The 5 Second Rule

The 5 Second Rule is: when you think of something you need to do, count down from 5 then move. It could be explained in a long blog post or a short pamphlet. So, understandably, a lot of this book is ra ra coach empowerment hype and screenshots of social media testimonials sent to the author. That’s fine if you’re into that kind of thing, just not my preference.

The primary value of this book is in the author’s personal story about using this to kickstart serious changes. I do think it feels a bit like a panacea (using it to prevent worrying, for example, is essentially a sideways approach to the method of noting used in meditation, which, IMO, is much better suited for mental catastrophizing than counting backwards).

If you read anything vaguely scientific about habit loops you probably already know more than the cursory mention of the science behind the technique, so there isn’t much depth there.

TL;DR - If you’re a productivity nerd that’s fairly on top of things, you won’t get a lot out of this. But I don’t think that’s the audience; it feels like a book for people who are not the life optimizer types, but rather feeling stuck or depressed and need a simple “do this” to jolt them into self-confidence and set off a chain reaction.