The Now Habit

I'm not usually one to read a bunch of self help sort of books, though I occasionally will run through one on a recommendation, such as the odd finance book about getting debt under control. But, despite other problems that I have in life the single biggest, hands down, is procrastination.

People who don't procrastinate will look at a procrastinator and see only that that person is either not working hard enough or putting off work. They don't procrastinate and as such don't understand the motivations and reasons behind why someone would. So they demand “get to work” and “just do it” and “work harder” which more often than not will just cause more procrastination.

This book is the first I've ever come across that actually understands procrastination. Reading through its pages I found myself nodding my head a lot because it described my internal struggle with work almost perfectly. And more importantly, the methods and exercises it provides for battling procrastination seem perfectly valid and easily doable. I've already started changing my habits by simply recognizing when I'm headed toward procrastination and being able to head it off before it happens.

And most importantly, this book isn't just about working harder. It's about working better and integrating play into your schedule because it recognizes the single most important element to procrastination - the reason we get bummed out and piddle around is the prospect that work is going to take away time from play. So by putting play on your schedule first and building work around play, you flip the whole thing on its head.

The only hesitation I had in giving this 5 stars is that the last couple of chapters delve into the sort of hippy zen breathing chanting mantra type stuff that I tend to loath in self help books. But up until that point it was an excellent book, and really you can ignore that part and still get a lot out of it.