The Sorites Principle: How to harness the power of perseverance

by Ian Gibbs

Have you ever found it difficult getting started on a new project, even if it’s something that you really, really want? And then you abandon it halfway through? How frustrating is that? Realising your dreams, whether you want to write your first book, start your own business, manage your time better, lose weight, learn a new language, change careers, or simply keep your home clean and tidy, it's not easy if you have a tendency to put things off. The Sorites Principle will help you to achieve great things through small efforts. The techniques are designed to make the process as painless as possible so that one day you will look back and be amazed at how much you've achieved. The first step towards getting what you want is right here. Let The Sorites Principle help you out!

Genres: Productivity, Nonfiction

341 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 22, 2016

Reviews

[Gillian Pollock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and easy read full of humour. This book is an ideal support for helping to motivate and persevere in any project you may have. It’s helped me keep my New Year’s resolutions (that’s a first!).

It explains how you can achieve success through the application of small daily actions and provides lots of practical ideas, tips and tricks to make it work for whatever project you may have. There are lots of examples too and the book is accompanied by worksheets that you can download and print off to help maintain and track progress.

Well worth the read.

[Seanán Mac · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's okay, firstly if your goal is singular than this is fairly solid, if your goal is more complex and wholistic there's a few useful pointers. As others have noticed it's too long, but it's well enough summarised, there's far too much waffle but you can skip over it. As with most of these kinds of books it helps if you know something about the psychology of motivation (see Dan Pink's 'Drive' and Caldini's 'Influence' for approachable, interesting pop science versions), there are a few clangers in here, one in particular is he encourages you to visualise the outcome and reward, this is awful advice, don't do that, it's actually a demotivator it focuses the mind to think about an extrinsic reward which lowers rather than improves motivation (best technique is to visualise the work itself, think 80's film montage but with better music). There's some good ones too in here, don't talk to other people about your plans is good, the other motivator of putting a $100 note on a board and saying "if I don't do X I burn the note" and in general most of the advice is sound enough and there are plenty of resources linked to (though I think he could have gone deeper into GTD apps and the likes rather than simply telling readers to "get an app" also it's always a bit curious when people write book like these but then have little or no online presence).

As a work of art it's lowsy, as an example of it's genre it's mid tier, but with better general insights than most mid-tier books of that ilk. The conversational tone is just about tolerable, gushing references to Richard Branson less so (Branson is admirable in a sort of 19th century huckster selling brain tonic in the wild west made good kind of way, but an awful human being, sleazy, avaricious (notorious for promising donations to charity and never paying up), etc. that he has any kind of good reputation whatsoever is a testimony to the general inability for the media to question the credentials of anyone of power and status (so long as they don't cross certain lines) who reinforces certain ideals (the entrepreneur as Thatcherite ubermench in Branson's instance) and how gullible people remain to pageantry and PR stunts).

One chapter actually opens with the lyrics to 'you'll never walk alone', tempted to give it one star just for that, but that'd be petty, as stated fine for what it is, the underlying principle is mostly sound.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was aight, with the main saving grace being the authors writing style which I personally appreciated and found to be humorous. I feel like if it weren't for the case studies which were largely unnecessary unless you're a wee bit on the dense side, and the material blatantly regurgitated from other sources, the amount of original insight provided by the author could have taken up a lengthy personal blog post rather than a whole book. Don't get me wrong, it's solid information synthesized from a variety of sources, but just know going in that there is little to no proprietary information of the authors which would necessitate the purchase or the reading of this book.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a few decent tips here, sadly mostly regurgitated from other self improvement books. The book is also far too long and stuffed with anecdotes, as if the reader is too stupid to understand the principle on its own or just to bulk the book out. After the first 100 pages it was a slog to finish. The book should be half the length. Almost felt like the author was being paid by the word.

[Shaun Dyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sorites Principle: How to harness the power of perseverance is a book about motivation and how making little changes and doing them every day can lead to big results. While there is nothing too revolutionary in the advice there are several good tips and tricks to keep you motivated.

The author does a fantastic job of livening up a relatively dry subject with humour and anecdotes which makes the book a fast and surprisingly entertaining read. If you've read of bunch of these kinds of books there won't be too much new for you but if you're new to the subject this is a really approachable way of getting into the subject.

[Ed Barton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Advice

Little by little, we make progress. It is in the giant leaps that we fail. So says Ian Gibbs and his book on making slow and steady changes to get overall progress. Our impatience is our biggest enemy, and manifests as Grog, our animal instincts. Conquering this isn’t possible, you must harness it. The book shows you how.

[J Crossley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Step By Step

The method explained here is that by taking small, manageable steps towards what you want to accomplish, the goal will be within reach. Each chapter ends with summary points and questions to consider.

[Rizwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was in two minds whether to give this 3 or 4 stars. In the end plumped for 4 on the basis that there are lots of good tips on keeping going which is what the book is about. Writing however is fairly poor.

[Andresa Bastos · Rating 3 out of 5]

The approach of little actions and little steps, that over time, build a consistent "product" is a great insight.

[Kunal Ninave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wishful thinking. It's just a summary of already known books.

[Vicente Perez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perseverante

[Sidney · Rating 1 out of 5]

This really is a dumb book. No need to read and no need to encourage others to read.

[Carys · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely useful book to help focus on your goals. The last 2/3 chapters got a bit repetitive for me so I skimmed them but other than that this book is packed with realistic, down to earth practical pointers you can incorporate into your life to achieve what you desire.
Ian Gibbs also recommends a variety of resources such as books or tedd talks to further the research/self improvement beyond this book.
A great read!

[Ed Barton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Advice

Little by little, we make progress. It is in the giant leaps that we fail. So says Ian Gibbs and his book on making slow and steady changes to get overall progress. Our impatience is our biggest enemy, and manifests as Grog, our animal instincts. Conquering this isn’t possible, you must harness it. The book shows you how.

[Andrea Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book.

This book encourages the reader that even the tiniest steps forward contribute towards making the biggest goals achievable in less time than you imagined.

Really enjoyable read.

[Gillian Pollock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent accompaniment to 'The Sorites Principle'. The worksheets are really useful and have kept me on track!

[Carlos Bello · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terminé dejándolo incluso después de intentar hacer una lectura rápida. Demasiada paja.