Review: Get It Done by Joaquin Kosegarten

This book is an ideal entry point into self-help material. The perfect reader that keeps coming to mind for me is someone who has moved out from their parents’ home in recent years and now finds life be more chaotic and harder than they expected. Of course, the book has broad appeal (more on this below), but for someone in that situation, it seems like reading this would be genuinely life-changing.

Firstly, it is totally non-judgmental and encouraging. It is written with the same buoyant-but-grounded energy you get from the author in person — who I was fortunate to meet about six months after getting it, and there is no difference between the guy you will meet between these pages.

Kosegarten provides a framework of five steps to productively apply yourself in a continuous, repeatable cycle. As you use it, the gains compound, creating an ever-upward spiral. The stages (in my view) move from getting the fundamentals right — like sleep and physical energy — to mastering techniques more directly related to doing focused study and work.

You don’t have to follow the steps in order (though the introduction reads a little that way at first), and that flexibility is one of the book’s real strengths once you get into it. Personally, when applying the material in the book, I focused the most on the final step in the framework ('Recovery'), which I know I am terrible at doing.

I do think he could have done more to mention where the science behind his advice comes from because, for the ideas where I already knew something about the depth of evidence, I didn't think he quite did the credibility of those ideas justice. I do believe most of them would be well supported, and it would give the book more weight to have briefly mentioned evidence in the right places.

That said, each chapter’s structure is so consistent and rounded that I have found it to be the kind of book you will keep. Initially I thought I would store it away after finishing, but it has earned a spot on one of my main bookcases, because I now expect to go back to the book from time to time to reread whichever chapter matches my challenge the next time I feel stuck in a rut.

All up, if you want an accessible, non-judgmental guide full of direct and grounded advice about maintaining a high energy and taking a smart approach to work/study, this one is certainly worth the price of admission.

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I was invited to review this book by its author shortly after its publication.