Infobox
Title Someday is Today Author Matthew Dicks Genre self-help, productivity Publisher New World Library Pub Date June 7, 2022 Date Read Nov 2023, May 2024 Rating 3.7 / 5
Intro
3-time near death survivor and storyteller extraordinaire’s no nonsense guide to stop your excuses and do more of what you need to get done. Filled with short sentences in a conversational style that is very easy to read, and dispenses advice that is borne out by the author’s own experimentation and experience. Loved the fact that it is very grounded and contrarian.
My rating: 3.7 out of 5.
Rating
Entertainment
3.5/5. Not a conventionally “fun” page-turner of a book, but loved his example stories because they are drawn straight from the mundane. As someone interested in other people’s productivity habits, it was fun getting a chance to peer into his life and how he gets more done. I smiled and chuckled reading his utter contempt for people who engage in inane frivolities that end up wasting a ton of time. As is to be expected, his writing is shed of unnecessary fluff and he writes using short sentences that gets his message across plain and simple. I find myself opening up the ebook on my Kindle to read from random spots from time to time because it’s easy, quick reading.
Resonance
4/5. His no nonsense style of writing, his frank admission of the realistic constraints of parenting, and his attitude of approaching his endeavors with a matter-of-fact mind made his style very grounded and relatable. His sentences are short and very to the point, lending themselves well to highlighting. Ali Abdaal said Dicks’ book was the book he had highlighted the most, and I could totally see why. I found myself highlighting so much of it because I resonated with what he had to say.
Originality
3/5. His ideas weren’t in and of themselves that original or novel. What differed was his delivery and lived-in original life examples and stories that made his ideas believable and had me rooting for him. Then again I feel most (if not all) productivity books rarely have any truly original ideas. Dicks packaged ideas about time, life, and productivity mixed in with anecdotes from his own life that made it consumable in a fresh way.
Perhaps one way that it was original was that he doesn’t really talk about tools all that much. So much of the productivity space is dominated by what tools you use. But most of what he talks about is about making the most of those minutes, shaving minutes - even seconds - off of mundane tasks to create more time for what matters, treating sleep sacred, eliminating rather than optimizing, and just practicing plain common sense. Reading through it just reminded me that it’s not so much about the tools you use, but the mindset. It’s about remembering that our time is limited, and to not spend it frivolously on things that ultimately won’t matter.
Coherence
4/5. Each chapter is self-contained, and doles out a nugget of insight and wisdom to be remembered, some hitting harder than others. He supports his claims with stories and practices from his own life, so I do feel he does walk the talk. I like that the book isn’t too preachy and that it’s not based on a ton of academic research to back up his claims. The book isn’t some scientific or academic treatise in that respect. Some productivity books rely a lot on “evidence-based strategies” and studies, which is fine, but this book is an easier read that doesn’t have all that. Sometimes those books feel like each chapter is building towards some ultimate conclusion at the end, but each of the chapters in this book holds its own, which allows for bite-sized reading.
Recommendability
4/5. The message is loud and clear, and more of us need to hear it. Stop wasting time on frivolous tasks that will ultimately mean nothing to your 100-year old self (a framing device Dicks uses throughout the book to help you determine what you spend your time on). I want to recommend this book to everyone tired of reading thick productivity books that are dry and heavy on the science and studies. This book is filled with relatable, funny stories that will let you self-reflect on how you’re spending your own time. But I should say that the author’s approaches to optimizing his use of time can be extreme at times. Be inspired by the mindset and adjust to your own needs and circumstances.
Verbatim
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it.
We say we value time, then we binge-watch Netflix. We say we value time, but then we sit in a Starbucks drive-through line for twenty-five minutes for a cup of coffee. We say we value time, but then we play a video game on our phone for endless hours. We say we value time, and then we promise ourselves that we’ll get to that dream someday. We say we value time, but we toss aside minutes like they are disposable. When we are facing the last seconds of our lives, minutes become precious. The key is to understand their preciousness today when there is still time to make those minutes matter.
I’ve written eleven books and published nine over the past dozen years because I don’t wait for the right moment to write. I don’t waste time on preciousness, pretentiousness, and perfection.
And seriously ask yourself if the marginal improvement in quality is worth the time required to acquire that marginal improvement.
Sleep or don’t sleep. Nothing in between.
I’ve never actually used a semicolon in my life. I don’t have time for that nonsense.
And yes, I am also incredibly and deliberately incurious about any decision that I cannot control or does not advance my cause.
If it won’t matter tomorrow, don’t let it matter today.
But instead of waiting, you must say yes. You must launch, regardless of your state of preparation or accumulation of resources. Perfection is insidious. The desire for perfection is nothing more than fear masquerading as something else. You must remain nimble, open-minded, and adaptable. You must embrace imperfection, confusion, and evolution.
We don’t juggle our passions. We engage with them, one at a time, over the course of time. We divide our interests and divide our time in pursuit of those interests, knowing that one may very well inform another. Stuff begets stuff.
Dragons are easier to slay when you have slain one before. They are even easier to slay when you remember slaying them before. When the story of the battle and your eventual victory is alive in your heart and mind, the next battle does not seem too difficult anymore. If I did that, I can do this. That is why we tell our story. To ourselves, for sure, and maybe to the world.
Every thing doesn’t need to be a thing. It’s getting ridiculous. As a maker of things, you don’t have the time to embrace ornamentation, ostentatiousness, unnecessary complexity, and purposeless expense.
The phrase “jack-of-all-trades, master of none” is a popular one spoken by those who espouse a singular focus, but the original phrase was “A jack-of-all-trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” In other words, learn a lot about a lot.
When I began writing this book, I asked Elysha, “What do I do that has allowed me to succeed?” Her answer was instantaneous: “You believe that everything will work out, then you work it out.” You must do the same. When you feel like you can’t, try what I call “throwing my present to the future”. “Throwing my present to the future” is based upon the assumption that many of the problems we face today are temporary, fleeting, and ultimately forgettable, but in the moment, they can feel awful, momentous, and painful. In these cases, I try to avoid those negative feelings by acknowledging that the problem will be irrelevant in a day or a week or even a month and then pretending that the next day, week, or month has already arrived. I use this strategy all the time. I believe that everything will work out, then I work it out. When throwing my present to the future, I work out the problem in my mind first before working it out in real life. I remain optimistic that the toils and troubles of the present will appear trivial in the future. I work hard to maintain that optimism.