Do It Today: Overcome Procrastination, Improve Productivity and Achieve More Meaningful Things

The summary

You already know what you should be doing. That’s what makes procrastination so strange. Darius Foroux’s version started early: at sixteen, in an inside sales job, he wrote needlessly long summaries after every call so the software wouldn’t dial the next client. Then came college semesters that ended in a week of panic and a pile of Red Bull cans, and freelance years where he took a job rather than do the uncomfortable work of chasing clients. None of that is a scheduling problem. Steven Pressfield named the enemy in The War of Art, and Foroux keeps the line close: “Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.”

Which is why apps and hacks bounce off. They can’t win an argument you’re having with yourself.

Procrastination is usually a signal

The research is blunt about the cost. Foroux leans on Dianne Tice and Roy Baumeister’s much-cited study, which ties procrastination to depression, low self-esteem, anxiety and stress — some researchers put it alongside alcohol and drug abuse. Their key finding is the useful part: procrastinators enjoy themselves rather than working until an imminent deadline forces them to start. You’ve outsourced your motivation to a deadline.

His own turnaround came from none of the systems he’d tried. It came from finally doing work he loved — writing, which he now does seven days a week. So he reads chronic procrastination as a diagnosis rather than a character flaw: if you keep putting something off, ask whether it’s worth doing at all. He points Ryan Holiday’s line about speed reading — if you want to rush through a book, maybe ask whether it’s any good — at your career instead. Life is too short to do work you don’t enjoy.

Perfectionism gets no exemption. “If you’re a perfectionist, you’re just a procrastinator with a mask.” One kind never starts, because doubt arrives before the first move. The other starts but sets the bar so high they fail themselves permanently. Both are still waiting for the right moment. The way out isn’t the slacker’s shrug at the other extreme — it’s fixing the problem instead of judging yourself for having one. Not “this is the worst thing ever,” not “I don’t care.” Just: I’ve got this.

Manage your attention, not your time

Here’s the line the whole book turns on. You cannot manage time. You can only manage attention. And distraction isn’t a modern invention — Socrates warned about the barrenness of a busy life 2,400 years ago; Seneca noted there is never a time when a new distraction will not show up.

The numbers still sting. In a study by the universities of Würzburg and Nottingham Trent, 37.4% of participants rated their phone as equally or more important than their close friends — and in a concentration test, scores climbed with every layer of distance between person and phone, finishing 26% higher once the phone left the room. Gloria Mark’s research at UC Irvine found it takes 25 minutes on average to return to the original task after an interruption, and you’re interrupted more than once.

So stop negotiating. Willpower is overrated: if something distracts you, eliminate it rather than resist it. Foroux told a friend with a news habit to junk the TV, delete the apps and block the sites; two weeks later the friend was starting a business. He went from “always connected” to always disconnected — data off by default, a site-blocker running while he works, every notification off except calls and messages.

Willpower doesn’t work. Systems do.

Most people resist rules because they want freedom. Foroux’s counter is that freedom is the enemy here, and rules are how anything gets finished. Stack enough tactics and you have a system: self-imposed deadlines, accountability to a friend or coach, working in intervals, exercise, distractions removed — held together by knowing why you’re doing the work.

Start by measuring. Borrowed from Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive: keep an hour-by-hour activity log for two weeks, then walk down the recurring items and ask what would happen if you stopped each one. “All hell breaks loose” means keep it. “Nothing would happen” means you’ve found a time-waster, and you cut it.

Then put the important work on the calendar rather than in your head, because working is not the same as making progress. Cal Newport spends ten to twenty minutes every evening building the next day’s schedule; Foroux closes his own day with thirty — ten to journal what he did and learned, ten to review tomorrow, five to picture how it goes. Jim Rohn’s framing is the point: play back the tape of your performance, and let the results either applaud you or prod you.

Small things add up, in both directions

The ambition here is deliberately unglamorous: improve by 0.1% a day. Inconsistency, not a shortage of breakthroughs, kills results. Gary Keller and Jay Papasan’s line carries it — success is sequential, not simultaneous. Warren Buffett acquired 99% of his net worth after turning 50.

Compounding runs the other way too. Complain daily, eat junk, skip the gym, and that adds up just as reliably. Almost nobody’s life is destroyed in a single moment; it leaks away. As Pressfield puts it: the amateur works when inspiration strikes, the pro sits down every day.

The bottom line

Procrastination is rarely a time problem and never yields to willpower. It yields to work that means something to you, an attention you actually defend, and a system that keeps producing on the days you feel nothing. Read this if you’ve tried every productivity app and still end most days having avoided the one task that mattered.