The English American: A Novel by Alison Larkin

Related posts:

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

This is a story about a time in history most of us would like to forget – but that we should be forced to remember – and the terrible things that can happen when people keep secrets from each other…

Read more of: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne »

---




Book Review | This is all – Aidan Chambers

This Is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn – Buy this book
Rating
5 stars – it’s on the re-read list!
Description The story of Cordelia Kenn, told by herself, covering her life from the age of fifteen until the birth of her baby when she is almost twenty. The Pillow [...]

Read more of: Book Review | This is all – Aidan Chambers »

---




Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

User Reviews

Send this to a friend





Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity






Overall Rating:

Total Customer Reviews: (714)

List Price: $16.00

Sale Price: $4.80

Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days




Amazon.com Price: $4.80 (as of 2012-02-08 18:29:32 GMT) Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.






Product Description

With first-chapter allusions to martial arts, “flow,” “mind like water,” and other concepts borrowed from the East (and usually mangled), you’d almost think this self-helper from David Allen should have been called Zen and the Art of Schedule Maintenance.

Not quite. Yes, Getting Things Done offers a complete system for downloading all those free-floating gotta-do’s clogging your brain into a sophisticated framework of files and action lists–all purportedly to free your mind to focus on whatever you’re working on. However, it still operates from the decidedly Western notion that if we could just get really, really organized, we could turn ourselves into 24/7 productivity machines. (To wit, Allen, whom the New Economy bible Fast Company has dubbed “the personal productivity guru,” suggests that instead of meditating on crouching tigers and hidden dragons while you wait for a plane, you should unsheathe that high-tech saber known as the cell phone and attack that list of calls you need to return.)

As whole-life-organizing systems go, Allen’s is pretty good, even fun and therapeutic. It starts with the exhortation to take every unaccounted-for scrap of paper in your workstation that you can’t junk, The next step is to write down every unaccounted-for gotta-do cramming your head onto its own scrap of paper. Finally, throw the whole stew into a giant “in-basket”

That’s where the processing and prioritizing begin; in Allen’s system, it get a little convoluted at times, rife as it is with fancy terms, subterms, and sub-subterms for even the simplest concepts. Thank goodness the spine of his system is captured on a straightforward, one-page flowchart that you can pin over your desk and repeatedly consult without having to refer back to the book. That alone is worth the purchase price. Also of value is Allen’s ingenious Two-Minute Rule: if there’s anything you absolutely must do that you can do right now in two minutes or less, then do it now, thus freeing up your time and mind tenfold over the long term. It’s commonsense advice so obvious that most of us completely overlook it, much to our detriment; Allen excels at dispensing such wisdom in this useful, if somewhat belabored, self-improver aimed at everyone from CEOs to soccer moms (who we all know are more organized than most CEOs to start with). –Timothy Murphy



Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780142000281
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!





Customer Reviews




Read more of: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen »

---