A common problem with self-help books is that they are shallow. But another problem is also it rarely tries to have a scientific foundation about anything. I've known Menno for years and I like his content, so I was pretty excited to know he had a book on self-control. I knew it would be science-based and certainly did not disappoint.
The first couple chapters lay down the basics: 2-systems theory, what self-control is, and why it has evolved. It covers some basic psychology it will provide a good background for the rest of the book.
The book doesn't have the typical organization and is almost like a massive collection of bullet points. I generally don't like this format but it worked fair well here. As the title implies, he gives you 53 tips for productivity. These tips are distributed across all the chapters.
What is great about this book is that it is insanely readable. Even a child can probably read it fairly easy. And yet is based on very solid science. Textbooks aside, this book probably has the highest citation count per page that I've ever seen. It is a very unusual combination.
A problem with books with this bullet-point format is that the tips seem a bit random and disjointed. This isn't the case here, and very often the content builds upon itself. Even better, whether you want it or not, you're learning about how the mind works along the way.
Something a bit disappointing is that I expected more content on productivity. While it does have lots of useful stuff, nevertheless the book is more biased towards the dieting part. Having a career in fitness, much of the content I was already familiar with so I can't say it was super exciting.
However, there was still a fair number of experiments that I didn't know and found very interesting. Having spent almost a decade reading fitness research, that speaks volumes about the quality of the book.
To give you an idea of what the content is like, here is an example: Should you have breakfast? You have heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the same day right? On the other hand, there is a crowd of people that swears that not eating breakfast is the key to productivity and fitness, and they seem to be doing great. What gives?
Well, what matters is not if you have breakfast or not, but about if you keep it consistent. This is why the dogma of having breakfast became so popular, because in studies if you have people skip breakfast they perform worse, but of course, most people are used to eating breakfast. So whatever schedule you like you can keep, but keep it consistent.
I remember a couple of times where I thought the claim was a bit odd, but that was a very small minority. Overall the content is incredibly solid. If you want practical self-book help, this is it. Not one where there is a long history about how the author overcome some difficulty and then had some spiritual epiphany, but something that actually teaches you how to be more productive with something you can implement right now, this is it.
If you don't care about fitness at all, be warned that a lot of books is geared towards it. However, I still think that it's worth getting and just skipping the fitness content. Or even better: if you're not into fitness, why not? Maybe you're exactly the type of person that needs to read the fitness tips.
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Top reviews from other countries
Tiago Vasconcelos
Fantastic value
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 2 December 2021Verified Purchase
Amazon Kunde
Großartig
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john l friesen
Same same
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Lukas Schwabe
Gut zu lesen, und sinnvolle, belegbare Tipps - Das was drauf steht ist enthalten.
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on 3 June 2022Verified Purchase
Lukas Hamberger
Really valuable, practical ideas
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on 28 August 2021Verified Purchase
