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128 pages, Paperback
First published October 29, 2013
The most finite, limited resource in our lives is time. (13)Pychyl doesn't fill his book with wishy-washy feel good advice. Nearly every page includes practical and useful information. Each chapter opens with a nugget of good advice - "a key phrase that may become your mantra for change" (xviii). One phrase that particularly stuck with me is "I need to be more aware of my rationalizations" (36). This comes from Chapter 5, which then lists and explains a number of rationalizations we use when we procrastinate. For example, we manufacture our happiness conflict by 'rationalizing' our procrastination through reactions such as trivialization, denial of responsibility, saying 'it could have been worse', etc. (42-44). This is a big thing for me! Some of this stuff might seem obvious when you read it, but to see it logically explained and set out as a problem many people have was really a kick in the pants for me. Pychyl provides clear and concrete explanations of procrastination habits and proposes actionable solutions to overcome them. For me, just being aware of those habits is already helping me work past them. I also especially appreciated the 'implementation intentions' (self-regulatory statements) that he suggests. Here are a couple:
IF I feel negative emotions when I face the task at hand, THEN I will stay put and not stop, put off the task, or run away. (24)
IF I say "I'll feel more like doing this later", THEN I will just get started on some aspect of the task. (55)My one negative criticism is that the comic strips scattered throughout don't add anything to the book. Though, they aren't integrated with the text so they're easily skippable.