- Gretchen must be aware of how extraordinarily fortunate she is to have both the flexibility and the financial resources necessary to pursue mastery of her habits. This isn't an excuse for the rest of us to slack off, but surely she must realize the majority of her readers, even those with a comfortable middle class lifestyle, have to juggle career and family and personal fulfillment within a stark range of inflexible constraints.

- According to the tendency categories from early on in the book, I am undoubtedly a Questioner. That said, I question her seemingly blind devotion to the habit over what quality improvement it's supposed to aid. Exercise is an excellent example. As a lifelong acquirer and reformer of habits I'm extra sensitive to the trap of going through the motions. With exercise it's easy to do a lot while accomplishing very little. (And sometimes very little could be something unwelcome like repetitive strain injury.) Proper exercise needs to be focused, frequently varied, and never overdone; otherwise its value goes way down. Coincidentally, this was what I was thinking when I read this line from Gretchen, "The fact that I can easily read magazines while I exercise may suggest that I'm not exercising very hard—and I'm not. But at least I'm showing up." Gretchen, I know from the rest of the book that you're better than that. Maybe it's my Questioner tendency speaking through, but habits need to produce qualitative outcomes. Otherwise they should be banished or reformed. (She seems to realize this by the end of the book regarding her mediation practice. The sessions weren't giving her the ROI she was hoping for so she stopped.)

- And finally, I loved the "Secrets of Adulthood" bits of wisdom scattered throughout the book.

At first, I truly didn't want to see myself in this book. I immediately wrote it off as a pseudo-science fluff piece that turned a persons memorable experience into a book that could guide the perspective you take of yourself. I mistaken, and I'm glad for it.

While I didn't want to lump myself into categories, I began to see how patterns or tendencies are not only prevalent through Rubin's research, but also in my world. I could see others fall lumps of people defined by a behavior, I began to see how this awareness could benefit my friends and family. As illustrated through the narrative, knowledge of the patterns helps people in all tendencies create, keep, and share habits they love. I though, "How cool for everyone else."

Then, I found out I was an Obliger.

Read the book and you'll know why that statement is hilariously relevant.

Sidenote: this book was the cornerstone of our internal book club for my nonprofit. The discoveries and connections made highlighted a number of occurrences in our team, positive and needing improvement, that we might not have had the chance to change without this knowledge. The book also sparked fantastic discussion amongst the group with accompanying questions on Rubin's website.

You know what the key to success is? Habits. And there's not some magical set of habits that will work for everyone. Every person can find their own set of habits that work right for them and their own personal preferences and quirks. Want to know how? Read Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin. As someone that's always looking for the "right" set of habits that will make me a more productive, creative, and happier writer, this book was crucial to my development and growth. This is a must-read book for writers and creatives. I so wish this book had been available and that I had read it when I was 21! Still, whether you're 21 or 81, it's an awesome resource for understanding yourself and your many habits better so that you can consciously create a happier life that fits YOU.

Overall I enjoyed this book enough to seek out others by the same author, so it earns five stars. The line between science and pseudoscience becomes fuzzy when dealing with matters of human psychology and behavior. This book definitely leans on anecdotes a lot, but also admits point-blank that while anecdotes prove nothing scientifically, they are useful in changing behavior, and therefore valid in a book about changing behavior. This book was sufficiently thought-provoking and inspiring that I'm glad I read it, and might even read it again in a few months. My only real complaint is that it's a little repetitive. It could be condensed into a much shorter book, but I recognize the repetition as a reinforcement tactic, which again is useful when trying to change behavior.

This book provides great ideas for adopting good habits or getting rid of less desirable ones but with a personalized approach. What sets it apart from all of the other habit strategy books is Gretchen's personality framework (Are you an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel?). I figured out that I am a questioner which explains why I am always researching things before taking action and why I have no troubles with healthy eating or exercise (it's important to me so I follow through - no doctors, diets, or workout buddies required).

In addition to the personality framework, she offers dozens of strategies to fit your natural tendencies. She points out that a new habit probably isn't going to stick if it goes against your nature. For example, if you are a night owl, getting up early every morning to exercise is probably not going to work for you.

It's a fun read with lots of examples and stories along the way. It may help the reader to understand why they haven't been successful with a habit in the past but how there may be a different approach that works better with their personality.

One thing I really liked about this book is that it didn't give a one-size fits all method for making good habits. First she talks about the four tendencies - Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, and Rebel. I would recommend going to her website and taking the quiz on her website (www.gretchenrubin.com) to see what tendency you are. That'll help you figure out what to embrace and what to skip while reading the book. There are then other personality types like Lark/Owl, Moderator/Abstainer, Marathoner/Spinter/Procrastinator, and Over-buyer/Under-buyer. Those you have to figure out for yourself. With these kind of books, I take a pick and choose attitude. I am currently trying the schedule habit at work.

One problem I had with the book is that the author has the number one rule of "Be Gretchen". Many times she is being Gretchen for too long. There were many times I wish I had the print book instead of the audio book so I could easily skip sections. Although I did get several good tips for starting and maintaining good habits, I am so glad I am not a friend or family member of the author. She comes across as a habits bully.

I really wanted to like this book because I like the central idea that life is powered by habits and that it's a lot easier to build good habits than it is to constantly draw upon willpower. However, I feel like the author gets in the way of getting across her thesis. Maybe there just isn't enough there to write a book so she had to make it anecdotal and really all about her? I don't know, but I didn't really end up thinking Gretchen is someone I would like to be around very much (look it me...I'm so freaking great!) and since the book seems to be about her...well, I didn't want to read it. I read enough to get it and form an opinion about.

Some people recommend the condensed version (a sort of cliff notes) that's for sale on the store. I've not read that but could see how distilling out the ideas and leaving the anecdotes behind would make for a much better read.

A lot of interesting ideas, but, as with her last book, which I also could not finish, this one is about 90% self-referencing. It became so tiresome that I gave up on learning anything illuminating about habit-forming. It's fine to throw in a personal experience now and then, but it's I-Me-My on every single page. That's a theme for a personal journal. Two tries, but I won't bother picking up anything by this author again.

Things I Liked:

1. Gretchen has clearly thought about this topic deeply. While I disagree with the idea that people can easily divided into categories, her thought process when providing advice was evident.

2. I enjoy Gretchen's framework of dividing people into Upholders (who respond to both internal and external expectations), Obligers (who respond only to external expectations), Questioners (who only respond to expectations they find valuable), and Rebels (who defy expectations).

3. This book was easy to read and made me want to build better habits.

Things I Disliked:

1. Gretchen readily admits that, as an Upholder, it is comparatively easy for her to make goals. Most of her advice is very personal, and much of it wasn't very helpful to me as an Obliger with a strong Rebel streak.

2. I understand that one book cannot cover every bit of material, but I wish there had been more discussion of how to overcome internal challenges when developing habits. For example, as an Obliger, I require accountability, but I have a hard time asking other people to hold me accountable. These obstacles (based on my personality and mental health) are the main things that prevent me from developing good habits, and I wish she had done more to address those issues.

3. The book could be a little bit dry, and I didn't really care to hear so much about her diet plan.

Why this is the best book on habits around?
I'm a Human Development Expert, personal growth/self-improvement junkie by both nature and profession. I'm always looking to up my game, and my client's game, so they can live their life in a more fulfilling way. What I love about Better than Before, is it meets the "every day in the trenches of life" testing of principles, with hard science and Rubin's appropriately transparent and well-written experiences of the most important aspect of habits; implementation.

Having read a vast amount of books on habits what I find sets this book apart is both the quality of the writing, her conversational and authentic voice, but also the guiding principle which is that we all have a built in Owner's Manual of how we work, and the goal of this book is to leverage your own unique wiring, proclivities and quirkiness and design a way using habits to navigate life in a way that frees you up versus constrict you.

When we do this, we bypass "rules" and we embrace the guiding principles of how we want to live our lives and the structures that support it. In doing so, we are freed up. There is no diet to break or rules to fight against, but rather an infrastructure design by us to carry us through our lives.

I was so effected by this book that I am using the key principles of it, (giving GR credit of course) to re-tool my questionnaire for my clients, so when we create a map to help them move towards their dreams, they already have a template of what allows habits to become concretized.

The other thing I love about not only this book, but every book of Gretchen Rubin's, is her absolute humility to be as she calls it a "street psychologist," and sharing her own challenges in a way that is totally translatable to me. With all her expertise, trial and error, there is nothing, glib, formulaic or one size fits all to it, as so many self-help books fall prey to, but rather a grab bag of different options with a gentle and compassionate way to implement it.

I now recommend this book to all my friends and clients who are sick of fighting with themselves about creating habits that support them. I've come to learn that rather labeling things as bad habits or good habits or bad habits, it's best to look at them as habits that either undermine or support your goals, and the best part is, you get to design them with your own blueprint.

Brava!

Lois Barth
Human Development Expert/Speaker/Provocateur

This book was really full of great ideas. Gretchen offers advice, tells stories to drive the point home, and breaks it down by personality type. This book would benefit almost anyone who was willing to sit down and read it.

The Good: Gretchen introduces us first to the 7 essential changes people try to make. Just about every thing some one tries to change will fall into one of these categories. She then breaks everyone into one of 4 categories, with admitting that some people bleed into other categories. I was really resistant at first being one of four, but in reading further I found myself reacting a certain way in every scenario. It’s brilliant really, how true my reaction is to my category. She then offers really helpful advice to actually making new habits and breaking bad ones by using example after example of how to get started. Gretchen lays out an array of pitfalls for each type of person and how to counter them.

There is no excuse good enough. Gretchen exposed every weakness I had tried. I was really impressed that she was able to name every type of roadblock for change, and then offer ways to counter them. She also offers many tips on ways you can monitor yourself, to make sure you stick to your habits, or stick to breaking those bad ones. I am serious when I tell you that I took notes on this book. I am pretty sure this is the sort of book you should read, highlight and then reread whenever you hit a roadblock in your efforts.

The Bad: The only thing I can really complain about is Gretchen’s attempt to persuade the reader about her diet. While it is worth looking into because it worked for her, this is not her area of expertise, nor is it the reason people pick this book up. Stating a certain diet as being the only way to lose weight in a self help book, is just dangerous. Also, all her talking about how working out doesn’t help people loose weight was really disheartening. I am sure fitness experts will agree that this isn’t entirely correct either. There is plenty of research to suggest that her information is not correct.

Conclusion: I would recommend this book to those trying to break or make a habit. It has enough information for the reader to walk away more informed, if nothing else. While I don’t agree with all of what she said, her methods for habits make too much sense to ignore.

Looking for a way to make a change for the better? Start by picking up this book. Gretchen Rubin uses her chatty, personal approach to address the topic of habits, just as she did with happiness in her two most recent books (note: if you didn't like the tone or style of those books, you won't like this one either).

Lately much as been written about how we exert control over ourselves (I'm thinking in particular of "The Power of Habit", and "Willpower", among others). While many books provide ample scientific background about why we do what we do (or don't do what we should) without providing an action plan, Rubin lays out practical steps for creating and sustaining habits based on one's personality type. She includes a quiz to help the reader self-identify his/her likely pattern of behavior (upholder, questioner, rebel, or obliger).

Rubin discusses the human nature of managing only what we monitor, the necessity of accountability in establishing good habits, and why convenience is worth the cost if positive habits are a result.

Gretchen believes that the reason we want to develop good habits is so that we will become happier. After all, most people’s daily lives are hugely affected by their habits: what we eat, how we interact with others, whether or not we exercise, how we relax, how we work, how we sleep…. In fact, our habits virtually control our lives.

We all do realize this. So why is it often so hard to begin new habits? And why do some people manage so much more effortlessly? And why are some habits so much more difficult to develop than others?

Gretchen analyses these questions for the four different personality tendencies that she has identified. Apparently people may be
Upholders, who tend to meet internal and external expectations,
Questioners, who will only meet expectations if they make sense,
Obligers, who will meet others’ expectations but not their own, and
Rebels, who instinctively rebel at any form of expectation.

To confuse matters further, some people respond in one way to one set of expectations and in a different way to another.

Gretchen also discusses what other personal characteristics to keep in mind when trying to form a habit. Because, really, the habit itself and what will make it work for us all depend vitally on our individual personalities.
--
For me the most fascinating part of Better Than Before is its exhaustive discussion, from a practical, secular point of view, of temptation. We all face temptations of various sorts, innocuous ones like snatching a cookie before bed as well as serious ones that involve breaking God’s commandments. Gretchen deals almost exclusively with the former....

I recognized myself over and over in her extensive catalogue of the different ways that we respond to temptation. Gretchen has a clear eye for the ways we deceive ourselves and even helps us laugh at our own foolishness, an effective safeguard to indulging in that particular sort of foolishness again.
--
Wise habits reduce the amount of self-control we need on a day-to-day basis, smooth out the number of decisions we need to make each day, and are our surest way, according to Gretchen, to ‘Everyday Life in Utopia.’

However, in the long run true happiness—true blessedness—comes from loving the Lord and living for him. Yes, as Psalm 1 shows, this is related to wise habits, but life is much more complicated than Gretchen would suggest.
--
You can read my complete, very long review at Tea Time with Annie Kate.

Somehow I missed the boat on Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project but after I saw Better Than Before featured in a magazine I was really intrigued and had to read it. It was really, really worth taking the time. I found the overall attitude and approach to be a little meh, the author's personality is definitely askew from mine and yet the information was richly researched and fascinating.

While I don't really think this will really help anyone change old habits or make new ones just from reading it, the information will certainly give those who are tenacious a starting point. It's really more just a study in how habits are formed (or not) and doesn't contain any worksheets or instructions for those who might be looking for something like that.

If you're interested in learning why habits work the way they do it's a fantastic read and I think it would make a great conversation starter. I very much enjoyed it!

Notes: Review copy received via NetGalley.

I have been studying self-help material for many decades, and by now, most of it is simply recycled from the past.

This book is different. While the author draws on the past, she also draws on recent research, and packages the material in a fresh manner.

While much of the information is already familiar to me, some of it wasn't, and the author's point of view made several things clearer than books I had read before.

In fact, in the first 1/3 of the book, I had two major insights simply because of her method of explaining things.

She creates her own system and terminology, but I found it useful and beneficial, rather than silly and vain as with most authors who attempt this.

Her treatment of the nature of habits and many different techniques for controlling them blend nicely with her description of human emotions and mental function, which were just detailed enough to be helpful - not overwhelming and complex.

I can't imagine someone not coming away from this book without gaining something useful. If you don't, it's most likely your own fault.

Recommended.

I found the first half of this book to be very encouraging and enjoyed reading it. By the second half of the book I was tired of being inspired and was running out of gas. Your mileage may vary. The author writes well and has put together a well-organized book with good examples. She's a lot more type A than I am, so while I will use some of her techniques to improve my habit, I don't really want to put a lot of effort into adopting all the good habits that she has. I was feeling rebellious and ready to leave by the end of the book, before someone tried to take all of my cherished bad habits away from me. All in all this is a useful book that may help you if you want to work on your habits. I am still working on mine.

very excited to use this, I think its a great concept and the book itself is very nice...except for the fact that it is all upside down and backwards inside. Its a little annoying to have to flip it around and read from back to front. obviously a printing error but I am surprised that no one caught such a large mistake before giving this batch of books and okay to be sold...

I was skeptical about this book, because it sounds like all the others I've read before: a quick fix that won't actually work. But after reading it, I feel like maybe I judged it too quickly.

I can't say if this is the best book for habit change, because I have only read it - I haven't lived it. For now, I give this book five of five stars for making me think it just might work, and giving me a LOT of food for thought. I recommend it to anyone who wants to make or break a habit, who thinks they will never be able to hold onto New Year's Resolutions, or who just love reading self-help books, like I do.

The Four Tendencies concept is a great way to think about the different ways people approach habits. Some of the sub-categories, like abstainer or moderator were also helpful. The book did lead to a lot of self-reflection on what works for me and what doesn't. I also thought about the other people in my life and how they react to being asked to do something and what Tendency they might belong to. Although the information on avoiding pitfalls was interesting, I started to feel a little overwhelmed with all of the sub-categories. An interesting read and definitely helpful if you want to learn why you succeed or fail at making changes in your life. I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

I think this book is a great concept! It's all about how to establish new habits in order to improve your life. I think this is a great idea because then things that might seem hard like exercising come more naturally and are automatic. I look forward to implementing positive changes in my life!

I just finished reading Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin. While the subtitle of the book is Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, in my opinion, the book goes far beyond this. It actually helped me to understand many things about myself that have frustrated me over the years. And it helped to view many of those frustrations in a new light, so that I can now see them as opportunities to build on.

Using herself as a guinea pig, Mrs. Rubin explores the ways in which we approach habits and the methods that work best for some, but not for others. I was surprised to see the variety of ways that varying types of people reinforce habits in their lives. We truly are unique creatures and what works well for one, may in fact ruin the chances of another being successful.

Through the reading of this book, I discovered that I am an Obliger, Lark, Procrastinator, Underbuyer, Finisher, Simplicity Lover, Familiarity Lover, Prevention-Focused, and a Taker of Small Steps.

Utilizing all of this information, I can now see why I am able to do some things (like train for a marathon on my own), but struggle to do other things (like put a box away in the attic). So much of my behavior is tied to my tendencies and foundational beliefs. Where this book have aided me the most is in recognizing my need to work within my core to accomplish things, rather than spending all of my energy on trying to change who I am before I do the things that I need to do.

I can’t tell you how highly I recommend this book. It has been eye-opening to say the least, and is a book that I will refer back to for years to come.

I picked up this volume after having read The Happiness Project some time ago. There's not a lot new in this volume, but Rubin does provide some useful basic guidance on developing good habits for greater efficiency in one's life. Through the perhaps over-generous sharing of personal anecdotes, it's hard not to conclude that Rubin takes being a Type A almost to the point of OCD....yet there are nuggets of thought-provoking wisdom to be had despite. Worth a quick read, particularly if you are floundering a bit after a life transition and need some structure to help formulate a new and maybe better routine. I most appreciated the detailed references at the end for those who are interested in delving more deeply into specific topics.

If there are particular goals, requiring self-discipline AKA habitual behaviors, that have been eluding you, this book will help you to figure out why and what you can do to finally accomplish your desires. The most valuable parts of this book are the questions that assist the reader with self-knowledge. Most of us know whether we are a morning person or a night owl, but the questions go beyond these to other factors we may never have considered, such as do we prefer starting projects or finishing them? Are we a "sprinter, procrastinator or marathoner"? After being armed with various such pieces of self-awareness, we can begin to construct a plan for success that takes into account who we are (whether the task is exercising, writing a book or funding a savings account). I found this book to be very illuminating, and I expect that at least one hitherto unattainable goal is now going to be within my reach. Thank you, Gretchen!

I never read Rubin’s other two books, but I want to after reading Better Than Before. I love nonfiction books that have been well-researched and are written from a personal, interesting perspective. This book is all about forming habits—learning how to make and maintain habits according to your personality type.

At the beginning of the book, Rubin outlines the 4 “tendencies” of how people react to inner and outer expectations: the Upholder, Obligor, Rebel, and Questioner (Take the Quiz here! It’s short and useful!). From there she goes into detail with different strategies for making, strengthening, and maintaining your habits.

I’m an “upholder” which means I don’t really have trouble making habits and I also love habits (true and true). Even then, I found this book useful in knowing the best way to create a habit and what undermines the creation of a habit.

Since I’m about to experience what Rubin calls a “clean slate” experience—a big life change, like having a baby!—it’s a great time to think about what I’d like my new habits to be. Its true that with a clean slate it is easier to start a new habit—I started waking up at 5am every morning after our move this spring—but it also easy to lose habits, so it was helpful to read this book and strategize how I will take back up habit once I’m out of newborn-baby-survival mode.

Some habits I’d like to start after having the baby are limiting myself to only 5 desserts a month (I started this month and hope to continue), and to walking 1 hour a week. Part of me (my “tendency”) wants to make these goals very specific—like “I will walk 1 hour every Saturday”—but realistically, with a newborn, 2 yr old and 3 yr old to care for all day, who knows what stability my schedule will offer.

I do know that I’m giving myself a rest on some of my more rigorous habits (waking up at 5 am….) until we’ve “stabilized” into a new normal (hopefully within 3 months of having Wendy, though with June it was 6!).

Lots of good ideas in this book. Anyone following each chapter to a personal conclusion should have tools that will help them build good habits and diminish bad ones. The only reason this is not a glowing recommendation is that the digressive personal anecdotes get tiresome and interfere with a developing path of self-analysis, at least for me. I would have preferred self-tests, further reading, and a more direct thesis.

An introspective look at how habits can change our lives, and how our personalities impact our habits. I learned more about myself in the first quarter of this book than in the last 5 personal development books I read, combined.

Whether you want to make a habit, break a habit, become more productive or improve your health, what Gretchen Rubin discovered in her extensive research will kick-start you toward your goal. If you want to learn more about how to enact change in your life in the most effective ways, this book won't disappoint.

There are quite a few habits that I personally want to develop and sustain in 2016 and beyond hence this books strong appeal.Gretchen's approach to developing and sustaining habits was very different than anything that I had read to this point. Gretchen wasn't just sharing her personal opinion on habits she has done solid research. The information is presented in a way that honestly kept me interested in addition to her research she shared real life experiences. I didn't at any point feel like I was reading a textbook which in my book is a huge plus! I learned that we all fall into one of four tendencies. The tendencies are Upholder, Questioner, Obliger and Rebel. Personally, I fall into the obliger tendency. As an obliger I tend to meet outer expectations and resist inner expectations.Knowing that i'm an obliger is valuable information for me. I am able to approach habits in a totally different individualized way. Goodbye cookie cutter approach that had set me up for failure time and time again! If you are unable to determine which tendency you fall into there is a handy quiz at the back of the book. My main take away from this book was how to form habits as well as how to avoid backsliding. This book did an incredible job of helping to set me up for success in those areas.

Note: I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

I read her first book a while ago and I remember enjoying it and with that in mind and my interest in the topic of Habit I picked up Better Than Before. I don't really review many books but I had to write this one because not only did it feel like mostly a waste of time I felt that some of her advice is quite toxic. I agree with most of the other one star reviews which describe the bizarre mix of casual psychology and awkward personal ramblings and would like to add that her arbitrary classifications of people into Upholders, Rebels, etc. is mostly unhelpful and rather childish. Don't read this book if you're looking for any sort of scientific perspective on habit, you'll only find a handful of it, obtained second hand, and you'll have to get through a tedious assortment of overlong narratives to get there. I did read it all the way through because I felt strongly that I should write a review and I wanted to be fair. I have no problem with this genre of writing, I just think her interpretation does the subject and the reader a disservice.

I would give this 3 stars as it is certainly readable and helpful, but I have too many reservations to give it 3, which is really where my "I would recommend this book" threshold begins. This is helpful in giving reminders to us all (and especially to the author, apparently) that we all form/break habits for different reasons. It was helpful to be reading through this and think about how I make my habits, and to have a new voice in my head reminding me to think about my habits, change my habits and put up with close family as they go through their own habitual rituals.

But! This book reads more like a personal blog with minimal editing and pasting together. The writing, while readable, is entirely too casual considering the "research" she's claiming to be sharing. Her system of the Four Tendencies is a good seed of an idea, but not fleshed out or organized well. I found the introduction of new groupings/titles/patterns in each chapter to be confusing and detracting from her original proposal of the Four Tendencies. The number of personal anecdotes was also distracting and often seemed to not be connected to the chapter topic, or even previous paragraphs. I also found her trying to share "Secrets of Adulthood" statements to be over-reaching; trying to be seen as a guru rather than very personable blogger. I can be glad she has spent so much time figuring out things for herself; for her relationships with others, her thoughts of her friends and family, but I don't see enough thought and organization in her premise to say her 'findings' are applicable to the population at large, though there are many things everyone can relate to.

I would feel comfortable recommending this book to people looking for new ways to break certain habits (especially stereotypical habits like smoking and drinking, where often people feel stuck in a rut of bad advice between going cold-turkey or allowing temptation to reign.). There are many helpful suggestions, but the book overall is unorganized, the research not well thought through- or referenced- and it seems like something a good writer could have written in high school in terms of depth and writing style.

One would think this is common sense--and if it were, we'd all be doing this already. Creating, managing, and dismantling habits often takes intention, yet like those lightning bolt changes, sometimes they only require recognition. Better Than Before is a delightful read with purpose. It offers very practical ideas along with challenges, clarity, and a few lightning bolts. Sometimes letting a light shine in on our habits--or lack thereof--can be healing. With Rubin's style, it's also quite a bit of fun.

If you are looking to boost your New Year’s resolutions or to find out why it is so hard to keep your resolutions, check out Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin. I really enjoyed Gretchen’s first book, The Happiness Project and this book’s style follows along much those same lines.

I found her research and development of the idea of four tendencies intriguing. I could easily place myself into the Obliger one. The other sections of her book provided a wealth of ideas for self examination as well as ideas for action steps. I have many pages bookmarked to go back and reread as I look at developing good habits or breaking bad ones as I strive to better myself and my life.

The only drawback that I found in this book is that Gretchen has an Upholder tendency so it was easy for her to write about what works and doesn’t work for that tendency. She does offer ideas and suggestions for the other three tendencies based on her family and friends’ dispositions, but I would have liked a few more concrete examples.

A great an enlightening read! Why we do the things we do and what's behind out habits of living. I worried about my many habits and being a questioning type of person I worried if I was to obsessed or too strict with my habits. I read I'm like other people and how I can do right thing by handling my habits for the positive and not the negative. I enjoyed reading this book, thinking Gretchen has done a great deal of research that gave me much insight into myself and others. The book goes into Gretchen's family dynamics too and this brought the book a down to earth appeal instead of a being too dry.

I didn't love it as much as the first two books but I still really enjoyed it. A little too much personal examples and stories but very effective.

A lot of great simple tips and nuggets of information to use in my daily life ... to create my own "Everyday Life in Utopia".

Just too fluffy. Like reading her journal. Too much of her opinion and observation, not based on research. Right from the start (pages 26-27) there are contradictions. She quotes a novelists observations that "one is born either to go with or to go against" and makes her own observations that "our Tendencies are hardwired". Well then why "by adulthood" do most of us fall into her made up categories!!? To add to the contradictions, on the next page, (in yet another personal reference) she states she thinks her husband has become more of a different Tendency at home. Not so hardwired afterall then huh!? 30 pages in, combined with other reviews here about too much about herself, I can't read anymore. Perhaps it's unfair to leave a review when I can't complete the book. But jeez, base this on something of substance!

Better than Before is an accessible and easy-to-read book about how to support good habits and break bad ones. Like her previous books, Gretchen Rubin knows how to break down information into readable and simple steps to encourage readers to achieve their goals. I found her framework of the four types of personalities regarding change-making to be very useful. I had a very satisfying "aha" moment where I realized why, given my particular personality, it was sometimes hard for me to make change and that if I use different incentive strategies I could be more successful. She encourages us to examine who we are, our motives, our strengths and challenges so we can tailor strategies to help us "master the habits of our everyday lives." Ms. Rubin's strong personality comes through the pages. She seems driven and generous. She sometimes does not seem to know how privileged she is and how that impacts her ability to accomplish her goals. During my reading I thought about the Stages of Change Theory by Prochaska and DiClemente. This rubric allows an individual to assess where they are in their desire to make change and then matches interventions to that stage. Some of us are thinking about making change and some of us may be ready. It helps you weigh the cost and benefits of change, of which there are many, and this would be an excellent addition to Ms. Rubin's book. It is an exciting time in understanding how and why people make change and Ms. Rubin's book is a welcome addition. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to review this book.

I LOVE this book. Especially the part about the Four Tendencies. I have used it to help me with my kids A LOT and it has helped me understand why some things are easier for certain of my kids (and husband) while other things are not. In general I found this book very helpful AND readable. Which is important to me. If I had to only have five books on my shelf, this would probably be one of the ones I'd pick.

This book was a quick and easy read. Gretchen Rubin's style of writing is engaging and entertaining. Although she presents a good deal of "research", most of the book centers on her observations and opinions. She talks a lot about her own life and the way she develops habits, and encourages others to develop habits as well. I'm not sure whether she would be a fun friend or just really annoying. The three books of hers that I've read seem very similar in content, but I still enjoy reading them. I figure if I get one or two small ideas that can make my life better, I've spent my time well.

Rating: Roller coaster. As I was reading it, I was going to conquer every single habit I had ever even thought about having. Then, slowly, I started to go downhill and realized I don’t have time. The book took me up and then doooown.

A Summary: The book focuses on every approach to make/break habits. Through research examples and personal stories, Gretchen explains methods for habit changes. She reveals secrets to fixing bad habits or adopting good habits and the importance of knowing ourselves before we can begin changing our habits.

MY REVIEW:

So, I need to start off saying I’m not a big fan of self-help books. I always want an instant fix with no work (don’t we all?). The biggest reason I don’t like them is because when I read I want to get lost in someone else’s story.

With that being said, I would have preferred this book in a handout with the main points in bold. Yes, I’m sure I could have found that somewhere online. All of the theories in this book and capital lettered words made me feel like I was in college again. I kept forgetting which “type” of habit forming person I was and had to keep going back and checking.

There were a lot of really good points, though. I feel like if you really take the time to understand yourself and digest this book that it can help you. You really might have to take notes. Gretchen is so passionate about habit changing; it is mesmerizing. I’m definitely an obliger (the way I view and form my habits according to Gretchen), so it was neat to see what I should do to change my habits. I kept wishing she was an obliger too so all of her examples would reflect what I should do.

THE THINGS I LEARNED:

I need to schedule my time for exercise and playing with Peanut. If I schedule my time, I will become more productive.
I need to quit screen time 30 minutes before bedtime, so I fall asleep in 5 minutes instead of 900.
Rewarding myself with something that benefits my good habit. This totally makes sense to me. For example, for rewarding myself for walking every day for a month, I go buy some super cute walking shoes.
Best thing ever: pairing something I love with something I don’t. This totally resonated with me (however, I haven’t implemented it yet). I thought immediately of pairing a good book with my treadmill. I can only read that book while walking.

If you are really committed to changing your habits, you should definitely read this. I recommend it to anyone who is ready to focus on fixing themselves. I think this book would really, really help.

However, I just do not have the time. I have too many diapers to change.

Feeling after the book: excitement (ready to tackle all my habits: nail biting, watching Teen Mom, etc. ;)), determination that fizzled quickly.

[...]

I am about halfway done with this book, but I am compelled to come write a review before I've even finished it - it is that fascinating. Rubin dives into the science and reasoning of how and why we make our habits, the good ones and the bad ones, and by identifying your personality type (are you an upholder? an obliger? a questioner? or a rebel?) you can pinpoint how you should go about setting yourself up for success with a new habit for life.

What a great read! I’ve been trying to make positive changes in my life and this book gave me some very specific and practical techniques. It’s especially interesting to consider how habits can actually free up our minds and make room for creativity and the things that are valued.

Perfect for anyone looking to make changes.

Better Than Before is my first experience with the author Gretchen Rubin and I absolutely loved this book.

It is easy to read and flows well. It took me time to read the book but that is only because I have a new baby and sleep won over reading.

Be prepared to have your pen / highlighter ready, if you write in books, because there is lots to highlight.

This is not one of those "do this" step by step guide book / one size fits all. The author actually shares what works for differently personalities.

I did not bother finishing this book. As many other people have said in reviews, too many anecdotes are included. The extra "fluff" is neither interesting nor particularly helpful. I did not realize I was picking up a pseudo-memoir (though if you are into that, maybe this book is for you).

For example, she wrote: "One day after checking the time difference to make sure that it wasn't too early in Los Angeles, I called my sister Elizabeth to talk to her about my research." Okay...? Get to the point, Gretchen.

I love this book by Gretchen Rubin.

Many of the concepts are not new. But what I truly enjoy about the book is that while it is well structured, it does not come across as yet another how-to type of productivity book. Instead, Gretchen humanizes her productivity journey with plenty of anecdotes about her struggles, failures and the foibles of the people around her, particularly her sister and her husband. This makes the stories of her occasional successes so much more real.

For mere mortals like us who struggle on our way to become a better version of ourselves, this books is both useful and enjoyable, not something you would say about many other books around this topic. I will definitely recommend this book to all.

I love Gretchen Rubin's writing style and approach to life and think this book was well-written, However! I loved EVERYthing about The Happiness Project, and thought it fresh and innovative. Better Than Before seemed a little glib, and struck me as not having the freshness of the first, nor the intimate feel of her blog posts. Not disappointed exactly, but I won't keep returning to it as I did with THP.

I don't know where I came across this book recommendation, probably in a list of 5 star books (which is how I begin all my book searches) but it has opened so many different doors. I read it with the thought that if I get just "one good idea or tip" like it will be worth my time. I enjoyed the book very much, but the biggest bonuses for me were: 1) I am now reading the book about "Why we get fat" which is helping me immensely, 2) I loved seeing all the creative blogs, websites, podcasts, daily emails etc. that Gretchen does 3) I LOVE Gretchen's daily happiness email 4) She has inspired me to pick up my writing project and start up again. So in a nutshell....I've been INSPIRED! Thank you Gretchen.

I LOVE this book. Especially the part about the Four Tendencies. I have used it to help me with my kids A LOT and it has helped me understand why some things are easier for certain of my kids (and husband) while other things are not. In general I found this book very helpful AND readable. Which is important to me. If I had to only have five books on my shelf, this would probably be one of the ones I'd pick.

This book was a quick and easy read. Gretchen Rubin's style of writing is engaging and entertaining. Although she presents a good deal of "research", most of the book centers on her observations and opinions. She talks a lot about her own life and the way she develops habits, and encourages others to develop habits as well. I'm not sure whether she would be a fun friend or just really annoying. The three books of hers that I've read seem very similar in content, but I still enjoy reading them. I figure if I get one or two small ideas that can make my life better, I've spent my time well.

Rating: Roller coaster. As I was reading it, I was going to conquer every single habit I had ever even thought about having. Then, slowly, I started to go downhill and realized I don’t have time. The book took me up and then doooown.

A Summary: The book focuses on every approach to make/break habits. Through research examples and personal stories, Gretchen explains methods for habit changes. She reveals secrets to fixing bad habits or adopting good habits and the importance of knowing ourselves before we can begin changing our habits.

MY REVIEW:

So, I need to start off saying I’m not a big fan of self-help books. I always want an instant fix with no work (don’t we all?). The biggest reason I don’t like them is because when I read I want to get lost in someone else’s story.

With that being said, I would have preferred this book in a handout with the main points in bold. Yes, I’m sure I could have found that somewhere online. All of the theories in this book and capital lettered words made me feel like I was in college again. I kept forgetting which “type” of habit forming person I was and had to keep going back and checking.

There were a lot of really good points, though. I feel like if you really take the time to understand yourself and digest this book that it can help you. You really might have to take notes. Gretchen is so passionate about habit changing; it is mesmerizing. I’m definitely an obliger (the way I view and form my habits according to Gretchen), so it was neat to see what I should do to change my habits. I kept wishing she was an obliger too so all of her examples would reflect what I should do.

THE THINGS I LEARNED:

I need to schedule my time for exercise and playing with Peanut. If I schedule my time, I will become more productive.
I need to quit screen time 30 minutes before bedtime, so I fall asleep in 5 minutes instead of 900.
Rewarding myself with something that benefits my good habit. This totally makes sense to me. For example, for rewarding myself for walking every day for a month, I go buy some super cute walking shoes.
Best thing ever: pairing something I love with something I don’t. This totally resonated with me (however, I haven’t implemented it yet). I thought immediately of pairing a good book with my treadmill. I can only read that book while walking.

If you are really committed to changing your habits, you should definitely read this. I recommend it to anyone who is ready to focus on fixing themselves. I think this book would really, really help.

However, I just do not have the time. I have too many diapers to change.

Feeling after the book: excitement (ready to tackle all my habits: nail biting, watching Teen Mom, etc. ;)), determination that fizzled quickly.

[...]

I am about halfway done with this book, but I am compelled to come write a review before I've even finished it - it is that fascinating. Rubin dives into the science and reasoning of how and why we make our habits, the good ones and the bad ones, and by identifying your personality type (are you an upholder? an obliger? a questioner? or a rebel?) you can pinpoint how you should go about setting yourself up for success with a new habit for life.

What a great read! I’ve been trying to make positive changes in my life and this book gave me some very specific and practical techniques. It’s especially interesting to consider how habits can actually free up our minds and make room for creativity and the things that are valued.

Perfect for anyone looking to make changes.

Better Than Before is my first experience with the author Gretchen Rubin and I absolutely loved this book.

It is easy to read and flows well. It took me time to read the book but that is only because I have a new baby and sleep won over reading.

Be prepared to have your pen / highlighter ready, if you write in books, because there is lots to highlight.

This is not one of those "do this" step by step guide book / one size fits all. The author actually shares what works for differently personalities.

I did not bother finishing this book. As many other people have said in reviews, too many anecdotes are included. The extra "fluff" is neither interesting nor particularly helpful. I did not realize I was picking up a pseudo-memoir (though if you are into that, maybe this book is for you).

For example, she wrote: "One day after checking the time difference to make sure that it wasn't too early in Los Angeles, I called my sister Elizabeth to talk to her about my research." Okay...? Get to the point, Gretchen.

Need to stop procrastinating? Where do you start? By reading this book! It has real practical tips that help you develop new habits.

Disclaimer: I received an arc of this book free from the publisher. I was not obliged to write a favorable review, or even any review at all. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.

I love this book by Gretchen Rubin.

Many of the concepts are not new. But what I truly enjoy about the book is that while it is well structured, it does not come across as yet another how-to type of productivity book. Instead, Gretchen humanizes her productivity journey with plenty of anecdotes about her struggles, failures and the foibles of the people around her, particularly her sister and her husband. This makes the stories of her occasional successes so much more real.

For mere mortals like us who struggle on our way to become a better version of ourselves, this books is both useful and enjoyable, not something you would say about many other books around this topic. I will definitely recommend this book to all.

I love Gretchen Rubin's writing style and approach to life and think this book was well-written, However! I loved EVERYthing about The Happiness Project, and thought it fresh and innovative. Better Than Before seemed a little glib, and struck me as not having the freshness of the first, nor the intimate feel of her blog posts. Not disappointed exactly, but I won't keep returning to it as I did with THP.

I don't know where I came across this book recommendation, probably in a list of 5 star books (which is how I begin all my book searches) but it has opened so many different doors. I read it with the thought that if I get just "one good idea or tip" like it will be worth my time. I enjoyed the book very much, but the biggest bonuses for me were: 1) I am now reading the book about "Why we get fat" which is helping me immensely, 2) I loved seeing all the creative blogs, websites, podcasts, daily emails etc. that Gretchen does 3) I LOVE Gretchen's daily happiness email 4) She has inspired me to pick up my writing project and start up again. So in a nutshell....I've been INSPIRED! Thank you Gretchen.

There are tons of self improvement books out, and countless articles on the Internet--my own extremecommonsense.net among them. This book stands out from the piles because it boils valuable ideas to a couple useful models and offers guidance to applying them to your life.

The bulk of the book organizes and details 21 strategies for implementing habits to change your life. The first few are universal and obvious -- once the author has pointed them out. Others work for some people and not others. Taken together, they offer a solid toolkit for changing habits, one of the most important skills you can have for self improvement.

Although this book is an interesting index of how people have thought about habits over time, many of Rubin's anecdotes come from her own life. The stories seem to meander and the ratio of stories to suggestions is a bit off. Worse than this, however, is how unrelatable Rubin can be at times. Someone who needs a book on habits certainly isn't going to relate to anyone who already has a bedtime of 11:00 pm and wants to go to sleep instead of at 10:30 pm. Perhaps because Rubin is so clearly in the "Upholder" category (the categories themselves seem a bit reductionistic as well), her tone can come off at patronizing rather than helpful. I'd rather read a book on habits written by a psychologist.

"Better Than Before" has a good premise but was difficult for me to read through. The book begins by developing which "tendency" category your personality falls in to in order to help determine how you can most likely develop or change your habits. Personal observations and anecdotes are generally treated as evidence shoring up her theories based most usefully on her own personality type/tendency. I suppose this could be expected but I found it more tedious than helpful to read through; I fall in to the "questioner" tendency there just weren't enough facts included to balance out the fables. The writer does share some good advice, but it would be more useful a much more condensed format. I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this honest review.

I wanted to like this book. I liked The Happiness Project a lot at a really pivotal time in my life. This fell short, however. Too much opinion, not enough generalizing. I think the intent was there, but I agree with other reviewers...too many anecdotes about why Gretchen's habits work so well for her. I have been a big fan of the podcast "Happier" where they reference this book a lot, and now that I've read it, I don't know if I'll be able to listen to the podcast with the same openness/curiosity as before...

I seem to go through ebb and flows with my habits. I've tried not to let short term set backs discourage me but I don't know if I could define what I consider a set back to be.

Reading this book was like sitting down and having a conversation with a friend at a coffee shop... a super intelligent friend who has exhausted every piece of research she can find on the topic of habits. She even puts it in a nice, organized and easy to follow package.

The personal stories she adds made her more relatable. She explained herself very well, expressing that her methods were only one way.

I'm reinspired to tackle some of the more challenging changes I've been needing to make.

Better Than Before is a fantastic book!

Gretchen Rubin did a superb job of presenting her findings and dispensing advice through a series of strategies and "secrets of adulthood" that I found not only eye-opening, but also quite practical. I particularly found her notion of "knowing yourself" as well as the four tendencies incredibly useful to help me discover my own habit forming character.

I would love to give this book 5 stars but decided not to because at times, it felt long and repetitive. There really are a lot of strategies presented and it was easy to get them confused. I read the Kindle version which I find makes it difficult for flipping quickly and cross-referencing similar ideas.

I also wished that the strategy bits that pertained to each particular tendency were highlighted so that I could skip the text that was unrelated to my personal tendency.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough!

BTW - I was so happy to find the complete list of Gretchen's secrets of adulthood on her website: [...] Thank you!

Gretchen is quite annoying in this book. It is all anecdotal despite the reams of research she says she did. It got particularly annoying when she was talking about her new diet and spent a few pages summarizing the diet book then putting down a friend who didn't agree with the diet. She does this repeatedly with other issues too. Avoid this book if you actually want to learn about habits.

This is a great book for anyone looking to actually understand how to keep and build habits. I love how she addresses the justifications, or loopholes as she calls them, to why we don't keep good habits. I am inspired to reframe how I think of rewards vs treats. If you like this book, you will probably enjoy The Happiness Project too!

I really loved this book! I knew I didn't fall under the traditional type of habit-former, so it was a revelation and a relief that I was a specific type (questioner and rebel, according to rubin's book). I loved how she covered all types of pitfalls with personal vignettes. It's a great book, if nothing else it will help you figure out what type you are, and give you some great tips on how you're getting in your own way, and how to out-think your way out of the bad habits you might have fallen into...

A worthwhile read!!

This might be one of the most practical books I've ever read! I have already become better than before.

Understanding how I approach habits and what might be most helpful for instilling good habits/breaking bad habits has been invaluable to me!

Thank you, Gretchen Rubin, for your research, observations and exhortations.

Better Than Before: Making Habits Stick

I’m skeptical of most self-help/personal coaching books, but as a writer I do like books that target creativity or writing since my struggle to write regularly is a source of a lot of frustration, guilt, and non-writing.

Rubin, best known for “The Happiness Project” attempts to tackle good habits, which seem harder to create than bad habits.

One of the stronger parts of this book is acknowledging that each person has to find a process that works for them. There is no one way to create and nurture a new habit. To help she comes up with four personality tendencies: Upholder, Obligators, Questioners, and Rebels. From reading her descriptions, I’m mostly a questioner while my wife is an obligator. These four serve as one key part of how each type can form a habit since some like my wife need accountability to do anything for themselves, while I have to see some merit in a habit, or will likely question its usefulness.

Better Than Before is a little long, but its fairly easy to read and Rubin includes a good balance of personal and near personal examples to each chapter. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to make new positive habits.

I read Gretchen first book, The Happiness Project, for book club two years ago. One of my club friends recommended this book and it was AWESOME! Gretchen cleary and concisely breakdowns habits, rewards, and tendencies in a friendly and kind manner. I was able to find myself in her stories and have implemented some simple--yet significant--changes already, just a week after reading. One of my favorite concepts is the one minute rule--if there is a task which can be done in a minute or less, do it right away rather than delaying it. Another good one she heard from a friend is carry something whenever you change rooms. I am definitely surprised how much neater my house is getting things closer to their places! I've been looking around to see what can move every time I leave a room! I am now going back and reading Happier At Home :-)

I was looking forward to the inspiration of The Happiness Project. Instead I got smug, self-righteous and factually incorrect lecturig. Gretchen Rubin needs a good dose of humility and insight before she promulgates her personal opinions as gospel. Her occasional insights were buried under so much junk science that they were almost worthless. Skip this book and go to the gym instead. You will be happier.

This book has the right amount of information, personal anecdotes, and humor to keep anyone engaged. It's an interesting view of how our tendencies shape our habits and how those habits shape our lives. The book will not only give you insight as to why you do the things you do, but why your family members, friends, co-workers, etc. behave as they do. This book is truly insightful and useful to anyone and everyone.

Initially, I was really excited to read this book. I thought it was serendipitous that just as I was about to teach a yoga class about changing habits to make room for more positive ones, this book should arrive. The different personality types described and how each individual could essentially 'hack' their habits was eye opening and allowed me to better help my students. That being said, I found the book worked better for me as a reference book. I found that I wasn't necessarily reading this book for pleasure, and lost some of the excitement for it about half way through. It will definitely be on my bookshelf so that I can refer to it from time to time, but I wouldn't necessarily read it all the way through again.

Disclaimer: Reviewer for Blogging For Books

This is a book by the author of The Happiness Project, a NY Times Bestseller for the simple principles for a happy life that Gretchen Rubin laid out in that book. The book dished out many nuggets of wisdom but also drew a lot of flak for the author touting her own background from Yale, a privileged lifestyle and having a lot of help on hand. However, there were some truths in her last book and overall I learned some things of value from it but also thought it was a little simplistic. She continues with a new book about our habits. The book is titled 'Better than Before', and it's a fitting title as I found this book "Better than Before', or better than the book before this one! I found this book more complete as it lays out strategies and steps for every day habits rather than trying to address the much more mystical subject of true happiness.

The book starts by helping you discover your tendency. When you know what you tend to do in a situation you can have a better understanding of what to do to break those tendencies or habits. She divides people into 4 personality types and then suggests strategies for each type. She lists out the reasons we give while procrastinating. A well researched and well organized book that gives some decent strategies to cultivate some better and potentially life-changing habits.

The author of “The Happiness Project” is back with another guaranteed bestseller. This time the brilliant Ms. Rubin explores the value of introducing habits into our lives that eliminate the need for discipline and willpower. Part of the reason she has become so popular is that in the midst of presenting her clinical research, she tells readers about her own life, and the struggles she has faced.

I help people change their diet and exercise habits and I’ve read countless books on habit change and Better Than Before is the most comprehensive book on habit change.

What makes Better Than Before so different and useful is that it helps you learn about yourself first, which is critical in habit change because there is no “one size fits all” strategy. This is where every other book misses the mark.

You will learn how you respond to expectations (from yourself and others) with Gretchen’s ingenious four tendencies quiz. This matters because when forming a new habit we set expectations for ourselves. How we respond to those expectations makes all the difference.

This is why the book is brilliant. First, Gretchen helps you understand yourself. Then, based on your personality type she shares all sorts of terrific strategies and tactics that will work for you.

As usual, Gretchen starts off with a question that she obsessively researches. In this case, it was a bunch of questions:

-Why do some habits take years to develop while others get picked up overnight?
-Why do some people resist habits while others adopt them eagerly?
-What can I do to help others make a change?
-How can I keep my healthy habits when I’m surrounded by temptation?
-Why can I make time for everyone else, but I can’t take time for myself?

She answers each one of these questions (and many more) in typical Gretchen fashion. Easy to read and highly engaging. If you enjoyed The Happiness Project or Happier at Home, you’ll love this book too. I love how it ties in so well with those books.

The Happiness Project tackled happiness in a broad sense. Happier at Home tackled the home, a major source of happiness. And now Better Than Before tackles ourselves. If we master ourselves, it’s much easier to be happier. I sincerely believe this is the best book on the subject and you’ll be happier after reading it.

She offers some useful information but treats every one else's "habits" as inferior to hers. It's obvious from her storytelling that she has a superiority complex.
By reading this book, you too can learn how to "be Gretchen" (a mantra she repeats throughout the book)

BLUF: Great book, I highly recommend this to those who want to learn about habits and/or their own (and spouse’s) habit tendencies. 4.5 stars.

This book covers everything you want to know about habits, including the importance of monitoring, the problems with rewards, and (of course) how to make habits work for you.
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"From what I've observed, our Tendencies are hard wired, and while they can be offset to some degree, they can't be changed." "Yet whatever our Tendency, with greater experience and wisdom, we can learn to counterbalance its negative aspects."

This book understands that tendencies are hard wired. It breaks down the main categories people fall into, from what motivates us to when we work best, and helps us realize what we need to do to embrace the habits we want to make and break those we don’t want to keep.

I wanted to read this book to learn about how habits work and a little more about how I can make habits stick. What I didn’t expect is that I would learn a lot about my significant other as well. It has completely changed my mindset on how to get along with him. (See, he’s a rebel. He doesn’t like plans, being on time, or essentially anything that requires you to tow the line.) It helped that I enjoyed the author’s style of writing.

** I received this book through GoodRead's First Reads program.**

This is a long overdue review of a great book I have read twice now. It's an excellent beginner's guide on the importance of good habits, written in an accessible and personable way. I found it had at least one insight that has made a real and meaningful difference in my life (which definitely cannot be said of a lot of books I read) regarding the difference between abstainers and moderators. It has also helped me to understand that my habits make up the way I choose to spend my life - productively, meaningfully or wastefully.

"Better Than Before" isn't a one-size fits all solution to forming habits. Instead of giving general advice which could work for some people, Ms. Rubin realizes that every person has a different habit-forming personality. First she helps readers decide on what disposition they have: Upholder, Obliger, Rebel or Questioner. Building on that basis she goes on to help people decide their habit-forming styles: lark or owl, sprinter or marathoner, simplicity or abundance lover, etc. These sections were a real eye-opener for me. I loved that it provided a way to zero in on habit establishing methods that work the best. Plus I had never really thought about how beneficial habits are. Of course, if you eat good foods and exercise you will be healthier. But habits also free up mental space. When you do something by habit, you don't need to think about whether you want or don't want to do something.

The rest of the book goes through different ways to establish habits like scheduling, abstaining or using rewards. Ms. Rubin gives examples from her own life as well as from her friends and people who have commented on her blog. And the many examples really drive home the point that people form habits differently. So many times I read how Ms. Rubin established a habit, and I would just shake my head. There is no way I would try the methods myself. Most of them sounded like torture since I have a different style than she does. And that is the beauty of this book. Once you decide what style works best for you, there is an abundance of advice to help you establish habits. Personally I found the advice Ms. Rubin dispensed to her sister and brother in-law, both television series writers, to be very helpful. My copy of the book is full of highlights and notes which I plan to use to start my own set of healthy, productive and efficient habits.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

I heard about this book through Gretchen's podcast and what I heard there 100% lived up to what this book was about. It was completely accessible, great examples, great (doable) explanations - very down to earth, much like the author. I read a lot of these types of books and not all of them live up to my expectations, this one did. Great job, Gretchen!

What this book presents is not a framework for creating and fostering new habits, but instead a taxonomy of how the author divides the people in her world. Every chapter divides people into more groups, with suggestions on how to use which group you fall into - she admits she has a weakness for dividing people up. At firt this was Interesting, but it has a limit. For me, that limit was more than reached: not only are her divisions not particularly profound, but there was no "how to use these divisions" follow up that was anything but anecdotal. The book is also dominated (obviously, as it's first person) by anecdotes about her particular personality, which she admits is a minority view - so her self revelations did nothing for me, esp when coupled with little "tips." It just all felt so trite: I almost couldn't bring myself to continue with the book. The notion of a taxonomy of personalities being more important than anything continues up until only two or three pages from the end, when she introduces yet another way of categorizing people... with yet again no follow up on how to use it.

Her first person style is relatable, but makes you feel like you're sitting in on someone's therapy sessions. Her anecdotes from her personal life are rambling and meandering, and it was of no use to me to hear how she trial and errored her way into habits. Comments like "while some experts advise..." made me wish I were reading those experts instead. To be fair, I didn't read the Happiness Project, so maybe this is an already established criticism of her style.

Her ways of categorizing habits and their formation are mildly interesting, but again, they come off as self-indulgent. For instance, it says a lot about her and her audience that saving money isn't included in foundational habits. The anecdotes she cites show who her audience is: people who can afford every fancy new gadget, lawyers at big firms, people invited to give TED talks, people who move to France for six months because of a desire to learn french.

But mostly, the consistent theme of the book is that she knows best what habits her friends and family should take up, and she is going to get them to take these habits up no matter what. By the end of her discourse on uncluttering, she acknowledges that it's more important to her than to either of the two people she helps unclutter. Other habits, like buying her sister a treadmill or waking her teenage daughter up early on the weekends, have happy endings - reinforcing her idea that she knows best what's good for her friends/family.

The book is chock full of pithy but trite one liners. Four pages on her first attempt at meditation were gratuitous, and it goes on from there. Her total aversion to technology (putting off using a shredder because of fear of figuring out how to plug it in) makes her seem older than she is. And she kind of comes off as a nagging shrew at points, offering her one liners unsolicited to her friends to try to change their habits to ones she prefers.

However, the book is not completely without merit - it definitely helped me identify and articulate ways in which my live in boyfriend and I are different, for instance. The chapter that divided people between abstainers and moderators forced me into useful self-awareness.

However, I couldn't help but feel impatient while I was reading the book - it made me realize how much time we waste on things that are not good habits (like reading this book, for me).

The book only repeats same stuff again and again with very little intellectual information other than judging people in many different ways, Upholder, Questioner, Rebel, Procrastinator, Moderator, Abstainer etc. Author keeps talking about herself. It is so egocentric that you will forget this is a self help book or author's own personality labeling. No one person fits in one of these labeled boxes. People are Rebels in few things, while Abstainers in other things. I kept reading the book to see if there is anything worth taking away from this verbose book, but it was a total waste of time. I am glad I borrowed it from library or it would have been a complete waste of my money.
Rewarding myself with better quality book to forget the bad taste in my mind from reading this nonintellectual piece of garbage.

I really enjoyed this read. I listen to the authors podcast weekly and enjoy it immensely. This took all that information up a level for me and makes it very clear how we create our habits and how we need to be clear on the subtle cues and the outcomes, the nuances and the sometimes the elephant in the room.

I have been doing a lot of research on habit forming and creating healthy habits. As a personal trainer, I am always looking to encourage clients (and myself) to adopt habits that are beneficial and helpful in leading to a positive end goal. Gretchen Rubin's Better Than Before provides thoughtful insight to habit forming without saying "do this, don't do that". Rather, it is a personal account of her own experiences with suggestions of how YOU can choose to form habits that are right for YOU.

I often had my pen/highlighter in hand to underline her "Secrets of Adulthood" or other interesting thoughts I can use myself and with clients. It is a great read for anyone (habits or no habits) and I will definitely recommend to anyone trying to make small steps towards big changes for the better.

I’ve been seriously thinking about forming new habits lately, in particular with healthier eating and exercising, so this book seemed like the perfect one to read right now. I already follow Gretchen’s podcast, though, so a lot of the information here was very familiar to me. I love her Four Tendencies framework (her latest book, but also something covered extensively in the podcast), which was initially discussed here. There were a few things that this book made me realize about my own habits and why I am having such a hard time with some of them, and that was really valuable information. It’s definitely a great read for anyone who wants to be “better than before”.

Boring and pointless. As others have stated, there are many great books out there on the topic of habits. This is not one of them. I got sick of hearing about her emails to her sister, her low carb diet, and her mundane life in New York.

Some really great information, countered with some very redundant health information. This book has tons of insight into beginning habits based on our personality type, as well as breaking tough bad habits. I just felt that the food/exercise information was heavy handed. Enough with how diligent YOU are about going to the gym, abstaining from trigger foods, and eating magical low carb food. It felt a bit like a lecture on lifestyle. Rubin does admit that that tends to be her "type", but the book felt a bit unbalanced. Solid information, but not my favorite delivery.

Don't buy the paperback unless you plan on giving it away after you read it. So mad. The paperback's paper is like the quality you get at a dollar store. I wanted to keep and highlight mine but it'll bleed through and won't last long. Now, I have to pay to ship it back. So buy the hardcover. I think the content/info is stellar. Wish I could separate my review on content versus quality. Thought Mrs. Rubin would have nixed this kind of quality based on her personality. They charge the same as other big name paperbacks but used super cheap paper.

I do not think this book is as good as her previous books on happiness. It was rather a slog to get through it. It seemed as if many points were belabored. If you are more interested in Grethen's life and the lives of her loved ones then this book may be for you. I just didn't feel it with this one.

I first discovered Gretchen's podcast "Happier", and then I started reading her books. Some of the ideas in this book are simple, and seem obvious, but it's good to hear it again. Many are new ideas that I'd never really thought about. I'm really interested in The Four Tendencies. I really like how Gretchen shares how the different tendencies will likely react to different ideas in this book. Excellent book!

You can read 10 other books on how to lose weight/eat healthier, start exercising/meditating/etc, be happier or you can read this one book and get real help changing all your bad habits in one dose. It gets a little repetitive after awhile but still an excellent book.

I absolutely LOVED this book. I learned so much about myself. Even more importantly, I learned about others. The information in this book has helped me relate better to my husband, my kids, and everyone else! I've also started slowly making some changes toward good habits. Now that I'm aware of my tendency, I feel equipped to change my life. I highly recommend this book.

As a personal trainer who deals with a variety of clients and personalities this is a fantastic book! By understanding how people work based on the four tendencies you can really make serious progress with their goals. And the more I understand myself the more successful my business becomes and the happier my life is. This book is so useful for real world application and one of the best self growth books I’ve read to date.

My sister got me this book just so I could discuss it with her. I didn't particularly have a habit I wanted to create or end. However, I found the various tendencies and general discussion of human behavior to be enlightening and useful. I would recommend this book for that alone. It also gives useful information other than some "self help" books I have read.

One of the best books i've ever read and i read an amazing amount of books. I also love her podcast. I love this more than her first book -- hands down. I didn't buy on the store bc it was going to take too long to arrive.

Pros: I gained insight about why I do or don't develop habits. The book spurred some self reflection that was definitely beneficial and I would recommend it to friends.

Cons: The author frames up the different tendencies and characteristics that make up who we are by giving personal examples. There were many times it seems like she portrays the tendencies she carries as "good" or tendencies to be desired while the others were something to overcome or negative. I would like more advice/strategies on how to exploit our tendencies and form habits.

For every paragraph of research and advice there are pages and pages about Gretchin herself. It got too tedious and annoying to read. I'm sure there is some good advice in here but I couldn't stand the "Look at me! Look at me!" stuff about Gretchen in between. Who writes about themselves this much in a self help book?

Great information peppered throughout book but read through some things that I didn't find helpful, but other individuals might. Excellent start for anyone wanting to improve but unsure what will work for them as a method to make changes. Going to read a good bit of the suggested reading mentioned at end of book, considering she sites the books and studies within them throughout her book. So it seems her book does a nice job summarizing her findings from those books.

This book is an anecdotal study of habits. It deals with habit formation and a few common mistakes we make when we try to start new habits. I find Gretchen Rubin to be an entertaining writer with a strong voice. This was not my favorite work of hers. The best part of this book was her categorizing the four types of people: upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels. If we are able to know ourselves we can better understand what will make our habits stick. A lot of this book was stories from Gretchen’s life about mini experiments she performed on her family and friends. I found most of the book to be a little bit too personal. Nevertheless, the subject is an intriguing one and I will continue to follow Gretchen’s work after this book to see what she explores next.

Very thought provoking! I’d recommend to anyone looking to know more about habits and/or looking to form good habits. I’d recommend taking notes if planning on using information to form habits. I enjoyed the information as well as the stories and personal accounts.

This is one of the best self understanding books I have read in a long time. It helped me to understand myself better, as well as those around me. We each have different tendencies, and this understanding has removed some obstacles with regard to comprehending why people operate the way they do. I look forward to Gretchen's next book, which I believe will have to do with how to better work with people unlike yourself.

I found BETTER THAN BEFORE to be insightful if you're looking for ways to be more successful in changing your habits. The book starts with the four tendencies, basically how you are motivated- internally vs externally. Following are some ways to make a change more likely to stick. I found them to be helpful but they did seem to get buried amongst little stories from the author. While engaging I would have liked a shorter more pamphlet like version condensing the four tendencies and habit forming tips.
I recieved this book thru Blogging for Books

This is my first encounter with a self-help type book. Gretchen artfully put together a collection of facts and experiences that made me really begin to question my habits, my goals and expectations. My only recommendation would be to put the quiz at the beginning of the book -- I often found myself wondering which category I fit in while reading.

Thanks!

Really good surprisingly. I am really surprised I like this book. I am a fan of Gretchen but sometimes her writing is a little drawn out. But I think this book was great! I learned a lot. Its time to start becoming the best then you have ever been and this book can help.

Disappointing. The author appears to be a perfectionist who knows what's best for her, and is well in control of herself. She's capable of driving herself into achieving whatever she desires. Most of the people interested in self-help book are not like that. She has little to offer for those.

This book is a good way to learn more about yourself and the way you create and sustain habits. I have learned invaluable information that will help me to continue to make good decisions about what habits I keep and how to do so.

I liked this book much better than her other two books. My problem with Gretchen Rubin is that she constantly reminds us that she has a blog, and mentions her husband and children way too much. There are so many good nuggets in the book that she could flesh out, she doesn't need to consistently tell us about her privileged lifestyle, her blog, Jamie, Eleanor and Eliza.

Like I said there were a lot of good takeaways from the book - I wish she had of expanded upon those and done away with all of the personal fluff.

Very thankful this book was written—it helped me change (or improve) habits. Easy to read, just wish the personality types questions were in the beginning of the book instead of at the back (so if you haven't read the book yet, start back there first, THEN read the book).

This is the third book by Gretchen Rubin that I have absolutely loved. The Happiness Project and Happier at Home remain in my to-be-read again stack and I will add Better Than Before as well. I love how Rubin tackles her subject matter....research, trial and error, real-life application. It is easy to remember her suggestions and to implement them in ways that work. I highly recommend this book as well as the previous two.

I got this book on a whim - I had decided to set some concrete goals for my year and was surprised to find some easy to stick with and some I couldn't start. I was blown away by what I've learned here and will continue to think about it and refer back. Thank you!

I have read this book four times already since receiving it less than two weeks ago. I enjoy Gretchen Rubin's writing style - it is personal, informative and helpful all at the same time. I am in a season of life when I am working very hard to begin and to change habits in my life, and her book came at just the right moment for me. Understanding more about myself through reading about The Four Tendencies, and as a result how to best begin and stick with habits has been invaluable. I highly recommend this book - it has changed the trajectory of my life.

I enjoyed the book because it gave me new ways of thinking about what motivates me and the people around me. I liked Rubin's conversational tone and the personal anecdotes and examples. I've already started a new habit and hope to acquire a few more, based on the strategies she offers. I've recommended the book to several people.

I love reading books about habits. I learned more about habits in this book than in all the other habit books combined. It was insightful and original. Other books on habits have one approach. This book discussed how different personalities form habits differently. I learned so much about myself reading this book that I can apply to help me form habits that work for me. It is a must read.

I look forward to Gretchins podcast all the time. I decided to give her book a try. I loved it. She is an upbeat person. And her quotes about "Secrets of Adulthood" are inspirational, thought provoking and hilarious!

This book is highly recommended for self centered mania society. It's very confusing and there are words in context that are not words but made up by author and her small group of friends or relatives. I'm very unsatisfied here with this book if you call it such. Junk read!

Strong practical advice on habit change. Rubin has a style that resonates with readers and comes from personal experience. This book does not however come from a strong place of scientific evidence based studies...such as the Power of Habit.

Real practical advice for dealing with habits which you can tailor to your own personality and tendencies! It has definitely given me food for thought to think and implement in order to successfully make the changes I would like! Highly recommend!

I'm waiting to start using the journal until January 1st but I absolutely love it already! The format is perfect for creating habits and anyone who wants to free-flow journal, plus check off items on their list. Gretchen Rubin did an amazing job creating a beautiful book to accompany "Better Than Before". I look forward to creating better habits in 2016!

Gretchen writes as if she is making profound insights, yet she is really just telling non-universal anecdotes cushioned by a bunch of fluff. She also makes large claims with no research to back them up other than the experience of one or two of her friends.

There are far better and more compelling books on this topic. I found it tedious reading and especially her made-up categories of what people are like. Try One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer or The Sweet Spot by Christine Carter.

(I think I'd give this 3.5 stars if I could.)

Like Gretchen Rubin's earlier books ("The Happiness Project" and "Happier at Home") were to happiness, "Better than Before" is not a how-to guide, but an organized musing on the subject of habits -- which, from Rubin's perspective, are closely tied to happiness. I really enjoyed "The Happiness Project" (enough to read "Happier at Home" and "Better Than Before"), but although I found elements of this thought-provoking, it didn't quite resonate with me in the same way.

Rubin begins by saying that somewhere along the line in her habits research and thinking, it dawned on her that motivation could be seen as quadrants -- internal and external -- and people fall into one of the four corresponding tendencies -- "Upholders" are both internally and externally motivated (Leslie Knope); "Obligers" are externally motivated (Jerry/Gary/Larry/Terry); "Questioners" are internally motivated (Ron Swanson); and "Rebels" are, well, unpredictably motivated (April Ludgate). Rubin herself, perhaps not surprisingly, is an Upholder, which I would translate as a very Type A, disciplined sort, the kind of person who, in high school, I might have disdainfully called a "joiner". I'm either a Questioner or a Rebel, or maybe a Questioner with a Rebel streak, and people who Do Things, particularly those who have ideas about how I should Do Things, are pretty annoying to me. This might why I didn't resonate with this book.

But here's the thing -- I am in the process of making some habit changes in my life, and so you'd think I'd be into this, right? And Rubin, despite being an annoying Upholder, has worked *really hard* (like an Upholder) to examine lots of different strategies for forming and keeping habits, not just the ones that work for her. And again, this isn't a how-to, so she isn't *really* telling me what to do, and I shouldn't be annoyed with her as if she is. My mom's an Upholder, though, so maybe that's the real problem.

Anyway...I do recommend this book if you're interested in thinking about habits and the role they do or can play in your life. I bet if you're an Upholder, you'll be super delighted (in a way that I find really irritating) about all the ideas about strategies. If you're a Rebel, I think you'll just be super irritated by the strategies, but might be interested in a reluctant way, and maybe Rubin's strategies will provide some fodder for you to develop ones that actually do work for you. The book gets the stars it does because I *am* interested in taking a more deliberate approach to working the things that are important to me into my every day routines, and Rubin provides interesting nuggets to help fuel my thinking. For those who are neither Upholder nor Rebel -- who really are the majority of the population -- I think it's a worthwhile read if you liked Rubin's other books and/or if the topic of habits is interesting to you.

(Side note: Rubin has no problem asserting as fact things like, "You don't need 8 cups of water a day," "Exercise can't help you lose weight," and "Low carb eating is healthier." I don't think these things are the settled science she makes them out to be, and I found those statements irritating in a completely different way than the personality clash stuff. This knocks her three-and-a-half stars down to just three.)

The author's premise is to achieve happiness/calmer life/do more of what you desire, you need to examine and change habits which are holding you back. What follows is a discussion of 4 personality types: the upholder, the obliger, the questioner and the rebel. You can pretty much get a feel for the personality type from it's designation. I didn't have any problem identifying my own tendencies, and those of friends and you most likely won't either. Also interesting, and new to me to see it in words, is that some people are abstainers and some are moderators. I can also identify with this concept personally and with friends as I know some who can just 'quit' or 'stop' and not stress about it ( apparently because they have already made their decision, so they don't spend energy worrying about it) where as moderators can do just a little every day or have a little every day and that works for them. Abstainers are all in or all out. There is some discussion for each of the personality types as to what works best for them for changing habits. I felt the book overemphasized upholders, which is the authors type. Lots and lots and lots and way too much information on her personal journey ( for me- I skimmed quite a bit of it) I also felt she has a very dominating personality and knows what is best for everyone and the examples she chooses to write about prove this. It would have been interesting to see what effect, if any, her theories as an upholder would have had on a rebel or questioner. I didn't feel this book did a good job of equally explaining how to best work with the 4 personality types. I also didn't care for the author expressing her opinion as fact, but apparently that must be a trait of an upholder.

This is my first review on the store though I have purchased thousands of items on the store. I thought I should take the two minutes to warn other people about this book. I picked this off shelf at Barnes and Noble confusing this author for Gretchen Reynolds one of my favorite NY times columnists who writes well researched articles. This book is a thinly veiled personal congratulatory note with minimal scientific basis. The author makes up her own categories of people and her own theories. The only useful part of the book is bibliography .

I was intrigued with "The Happiness Project" and I did use a few of its suggestions--well, mainly, I concentrated on clearing clutter, since that's my bugaboo. I now find that the third "Happiness" book from Ms. Rubin has pushed me beyond the limit of my appreciation for her advice. This one is all about habits, and while she states early on that one really shouldn't refer to habits as "bad" or "good," she goes on to classify habits in just that way. The archetypes that she uses to categorize all people are tiresome and a bit hard to swallow.

I can't give it fewer than three stars, though, because there is some advice about forming habits that will appeal to many, especially those who have enjoyed her previous books, or, conversely, people who haven't read the previous books and find all Ms. Rubin's exhaustive research refreshing and new.

I once read an opinion that Ms. Rubin doesn't seem especially happy, even after all her searching and trying, and I tend to agree.

Unfortunately, this book is not better than before. I read "The Happiness Project" and didn't like it, but I thought I'd give Gretchen another chance. I generally love this style of book. The topic of habits and what makes them click sounded interesting to me. Gretchen is no psychologist though she sort of attempts to be one (maybe she should see one? It seems she is still searching for something). This book is not worth your time. It literally put me to sleep. I would recommend books by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend instead, if you are looking for a book that will make you happier and achieve lasting positive change.

I loved this book and read it twice, 2nd time I made lots of notes in the margins and the 4 tendencies piece had really helped me in my business as a personal trainer. I can now gear my approach to clients using these pricipals and I get great results and clients really appreciate it too, thanks Gretchen!

"The Habits Manifesto" that opens this book is an attention-getter. If I did not read any other part of this book, this one page is enough to get me thinking and motivated and ACTING on the things I want to do to improve myself.

What I also liked about Gretchen Rubin's Book was the way she really took things apart and categorized habits, personalities, and activities that would lead each of us to re-create habits, gently if need be, in small baby steps if need be -- to better our every day lives, eliminating clutter, transcending procrastination and understanding WHY we do the things we do because we are the people we are. In a sense, she "customizes" our natures so we get a better idea of who we are or can be, and who and what others in our sphere of contact are and why they do the things they do.

Up To A Point.

There is too much crammed into this otherwise sterling book, and the reader can get bogged down by the overwhelming bits of information and analogies. BUT If the reader does what the author suggests - letting words jump out at you from a sentence, as "loose puzzle pieces begin to fit together", then there is much to be personally gained by reading this book and following those ideas, examples and suggestions that resonate with you. I found the labeling of certain personality types to be confusing at times, but the author does a good job of describing so many habits that some people follow, and this I think comforts the reader into understanding that if you want to make or break or just accept a habit, there is really no reason why you can't.

This is a book that cannot be read from cover to cover in a few sittings, I gleaned a great deal of information by absorbing that which "jumped out at me" from a page, or a sentence, or a passage.

I didn't find anything new in this book. Rehash of ideas that are already available online or in other books. And I found details about authors' life and people too distracting. Skip this. I am amazed how so many people have written glowing reviews.

I enjoyed her 2 happiness books, they were fresh and new. In this book, it is just more of the same. it's getting old, and you get the feeling as if it's her way to keep HER mental state balanced by writing, but really she brings nothing new to the table and she is dangoursly over sure about her opinions. for example she recommaends a low carb diet all through out the book. sience is going towards the vegan plant based lifestyle, but Dr.Rubin knows best. and to recommand low carb to a diabetic... I hope her sister is doing her own research and came across Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes, All and all it was kind of a bore to listen to her ideas, couldnt relate to most of it.

Sent an email to author inquiring about bringing her books into our school. For someone that preaches happiness, she was curt and unresponsive.
We were excited to discuss her books and how they might be beneficial for our 300 students. Was appalled at her response. Will be looking elsewhere.