Take a photo of a barcode or cover
48 reviews for:
How to be a Productivity Ninja UPDATED EDITION: Worry Less, Achieve More and Love What You Do
Graham Allcott
3.52 AVERAGE
48 reviews for:
How to be a Productivity Ninja UPDATED EDITION: Worry Less, Achieve More and Love What You Do
Graham Allcott
3.52 AVERAGE
I truly enjoyed the How to be a Study Ninja and have found it incredibly useful, however, this books simply lacks the innovative tools that I expected to find. Sure, there are some great tips in there, but, at the end of the day, I don’t think I’ve learnt much about how to be productive
On a productivity level this book offered little to me. The layout, the clever graphics and the idea of my own little productivity ninja were the immediate hooks to draw in any reader. However these hooks offer no substance. This book offers more an illusion of increasing productivity than a reality.
Although I found little to be gained in the this book personally, i do feel that it could benefit some people. It's an easy book to get through with bullet points offered throughout and if you find yourself easily distracted it does offer a ways to avoid it in a common sense but often forgotten manner.
The best analogy of this book is a time editorial piece e.g. "10 things productive people do before 8am" etc. wherein you can gain one useful point of information from a whole article.
Although I found little to be gained in the this book personally, i do feel that it could benefit some people. It's an easy book to get through with bullet points offered throughout and if you find yourself easily distracted it does offer a ways to avoid it in a common sense but often forgotten manner.
The best analogy of this book is a time editorial piece e.g. "10 things productive people do before 8am" etc. wherein you can gain one useful point of information from a whole article.
Finally finished this full-packed book. It contains not only explanations but also exercises to achieve the goal to be a Productivity Ninja.
Being productive is like a goal in this era. As a millenials, borrowing Anne Helen Petersen's term, I am included in "The Burnout Generation". Non stop stimulation from social media, labels & stigmas pasted on us, make me want to achieve higher and higher but in limited capacity. Suffering & struggling is normalized. Deep inside, I know there's something wrong with this paradigm.
Reading this book, taught me one important point: there's always boss mode and worker mode in our mind. Monkey & elephant. The little monkey represents our conscious mind while elephant is the subconscious mind. The monkey is too small to steer elephant, and elephant many times not communicate well about the journey. We need to make them works together peacefully.
If you're interested in productivity, then I recommend you to pick this book. But it's quite rigid in the exercise part and the table of contents is not helpful at all. So you better take your time in reading, take a note the page number if you met interesting part & do the exercise in the book by your own pace to make it more enjoyable to read.
.
#productivity #lifehack #productive #books
Being productive is like a goal in this era. As a millenials, borrowing Anne Helen Petersen's term, I am included in "The Burnout Generation". Non stop stimulation from social media, labels & stigmas pasted on us, make me want to achieve higher and higher but in limited capacity. Suffering & struggling is normalized. Deep inside, I know there's something wrong with this paradigm.
Reading this book, taught me one important point: there's always boss mode and worker mode in our mind. Monkey & elephant. The little monkey represents our conscious mind while elephant is the subconscious mind. The monkey is too small to steer elephant, and elephant many times not communicate well about the journey. We need to make them works together peacefully.
If you're interested in productivity, then I recommend you to pick this book. But it's quite rigid in the exercise part and the table of contents is not helpful at all. So you better take your time in reading, take a note the page number if you met interesting part & do the exercise in the book by your own pace to make it more enjoyable to read.
.
#productivity #lifehack #productive #books
This is super specific in that almost every bit of advice is only applicable to a typical office based job. I did of course expect it to be based on that (not that it said anything about office work in the description) but my experience with such things in the past has been that the principles can be understood and applied in the context of my own life as a student.
Nope! Categorising stuff into thinking work or doing work does not remotely stand up next to the work of a student. Despite him making reference to things such as writing essays once or twice, none of his principles seem to apply to this type of work. The work that I do can be writing essays, solving problems, practicing exam papers, reviewing, summarising and trying to understand and commit to memory large amounts of information, attending lectures, laboratories, tuition sessions... Honestly I don't think I could relegate a single one of those to mindless doing work.
The irony is that the whole time I was listening to this I knew that I should be putting it down and using the time more productively but I just kept going in the belief that he must finally touch upon something applicable beyond the office. He didn't.
I would however recommend this to someone who does do office work. I simply take objection to the fact that it wasn't made clear in the description that it so tightly applied only to that. Would have saved me 9 hours and 40 minutes of attention!
Nope! Categorising stuff into thinking work or doing work does not remotely stand up next to the work of a student. Despite him making reference to things such as writing essays once or twice, none of his principles seem to apply to this type of work. The work that I do can be writing essays, solving problems, practicing exam papers, reviewing, summarising and trying to understand and commit to memory large amounts of information, attending lectures, laboratories, tuition sessions... Honestly I don't think I could relegate a single one of those to mindless doing work.
The irony is that the whole time I was listening to this I knew that I should be putting it down and using the time more productively but I just kept going in the belief that he must finally touch upon something applicable beyond the office. He didn't.
I would however recommend this to someone who does do office work. I simply take objection to the fact that it wasn't made clear in the description that it so tightly applied only to that. Would have saved me 9 hours and 40 minutes of attention!
This book taught me a lot of things about productivity. Famous productivity books were also mentioned on this book which I might read in the future. I will definitely use the methods I’ve learned from this book from now on.
fast-paced
Idealistic
Felt the book made a lot of sense, covering known and new areas, however feel it focuses on a narrow work band of largely management/organisational roles; working in an ops or dev environment I feel, some of these ideas counter intuitive and would arguably lead to more mental strain/workload.
Felt the book made a lot of sense, covering known and new areas, however feel it focuses on a narrow work band of largely management/organisational roles; working in an ops or dev environment I feel, some of these ideas counter intuitive and would arguably lead to more mental strain/workload.
This is a good read for those who want to create a system for productivity.
1. THE VALUE OF ATTENTION
I often find myself trying to be more productive on routine tasks, as a way of saving my time. But as soon as I settle down to do a difficult task, I just waste away the time I had saved before. I always think its because I lack productivity, but attention is probably what I really need more of.
Through this book, I was introduced to the concept of attention management. According to Graham Allcott, there are three main levels of attention: inactive < active < proactive. With this in mind, you can usually observe periods of highs and lows in your attention level throughout the day, which may follow a noticeable trend. With this observation, you can then schedule your day according to the level of attention you need for each task.
2. CREATE A SYSTEM FOR PRODUCTIVITY
We often work better when we have a system. For example, you may have a morning routine. You may eat breakfast first, write a few hundred words, then go to the gym. When this system becomes routine, you rarely have to force yourself to do it. Of course, this routine may not be perfect, which is why it is always important to notice how you can improve. The same thing applies to productivity.
The system this book highlights is the CORD Productivity Model, which involves (C) capturing your thoughts with a second brain, (O) organizing those thoughts and figuring out what should be done with each, (R) reviewing the list of tasks you made in the organize stage in order to plan ahead, and (D) actually doing the tasks you have assigned for yourself.
3. GET RID OF THE “BIG ROCKS”
Every day, I usually have at least one huge task that I would like to finish. But in the end, I find that I try to delay doing that task for as long as I can, and sometimes end up leaving it for another day.
Graham Allcott labels these tasks as “big rocks.” Something valuable I got from this book is that these “big rocks” should be the first task you set out to do. When you plan to finish these “big rocks” first, they will likely give you the motivation you need to jumpstart your day.
No matter how many productivity books you read, you will never actually be productive if you don’t put your mind to it. It’s the act of actually doing that makes you productive. The hardest part is starting. So think of the most important thing you could do right now and start doing it.
1. THE VALUE OF ATTENTION
I often find myself trying to be more productive on routine tasks, as a way of saving my time. But as soon as I settle down to do a difficult task, I just waste away the time I had saved before. I always think its because I lack productivity, but attention is probably what I really need more of.
Through this book, I was introduced to the concept of attention management. According to Graham Allcott, there are three main levels of attention: inactive < active < proactive. With this in mind, you can usually observe periods of highs and lows in your attention level throughout the day, which may follow a noticeable trend. With this observation, you can then schedule your day according to the level of attention you need for each task.
2. CREATE A SYSTEM FOR PRODUCTIVITY
We often work better when we have a system. For example, you may have a morning routine. You may eat breakfast first, write a few hundred words, then go to the gym. When this system becomes routine, you rarely have to force yourself to do it. Of course, this routine may not be perfect, which is why it is always important to notice how you can improve. The same thing applies to productivity.
The system this book highlights is the CORD Productivity Model, which involves (C) capturing your thoughts with a second brain, (O) organizing those thoughts and figuring out what should be done with each, (R) reviewing the list of tasks you made in the organize stage in order to plan ahead, and (D) actually doing the tasks you have assigned for yourself.
3. GET RID OF THE “BIG ROCKS”
Every day, I usually have at least one huge task that I would like to finish. But in the end, I find that I try to delay doing that task for as long as I can, and sometimes end up leaving it for another day.
Graham Allcott labels these tasks as “big rocks.” Something valuable I got from this book is that these “big rocks” should be the first task you set out to do. When you plan to finish these “big rocks” first, they will likely give you the motivation you need to jumpstart your day.
No matter how many productivity books you read, you will never actually be productive if you don’t put your mind to it. It’s the act of actually doing that makes you productive. The hardest part is starting. So think of the most important thing you could do right now and start doing it.
Revolutionised the way I deal with email. It's worth a read for that alone.
I enjoyed this book,but Graham's right when he says that the book really presents common sense ideas that we just don't tend to apply to our lives. I found so many aspects that I could apply to my future career as a teacher as well as techniques I fully intend to incorporate into my bullet journal.
Read this book for a boost in your overall productivity.
Read this book for a boost in your overall productivity.