Tag: Productivity

ARC, Books, Professional Development

Book 609: Get It Done – Michael Mackintosh

Geoff W

This book just wasn’t for me. I felt like it took MONTHS to read (it only took two weeks, but it was two weeks too long). The publicist reached out to me a bout this book sometime in 2018 and I just now got around to it, so clearly I needed the time management, but apparently not much else in this book.*

Overall, this book just didn’t sit well with me. I had a lot of issues with how Mackintosh approached his time management system (it’s a WAR, you have to WHACK things) and the layout/formatting of the book had quite a few issues. Mackintosh builds his whole premise on the book that if you have a better time system, know what your challenges are going to be, and set up your goals and limitations ahead of time you’ll be perfectly set to finish a project in 21 days. You can do this with his help by buying the book AND/or subscribing to his class/workshop.

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ARC, Books, Professional Development

Book 422: Smarter Faster Better – Charles Duhigg

Geoff W

When I requested a copy of this upcoming book (released March 8, 2016) from Random House*, I was really hoping for a repeat of Duhigg’s 2012 The Power of Habit. Unfortunately, there was something missing from this one. I can’t quite figure out what it is, but I think it has to do with the first book being much easier to apply and this one overall being more theoretical.

That being said, this was incredibly readable and had a lot of great case studies that I’ve encountered in numerous settings and other books I’ve read recently about work productivity and managing up. Duhigg’s writing style is incredibly easy to read and he seamlessly ties together disparate examples to elucidate his points. Off the top of my head a few are: the development of Disney’s Frozen, General Electric (I feel like I’m an expert after Badowski’s excellent Managing Up), aviation near-crashes, the writing and staging of West Side Story, Google, Cincinnati school reform, debt collection and many others! Needless to say you will easily find at least one example that you really identify with.

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