Neil Fiore – The Psychology of Personal Effectiveness – Book Review

01.03.2022 Off By Don

A few days ago I finished reading this book, kindly provided to me by the publishing house Ivanov Mann and Ferber. Overall, I liked the book, so I decided to write this review. Perhaps the tips from this book, some of which I will publish in this article, or this book itself will be useful to readers.

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While I was reading this work by Neil Fiore, I can’t say that from the very beginning I was delighted with it. The book is very short, but I felt it was too concise, as if it had been written in a hurry. The bad thing is that the information is not digested very easily. Paradoxically, if this book contained the same number of ideas, but was longer due to the fact that the author would explain them in more detail, then I would read it faster.

The good thing is that there is little superfluous, the book is very capacious and contains some useful concentrate of the author’s valuable thoughts and ideas. In addition, this style of presentation makes the reader think about what they have read, since not everything is clear from the first reading.

The author sometimes leaves some questions without a clear answer. He talks about the value of focusing on the goal, about the importance of not being distracted, but doesn’t say much about how to achieve this.

Yes, he makes the reader think in the right direction and sets the right guidelines … But I would still prefer this book to be longer and more detailed, as it contains undeniably very valuable and useful ideas, and it would be great, if the author developed these ideas further.

Although, if each of these ideas were developed, more than one book would turn out …

How this book helped me

My opinion on the book changed when I discovered that I had successfully applied the author’s ideas in my life. And, in an accidental irony, the first useful innovation that I learned from the author concerned the very process of reading this book.

The study of any literature in recent years has been slow for me. Some time ago I felt like I didn’t have much time for this, even though I was madly wanting to read a huge pile of books on various topics.

I’m at work during the day, where I can’t read. And in the evening I have allotted for sports, walks and yoga classes. I run, ride a bike, walk because I can’t do it all while working.

That’s why I used to postpone reading books on weekends. I thought these days I will have a few free hours in a row, and then I will read. But on the weekends, too, there were some urgent matters or I just fell asleep with a book in bed. This was not because the book is boring, but because I love naps. And the opportunity to sleep during the day happens only on weekends.

In the end, I couldn’t read as many books as I wanted to read… I saw an objective limitation in this situation: I just don’t have time – that’s how I explained such slowness to myself.

In fact, as I understand it, it was something else. For some reason, I wanted to allocate several hours a day for studying books, at least, to read a lot at once. Of course, I didn’t have such an opportunity.

I ended up feeling a bit of a panic about reading so little that it’s been weeks and I still haven’t read the book. So it was with the book I am writing about in this post. Despite its small size, I read it for a long time.

In the middle of reading this book, thanks to the author, I realized a simple and obvious thought, which for some reason did not occur to me. No need to strive to do everything at once, in one sitting! You can approach a big task in many approaches!

After all, I can read at least half an hour a day! At least a few chapters. Half an hour of reading every weekday is 2.5 hours from Monday to Friday. On Saturday, I can go to bed and also fall asleep with a book, as I did the past times. But this time I will fall asleep with a clear conscience. After all, in 2.5 hours I already managed to read not so little and I don’t need to worry about the fact that I can’t master a lot of text on weekends when I want to relax.

After I figured this out, reading Neil Fiore’s work went a lot faster! I read a few short chapters every day. But by the weekend, these chapters, without my noticing, turned into half a book!

The author in his book says that you should not try to do everything at once, this provokes anxiety and, as a result, procrastination (the tendency to put things off until later). Fiore advises: “just start doing something, work for at least 15 minutes.” Then these 15 minutes of work can turn into several hours after you get carried away with the work, and your anxiety will disappear. After all, you have already started!

I was glad that now I could apply this approach not only to the study of literature, but also to my other hobbies, which I postponed indefinitely due to an imaginary lack of time.

Neil Fiore’s book is mainly about how to deal with procrastination and how to get more done in a given amount of time.

It’s amazing that the book almost immediately helped me solve the problem of my own procrastination, which I did not consider as such.

This book helped me find a bottleneck in my time management and fix it.

Start now!

The original title of the book is The Now Habit at Work, which can literally be translated as “the habit of” now “at work” or “the habit of working now.” The wording, although not very beautiful in a literal Russian translation, but it reflects the main idea of ​​the book.

The author tells how to overcome the fear of big projects and how important it is to focus on the present moment of time, and not think about what you have not done in the past and what you have to do in the future.

I, like every person, struggle daily with my laziness. I am sure that laziness cannot be eradicated completely, because laziness lies in our nature. You can just learn to control her and be stronger than her.

Every day I go into battle with her when I need to work, write an article, cook a meal, go for a run and do other things. But it often happens that my plans go ahead of my actions.

I don’t have time to do something or I don’t do it as fast as I wanted to. This book reminded me once again that at such moments you do not need to scold yourself and blame yourself for procrastination. You need to focus on the present moment and move towards the goal at a pace that you can sustain. And it does not matter that today you have not completed a quarter of what you planned to do. You can’t bring back the past. Stop thinking about the past and the future and do the work here and now. Otherwise, you will do even less or do nothing.

This is what the book teaches. I believe that meditation also allows you to hone the skill of focusing on the present moment, because this is its essence.

My favorite tips from the book

  • Get started now! Don’t put off big things until later. Do it every day for at least 15 to 30 minutes a day.
  • Know how to listen to your interlocutor. I have always written about how important it is to be able to listen to the interlocutor, and not dwell on yourself and wait for your turn to speak out. The author offers an interesting exercise in “active listening”. When one of the two interlocutors speaks out, then the other retells what he said, then they switch roles.

    You can use this principle in normal, non-staged communication. Just let the interlocutor sometimes understand that you are listening to him and understood him. You don’t have to repeat every word. It’s just okay to do it from time to time.

  • Use “I” in potentially conflict situations. Let me explain. I myself have tried this advice in practice. I couldn’t sleep at night because the upstairs neighbors were making noise over me.

    I rang their doorbell and instead of saying “You’re making noise, stop it, you’re disturbing sleep”, I said “I have a problem (or I’m having a problem) I can’t sleep because of the noise in your apartment “.

    It turned out that I came to the wrong address, there was noise in another apartment. But on the other hand, the neighbor’s reaction to the fact that I rang the doorbell closer to the night and, perhaps, woke someone up, was normal.

    Perhaps this was due to the trick I used. People probably get defensive when you start poking or poking at them and blaming them. Therefore, it is better to talk about yourself and your problems. It turns out the same thing, but much more diplomatically. Try this technique at work during difficult conversations.

  • Concentrate on the task, not on yourself. Don’t dwell on the past and the future, be in the present.
  • Ask yourself not “why did this happen” but “how to fix it”.
  • If the work is not going well, take a break – instead of being distracted by useless things.
  • If you want to take your mind off work for some nonsense, stop. Don’t follow the momentum of your habit. Take 10 long breaths and long exhalations, equal in time. This will give you the necessary time-out and allow you to make an intelligent decision, and not get carried away by momentary impulses.

    This is applicable to any situation where you feel like doing something stupid. Before you make the spontaneous decision that just popped into your head, do this trick.

    Perhaps there was no such wording in the book and I thought of something myself. But this is not so important, let this advice be here =)

Advice that can change your life

This is where I want to end my review of this good and undeniably useful book, the advice of which I have successfully begun to apply in my life. In conclusion, I would like to pay a little attention to one of the main ideas of Neil Fiore.

The advice to start doing something now rather than putting it off can make a huge difference in someone’s life.

Many people put off the realization of their most cherished goals until later: to be creative, write a book, learn a new profession, open their own business, etc. Because of this, they can completely get bogged down in current affairs and never find their dream after endless “sweat”.

Personal advice from me. Are you unhappy with something in your life? Do you want more? Are you tired of meaningless work? Get rid of all “impossible”, “no time”, “later”. Set aside at least half an hour of time every day at home or at work to get closer to your cherished goal.

Don’t want everything at once. Start moving towards the goal in small steps, which over a long period of time will turn into kilometers of distance traveled.

Don’t blame your surroundings for things that don’t work out for you. Until you start moving yourself, the situation will not change.

Good luck to you!