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Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
by David Allen
As 1 reviewer tapped out, this book is like "hitting yourself over the head with a brick." Ironically, this book does offer wisdom and some insightful ideas. It is just the weed-whacking and slicing that makes this book painful (and extremely boring to get through).
The largest positive to this book is that it does offer a lot of insights and, oddly, it has helped me become more organized. Because of this book, I now have a somewhat operative system that is working well for me. Though the content in this book is useful, this book has a lot of baggage.
This book could benefit from an edit for repetitiveness, repeating, and saying the same thing. Using sentence variance writing strategies to regurgitate the same idea over and over and over and over is not a good strategy. Repeat, plz? Could I please say that this book says the same thing over and over again? This book repeats itself. No need to reread certain sections because this is on repeat. This book is extremely repetitive (and it frustrated me just like this section of my review likely made you feel annoyed).
Above is why 1 star is deducted from this book's earnings. Another reason is how this book is organized. Publishers and team chose to plant all the research and scholastic studies at the back of the book, rather than weave it into chapters for flow and solidification. I really didn't like this at all. Research should not be reserved for the last chapter of a book. It should be embedded into the writing nicely where it fits. Research being planted at the back of the book is not the only reason this book has poor organization.
Frequently, the reader is asked to return to chapter 4 to make reference to a point, or wait until chapter 7 until "this idea becomes a revelation." When this approach is used on multiple occasions, it becomes clear that there is a severe lack of organization, which makes the read even more rough. Can someone please pass me a weed whacker? its getting a bit dense over here!
The ironic weed whacker slices off yet another star. It is ironic because this book is supposed to advocate for organization, yet it is not organized well at all to present its message.
When reading the research section of this book, it became absolutely evident to me that we shifted from telling a message to gloating. Mentions of specific studies that shed light on this approach were cited and, at times, it felt like more of a justification for the entire book, rather than a logical embedding of evidence and quotation. It is clear that the author believes strongly in the getting things done approach and using a system to do it, but the sections where mentions of changing a high level executive's life based on my methods were not necessary.
I think this review justifies why this book to me has earned 2 stars. It is a little sad that a book with such great ideas became such a frustration to read.
Overall, this book is summed into the following words: excellent ideas, but a train wreck of a presentation.
The largest positive to this book is that it does offer a lot of insights and, oddly, it has helped me become more organized. Because of this book, I now have a somewhat operative system that is working well for me. Though the content in this book is useful, this book has a lot of baggage.
This book could benefit from an edit for repetitiveness, repeating, and saying the same thing. Using sentence variance writing strategies to regurgitate the same idea over and over and over and over is not a good strategy. Repeat, plz? Could I please say that this book says the same thing over and over again? This book repeats itself. No need to reread certain sections because this is on repeat. This book is extremely repetitive (and it frustrated me just like this section of my review likely made you feel annoyed).
Above is why 1 star is deducted from this book's earnings. Another reason is how this book is organized. Publishers and team chose to plant all the research and scholastic studies at the back of the book, rather than weave it into chapters for flow and solidification. I really didn't like this at all. Research should not be reserved for the last chapter of a book. It should be embedded into the writing nicely where it fits. Research being planted at the back of the book is not the only reason this book has poor organization.
Frequently, the reader is asked to return to chapter 4 to make reference to a point, or wait until chapter 7 until "this idea becomes a revelation." When this approach is used on multiple occasions, it becomes clear that there is a severe lack of organization, which makes the read even more rough. Can someone please pass me a weed whacker? its getting a bit dense over here!
The ironic weed whacker slices off yet another star. It is ironic because this book is supposed to advocate for organization, yet it is not organized well at all to present its message.
When reading the research section of this book, it became absolutely evident to me that we shifted from telling a message to gloating. Mentions of specific studies that shed light on this approach were cited and, at times, it felt like more of a justification for the entire book, rather than a logical embedding of evidence and quotation. It is clear that the author believes strongly in the getting things done approach and using a system to do it, but the sections where mentions of changing a high level executive's life based on my methods were not necessary.
I think this review justifies why this book to me has earned 2 stars. It is a little sad that a book with such great ideas became such a frustration to read.
Overall, this book is summed into the following words: excellent ideas, but a train wreck of a presentation.