Summary for Finish what you start by Peter Hollins

💡Most memorable things from the book

💡 If you have a history of falling into bad habits after a single lapse in discipline, then an honest assessment of how you feel after 10 days or weeks will tell you that you simply can’t afford a lapse in discipline now if you’re going to achieve your long term goals. It wasn’t an exception or justified in that one circumstance — it is a reflection of your character for better or worse

💡 You will not make any changes if you always do what you do

💡 When you face a challenge, don’t work around it. Work through it. And ask yourself “What can I learn from it?”

💡 However, only your present self can actually do anything

📔Rewrite the book in 10 sentences

To finish an undesirable task, pair it with something pleasant. Following through consists of self-discipline, action, and persistence. Not everything has to be perfect to reach your goal. Sometimes, using fear, shame, objects, and people as motivation can be effective due to not letting them down. Set rules and follow them so you can’t break the rules and stop your tasks. See what you can do in 10 min, 10 hours, and 10 days. Choose which mindset to use, stop worrying, and don’t stress out. Use temptation bundling to get rewards for both your present and future self. Stop overthinking and don’t overdo a task, stress can only lead to failure(learn from it). Create a good environment(without distractors), a system for your task, and create good time management which won’t overwhelm you.

🚨Important words from the book

Projection Bias - When people falsely projects their current feeling into future feeling(when you feel depressed when doing a certain thing and think that you would feel it again when you do it again)
Time inconsistency - where humans value immediate and instant gratification over long-term rewards.
Temptation Bundling - when you combine your present and future selves and their conflicting needs
False hope syndrome - when you think you can do everything on your to-do list in a short amount of time but actually not

📒Chapter Notes

Intro

To finish an undesirable task, pair it with something pleasant such as your fav album

Chapter 1

When you just think but do not execute what you think (lack of following thought)
Following thought - self-discipline, action, and persistence
Focus: this not only gets you through your task, but it also follows a linear path through it
Self-discipline: The courage to get your work done and to control yourself
Leisure/enjoyment during free time is important but don’t overuse it
Action: without action, the plan would be abstract and goals would be dreams
Persistence: the key to reaching your goal
Inhibiting Tactics: misusing time and not giving effort
Don’t set up bad goals(can’t be done/impossible)
Distraction(Learn how to deal with them because overuse may distract you from your goal)
Poor time management(Time is hypothetically the same for everyone)
Fear: it repels us from reaching our goal because it makes us think that it would be bad and fail
Perfection insecurity: You don’t have to be perfect to do something. ex. You don’t have to try getting 100/100 to get into the best school. This could lead you to a loop. (You might consider yourself hardworking but you will be repelling from your goals)
learn what hold you back to reignite your task work

Chapter 2

External Motivators: self-bribery
Avoiding consequences as a motivation
Accountability partner: when you get motivated to get work done because you don’t want to be ashamed by a person(your family)
Putting money down: Risk of losing something as a motivation for example you spend your money to do your task and not risking the money
Use images, and unique things to remember your task and remind of your task

Chapter 3

Rules are something that you accept
Setting rules to do task make it easier to reach goals
Rules are things such as going to school every day (cannot be simply broken)
Differentiate important from Urgent tasks. Important is more important than urgent
Create limitations and requirements daily
Remind of why you are trying to reach your goal
See what you are doing will do to your goal in 10 minutes, 10 hours, and 10 days (10-10-10 rule)
if you want to do something negative, harmful, or urge your follow-through, wait 10 minutes. See if it is necessary to do.
Also if you want to quit something beneficial for your goal, wait 10 minutes. See if it is necessary to do.

Chapter 4

Mindset plays a role in getting to your goal
Having a positive mindset and adjusting to something unknown while following along with your goal leads to a successful goal
Don’t create believe that you're not gonna reach your goal
The more discomfort things such as waking up early you do, the more your brain knows that it doesn’t hurt you to wake up early
You will not make any changes if you always do what you do
don’t give up on reaching your goal just because it is unsettling and uncomfortable for you
When you face a challenge, don’t work around it. Work through it. And ask yourself “What can I learn from it?”
Stress can keep us away from our goals. Our healthy life can benefit our goal
Keeping negative can create self-control failure and make us stress
When you feel something during a task, don’t predict that the same will happen when you do it again

Chapter 5

People procrastinate often because of time inconsistency
You can see what you need in the future and plan it but only your present self can actually do anything
But because of time inconsistency, you want rewards now, not for your future. For example, taking a nap to give you a reward right now but if you do it, it might negatively affect your long-term goal
Using temptation bundling, you can combine what you like with working on your goals. For example, eating chocolate while doing your work. This gives you a reward right now and also improves your long-term reward, your objective.
Instead of taking a giant leap toward your goal, create small steps to your goal. It is much easier
Considering risk such as planning for what could go wrong with your task can help you toward your goal
Fear is not a fun motivator but using it safe can help you avoid procrastination
But using fear as a motivator a lot can lead you to stress. Stress is not good for your task

Chapter 6

To minimize distraction, you have to plan ahead of time and clean up all the cluttered mess in your environment
You want to create a clean environment such as a clean desk for you to focus on your task
You can create easy-to-follow and needed tasks by creating an environment. For example, if you sit in your office all day and wanted to walk. You can create an environment by drinking water so that you have to go to the bathroom. This makes you walk
Do work step by step so that you can easily identify the error made in your work
Use the 40-70 informative rule which states that to make a good decision, use 40% to 70% of research. Lower than 40% will leave you clueless, and Higher than 70% will overwhelm your decision.
Sometimes do nothing from time to time. Do it as a relaxation and mental recovery to restart your work

Chapter 7

Overthinking can negatively affect you by making you research more and execute less. For example, over-planning instead of doing what’s in the plan
Worry takes you not to your present but to your past and future where you have no control. This may negatively affect your follow-through
Knowing yourself can create a great environment for yourself and enable you to work best
Figure out what time you work best during the day
Be aware of yourself and if you have a failure, fix it

Chapter 8

Willpower and self-discipline can push you to reach your goal, but they can crumble when overwhelmed
A system, a daily routine can help you ease out the tasks and stop you overwhelm.
Using a system, you can put yourself in a better place and not overwhelm. For example, if your goal was to write 1000 words, a system will help you try to get to that goal without you being overwhelmed.
A system can try to reach your goal but you might not reach your goal. It is better to put yourself in a great place than to get overwhelmed
The first part of the system is to keep a scoreboard, that way you can see your progress and help you motivated
Another part of the system is to celebrate victories. It can help you and others that working on your goal makes you successful
Time management is a big part of the system. You can create time management by creating daily routines and setting aside time for eating, sleeping and etc…

❇️Good/Bad + Learned from the book

This book is solely based on work ethic and it depicts examples of people misdoing their work. From this, the author, Peter Hollins explains how to do it more efficiently and to put yourself in a better position and comfort when doing work. The author also talks about how the physiological methods that can be used to benefit from working toward your task and finishing it. Overall, the author wrote the book in a good explanatory way which gives you a hang of it. I would recommend it to anyone who is really into their goals and like reading self-help books. My perspective on this book is that it gives the reality of what most people do when they do the work and show us how to fix it and the physiological method to do it.