Reading this week:  Willpower By Roy Baumeister and John Tierney

It seemed an apt time to read this book and to write about it. After all, it is the New Year, the time of resolutions, of mustering our inner strength and self-control and aiming to improve ourselves. The problem that I have is that I lose motivation and my good intentions peter out into nothingness. For men, willpower is extremely important, because men are by nature more impulsive than women, and consequently have more distractions in a working day. So, if like me, this is your problem is that you lose the impetus to press on with self-improvements, then this is the book for you. Let me tell you why.

Who wrote it

Professor Roy Baumeister is a distinguished psychologist, who has written more than 450 scientific publications. John Tierney is a New York Times science columnist. Professor Baumeister has spent a great part of his working life in research into willpower. So this book is the culmination of a lifetime’s work in the field of willpower and self-control.

What Willpower is

Professor Baumeister came to the study of willpower via studies into self-esteem. He realised that in terms of achieving one’s goals, willpower was a more important factor than self-esteem.  But what was willpower?

John Tierney is good here, and summarises the research and evidence of years spent discovering the true nature of willpower, he tells a lucid, entertaining story and often funnystory. It makes for a great read but here in summary, is what Professor Baumeister discovered:

 Willpower is real. It is a brain function that operates within the brain’s conflict management (problem management) function.

Willpower is a real resource. We all have a reservoir of willpower, the size of which depends on several key factors. Everything we do uses our single reservoir of willpower. So finding a parking space, getting a meeting with your manager, completing a difficult task, all come from that one reservoir of willpower.

Willpower gets depleted by our efforts. The bad news is that our willpower gets depleted whether we succeed or fail. Once our willpower is gone, we enter a state where, try as we might, some tasks are beyond our capability. So we then have to replenish our willpower. The really good news is that we can strengthen our willpower.

One of the best things about Willpower is that it describes in simple and practical terms how anyone can improve their willpower. The fact that Willpower so clearly explains how to raise one’s willpower makes it a wonderfully useful book.

The most useful thing that I can do in this review is to list some of the ways in which Professor Baumeister advises us to strengthen and conserve our willpower Here are five ways to improve willpower;

Get a good night’s sleep. Our willpower is always at its highest after proper rest.

Meditate. Meditation increases willpower.

Keep a To-Do list. Worrying about things you have to do is proven to deplete willpower. A To-Do list removes that worry (even if you do not complete the tasks) and preserves your reservoir of willpower.

Make a priority and fixate on its goal. This will increase your willpower and aid your execution of the work.

Introduce small regular tasks into your life (that require willpower to complete) and keep working at them over time. This will increase your willpower.

The list above contains some of the simpler suggestions from the book, for those of you who want techniques that are even more effective, please buy the book. It is possible to build an entire willpower regime from the book’s advice.

Using the book’s techniques

I took several of the book’s suggestions and put them into effect a week ago. The effects were immediate, my productivity is now much higher than it was a week ago.  One of the things that the book suggests is to take tasks that you currently do and regularise them, put them within a planned schedule. I did this and found that the tasks became easier and my execution of them quicker.  Willpower and Professor Baumeister’s techniques work. This is a marvellous book, truly useful for any man. I recommend Willpower wholeheartedly.