Jake Knapp (1)

People LOVE meetings where I work. They continuously mistake it for doing actual work, as opposed to just talking about doing work. Meetings are the biggest time bandit in my job - it's not unusual to have 5-6 a day. Planning for the meeting, attending the meeting, taking on all of the work agreed at the meeting, then catching up on all of the work you've missed because *drum roll* you've been in meetings.

When the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote “On The Shortness of Life”:

“Nihil minus show more occupati est quam vivere” (Nothing belongs less to the busy man than living.)

Let's not forget that famous Formula 1 Driver who immortally once said (I'm paraphrasing from a faulty memory): "I invested most of my money and life in women and drink. The rest I just pissed away."

Since peasants have the same 24 hours in a day as kings we can't really manage time, only fill every minute. As we try to cram more activities into this finite space the futility of it all becomes apparent. More people are unemployed and those that do have jobs are overworked. It's time that we seriously considered job sharing solutions.

Existence and the meaning of work - It appears to me that most people are looking for distraction... That's why we have smart 'phones. But there are also people who want to create. And in all honesty, the creative process is a distraction too, but a challenging one. It has a goal. Becoming better at minimizing the impact of “administrivia” works for the focused, but if you have no focus (get one!), or you're in a situation that calls for “presenteeism”, being able to execute these strategies ain't going to help you if you don't have some imagination too: hack your job, grow, find a reason to be present in your work, tough as that may be.

The real questions that need to be answered first are to do with our attitudes, beliefs and behaviours around what we should be using our time for. Dealing with your inbox in 10 minutes less does not help if actually we should be doing something completely different. Really effective people, both professionally and personally, make decisions about what to do before investigating how to do them best. This book seems to think that time management is stuck on techniques around task management, whereas most of the interesting thinkers in this field spend much more time discussing what should be done.

As with all the different strands of self-help, time management is an industry. Its proponents invite us to spend time worrying about how best to spend time, leading to a negative cycle of further procrastination. Sometimes it's really no more complex than do what you can and not worry. But unfortunately that doesn't fill an hour long talk or 287 page book. Don’t waste your time reading books like these. Nothing new here. Move on.



NB: One thing is for sure, there are not many tombstones in the graveyards with 'Here Lies Manel - he wished he'd spent more time at work' written on it!! show less

Very much in the productivity = value mindset, but it has some useful tips (making your phone less distracting, being intentional about your daily goals, slipping more energy-building activities into your routine, etc.) and the layout makes for a fun, easy read.

Having recently moved from a developer position to a product manager position this book gave some immediate suggestions on how to lead a team to create a new product or feature from scratch. Having been used on a number of products at Google including Gmail, it's great to know that it's working already.

What was most useful for me was seeing the breakdown of what was done each day of the 5 day product sprint -- as well as what each person in the sprint would do. Some of the recommendations show more were key - like the need for a decision maker to be a part of the process to ensure that takeaways from the sprint are actionable. I look forward to trying out some of these concepts eventually! show less

A not-bad-at-all addition to the plethora of "self-help time management" books that have sprouted like mushrooms in recent years. Like many, there's a nod to the OG, David Allen, but some fresh ideas, a tech-savvy outlook (these guys are from Google) and a fun presentation make it a palatable little read. The idea of a Highlight is fun, and how to find your laser focus is interesting in the discussion of all the things designed to distract you endlessly. Well worth a look.