Reminder of how precious time is

Good listen overall. I’m naturally very relaxed and tends to procrastinate (not always bad but can be detrimental). One thing I hate is wasting time but still find myself doing it with all the endless pointless distractions. I had few of the tips in place already but needs a constant reminder with most. I like to read these kind of books from time to time for some brutal honesty.

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Someday

Someday I might be able to implement these routines! An inspiring well executed book with lots of practicle ideas. Some of these things I already do, like not having a TV in the bedroom or not reading in bed.
Highly recommended

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Loved it

Thank you Matthew. This book had me engaged the whole way through, something that is rare for me with Audio books. It's really made me think about my time differently and how I can squeeze in a lot more time for creative activities than I previously thought. Will definitely be revisiting and now I think I need to buy it on Kindle to reference and highlight.

Definitely recommend!

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awful book

a load of rambling boasting from a man who comes across as a bit of a knob. i don't know how his head gets through the door. waste of money. much much better books out there! unbelievably bad. I dont understand why there are good reviews.

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3 people found this helpful

Self-centered and not useful

Unfortunately, this book is very much focused on the author and his achievements. There's nothing wrong with being successful, but the way information is delivered is really narcissistic and sometimes just bad.

Foremost, there are a lot of personal anecdotes that somehow are working out for the author, but might be outright dangerous to follow, such as eating while working (minless eating drives up obesity rates), or limiting sleep time (the list of problems here would be too long to write down). He himself sleep some absurd hours, and for what? For saving some time, of course. Time-saving activities such as optimizing seconds off dishwasher unloading time or spending fewer minutes in the shower are going to take up a huge chunk of the book, by the way. This book is pretty much anti-mindfulness. For most of the daily things you do, you need to look forward to finishing them ASAP, or find ways to combine them with other things for some "productive" multitasking action. Sounds like a recipe for anxiety to me.

The narration features only the ongoing state of his productive and optimized life, there's no path to this productivity peak, it's just "I do this", "I do that" etc. So if you want to use all the advice, you'll have to figure out yourself how to implement the details of, for example, limiting your social media time and sticking to these rules. There's no mention of personal failure or struggles on the way of this way of living.

One of the most narcissist bits for me was when the narration went on about different types of personality that he and his wife are. The author uses a situation of a work task that he completed faster than his wife to illustrate how their personalities differ. However, just completing the task faster was not enough. To really drive in the point of how much of a "productivity pro" he is, he is compelled to let us know that not only he was faster, but he also listened to an audiobook and won a bunch of money in online poker! Yay, what an awesome work ethics for a school teacher working on students' report cards.
Ah yes, and when he had to mention meditation, he had to go on for a while that he likes contact sports, is a cowboy and a manly man, because otherwise, I dunno, me might think something of him? Sir, this is meditation. Please calm down your masculine ego, nothing is threatening it.

Anyway, I have like 6 hours left on this book, and I just got to a chapter where he's suggesting to say "Yes" to everything, without any mention of possibly burying yourself in pleasing others' requests too much. Only "success" stories again. The last one I listened to was that he ended up working as a wedding minister and started baptizing babies, even though he is not religious himself. Really, is that what we've been saving dishwasher minutes for? Doing something that is not aligned with our personal values?
At this point, I'm ready to say "No" to this book and win 6 whole hours by not listening to it anymore.

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2 people found this helpful

This guy's a storyteller?!

For a man who boasts that he's a professional storyteller, he doesn't half reply on the same writing devices over and over.

"Would you do X if it meant a staple in the eye? Of course you wouldn't!"

There's a section, early in the book, where he lists the different tasks that he and his poor old wife divide up. I was driving along in the car listening to this having just enjoyed a really engaging podcast and I found myself shouting at my phone "Oh my God! Who the hell cares!?"

In the next he starts opining about his wife wanting to go to a nursery to pick up cheap plants when there are 3 nurseries in their local area. He nags her that it's not worth the extra hour's drive. Dude, did you ever think it might not be about the price? Perhaps she just wants to get on the road and have a bit of a drive to somewhere different. But your time is so valuable you put your foot down.

And then there's the shopping! "My friend buys expensive olive oil from a shop that only sells olive oil. They're wrong and mental and should buy the stuff I buy from the shops". Let a guy enjoy a luxury item for God's sake! Stop sapping the little crackles of joy from people's life.

"Do I have time for an entire day a year to go shopping?" - Yes Matthew. One day out of 365 is a perfectly reasonable amount of time to buy groceries, you absolute headcase.

In conclusion, this is a man who needs to go to therapy and properly deal with his trauma, because there's something very dysfunctional and unresolved in his psyche. Please give me my credit back!

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1 person found this helpful