Do the Work [Kindle Edition]

I felt compelled to write a short review based on having read several negative pieces of customer feedback. Having thoroughly enjoyed the book I felt that it would be only fair to provide an element of balance.

I have to begin by saying that the book was recommended to me. I am not one for 'success' literature, or self-development programmes or business and personal spirituality guides. They are not for me and I tend to take a fairly dubious and skeptical view. The point is that without the recommendation I would have pigeon holed this book firmly into that category and left it alone. Shortly after the first several pages I felt reassured. 'Do the work' is not of that genre or, if it is then it is not of the 'type' that I perceive so negatively (if that makes sense!?).

For me, the main strength was the energy in the book. This was to be found in the short and snappy way in which the prose was written. It was in the actionable recommendations and the directional conclusions that are woven throughout. For me, it was also to be found in the book's 'visual' style (by this I mean the layout and sizes of text as opposed to pictures of which there are none. I have read a review here that found this distracting, but for me it added to the general momentum and pace and helped me get though the book very quickly. I have read other books where this is done to a much less effective end result (Funky Business is one such example) but found it here really works alongside the main message of the body of the main text as opposed to be seemingly plucked at random.

The other main strength for me was in the humor of the book. 'Do the work' was witty and clever and provided me with several laugh out loud moments. The pop culture references are all entirely modern and current and the book has a feeling of being extremely up to date (again, something that is often lacking from books of this 'type').

All in all, this is a fun, short, dynamic book that is definitely worth the tiny amount of reading time required to get through it. I found 'Do the work' to be instructional and thoughtful and for all of these reasons I have recommended the book to friends.

It is also free - which helps!

Matt

Must confess to being a little surprised at the other reviews.

I downloaded the free version following a mention of Seth Godins blog - and to be honest his recommendation is more than enough for me - plus it was free!

Anyway, I ploughed through it that day and enjoyed the read and found it motivating and not at all irritating - don't be put off - give it a go!

It is very good of the author and Seth Godin to offer this for free on the Kindle.

Many people have found Steven Pressfield's book " The war of Art" to be very useful in overcoming resistance or procrastination and " Do the work" is basically a distillation of that book.

I do have very mixed feelings about his approach. For overcoming writers block I have found it to be somewhat useful . Even successful and prolific writers sometimes have problems and seeing this resistance as something to be fought and overcome can be quite helpful.

However I did find the writing to be overwrought, self-dramatising and often very inconsistent. Also it seemed a bit too personal to the author.

I have found books that give far more practical advice to be a lot more useful. Pressfield's approach only seems to deal with one possible reason for procrastination.

The psychologist Albert Ellis in his Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy approach has a lot of methods to deal with "Low Frustration Tolerance" (which seems similar to resistance) and these seem to be much more useful than the mystical approach that book uses.

For areas other than dealing with a writer's block I think that his ideas might actually be harmful and de-motivating. He makes everything seem really difficult and not really enjoyable. It hardly makes you want to start work on a potentially difficult project!

Edit: I wrote this review when it was available for a free download and gave it three stars. It is currently very poor value for money.