The Now Habit

By: Neil Fiore Ph.D.

Narrated by: Neil Fiore Ph.D.

Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Here's the first comprehensive strategic system for overcoming the causes and eliminating the effects of procrastination.

Here are techniques to help any busy person get more things done more quickly, without the anxiety and stress brought on by delay and pressing deadlines.

If you are a professional, manager, student, entrepreneur, writer, or homemaker, this audiobook will help you achieve your goals more rapidly, whether they are large, complex challenges or the small, essential tasks of everyday life and work. If you now work effectively, even though you have too much to do and too little time, The Now Habit will show you how to prioritize your goals to allow more time for guilt-free play.

Step by step, Neil Fiore, Ph.D. reveals numerous tested strategies for ridding your life of procrastination:

• Use the symptoms of procrastination to trigger the cure
• Overcome the perfectionism and fear of failure that lie behind procrastination
• Benefit from making positive statements about work instead of sabotaging yourself with negative statements
• Make your worry work for you
• Use the "Unschedule" time-management techniques
• Accomplish more in less time through efficient "flow state" work styles
• Assist the procrastinators in your life in overcoming their problems

The Now Habit promises you the chance to truly enjoy guilt-free recreational time, knowing the work is really behind you.

Download the accompanying reference guide..

©2006 Neil Fiore, Ph.D. (P)2007 Gildan Media

Great content, worthwhile read

I did very much enjoy this book. I found his advice and methods to be sound and reasonable, not unrealistic or difficult to implement.
The only issue I had, (and I knew to expect it when I purchased the book, thanks to other reviewers) was that the author had a difficult time narrating. There were moments of awkward pausing, sentences did not flow or sound natural. Not enough for me to stop listening, but if someone is very particular, it might be enough!
He really should have hired a narrator!

Effective but perhaps for the wrong reasons

I bailed on this book at the two hour mark. Like many self-help books, this one spends too much time clearing its throat before getting to the actual methodology that is supposed to help the reader. In effect, it’s a procrastination book procrastinating on getting to the point. Also, the reader’s performance sounded more like he was attempting to hypnotize me into a deep sleep than convince me to start taking action. Actually, it was effective: I decided not to use any further time listening to the remaining 5+ hours of text, and get to work. In that, the book helped me.

A new perspective on procrastination

This book gave me very helpful insights into why people (including me) procrastinate and what we can do about it. Fiore draws upon his extensive experience helping people to show how procrastination affects many people in a wide range of situations and how his straight-forward suggestions helped them overcome a persistent, life- and career-limiting challenge. What I liked best was coming to a new understanding of why I procrastinate that views my behavior as a reasonable, if unproductive, reaction to my situation. Moving from guilt to acceptance "unfreezes" me and gives me psychological "room to move." I still have to do the work, including following some clear advice from the author, but now I feel as if I can move forward.

Excellent resource!

The Now Habit inspires me to build a realistic schedule that weaves work and play, which increases productivity, and relieves guilt.
Whenever I get stuck, I return to this resource. It never fails to quickly refocus my efforts.

wish i had found it sooner

great, just wish i had found it earlier, i would have avoided a lot of frustration.

Practical insights, good content.

Narration is a bit slow and cadence unusual, but content is great, and very easy to implement, and effective when applied. Good book, gets to the point. Saw behavior changes about halfway through the book, so that was a win!

Narration is terrible, interferes with content

I am a psychologist and almost never can’t finish a book; but I could not finish this book. While the content is probably pretty good, the narration is genuinely so awful that I couldn’t listen. He keeps pausing and taking breaths at random and inappropriate times. I thought I’d get used to it, but with time I found it increasingly frustrating and distracting. Then I increased the speed to 1.3x, hoping that would make it tolerable. It didn’t. Another reviewer mentioned that it was making her angry. I totally get this. It was the worst narration I have encountered in a book. Unfortunately, it literally ruined the content of the book.

Good content. Bad narrator

What did you like best about The Now Habit? What did you like least?

The book seemed to have some good content, but due to the author's intolerable narration, I could only make it about halfway through.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The author narrated his own book, but should have gotten a professional to do it. His halting speech pattern was something like a cross between Captain Kirk and Christopher Walken. At times, it was as if he was having trouble reading the actual text.

Any additional comments?

Since the content seemed to be worthwhile, I'm going to purchase this in either paperback or ebook format, since listening to the author attempt to narrate the book is not an option in this case.

Very useful information

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend this book as we all procrastinate and so should better understand this fact of life.

What other book might you compare The Now Habit to and why?

The Power of Self-Discipline. No Excuses! is not focussed on procrastination, but helped me overcome procrastination as by-product of following its suggestions. I recommend that book as well.

Any additional comments?

This book contains very valuable insights into procrastination. I can't imagine there are many people who could not benefit from them. The author is not a professional narrator and sometimes that became a bit of a distraction. I prefer hearing the author read his own book, though, and that for me outweighed any shortcomings of his slightly clunky reading style. I highly recommend this book. Two big thumbs up.

Wonderful Insights, Weird Reading Improved by 1.25

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

After fixing up the narration by increasing the reading speed, I found the author's insights to be very valuable. Especially the link between procrastination and fear of failure, and the need to understand the rewards from procrastination (what do you think you win by delaying action? If you understand that about the problem, then you can start to dig deeper into solving the problem.) Interesting insights, if you are willing to look past the narrator's difficulties.

How could the performance have been better?

A professional narrator would have been much better. The current narrator seemed to be managing some kind of speech or cognitive impediment (so sorry to have to point this out), which is manifested by weird mid-sentence pauses and a very slow reading speed.
Turning on 1.25 X reading speed made the whole thing much better, and allowed me to get past the narration difficulties to enjoy the real insights.

Was The Now Habit worth the listening time?

Yes!