I found that this book was a tale of two halfs. The first half of the book can be summed up with “Procrastination is bad.” Well, duh. We already knew that, or else we wouldn’t be reading a book about procrastination.
Steel lays out an “equation” of “Motivation = Expectancy x Value / Impulsiveness x Delay.” On a surface level, that makes a sort of sense. You’ll be more motivated if you increase the expectation that you’ll succeed or the value of what you’re doing, or if you decrease your impulsiveness or the delay for the reward for what you’re doing. But the more you think about it, the less sense it makes to paint this with a veneer of math/science. How is this an equation? What units are each element measured in? And how is this useful? How are you supposed to change any of the elements?
The second half of the book is far more helpful.… Read more