Good book? What was it about?

If you look at the best writers on time management and productivity, Personal Taylorism [getting caught in the ‘efficiency trap’ under the guise of being busy /rs-my bracket] is not what they intended. They teach us to manage the small stuff in order to free ourselves for bigger challenges.

Steven Covey tells us to prioritise ‘important but not urgent’ tasks over the ephemeral demands of the moment. David Allen recommends taking time out to look at your life ‘from 50,000 feet’ and ‘intuiting your life purpose and how to maximise its expression’.

Leo Babauta reminds us to put the ‘big rocks’ into your schedule before the time is filled up with ‘pebbles and sand’. Tim Ferriss takes this to extremes, advising us to eliminate all tasks apart from the mission-critical 20% that delivers 80% of the results.

~ Mark McGuinness, Beyond Getting Things Done: Lateral Action | Lateral Action

How many of us can do this? Yes, the substance of the quote itself, but also, can you reduce the essence of what you read in a book, or from a thought leader, to a lesson-learned and personal take-away as Mark McGuinness has done?

I think this is one of the things that Rapid Fire Learning helps us with, for it forces us to look back and reflect habitually, and just in the context of a month at a time. It is manageable and it is reasonable. Most of all, you honor your own time by asking yourself, Okay, now what did I just get out of this?

Easy question every time someone re-joins your team huddle after a business trip away, or attending some training session that H.R. put on and mandated: Can you tell us in a sentence or two what you got out of it?

When I look at my own bookshelf right now, I wonder if I could...

Comments

[Mark McGuinness]

Thanks Rosa. "Okay, now what did I just get out of this?" - great question.

I think it's that old thing about not knowing what I think until I hear what I say. :-)