 [Larger view] | How to Be Organized in Spite of Yourself: Time and Space Management That Works With Your Personal Style
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 The Best I've Read | |
| I actually hold down 2 demanding jobs, as an air traffic controller and union representative. I share the union office with other people and I have limited time to get my administrative paperwork done. So I really needed advice that would be straightforward and useful. Ms. Schlenger's overview of time and space management styles, along with specific how-to's gave me what I needed to know, in a very readable format. I highly recommend this book to people who have to live or work with others who may have different preferences when it comes to getting organized. We can do things differently, and still get them done! | |
 Expectation Not Met | |
| I purchased this book based on the reviews it received and the comparitively low price. (I had to laugh when I saw that one reviewer was an air traffic controller too!) I am glad that this book has been helpful for some. For me though, I found "Organizing, Plain and Simple" by Donna Smallin, to be much more practical. As a single mom I'm looking for suggestions and practical tips to becoming more organized across the board. This book seems more geared to organizing your desk and tasks at work. It involves documenting how you spend your time, etc. That was not helpful to me since I would spend the majority of my day documenting instead of doing. The book also uses a tremendous amount of space describing each time/space management style without giving very many tips on how to overcome your particular style. I am not comfortable being critical of these author's, I mean I couldn't write a book! The fact remains I was disappointed with this particular book since I didn't find much practical advice here. | |
 Easy to read, pretty simple ideas, but the impact is superb | |
| . IMHO, self-help books should make it easy for me to find and understand the meat, easy to get to the particular information that pertains to me, and ideally have solutions that are effective for me personally. The first two are true and time will prove/disprove the third. 1) You can skip lots - if you score low on the intro test, skip the rest of the chapter. I.e., I am a distracted (20), pack rat (20), cliff-hanger (20) who is alergic to details (15). I am too low on fence-sitting to bother with it. I am precise but I am not a "perfectionist plus." My desk is a total mess (so I am not a "right-angle" type) but I am not a "slob" - my messiness comes from other sources. [I was able to skip half the pages! Hooray!] 2) The suggested cures are not esoteric (and shouldn't be). In my case I should use hourly chimes (help me notice time passing), break projects into mini-goals, create a daily plan, handle my magazine/book "to do" pile better, improve my time estimating, improve prioritizing, and have someone yell STOP at me occassionally. 3) Nothing really new, but you can see how I could identify the specific targets to focus on more effectively than if I had to just go down a list that included cures for risk-avoidance, for example. THE BIG Q: Will it work? Will I adopt these practices? Will I keep them up? If you are reading this, you should get the book, spend an hour, and then decide if it works for you. If YES, spend another couple of hours and emerge with a "To Do" and a "How To Do" list. It sure is a bargain. |
