Absolutely brilliant advice for maintaining motivation and persistence! ( )

This is basically the spiritual successor to The War of Art but without all the confusion of his notions of a mythical/spiritual Muse, thus making Do The Work a lot more concise and a far superior book. Nothing in here is groundbreaking but Pressfield lays out his material in a clear, logical manner which is easy to take in. Basically, everyone experiences difficulties and internal struggles when doing any sort of creative work. These difficulties are not insurmountable, but they are very very hard, and it's easy to become discouraged and let them halt creative production. Essentially, you just have to plow through them, but Pressfield explains it in a way that is motivating. He frames these struggles as an evil force, "Resistance" with a capital R, and he reminds you that you have to fight it each time in your creative battle to get to your goal. It reminds me a lot of one of my friends who describes his life as a hero's journey-- you have to face a lot of adversity in order to complete your quest. ( )

Excellent book on the process of starting, finishing, and launching your project into the world against the throes of Resistance. ( )

A small book full of big encouragement. Literally, many of the sentences are in double-sized font to drive the messages home. It's almost as if Pressfield already did the underlining for the reader.

There are hundreds of books about productivity, about facing inner demons, about sparking creativity. This one distills everything down to the essence and drives it home with punchy prose. Pressfield is your friendly, enthusiastic, butt-kicking coach who believes in you and wants you to succeed.

I think this would be a great book for young people who are just getting started, self-conscious, and worried about whether or not they are talented enough to pull of their dreams. It's also great for adults, but the lack of non-essential text and the sense of humor and encouragement seem perfect for people in their late teens/early twenties. ( )

I just finished Pressfield's "The War of Art", and so decided to re-read this. In a sense, this is a pep talk based on the ideas and material of "The War of Art" - a way to give yourself a quick boost when you don't have time to read the longer work. So, if you're working on a project and find yourself bogging down, do yourself a favor and pick this up. ( )