Introduction: The wrong ghost -- The day after perfect -- Cut your goal in half -- Choose what to bomb -- Make it fun if you want it done -- Leave your hiding places and ignore noble obstacles -- Get rid of your secret rules -- Use data to celebrate your imperfect progress -- The day before done

The sneakiest obstacle to meeting your goals is not laziness, but perfectionism. We're our own worst critics, and if it looks like we're not going to do something right, we prefer not to do it at all. That's why we're most likely to quit on day two, "the day after perfect"--when our results almost always underper­form our aspirations. The strategies in this book are counterintuitive and might feel like cheating. But they're based on studies conducted by a university researcher with hundreds of participants. You might not guess that having more fun, eliminating your secret rules, and choosing something to bomb intentionally works. But the data says otherwise