“The Procrastination Equation will teach you how to bust the excuses that are preventing you from doing your best work and living your best life….So don’t put it off any longer. Read this book. Today.”
—Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind
“Illuminating….Piers Steel shows us the secrets of procrastination, how it affects us and how we will, one day, be able to prevail.”
—Dan Ariely, author of The Upside of Irrationality and Predictably Irrational
Using a mix of psychology, evolutionary biology, self-help, and more than a decade of research, Dr. Piers Steel, the world’s foremost authority on procrastination, offers a tried and true method helping us to identify, understand, and break free of our self-destructive bad habits and create more positive lives for ourselves.
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"The author, Dr Piers Steel, takes good care of the reader right away. You know, it would be so easy to get bogged down in making jokes, just as I was: for instance, I kept telling myself to get that book instead of putting it off any longer etc. etc. Luckily, I did get the book. The author is wise enough to go through the motions and indulge in those self-deprecating jokes, just to get them out of the way. But then we are down to business. If you are too lazy to take the quiz in the first chapter of the book, as I was, you can complete another, more elaborate test on the author's website and get your scores and procrastination profile right away. When you continue reading, the author analyzes the great personal and social costs that are due to procrastination. One immediately realizes that the problem is real and the author knows what he is talking about. He backs his analysis with hard scientific evidence based on research that he and others have conducted over the years. Don't let the author's lighthearted way of talking to his readers fool you, he means business.
Steel is not necessarily telling us anything new. Oh yeah, it is all there: setting realistic and measurable goals, rewarding yourself when you reach your goals, some tricks to make your work enjoyable and so on. The difference with other self-help books is that Steel backs up his advice with hard scientific research, which saves you the trouble of spending too much time trying to find out what really works in your life. Besides, the scientific data makes you realize you are not alone with your problem, which should be reassuring.
There is another thing that sets Steel's book apart from other self-help books. He is categorically against one-sided "positive thinking". You should be a little pessimistic, Steel says. If you do not factor some healthy pessimism into your plans, you will end up wasting your time daydreaming instead of doing anything to make those dreams come true.
Steel's entire book is built on that "reality principle": he explains how dangerous it is to keep procrastinating but, on the other hand, he explains that there is something you can do about it. Indeed, the dangers relating to procrastination are very real: they include ballooning credit card debt because you don't want to pay things on time, sagging health because you keep putting off medical checkups and exams, lousy retirement planning because you do not start saving for your retirement in time, you name it. Luckily, the steps you can take to get out of that morass of misery are just as real and tangible as the problems themselves.
As I mentioned, the reader's attention is drawn to the humorous manner in which Steel conveys his message. The reader may even begin to wonder whether he should resist Steel's charm offensive or not. While the reader is pondering on such minutiae, Steel does something much more surreptitious and clever. As he explains at the very end of the book, his research is a combination of a number of scientific disciplines. Interestingly, he does not call his approach "interdisciplinary," which must be a term that has fallen out of favour in the academia. Instead, Steel talks of the "integration" of different fields. Steel pulls off quite a feat in providing the reader with the necessary information while keeping the reader amused. Still, the book is eminently practical. Steel summarizes his insights in a "step to step guide to getting stuff done" at the back.
The impact this book had on me was tremendous. At least now I know that not all self-help books are dumb. There really is hope."
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Jonathan (4 out of 5 stars)