It wasn’t until How To Change Things When Change is hard that I understood why Tim Ferriss, the author of the Four Hour Work Week, lauded how willpower is a finite source, and preaches the virtues of optimization and routine. This flies in the face of conventional knowledge that if “you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it’s lethal.”
However, all of routine’s roads aren’t always lethal. Instead, it can allow the convservation of willpower, and allow people to make the difficult choices better, by automating the easier ones. This can come from, as the books suggests, regulating uneccessary uses of willpower, such as what to wear, eat, or when to wake up. Especially for the overly analytic person struggling to put willpower in perspective, and figure out why change is challenging, this book is invaluable.
“Knowledge does not change behavior,” he said. “We have all encountered crazy shrinks and obese doctors and divorced marriage counselors.”
Ben Wagg 