Domino Project: Do the Work Review
The Domino Project
Disclosure: I am a BzzAgent. I received Do the Work for free.
In April, as part of the BzzAgent campaign The Domino Project, I read the Do the Work by Steven Pressfield. It’s a motivational work that moves you from rumination into action, explaining how to act and how to conquer any and all resistance. I also read this on the Kindle app for the iPhone. I’ll therefore look at both components: 1) the book and 2) the experience of reading a book on the iPhone Kindle app.
Review of Do the Work
Do the Work is a sound work. It coaxes you into taking action using various anecdotes and metaphors. It identifies your allies and your enemies. It hones in on your inability to act–due to fear or doubt–and delves into each deeply. I recommend this book for anyone on the fence about changing careers, becoming an entrepreneur, or taking any sort of life-changing action. I do not recommend this work to the pessimistic, the antagonistic, or the complacent. If you aren’t constantly thinking about the future and how you can bend it to your will, you won’t find this book interesting. That said, as a tolerant and generally optimistic individual, I enjoyed the book. It was a fast read I finished in less than a week, reading this only during my commute (about 50-minutes per round trip).
Some parts I did not enjoy. I found the structure of the book confusing. Pressfield discusses how your action should be structured into a beginning-middle-end style such that all your actions revolve around threes. He then introduces another substructure that focusing on fives. I blame the platform as the primarily culprit for this confusion as the iPhone is not well-suited for these abstract reads (Do the Work utilizes numerous styles and one-liners). Additionally, the material became a bit stale as the same message was being recycled. Using more historic examples would have helped broken up the monotony of the messages and better validated the logic behind Pressfield’s argument.
Review of the iPhone Kindle App
Despite my preference for paperbacks, I found my first read on the iPhone Kindle app a smooth experience. For the record, I have not yet used a dedicated e-reader. As mentioned previously, Do the Work incorporates some pleasant stylistic elements to enhance the read. It uses headers and sentence structure creatively, taking negative space into account. I’ve seen other free books like Treasure Island on the Kindle app that show one big block of text, and previously found it difficult to read. Do the Work successfully created a flowing reading experience on the iPhone as it was light on text and its content allowed for this abstract style.
Overall, I enjoyed reading my first e-book on the iPhone. The content was interesting and the device delivered a sound experience. I recommend trying both the book and the Kindle app.
