Peter Hollins

“Motivation and self-discipline are nice to have. Motivation, however, is often emotional and temporary, while self-discipline can be exhausted. But having solid habits will deliver the same results with far less pain and suffering. Habits have been shown to take around 66 days to form, so all you need to do is commit to small actions (mini habits) for that amount of time.”

In “Science of Self-Discipline - The Willpower, Mental Toughness, and Self-Control to Resist Temptation and show more Achieve Your Goal” by Peter Hollins

People in this country, Portugal, - and maybe in others too, but I've not really lived elsewhere - work too hard, for too many hours, and retire (in general) too late. Too many of us have accepted the myth, or have had no choice but to accept it, that self-discipline and unremitting effort is good for ourselves, our families, the economy - but as so many of us work in jobs that actually don't matter very much, or at all, that can't be true. If no one worked in PR, or banking, or accountancy, the world would have a problem, but it wouldn't stop spinning on its axis.

Inculcating a belief in competition as being good for children, whether in sport or academic pursuits, has created generation after generation of over-striving, over compensating, self-critical, generally unhappy people who seem to me to be getting progressively angry with each other and with government, employers, fellow-workers, those who can't work at all, pensioners or conversely young people.... just ever angrier, working ever harder, achieving less and less that makes any genuine difference to their own generation or that which is to come.

My own observations of executives over the years lead me to conclude that many of them mistake activity for achievement, long hours for effective time-management, and that an awful lot of them have swallowed a version of how good managers behave that ends up bankrupting their companies and killing them and the staff under them. I know. I was one myself back in the day. We now insist children attend pre-school or nursery school at 3 or 4 - why? We postponed the age of retirement for entirely actuarial reasons - it certainly isn't going to do any good, because after a lifetime of work most of us have bits falling off, or failing, or growing where they shouldn't from around 55 onwards. The self-discipline we need is that required to plan our time better, and to slow down; not to worry if a job isn't finished by the time the office shuts - it'll still be there tomorrow, usually; it won't matter if it's not done today, and anyway if you planned your time better you would have done it today: you wouldn't have taken on other jobs that stopped you completing the one that was dead-lined.

My life got a whole lot easier once I accepted that my natural style was to leave things until the last possible minute, and also that it usually turns out OK (all those years of doing my homework on the bus/in the Tube/under the desk at the start of the lesson clearly gave me a valuable skill). It means that when I have some work to do at home, instead of forcing myself to sit at the computer all day before finally making a start on it at about 9.pm, I now spend the day doing something else and then sit down at about 9.pm and get straight on with it. When I discovered that the best way to solve a problem was to think about it for a bit then go away and do something else. I often end up dreaming the answer...

Bottom-line: Slow down, world. Time is an invention - it's not real. Unless you're in the business of treating an aneurysm before it bursts, or plugging a dam, or bringing down a mad axe-murderer, it's seriously unlikely that your work is so important that you need bust a gut to finish it before time and immediately plunge yourself into the next project. Efficiency and overwork aren't the same thing - indeed, the second precludes the first. We all work differently. Same with breakfast. show less

The Science of Self-Learning is more readable than Adler's How to Read a Book. Hollins provides common sense and best practice strategies for organizing one's own education. Through the internet, along with books, periodicals, and more, information on virtually all fields and topics is more easily available than ever before.

Though not pedantic or academically snobbish like Adler, Hollins does pack in an overwhelming number of lists of methods, strategies, perspectives and instructions. I show more did enjoy reading this but felt I would have appreciated a more concise book. show less

One way to describe this great book in full detail, is to call it the Procrastinators Worst Nightmare, not because it's bad for a Procrastinator to read, but because it teaches a Procrastinator of any kind various different kind of valuable lessons and various different kind of valuable mindsets and various different kind of valuable methods that a Procrastinator truly needs to break free out of Comfort zone, lose any kind of unnecessary and pointless distractions, and to do the work that's show more necessary for anyone who wishes and wants to follow their dreams. I honestly have no complaints about it, for this book is very educational and offers various different kind of way outs on how to lose the comfort, how to face and live in discomfort, and how to make your dreams a reality with hard work, persistence, and lots of necessary actions. show less

Peter Hollins has written a good, short, clear book explaining how all us can learn to be more self-disciplined (and get things done). He’s not the first to have done so, but I liked his clear messaging and the chapter summaries that made it easier to retain the information. As I read the book over the course of just one day, I already began making some changes in how I work. The proof will be in the pudding: if I follow Hollins’ advice, I should have something to show for it in a few show more months’ time. show less