In this post, I present a mind map with the full summary of the book The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play.
Despite a cover that reminds me of the “remarkable” Windows 3.1 ‘Hot Dog Stand’ color scheme, I don’t have much to say about The Now Habit other than it’s one of the most useful books I’ve ever read.
Since its publication back in 1988, it has become well-known among chronic procrastinators looking for ways to overcome this crippling condition, and for very good reasons.
The Procrastination Habit
As the title of the book suggests, procrastination is a habit — it’s not caused by lack of organization or lack of time management skills. If you’re looking for time management tools as a way to overcome procrastination, I suspect you may be getting yourself just another set of toys to play while you procrastinate.
Back in 2004, when implementing the David Allen’s Getting Things Done method, I fell exactly in that trap: tweaking my to-do lists, installing the latest software on my PDA and clearing my inboxes all worked as perfect excuses to avoid doing what I knew I was supposed to be doing instead!
Don’t get me wrong: I’m a big fan of Getting Things Done and other time management methods — they really work for me today. But if you’re caught in the procrastination habit, time management alone won’t have any lasting effect on your unproductive behavior.
That’s why when someone asks for my advice about implementing the Getting Things Done method, I can’t help but recommend Neil Fiore’s The Now Habit, which, at least for me, was the missing piece to make it work.
Book Contents
I intended the mind map below to be as thorough as possible; it doesn’t replace the book, of course, but you can get a pretty good idea of its entire contents. Also, if you already read the book you can use the mind map to quickly refresh it in your my mind at anytime.
Get the mind map for The Now Habit:
If, on the other hand, you’re interested in checking a summary in a more “conventional format”, there are many great ones floating around on the Internet. To get a quick glance of the tools and methods available in the book, this article in the MineZone Wiki has a bulleted, easy to read summary. Benjamin Ellis of WOWNDADI has also done a terrific job in a chapter-by-chapter summary.
Thank you for the great mind map! It gave me lots of insight into the real reasons behind procrastination as a habit and ways to stop it dead in its tracks.
Great map and content. Easy to speed read in MindManager Presentation Mode View.
Hello Litemind,
Thanks for the mind map. BTW is the Online interactive version” created using MindManager?
Thanks
forrestRain: The online version is a FreeMind mind map. I originally created it using MindManager and then used Freemind’s import functionality.
Wow. I see. Thanks Luciano. Better check out FreeMind now.
Thanks for this interesting post again!
Great post! Glad that you you found the summary on WOWNDADI helpful. Plus I now know I can get things between FreeMind on my Mac and MindManager on my PC. Excellent!
Well man, I´ve got identified with this topic. I´ve never thought about it, but now I know what I am: a real “procrastinator”. Sounds porn. Anyway, I´m gonna use your incredible mind mapping to try to resolve this status quo! Maybe, get your book for some months.
I’ve procrastinated in telling you what a helpful website this is. I especially liked your list of 100 things, and am using my new knowledge of how to get things done to make my own lists.
Thanks everybody for the feedback — procrastination is a big topic and this book does a great job covering it. I am glad that you enjoyed the summary.
Fantastic Mind Map!! I haven’t read this book yet, however after skimming the map it looks like a great read.
The Now Habit really hit the nail on the head. No matter how flexible your schedule is or how little you have to do, you won’t likely finish on time if you’re so used to procrastination. It really is one habit that affects your working habits and ultimately consumes you. Even before you realize it.
Funny MindManager on the Mac crashes when I try to load this map.
Michael: Thanks for letting me know.
I created the map on a PC and don’t have a Mac handy to test it. Do the other mind maps in the site also crash?
Are there any other Mac owners here? Are you also experiencing crashes?
No, the other maps don’t crash Mind Manager. Is there anything different about this map?
Hi Michael: not anything different that I know of in this map…
Let me know if you have any ideas on how I can help you without having a Mac to test…
The same problem: The Now Habit crashes MindManager on Mac. All other work fine.
Greg, Michael (and other Mac users):
Since I have no way to troubleshoot this problem here, I tried saving the map in a different format (MindManager XML). Please download it and let me know if you had any luck this time:
the-now-habit.xmmap (815 kb).
You may need to right-click the link and select to save the file locally, as this is XML and your browser might want to display it.
Luciano,
Thanks for trying! Unfortunately, the result is the same: crash.
Greg,
It seems that Service Pack 1 fixed some crash problems. Are you running SP1? Can you please tell me the exact version you have?
I will contact Mindjet Support and search on related forums…
Luciano,
My MindManger version 7.0.537
OSX 10.5.2
Thanks
From this message thread, it seems that MindManager is not yet supported on Leopard… There are also other crash problems related to file permissions that may be somewhat related…
As you can imagine, it’s too hard for me to troubleshoot it without owning a Mac. I think there’s nothing left for me to suggest at this point other than contacting Mindjet support.
If you or any other Mac user find the solution to this problem, please share — thanks!
Really liked the Mindmap, the topic is great, the summary quite good and easy to navigate and get a good feeling of the book.
Thank you Lucciano for offering it on the web.
Great summary! Love the mind map.
One question – does this theory state that you should do half an hour on, half an hour off? What about people who are in an office environment who are expected to work.
Hello Scott – I don’t think it needs to be that regimented. The key is to plan in some non-work. Even a 15 minute walk around the block, or something else that isn’t stress/procrastination inducing…
Thanks for jumping in, Benjamin.
Scott: In your work, you probably have many types of activities that you must perform, with varying levels of resistance. You don’t need to take time completely off: alternating tasks that you resist with tasks that you find easy is usually enough.
One strategy that works for me is using the easy tasks as a reward for completing the tasks that I tend to procrastinate on.
Just discovered the site, and I’ve downloaded most of the book summary Mind Maps. Great stuff! I didn’t have any problems with any of the maps except the one for The Now Habit. For some reason, opening it crashes MindManager 7 for Mac. I tried downloading a new copy of the map, and I made sure I had the latest version of MM. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Hi KB, glad you enjoyed the mind maps.
I am aware of this problem with this map on the Mac, as many readers reported it (see previous comments). Unfortunately, I still have no clue about what causes this…
I sent the map to MindManger support and got the following reply:
Update for Case #69369 – “Mind Map Crashes Mind Manger”
Hi KB,
This map appears to have been created in the Windows version. Typically, maps are cross-platform compatible. However, there appears to be some data in this map that the Mac’s XML interpreter is having difficulty interpreting. I’ve tried stripping a few things out, but haven’t gotten anywhere. My suggestion would be to contact the map creator and see if they can produce a bare bones version of the map.
Thank you.
KB: Thank you so much for your effort contacting MindJet support regarding this issue! I really appreciate it.
Humm, a bare-bones version of the map?
In that case, I don’t think there’s any value in creating such a map, since it would be just the same as the Freemind version (which is readily available as the online version or as a downloadable map, for all platforms).
What do you think?
Thank you so much for your wisdom and insight on procrastination. I just stumbledupon your blog on Stumbleupon and of course procrastination did it again. Anyway, it was a good thing this time. Thank You!
Thanks for the great maps!
With regard to the Mac issues, there is a workaround.
1. Download the FreeMind version from above.
2. Select all and copy.
3. Paste into a Mind Manager blank map
4. Tidy up the duplications and the breaks in title boxes
5. Voila!
Now if we had an image of the Mind Manager version with all its gorgeous imagery, we could create it again….!
Super. The freemindmap import into xmind perfectly. Bought the book as well, did not use you link as I use amazon.co.uk. FYI, trying to find this post again, clicking on the mindmap tag page (http://litemind.com/tag/mindmaps/) did not load
Thanks for letting us know the import works!
The mindmaps tags page was in a redirect loop (server configuration problem). Thank you so much for letting me know, it’s now fixed.