Wise Uncle Ben

Nearly all books I review will have been the audiobook version. Listening is much more efficient for me given that I drive quite a bit.

My Background

In order for you to appreciate how effective David Allen’s book is, I must tell you a little bit about me. I used to keep all of my appointments in my head or if they were really important, I would tell the secretary to remind me. I used my desk calendar to draw pictures while I was on the phone as well as to perform calculations. I have been known to have stacks of paper on my desk. On a final note when I was implementing my GTD filing systems on January 15, 2008, I opened some mail from 2003.

After I Read the Book

It’s been two months now since I first read the book. I can tell you with absolute certainty that I am more productive than I was 60 days ago. I have and use a filing system at work and at home. Although I still have to find time to process my in-basket, I do not find the task as daunting. I use my Google calendar faithfully to keep my appointments and my list of incompletes. Now that everything has a place, I am more relaxed and in control of my workflow.

The Book Review

Getting Things Done By David Allen

Getting Things Done was written by a life coach guru who trains people how to work more efficiently and effectively. Today more than ever, we are bombarded by incoming mail, email, text messages, requests, appointments, tasks, etc. Unless you have a system in place to process these tasks, they will be forever stuck in your mind as an “open loop“. This book gives you the tools to close these loops thereby emptying your mind of tasks.

Here is a list of a few key tools that will help you achieve “mind like water”:

• You must have infallible collection buckets.
• You must have a way to remind yourself of what needs to be done.
• In order to accomplish anything you have to know what is the exact next step.
• Anything that takes less than two minutes to accomplish should be done immediately.
• A calendar must be an integral part of you work flow management.

I do not wish to go into detail on these points given the brevity of the book. This is not your typical business book that you passively read. Getting Things Done is more of a guide that you must work with as you read in order to reap the benefits of the advice. You will find yourself wanting to read it again and again to refresh your enthusiasm for organization. The information contained could be life changing for anyone. In my humble opinion, colleges should add David Allen’s principles to the curriculum for all incoming freshman.

The Phenomenon

David Allen’s teachings have spun off almost into a culture of their own. Here are some links to GTD groups and sites. The last one is David Allen’s site.

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Getting_Things_Done

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GtD_Palm

http://googlegroups.com/group/43Folders

www.43folders.com

www.davidco.com

Here is a sample of Mr. Allen’s seminars.

Getting Things Done and Entrepreneurship

No matter what life you live, organization is an integral part of success. Wether you are a stay-at-home mom or the CEO of a fortune 500 company, GTD can help you. These skills are especially important for anyone who aspires to be self-employed. When you are organized, you can relax; once you relax, creativity flows freely. Going with Tim’s rating scale, I would call this book a buy. Buy a copy for yourself and share it with a friend when you are finished. You won’t be disappointed.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Amazon.com: The Millionaire Code

I was immediately attracted to Paul Farrell’s book, because it marries two topics that interest me greatly: personality type and wealth building. Although the book focuses on wealth building in general, the points are especially relevant to the entrepreneur.

Farrell’s primary reason for writing the book is to replace the one-size-fits-all approach to wealth with type-specific approaches. He uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to describe a path to wealth for each of the sixteen personality types.

Part 1: Introduction: Unleash the Millionaire within You

This section provides an overview of the how the MBTI evolved from Carl Jung’s original work, to Myers’ and Brigg’s addition of a fourth function (S-J) and then to David Keirsey’s four temperaments model.

Part 2: Test Yourself and Discover Your Unique Millionaire’s Code

In this section, Farrell helps you assess your own MBTI by providing brief descriptions of each letter within a function pair.

• Extraversion vs. Introversion
• Sensing vs. iNtuition (abbreviated as N to distinguish from Introversion)
• Thinking vs. Feeling
• Judging vs. Perceiving

Although the book itself does not provide a test, it mentions several other resources which include a test for those unable to determine their MBTI by the descriptions alone.

Part 3: The Four Temperaments in Millionaire Profiling

These chapters provide succinct overviews of each of the four temperaments, a cluster of four closely related personality types, by breaking them down into sections on each of the two functions within the temperament.

The chapters only touch on wealth building, but cover some career-related aspects of the temperaments. The last chapter of this part is especially interesting, because Farrell discusses hybrids and dual personalities using his own life to illustrate his points.

Part 4: The 16 Millionaire Personality Codes

In the final part of the book, Farrell describes each of the sixteen types by discussing famous examples. He proceeds element by element often using the same person to illustrate several aspects of the type. This is perhaps the most interesting material in the book. Throughout the narratives, he also includes many excerpts from other people’s works to support his points. I came away from these chapters with the impression that Paul Farrell is extremely well read and must be fascinating to talk to.

The final section of each chapter in this section is the part of the book about which I am most ambivalent, but it is also the main point of the book. It opens with a section on careers. Although interesting, other presentations of these lists provide significantly more examples. From there, he offers advice on how each type should approach wealth building. This section struck me as overly deterministic and somewhat simplistic, partially by the nature of its brevity. Given that this section was the whole purpose of the book, I wanted more, a lot more.

Buy, Borrow or Bypass?

I really wanted to love this book, but it would be more accurate to say that I liked it. If I hadn’t already been familiar with the MBTI, I might have found this book to be fascinating. As it was, I found the descriptions to be too deterministic. Personality typing is an outstanding tool for self-assessment, but I think the author treats it as if it were a requirement for success to align your career with your personality. Certainly that approach is easier, but it also assumes that we are incapable of developing beyond our innate preferences. That being said, the book was thought provoking in that your MBTI may help you to find the path of least resistance.

This book is a borrow. Visit your library to read at least the sections on your own temperament and type. There are better explanations of the MBTI and temperaments out there. If you already know your MBTI, you can easily skip the first two parts of the book and focus especially on the chapters relevant to your temperament and type. If you take this approach though, you will miss out on the most enjoyable aspect of the book which is the biographies and examples from many other business and self-help books. The whole is most definitely more than the sum of the parts.

Related Resources

Human Metrics, one of the free online personality tests

Technorati Tags: book review,personality,MBTI

• Leave a comment... (1)