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juliana_aldous's review against another edition
3.0
The message--find simple rules that work for you and break through your bottlenecks. I didn't find anything new here--but it was a good reminder of things I already know.
Like my rule about reading--read every day and read in the morning. That is how I'm able to churn through so many books.
And it reminded me of one I've used in the past to lose weight. Forget complicated diets. I lose weight when I weigh myself every day and then try to lose a half pound each day. If I weigh myself, and I've gained weight--add more attention.
And Moneyball. Jeez--if I read one more business book that talks about Moneyball!!! But still a fine book.
Like my rule about reading--read every day and read in the morning. That is how I'm able to churn through so many books.
And it reminded me of one I've used in the past to lose weight. Forget complicated diets. I lose weight when I weigh myself every day and then try to lose a half pound each day. If I weigh myself, and I've gained weight--add more attention.
And Moneyball. Jeez--if I read one more business book that talks about Moneyball!!! But still a fine book.
lcelvenes's review against another edition
3.0
I like the idea of simple rules. In short, it is about how business strategy (and life in general) can become more efficient with a few simple rules, rather than thousands of pages of manuals and lofty words.
I was familiar with most of the content from before, and so it felt a little like the same case studies are used to define yet another business concept. Though I knew the story behind Netflix, there were a few extra points mentioned on how they developed House of Cards and Orange is the new Black, and the use of analytics that I was not familiar with. Very little was left to chance here, and it's interesting how well it has worked.
There is a rather large portion on how bees funtion, as well as how birds communicate, and how it relates to simple rules that was ok, but could have been left out without taking much away from the book.
The section on eating, though not breakthrough material, illustrated simple rules well. Rather than "eat less", or "eat healthy", figure out just where you are prone to misstep, and create rules that work for this area in your life ("eat snacks after dinner from a bowl, not the bag"), it showed the value of being concrete.
Takeaways:Consider your own systems or situations, be they work, at home, friends, family, love, etc, and see if you can find the 1-6 essential rules that would leave you with a desired result.
I was familiar with most of the content from before, and so it felt a little like the same case studies are used to define yet another business concept. Though I knew the story behind Netflix, there were a few extra points mentioned on how they developed House of Cards and Orange is the new Black, and the use of analytics that I was not familiar with. Very little was left to chance here, and it's interesting how well it has worked.
There is a rather large portion on how bees funtion, as well as how birds communicate, and how it relates to simple rules that was ok, but could have been left out without taking much away from the book.
The section on eating, though not breakthrough material, illustrated simple rules well. Rather than "eat less", or "eat healthy", figure out just where you are prone to misstep, and create rules that work for this area in your life ("eat snacks after dinner from a bowl, not the bag"), it showed the value of being concrete.
Takeaways:Consider your own systems or situations, be they work, at home, friends, family, love, etc, and see if you can find the 1-6 essential rules that would leave you with a desired result.
andeez's review against another edition
4.0
Good advice for anyone, business life, personal life, any task needing quick decision making.
britt_joiner's review against another edition
2.0
Maybe I’m just used to hearing about this kind of stuff, but I feel like this didn’t really say anything new or profound. I kept hanging with it to see if it would get better, but was a little disappointed. The gist is exactly the title - have simple rules. Use rules to make decisions, and only have a few of them. The book went through a lot of examples and stories so if you’re into that kind of stuff maybe you’d enjoy it more than me. Loved the concept, just felt like it could have been a blog post instead of a whole book
qwerty88's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
trite business airport book level, with a couple of trite stories to mention to others in order to influence a discussion in your direction. good that they emphasize a limited number of rules, and self-reflection, since it's often on those spots I've seen business middle mangers fail.
jackbaty's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed Simple Rules. Some of the examples were useful. A Simple Rule I already follow is "Don't keep reading if it seems to be repeating itself". This book suffered from that problem, so I skimmed the second half and that's that.
patrickwonders's review against another edition
3.0
This book had lots of interesting business, life, and nature examples of simple rules taming complexity.
I felt the chapters on how to make and refine your own simple rules were too vague to get a handle on. I feel after reading this book that I could make some rules and decide if they are simple or not, but that if they weren't or they didn't really address the bottleneck that I'd have to scrap them and try again.
Also, the book was very light on addressing how simple rules deal with edge cases. So, the Netflix expenses policy says to spend money on travel as if it were your own. Are they really going to fight with someone that they'd never have ordered appetizers if it weren't on the company dime?
I felt the chapters on how to make and refine your own simple rules were too vague to get a handle on. I feel after reading this book that I could make some rules and decide if they are simple or not, but that if they weren't or they didn't really address the bottleneck that I'd have to scrap them and try again.
Also, the book was very light on addressing how simple rules deal with edge cases. So, the Netflix expenses policy says to spend money on travel as if it were your own. Are they really going to fight with someone that they'd never have ordered appetizers if it weren't on the company dime?
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