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rsr143's review against another edition
3.0
I read this book up to the halfway point. Then I skipped and read the last chapter which summarized the takeaways.
The big idea of the book is really profound, and it provides the psychological and biological and social reasons why adding tends to be the default, or subtracting is less intuitive. If you find yourself constantly striving to add and do more, this book will help you see a different way to move forward and improve upon your world.
However, I found myself getting the big idea of the book, and not wanting to read through all the details at times. I feel like the big idea is quite simple, and when I got the “joke” I wanted to move on, which I did.
The big idea of the book is really profound, and it provides the psychological and biological and social reasons why adding tends to be the default, or subtracting is less intuitive. If you find yourself constantly striving to add and do more, this book will help you see a different way to move forward and improve upon your world.
However, I found myself getting the big idea of the book, and not wanting to read through all the details at times. I feel like the big idea is quite simple, and when I got the “joke” I wanted to move on, which I did.
carolynrasp's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
3.5
Maybe instead of adding to our to-dos, we should subtract? While this concept is out there in various ways, I appreciated Klotz' slightly academic, slightly personal take on subtraction in our lives to improve things. There were great examples where you wouldn't necessarily think "subtraction" and I enjoyed his parental takes and talk of Legos. It got a little too general toward the end and couldn't quite hold my interest as much, but overall the takeaways were strong.
carriewoodward's review against another edition
2.5
Almost did not finish but stuck it out. Well, this book validated my choice to pay for services that save me time. 😂 I realized mid-way through that I’m just not a fan of books that pull from a bunch of disparate studies to advocate for a universal principle (in this case, that we solve more problems by taking away than we can by adding in). Part of it is that if you want anecdotes, I can think of a bunch of anecdotes showing all the ways that adding CAN revolutionize your life in a way that you could never achieve by taking away something. Whatever. Some of the studies are interesting. If you like Malcolm Gladwell, you’ll probably like this.
biblioliv's review against another edition
Okay, hate is a very strong word. I didn’t hate this book, in fact, I am intrigued by its premise/philosophy. Instead of hate, the feeling is more like the embarrassment of agreeing with someone, only for them to make a poor showing in support of their argument, and you suddenly feel compelled to burst out: “No, wait… not like that!”