Book SummaryGet It Done, by Ayelet Fishbach

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Get It Done

Do you struggle to achieve your goals? In Get It Done, Ayelet Fishbach explains how to make them easier to pursue using the science of motivation. She provides tips for setting goals that motivate you, maintaining that motivation throughout the journey, and juggling multiple goals at once. Whether you want to exercise more, save money, or advance your career, Fishbach’s strategies can help you finally get it done.

Fishbach is a psychologist and expert on motivation and decision-making, and a professor of behavioral science and...

Get It Done Summary How to Set Motivating Goals

Fishbach says that the way you design your goal matters and that you’re more likely to succeed when you set goals you’ll feel motivated to pursue. This is because goals guide your actions and decisions: Well-designed goals help you stay focused and show you how to achieve them. In contrast, poorly designed goals don’t make it clear what you need to do and cause you to get frustrated and give up on them.

(Shortform note: In NLP: The Essential Guide to Neuro-Linguistic Programming, the authors explain that vague goals prevent you from acting by creating confusing or conflicting representations of what you want. They also cause you to focus more on obstacles. For example, if you want to “get in shape,” you might have conflicting images of how you want to look, feel confused about which exercises to do, and fixate on obstacles like not having time or energy.)

Fishbach provides three tips for creating a motivating goal: Focus on outcomes, frame your goals positively, and...

Get It Done Summary How to Maintain Your Motivation

Once you’ve set a goal, you must maintain your motivation to achieve it. According to Fishbach, most people follow a predictable pattern when working toward goals: They feel excited at first, lose steam in the middle, and get motivated again near the end.

The middle phase is when people struggle the most because the initial excitement has worn off, but the end still feels far away. During this phase, people tend to lower their standards—middle actions don’t feel as meaningful as starting or finishing, making it easier to justify cutting corners. For example, if you’re trying to eat healthier, you might initially stick to your meal plan, but as time passes, you might indulge in junk food, skip meal prep, or ignore portion control.

Dealing With Midpoints

In When, Daniel Pink explains that we experience a middle slump everywhere in life, not just when pursuing goals. For example, studies show our happiness tends to decrease during midlife (our 40s and 50s). We also experience a slump in the middle of our [daily...

Get It Done Summary How to Improve Your Chances of Success

Now that you understand how to set effective goals and maintain motivation, let’s discuss how to realistically pursue your goals. We often struggle to achieve our goals because life is complex: We have limited time and energy, competing priorities, and many distractions. However, you can improve your chances of success. In this section, we’ll cover how to make progress on multiple goals at once and leverage social support to work toward your goals more effectively.

Tip 1: Find Activities That Serve Multiple Goals

Fishbach challenges the idea that people should focus on just one goal at a time. She says that trying to complete goals one at a time isn’t practical because most of us don’t have enough time to accomplish everything we want to do. For instance, you can’t realistically wait to finish your education before starting to date or put off exercise until after establishing your career—many important life goals need to happen in parallel.

To pursue multiple goals, understand how your goals affect each other. Some goals naturally work together, like eating healthy and training for a sports competition. However, other goals can work against each other, like wanting to...

Shortform Exercise: Beat the Middle-Phase Slump

We all tend to face a motivation dip in the middle of pursuing our goals. In this exercise, examine a goal where you’re experiencing that middle-phase slump and apply Fishbach’s strategies to bring your motivation back.

Choose one goal you’re working on where the initial excitement has worn off, but the finish line still feels far away. What made you excited about it in the beginning, and why do you think your motivation has decreased?