rberenguel's review
4.0
Between 3* and 4. It’s a light read, and most suggestions and ideas you maye have read elsewhere. But it read well enough to bump to 4*
treyhunner's review
5.0
This may be the best book on productivity and time management I've read. I would probably recommend this before reading Deep Work, Atomic Habits, and The 12 Week Year (though I did get a lot out of all of those books as well).
I'm going to be gradually shifting my work practices for a while based on the ideas in this book.
I'm going to be gradually shifting my work practices for a while based on the ideas in this book.
alanabooktwt's review
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
although ga terlalu berasa relate banget dibanding buku pertamanya, tp bagian ke 7 sangat amat relate dan bikin excited buat dibaca
nimishg's review
3.0
This book was part memoir, part personal classification and management of creative moods, and some mixes of the two.
If you're in a place where you're mostly working solo or driving a creative venture (podcast/writing/self-branding empire) then this is a nice read to see how someone in the same boat solved his issues and built his routine, with (quite a large amount of) personal stories splashed in for color.
The main insights in this book are how we should think of creative tasks around the kind of mood we have to be in to tackle them, and then the author's classification of these task-moods and his ideas of schedules following a rough task-mood pattern, and scheduling the right tasks for the right moods. He uses more specialized terminology but that's the gist.
I think this book is a good companion to "Getting things done" and "Bullet Journal" if you're trying to create your own productivity system, but doesn't quite stand on its own for giving you a system, just very detailed notes on someone else's system that you can use for inspiration.
If you're in a place where you're mostly working solo or driving a creative venture (podcast/writing/self-branding empire) then this is a nice read to see how someone in the same boat solved his issues and built his routine, with (quite a large amount of) personal stories splashed in for color.
The main insights in this book are how we should think of creative tasks around the kind of mood we have to be in to tackle them, and then the author's classification of these task-moods and his ideas of schedules following a rough task-mood pattern, and scheduling the right tasks for the right moods. He uses more specialized terminology but that's the gist.
I think this book is a good companion to "Getting things done" and "Bullet Journal" if you're trying to create your own productivity system, but doesn't quite stand on its own for giving you a system, just very detailed notes on someone else's system that you can use for inspiration.
qwintermute's review
5.0
This book took the author 10 years to write.
The advice is actionable and this is an useful book and a quick read. Well worth the time.
Kadavy advocates to classify tasks not by context (like in GTD; which I tried and hated) but my mental state.
He has a theory of creative work with 7 states (mental states), and he rearranged his life activities to fit the different states. He even relocated to another country (Colombia) to improve his creative output! Talk about dedication.
There are parts that felt non-applicable (I don't run a podcast, newsletter, or write books for a living) but the general ideas felt 'right'. I'll give this a try.
Better than most 'productivity' advice (with is, very strictly speaking, bullshit; nobody test if their claims are true!). Still an n=1 experiment on an author that has tried lots of things and found a system that works for him.
The advice is actionable and this is an useful book and a quick read. Well worth the time.
Kadavy advocates to classify tasks not by context (like in GTD; which I tried and hated) but my mental state.
He has a theory of creative work with 7 states (mental states), and he rearranged his life activities to fit the different states. He even relocated to another country (Colombia) to improve his creative output! Talk about dedication.
There are parts that felt non-applicable (I don't run a podcast, newsletter, or write books for a living) but the general ideas felt 'right'. I'll give this a try.
Better than most 'productivity' advice (with is, very strictly speaking, bullshit; nobody test if their claims are true!). Still an n=1 experiment on an author that has tried lots of things and found a system that works for him.
pancake_summer's review
5.0
I've learned from the book that there are not just 2 types of activities (work and leisure), but 7 of them. It's great that leisure is called Recharge, reframing it to be useful for doing great work later. I feel much better about resting, knowing that I need to Recharge to do my best work.
Another activity is Administrate, which includes grocery shopping and email. The author argues that it's suboptimal to spend the best energy on something like Administrate. Best energy should be given to high leverage activities like Generate (working on a new feature in a program, for example). And Administrate can be done with the medium level of energy.
Tasks can be tagged with those 7 activities in your second brain. So, when I feel like doing Explore, I can pick up a book to read. Or read up on the UX Reddit community, because I'm learning UX. Doing a task that fits the mood is pleasant :)
I'm yet to really integrate even this single piece of advice into my workflow, but it's been helpful just to know there are multiple types of activities, not lump everything into "work".
Another activity is Administrate, which includes grocery shopping and email. The author argues that it's suboptimal to spend the best energy on something like Administrate. Best energy should be given to high leverage activities like Generate (working on a new feature in a program, for example). And Administrate can be done with the medium level of energy.
Tasks can be tagged with those 7 activities in your second brain. So, when I feel like doing Explore, I can pick up a book to read. Or read up on the UX Reddit community, because I'm learning UX. Doing a task that fits the mood is pleasant :)
I'm yet to really integrate even this single piece of advice into my workflow, but it's been helpful just to know there are multiple types of activities, not lump everything into "work".
luzbella's review
5.0
Accessible conversational content and tone. Motivating in that it demystifies the creative process and reminds that it lies in the periphery of our everyday, but needs to be harnessed in ways that will tap into the tremendous (and freeing) power.