Do It Today by Darius Foroux

 

Do It Today by Darius Foroux: Book Review

Procrastination is one of the most common habits that often differentiates between the doer and the thinker and resulting in impacting overall productivity and action taking ability. “Do It Today” by Darius Foroux is a book that focuses on removing this barrier to routine and daily action taking ability by recommending some simple yet often ignored habits.

The book is a collection of blog articles written by the author himself that has been arranged in a logical, chronological and structured manner to give the reader a start to end process to improve overall productivity.

The book is divided into three sections namely; overcoming procrastination, improving productivity and the final section; achieving more.

In the first section of overcoming procrastination, the author touches upon some interesting and key aspects of daily habits that impact productivity. The chapter on beating procrastination backed by scientific method is insightful and showcases the importance of having a system in place over any human willpower. The next chapter on ways to avoid wasting time and improving personal effectiveness concludes with the simple yet effective practice of bifurcating productive and non- productive work and eliminating time wasting activities. A chapter is dedicated where in a 30 min evening ritual has been described by the author that would help improving productivity. This part is insightful and may be put into practical use.

In the second section of improving productivity, the author emphasizes on how the use of smartphones can hamper productivity without our knowledge and why changing our smartphone behavior is essential. The next point on which the author concentrates is the curse of perfectionism. In this part, the reader comes across key points on the obsession of being perfect actually impacts productivity adversely. Reading has been stated as one of key habits that improves productivity.  Another key aspect that the author brings out in this section is the importance of taking breaks, vacations and a period where one does nothing. This concept of break is considered to be essential for having productivity when actually needed. There is a chapter that describes 20 habits in a summarized way that would eventually make one more productive than before. Readers will find some of the habits mentioned as insightful.

In the third section of achieving more, the author breaks down some key aspects. One of the important ones to be mentioned is- Consistency -improving by a mini percentage every single day. A novel concept that has been discussed in this section is that one doesn’t need to get out of a comfort zone to be productive.

The book is a quick breezy read. While the readers go through the chapters, one may feel that many of the concepts are already known to them, however, the manner in which these concepts have been narrated is impactful and makes one revisit their own habits.

An interesting aspect to note about this book is the fact that the author has drawn a lot of his own personal experiences right from starting with his graduation years up to the point when he was compiling this book. A lot of references of his personal wins over his habits has been narrated through the concepts in each of the chapters and sections.

There would also be no denying that references from various books have been taken for key technical concepts, but the structuring becomes important in the entire reading experience.

The chronology of the concepts is very logical and makes for an impactful and productive read. The chapters and individual concepts in the chapter have been kept to the point and the author has not tried to unnecessarily expand the pages beyond the key elements required to understand the concept.

This book is more suitable for readers who like a quick read and do not have time for extended understanding on concepts. Though there are ample books available in the market on many of the individual concepts that have been dealt in this book, a breezy read through this book would give the reader the initial introduction post which they can introspect more by reading the books on the individual topics.

A quick productive read.