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genem's review
3.0
Overall, a good place to start...if you've never read another self help book in your life. It's useful as a rapid introduction to other books and strategies to study in greater depth.
Many of the hacks are useful, but I wish the self-assessment was more rigorous. Some of the content wasn't very applicable to people who don't have traditional office jobs...meaning, people who have different predispositions to executive functioning and have discovered they don't thrive in a typical office job. I'd expect the initial self-assessment to be more scientific and less reliant on your particular life situation or hobbies. If only three of the questions in a particular function apply to you, answering all three "yes" is very different from answering three questions with "yes" where all ten apply. How can you compare those two functions?
Speaking of life situations... There are a few places in here that could have benefitted from a sensitivity reader. Not a lot, just enough to occasionally jostle a neurodivergent person (who struggles with executive functioning) from trusting the author.
As for the content, this book straddles a weird line somewhere between "not simple enough to pick up and go in an emergency brain malfunction situation" (what I would think of as a "hack") and "not in-depth enough to help you analyze and restructure your life to really change your habits." It lightly touches on principles that are explained much better in systems like Konmari, Atomic Habits, GTD, Pomodoro, and various meditation and physical health texts.
I don't blame it for being brief. It's supposed to be short and easy to consume, and it is. It just lacks the punch and sharp insight that brevity requires. If you have 2,000 words to explain your point, you can take it easy and get conversational. If you only have 200 words, every word should be packed with value. The writing style feels better suited to long-form explanations, so it comes off as vague and difficult to apply in this "quick reference" format. I'm being harsh/picky here, to be fair. The real reason this stuck out to me was that the book accomplished this "high value, short sentence" magic here and there. I wish it was like that throughout!
So I find myself unable to say if this book accomplished what it sets out to do. I don't personally have a real life situation where I would reference this book over another. It's good, but not life-changing.
Many of the hacks are useful, but I wish the self-assessment was more rigorous. Some of the content wasn't very applicable to people who don't have traditional office jobs...meaning, people who have different predispositions to executive functioning and have discovered they don't thrive in a typical office job. I'd expect the initial self-assessment to be more scientific and less reliant on your particular life situation or hobbies. If only three of the questions in a particular function apply to you, answering all three "yes" is very different from answering three questions with "yes" where all ten apply. How can you compare those two functions?
Speaking of life situations... There are a few places in here that could have benefitted from a sensitivity reader. Not a lot, just enough to occasionally jostle a neurodivergent person (who struggles with executive functioning) from trusting the author.
As for the content, this book straddles a weird line somewhere between "not simple enough to pick up and go in an emergency brain malfunction situation" (what I would think of as a "hack") and "not in-depth enough to help you analyze and restructure your life to really change your habits." It lightly touches on principles that are explained much better in systems like Konmari, Atomic Habits, GTD, Pomodoro, and various meditation and physical health texts.
I don't blame it for being brief. It's supposed to be short and easy to consume, and it is. It just lacks the punch and sharp insight that brevity requires. If you have 2,000 words to explain your point, you can take it easy and get conversational. If you only have 200 words, every word should be packed with value. The writing style feels better suited to long-form explanations, so it comes off as vague and difficult to apply in this "quick reference" format. I'm being harsh/picky here, to be fair. The real reason this stuck out to me was that the book accomplished this "high value, short sentence" magic here and there. I wish it was like that throughout!
So I find myself unable to say if this book accomplished what it sets out to do. I don't personally have a real life situation where I would reference this book over another. It's good, but not life-changing.
heiditighe's review against another edition
4.0
Some really good tips in here. The assessments were especially illuminating.
courtneykayjones's review against another edition
4.0
I strongly recommend this book for anyone looking to take ownership of their day and make daily living less overwhelming.
Usually “self-help” books increase my anxiety and overwhelm me - they leave me feeling like I should add 10 things to my already never-ending to-do list. This one was different. This one was actionable from day 1. It contains practical tips that challenge your perspective and can be easily put into practice.
I’ll continue referencing this as I go and testing out new hacks!
Usually “self-help” books increase my anxiety and overwhelm me - they leave me feeling like I should add 10 things to my already never-ending to-do list. This one was different. This one was actionable from day 1. It contains practical tips that challenge your perspective and can be easily put into practice.
I’ll continue referencing this as I go and testing out new hacks!
hannah_bevis1's review against another edition
4.0
A really solid and quick read on executive functioning. I enjoyed this, and hope to try and implememt some of the strategies in my everyday life.
avidreader999's review
5.0
Full of practical ideas to improve both your ability to goal set and then realise your goals and deal with self defeating habits. I’ve already implemented a number of the ideas in this book with positive effect - and will definitely be dipping into it on an ongoing basis.
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