I used to be a time management Nazi. I found myself constantly looking at the clock to figure out how much time I had left in my day. How much time do I have until lunch? How much time until I get off work? How much time before I go to bed? These were a constant throughout my day.
With that kind of obsession about time management, you’d think I wouldn’t learn much from a book about it. Fortunately for me, I thought otherwise, and I’m better off for it!
15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management: The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, 13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A Students, and 239 EntrepreneursI no longer look at the clock the way I used to, though I do find myself continuing to count down the minutes until my next meal. 🙂 And there is something to be said about understanding the value of each minute you have in a day. And Kevin does have something to say about all 1440 of them!
The first chapters of the book hearkened me back to the days when I lived and breathed by the clock. I was a slave to the clock and getting things done. I had to learn to take some of my valuable 1440 daily minutes to step away from “getting things done” and have actual conversations with people around me. Now that I’m not longer a “clock watcher,” the first part of the book wasn’t that helpful for me but would likely be helpful for many other people.
For the most part I found myself nodding right along with Kruse point after point. Many things I was already doing as part of my nature being a human spreadsheet, but there were a number of things that I found I could improve upon.
I love the “touch it once” philosophy (which I sort of do already), and found the idea of calendaring rather than tasking pretty fascinating, if not always perfectly applicable to the average person. I do a decent job of keeping up on my email, frequently at or close to Inbox Zero by mid-morning. I feel like Kruse offers a pretty drastic step to getting you there, but if you’re in the situation he describes, it’s probably a necessary step.
I could go on, but 15 Secrets is simply loaded with great time management tips. For a business book, it was fascinating and extremely enjoyable to read, though I kind of cut out once it got to the tips from Straight-A students. After reading the meat of the book I felt that spending time reading all the quotes was, well, just not the best use of my time.