This post is a book summary that highlights the major ideas contained in David Allen’s Getting Things Done. This summary is different from many of the others you’ll find on the web: books are primarily vehicles for ideas. Instead of following the structure of the book in question, we’ll isolate and examine the key ideas and themes that make the book useful. Along the way, I’ll tell you how I actually apply the ideas. If you like this book summary, please leave a comment and spread the word!

If you’re ready to stop stressing and start accomplishing your goals, David Allen’s Getting Things Done can help you create a simple, effective personal productivity system.

About David Allen

David Allen is the author of the Personal MBA-recommended book Getting Things Done, as well as Ready For Anything, and Making It All Work. For more information about his work, check out the David Allen’s website.

Here are 10 big ideas from David Allen’s Getting Things Done…

1. If your day-to-day life is out of control, it’s almost impossible to think strategically or plan effectively.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed about how much you have to do (and who isn’t, really?), it’s difficult to focus on ensuring your life and work is moving in the direction you want to go. That’s why it’s important to get control of your daily tasks before working on your big-picture life planning.

GTD is a “bottom-up” approach to productivity. The goal is to establish a sense of comfort and control over the work that’s on your plate right now, so you can free up some mental energy and space to think about the big stuff.

2. Define what being “done” looks like.

Most of the tasks people keep on their to-do lists are “amorphous blobs of undoability” – commitments without any clear vision of what being “done” looks like. That’s a huge problem – your brain is naturally designed to help you figure out how to do things, but only if you know what the end point looks like.

Everything you’re working on should have a very clear stopping point – a point where you know you’re done. If you don’t know what that point looks like, you’ll find it very difficult to make any progress at all. When you’re having trouble making progress, first clarify what being done looks like.

3. Mental work has five distinct phases: Collect, Process, Organize, Do, and Review

Not all work is the same. There are five separate phases of effective work:

• Collecting is the act of gathering inputs: resources, knowledge, and tasks. You’ll have a much easier time making use of your available inputs if they’re all in one place before you begin.
• Processing is the act of examining your inputs: what you can do with the resources at your disposal. This is where you start separating things according to what you’re planning to do next: tasks, projects, future plans, and reference information.
• Organizing means taking the results of your processing and putting it in a system you trust, so you don’t have to remember it all. Tasks go on your to-do list, projects go on a projects list, future plans go into a tracking system, and reference information goes into a file or database you can access easily.
• Doing means working through the tasks you can accomplish right now.
• Reviewing means examining the results of your work, revising your strategy, and improving your systems for better results.

Keep the phases deliberately separate, and you’ll get a lot more done.

4. Get everything out of your head.

Many people try to keep track of everything they need to do in their mind, which is a big mistake. Our brains are optimized for fast decision-making, not storage. Trying to juggle too many things in your head at the same time is a major reason we get stressed out when there’s a lot going on: we’re using the wrong tool for the job.

The best way to stop mentally thrashing and start being productive is to spend a few minutes putting everything on your mind onto paper. You can write or draw – whatever works for you, as long as you can see it when you’re done. Once the information is out of your head, it’s far easier to figure out what to do with it. Even 10 minutes of Externalization can help you feel less freaked out about your workload.

Of course, it’s better not to be freaked out in the first place, so make it easy to capture what you’re thinking on paper. I carry a wallet that has a space for 3×5 index cards and a pen – whenever I have an idea, it’s easy to capture it, even if I don’t have my notebook or computer with me at the time. If you reduce the Friction you experience when capturing ideas, you’ll naturally capture more of them.

5. Projects and tasks are two different things: track them separately.

A major mistake that most people make when keeping track of things to do is conflating tasks and projects. That’s a good way to feel overwhelmed fast – many things can’t be accomplished in one sitting.

For example, I just finished the book I’ve been writing for a little over a year. If I had “write the book” on my to-do list, I’d quickly be overwhelmed – the project was just too big. Instead of “failing” to accomplish that to-do for a year, it’s far better to treat it as a project – something that takes more than one task to accomplish. I can’t “write the book,” but I can complete a small section of the book in one sitting.

Since projects and tasks are two different things, it’s best to keep track of them separately. Personally, I carry a small notebook with me to record active tasks with 3×5 index card inside that lists my active projects. The index card is just the right size to list 4-8 active projects – if I have more than that, I know I’m spreading myself too thin.

6. Focus on the Next Action required to move forward.

Big projects have many steps, and can be overwhelming in their complexity. The key to handling these projects is not to focus on everything that has to be done – that’s a great way to freak yourself out.

Instead, just focus on the very next physical action you need to do to move the project forward. It may be looking up a piece of information, making a phone call, or accomplishing a small task. Whatever it is, it’ll move you closer to completing the project, so don’t worry about everything else – focus only on what you can do right now.

7. Use the “2 Minute Rule” for small tasks.

Don’t worry about tracking small tasks – if you can accomplish the task in less than two minutes, just do it! Writing down every little thing you have to do takes more time than it’s worth – if you need to send a 30-second reminder e-mail to someone, there’s no sense in taking 20 seconds to write it down when you could just get er done.

Personally, I expand this to 5 minutes – the principle is the same. Your goal is to get things done, not to flawlessly capture each and every little thing in your perfectly designed system.

8. Use Reference and Someday/Maybe files for things that have no immediate next actions.

There’s no sense in keeping FYI or long-term dreams in your active daily task tracking system. Reference files are great for storing information you don’t have to act on right now. These files can either be physical or electronic – for example, I keep important paperwork and legal documents in a fire-proof safe, and electronic files and websites in a file on my computer or in Evernote.

Someday/Maybe lists are great for deferring ideas that you’d like to work on someday, but you’re not committing to right now. I have ideas about fun new things do to every day – way more than I have time or energy for. Instead of losing these ideas, it’s far better to capture them in a reference file you can look through later, when you have more capacity. When you’re ready to commit to a new project, the someday/maybe gets promoted to an active project.

9. Build a trusted system that helps you keep track of your commitments.

Your mind keeps things in working memory if it thinks you’ll lose them if it doesn’t. That’s why building a productivity system is important – it helps your mind let go of tracking unnecessary details so you can focus on the task at hand. That’s why Externalization works – when you put something on paper in a place you know you’ll be able to find later, you’re freeing mental resources that can be put to better use elsewhere.

An effective productivity system consists of the following:

• A list of active tasks – next actions you’ve committed to accomplishing in the next few days.
• A list of active projects – 4-20 project you’ve committed to accomplishing in the next few weeks.
• A calendar – commitments to meet with other people in the near future.
• A someday/maybe list – ideas you’d like to explore, but not right now.
• Reference files – information or documents you’ll need to refer to in the future.
• A capture device – some way of capturing ideas or next actions as you think of them.

That’s it, really – you can use any number of tools for the above, as long as they cover those basic needs. Personally, I use a notebook for active tasks, a 3×5 index card in that notebook for projects, the calendar on my computer, someday/maybe and reference files in Backpack and Evernote or physical files, and my 3×5-sized wallet for my capture device.

10. Schedule non-negotiable time for a Weekly Review.

Life moves fast – we often have so much to do that’s it’s difficult to take a step back and examine whether or not we’re getting the results we want. That’s why it’s extremely important to schedule some time each week to do a “Weekly Review.”

Here are a few things you should include in your weekly review:

• Process and organize – anything you’ve collected but haven’t handled yet.
• Review your active tasks – are there any to add, delegate, defer, or delete?
• Review your active projects – are there any to add, delegate, defer, or delete?
• Review your calendar – are there any meetings to add, delegate, defer, or delete?
• Someday/Maybe – anything to add or promote to an active project?
• Reference Files – anything you need soon? Anything to add or update?
• Goals – are you moving in the right direction? Are you making progress? Are any changes necessary?

Don’t skip this review – it’s extremely important if you want to decrease your stress levels. Personally, I find it best to schedule my review for the end of the week: Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. It’s a great way to wrap up the week, feel good about what you’ve accomplished, plan for the next week, and set yourself up for a relaxing weekend.

BONUS TIP: developing an effective personal productivity system takes time and experimentation.

Many people get frustrated when adopting GTD because it takes so long to get everything under control. Cut yourself some slack: GTD is a collection of habits, and habits take time to develop. Instead of trying to install everything at once, work on improving in one of these areas until it’s effortless, then focus on installing the next habit. In time, you’ll master them all.

Also remember that the goal of GTD is to make it easier to do work that matters – not procrastinating by endlessly improving your system instead of doing productive work. Try to avoid succumbing to “productivity porn” – experiment constantly, but remember that the most effective systems have the same thing in common: they’re usually the simplest thing that could possibly work. When in doubt, err on the side of doing less.

If you found this book summary useful, be sure to subscribe to the free Personal MBA newsletter – I’m planning to create book summaries for every book on the Personal MBA’s list of the 99 best business books, so subscribe now to ensure you don’t miss anything!

(Photo credit: hbrinkman on sxc.hu.)

This post is a book summary that highlights the major ideas contained in Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0. This summary is different from many of the others you’ll find on the web: books are primarily vehicles for ideas. Instead of following the structure of the book in question, we’ll isolate and examine the key ideas and themes that make the book useful. Along the way, I’ll tell you how I actually apply the ideas. If you like this book summary, please leave a comment and spread the word!

If you’re ready to stop wasting time doing work you’re not good at, Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 can help you become more productive, experience less stress, and have more fun at work.

About Tom Rath

Tom Rath is the author of the Personal MBA-recommended book StrengthsFinder 2.0, as well as Wellbeing: Five Essential Elements, Strengths-Based Leadership, and Vital Friends. For more information about his work, check out the Gallup website.

Here are 10 big ideas from Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0…

1. Contrary to popular opinion, talent and potential matter a lot.

As uncomfortable as it is to say, you can’t be anything you want to be – without a certain amount of natural ability, even the most dedicated person won’t be very effective.

For example, I’m a lean 5’11″ and 165 pounds. No matter how much I want to become an NFL linebacker, it’s just not going to happen – a certain build, talent, and mentality is required to do the job well. No matter how hard I worked, I’d never be good enough to play professionally – all of my effort would be easily surpassed by others with more talent who also work hard.

In the same way, talent matters in business. Certain jobs (like being a CEO or project manager) require different skills to be world-class. If your skills lie in different areas, you won’t be very effective. Instead, you’ll find yourself doing everything you can just to keep your head above water, which isn’t productive for anyone.

2. For best results, focus on doing what you’re naturally good at.

Everyone has areas in which they’re naturally talented, and areas in which they’re naturally weak. There’s nothing wrong with that – it’s a byproduct of how our brain grows. Strong neural connections grow stronger with use and social reinforcement, and weak neural connections grow weaker over time.

What that means for you is that you have certain areas of natural talent you can capitalize on. By focusing on doing the things where you have natural potential, you can quickly develop areas of valuable strength.

3. Time spent developing areas of weaknesses is time ill spent.

Most business review processes highlight weaknesses (euphemistically called “areas of improvement”), then focus on eradicating them. StrengthsFinder 2.0 argues that this is a waste of valuable time and energy – instead, you should focus on finding areas of strength and doing everything you can to improve them.

That isn’t to say it’s never smart to work on improving things you’re bad at: baseline competence is important in many areas. If you’re running a business and having trouble paying the bills, it pays to learn more about accounting and budgeting. That doesn’t mean you should start studying for the CPA exam – you just need to understand enough to avoid bankrupting your business in the short-term and identify competent people to help you as soon as possible.

4. Partner with others who have different strengths that complement yours.

Comparative Advantage is the idea that people are better off not trying to do everything themselves – it’s far better for everyone if you focus on what you’re best at, then partner or trade with others for everything else.

If you’re weak in a particular area, it’s smart to find someone to work with who’s naturally strong in that area. Instead of burning a huge amount of time and energy shoring up your weakness, working with someone else allows you to focus on doing what you do best.

You don’t have to do everything yourself – by partnering with other people who have complementary strengths, you can get more done.

5. Diverse teams are more effective because they have a larger pool of strengths to draw from.

Much has been made of the value of diversity in business literature, and strengths-based management explains why diversity works. If everyone on your team has the same strengths and background, it’s much easier to get stuck on problems requiring skills in the team’s mutual area of weakness.

Diverse teams have a much larger pool of strengths and experiences to draw from, so it’s easier to solve challenges as they occur. Everyone doesn’t have to be awesome at everything – by working together, diverse teams can accomplish their objectives far more effectively.

6. Encourage peers and direct reports to focus on utilizing their strengths, not “areas of improvement”.

If you have an employee who is brilliant at strategic planning but horribly ineffective in front of customers, it doesn’t make much sense to assign them to sales in order to “shore up” that weakness. Assigning an A performer to another role that requires different strengths is a very good way to make them a C performer or worse.

If you’re responsible for evaluating peers or managing others, identifying their strengths and capitalizing on them can make them much more effective. Let your people focus on doing what they’re best at (and compensate them accordingly), and you’ll accomplish much more.

Many of my clients have used the assessment in StrengthsFinder 2.0 as a team exercise – it’s an inexpensive, high quality tool you can use to learn more about the people you work with. Understanding the strengths of the people you work with is the first step in ensuring everyone is focusing on what they can do best.

7. Hire for talent and develop for strength.

Depending on what you need to do, looking for particular strengths pays off in the recruitment / hiring process. If you’re hiring a salesperson, strengths like Achiever and Woo are good indicators that the candidate has the skills and mindset necessary to succeed.

I have no plans for building a huge team, but if I was hiring, I’d have hiring candidates complete a StrengthsFinder profile after they pass the pre-screen – it’s a quick way to learn a lot of valuable information about a candidate that can help you place them in the right assignment. Once they’re in suitable role, you can build upon their areas of natural talent.

8. Build your activities and schedule around your strengths.

Knowing your areas of natural strength is hugely valuable. By consciously taking up projects and hobbies that use your strengths, you can become even better at what you do.

I’ve had several positions where the job didn’t suit my strengths, and I was miserable in each one. My best corporate job was my last position, which I enjoyed because I could use so many of the skills that came naturally to me.

My strengths are Learner, Input, Ideation, Maximizer, and Strategic, so it makes sense for me to schedule my daily/weekly activities around these strengths. I dedicate an enormous percentage of my day to reading, research, writing, and discussing strategies and ideas with my clients because that’s what I do best. Other things can be delegated or outsourced; time and energy are precious, so I focus on what I’m best at.

I wouldn’t choose to work any other way – I love my work because it engages everything that comes naturally to me. Getting things done and being happy doing them is a wonderful combination.

9. Intentionally focus on activities that help you develop your talents into strengths.

A talent only becomes a true strength after it’s developed, which means consciously focusing on building your skills and experience in that area. Many companies send employees who have little natural talent or inclination for public speaking to training programs, which is a waste. Instead, it’d be better for the best public speakers to attend – they’ll get more out of it, resulting in a few excellent speakers instead of many mediocre speakers.

By seeking out opportunities to build upon your skills, you can make your strengths even more pronounced.

10. Identify areas where you’re using more than one personal strength at a time – those are activities in which you can be world-class.

One of the ideas I wish Rath would’ve discussed more in StrengthsFinder 2.0 is combinations – areas in which you use more than one strength at a time. In my experience, situations where you’re using many strengths in combination are the ones where you can really excel.

When you’re using more than one strength while working on a task, your talents aren’t added – they’re multiplied. If you’ve ever seen someone perform a job brilliantly, it’s likely they’re engaging multiple areas of strength while doing it.

If you can find work that engages 3-5 of your top strengths on a daily basis, you’ve found the recipe for work that will make you happy, wealthy, and successful for many years to come.

If you found this book summary useful, be sure to subscribe to the Personal MBA Insider newsletter – I’m planning to create book summaries for every book on the Personal MBA’s list of the 99 best business books, so subscribe now to ensure you don’t miss anything!

This post is a book summary that highlights the major ideas contained in Abby Marks-Beale’s 10 Days to Faster Reading. This summary is different from many of the others you’ll find on the web: books are primarily vehicles for ideas. Instead of following the structure of the book in question, we’ll isolate and examine the key ideas and themes that make the book useful. Along the way, I’ll tell you how I actually apply the ideas. If you like this book summary, please leave a comment and spread the word!

Abby Marks-Beale is the author of the Personal MBA-recommended book 10 Days to Faster Reading, as well as The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Speed Reading. If you want to fly through your reading pile, RSS reader, and e-mail inbox at breakneck speed while maintaining consistently high levels of reading comprehension, these speed reading books are for you.

For more information about Abby’s work, check out:

• Rev It Up Reading – Abby’s new online reading skills course.
• The Corporate Educator – Abby’s business skills website.
• 10 Days to Faster Reading – PMBA-recommended guide to improving reading speed and comprehension.

Here are ten big ideas from Abby Marks-Beale’s 10 Days to Faster Reading…

#1. Linear Reading is Inefficient – You Don’t Have to Read Every Word to Extract Value from Non-Fiction Material

The purpose of non-fiction reading is not to read every word on every page – it’s to extract useful information from the material. Growing up, most of us learned to read by starting with the first word on the first page, then continuing to read until we get to the last word on the last page. Unless you’ve learned structured non-fiction reading techniques, you probably still read this way, even though it’s extremely inefficient.

Efficient reading is non-linear – a series of quick skims, skipping around, referencing, and note-taking. The purpose is not 100% eye-coverage of the text: it’s to extract all of the useful information that’s relevant to what you want to do.

It’s easy to get hung up on “reading the book” as turning pages until there are no more pages to turn. Once you get comfortable with the idea that you don’t have work your way through the entire book linearly to benefit from your reading, you can read much faster, and put the book down when you’ve learned what you need to know.

#2. Pick Your Battles: Ruthlessly Edit Your Reading Pile

Most of us have way too much to read. Between books, newsletters, magazines, e-mail, blog posts, and snail mail, our reading pile overfloweth. Until someone invents a Time-Turner that will allow us to keep up with our reading, choices must be made.

Triage helps you read the most critical materials first. In any good hospital Emergency Room, doctors identify which patients need help first – everyone else can wait. Heart attacks get first priority; cases of indigestion can wait a while. The same principle applies to reading: you may have a large pile, but some reading material will be more important than others.

Having a sense of clarity about what you’re trying to do is necessary in order to triage your reading pile effectively. If you’ve taken the time to clearly define your goals (i.e. “what you want”), it’s much easier to figure out if reading certain materials will help you get what you want.

When I was in the middle of writing my book, I didn’t check my blog reader for over four months. That was okay: reading RSS feeds was not as important as writing chapters, so I made a conscious decision not to read them for a while. When in doubt, throw it out or defer the reading to another time.

#3. Questions Before Content: The Power of Purpose-Setting

Effective non-fiction reading does NOT start with picking up the book. You can multiply your reading effectiveness by taking a few minutes before you start reading to decide why you’re bothering to read in the first place. I call this technique “Purpose-Setting.”

Purpose-Setting is the act of deciding what you want to learn by reading this material. By figuring out what information would help you, what questions you want answered, and how you intend to apply the material, you’ll make it much easier to recognize useful information when you find it.

I’ve found the best way to purpose-set is to write down 8-10 questions on an index card or in a notebook before opening the book. This effectively programs your brain to look for the information you’re trying to find – a very important concept called “Priming.”

#4. Priming: The Benefit of a Quick Preview

Priming is the act of “programming” your brain to notice certain things about your environment. If you’ve ever been interested in a certain type of car, only to find you start seeing them EVERYWHERE you go, you know what priming feels like. The universe hasn’t unloaded thousands of new cars all over the highway – they’ve always been there, but your brain filtered them out as irrelevant. Your interest changed the filters, so you actually notice when they appear.

Priming happens unconsciously, but you can control it if you know what you’re doing. Purpose-Setting works because it gives you an opportunity to consciously “prime” your perceptual filters to notice information related to your interests. That’s what allows you to read so quickly – when you’re sufficiently primed, you can skim through a book quickly until your brain recognizes something as interesting or important. As you skim, you suddenly find your eyes stopping on the part of the text that relates to what you’re looking for. It feels like magic, but it’s just your brain doing its job.

Before you start reading, don’t skip the two richest sources of priming material in the book: the table of contents and the index. The TOC gives you information about the book’s structure, content, and order. The index, aside from being a useful reference tool, is essentially a frequency-map of the book’s key terms. If you find a term you don’t know with a large number of citations, chances are it’s important – write it down on a list of key terms before you start reading.

Purpose-Setting and Priming only take a few minutes. Once you’re done, you’re ready to fly through the book.

#5. The Thought is Faster Than the Word

The biggest barrier to faster reading is subvocalization: sounding-out words verbally instead of thinking them. Subvocalization is a useful tool in learning to read, but it’s a major speed barrier once our skills have developed. Our minds are capable of taking in written words as thoughts much faster than our ability to vocalize them.

The first step in eliminating subvocalization is realizing that you’re doing it. Pick up a piece of reading material and notice what’s happening in your mind as you read it. If you’re saying the words to yourself as you read, you’re subvocalizing. To stop, simply start reading faster: at a certain point, you’ll be going faster than you can subvocalize, and you’ll be amazed at how much you’re still able to comprehend and retain.

Realizing that you can comprehend written material without subvocalizing is a major milestone that will increase your reading speed dramatically.

#6. Your Eyes Can Absorb More Information Than You Think

Your eyes can easily take in more than one word at a time. Instead of fixating on every word, taking in groups of 3-5 words at a time can increase your reading speed without harming your comprehension. Learning to read more than one word at a time is mostly a matter of training – Marks-Beale includes many exercises that can help you learn this skill.

New speed readers tend to gravitate to eye fixation techniques because they’re concrete, but they’re not the most important part of reading speed. In my experience, Purpose-Setting and Priming are far more important – if you’re trying to get the 80/20, start there. Eye fixation naturally develops with practice and experience.

(Note: a useful tool you can use to train your abilities to read without subvocalizing and taking in more than one word at a time is Spreeder.)

#7. Take Notes for Better Comprehension and Retention

Reading is not a passive activity – it’s not like television, where your job is to simply absorb stimuli. Reading is an active mental process that can result in all sorts of unexpected insights and connections, so it pays to be ready to capture them before you forget.

Don’t hesitate to write as you read. Taking notes does two useful things: it creates an archive of your thoughts for later reference, and it helps reinforce what you learn. Personally, I find the latter most important – if I read something and then write it down, it almost always sticks in long-term memory. The idea capture / archival process is useful for application – you can spark many new ideas by reading older notes.

Note-taking can take many forms. Some people prefer to write notes in the margins of the book itself, some prefer notebooks, and some prefer capturing notes via a computer or other device. Personally, I prefer a physical notebook – it’s easy to carry and easy to reference. Regardless of what you choose, always take notes.

#8. Eliminate Distractions for Best Results

Reading quickly requires intense mental concentration and effort. Done well, it engages your total attention, challenges your skills, and requires focus. If the phone is ringing, e-mail alerts are buzzing, and co-workers are constantly interrupting you, it’s best to find a quiet, pleasant environment where you can focus for longer periods of time.

(Side note: don’t ever let a co-worker give you a hard time for reading at work. Reading is real work, and is often one of the most effective things you can do with your productive time.)

#9. Challenge the Author – Capture Your Questions and Objections

Once of the differences in reading for school and reading for your own self-education is being able to reach out to authors you respect or disagree with and get answers. Since most of us grew up reading school textbooks and assigned material in an effort to pass tests, we often forget that authors are real people who are happy to engage with their readers.

Capturing your thoughts as you read is a major opportunity to discuss and engage with the author and other interested readers. Once you’ve sketched your own thoughts regarding a book, you’re in a much better position to have interesting and useful discussions about the book with others.

I often read material twice: the first pass is non-critical, keeping a completely open mind and trying to understand the author’s key points and position. The second pass is critical: are there elements that are confusing or contradictory? Are there positions I don’t agree with? If so, I write my thoughts down for later reference and discussion.

#10. Reading is Not Enough – Focus on Applying What You Read

The purpose of reading non-fiction is not to simply read the book – it’s to learn something useful. While reading is fun (and gets even more fun as you learn these skills), it doesn’t become profitable until you start translating things you’ve read into real-world results.

After reading a good book, you should always be able to add at least 3 tasks to your active to-do or projects list. Capture these actions while you’re reading, and review the list when you’re done. Ideally, these actions should be directly related to accomplishing one of the goals you had in the purpose-setting step.

Effective Non-Fiction Reading is a Skill – The Dividends are Huge

Effective non-fiction reading is a skill. It takes some time and practice to learn, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll experience enormous gains in your productivity.

Once I learned the material in 10 Days to Faster Reading, I easily quadrupled my reading speed. Now, I can easily sit down with a book for 10-15 minutes and extract most of the valuable information from the text – a task that would previously take me at least an hour.

Here’s an experiment I highly recommend trying for yourself: go to your local bookstore or library, grab 6 books and a timer, and spend no more than 10 minutes trying these techniques on each book. At the end of the 10 minutes, go back and write down in a notebook all of the things you learned. You’ll amaze yourself – guaranteed.

BONUS: A Personal Interview with Abby Marks-Beale

A while back, I interviewed Abby Marks-Beale about her ideas. Here’s the interview in its entirety – enjoy!

In this conversation, Abby and I discuss:

• Simple techniques to immediately increase your reading speed.
• Getting the big picture before you focus on details.
• The importance of setting a purpose before you read.
• Priming your mind to find the information you’re looking for.
• How to be an active, mindful, and conscious reader.
• Reading online vs. reading offline.

If you found this book summary useful, be sure to subscribe to the Personal MBA Insider newsletter – I’m planning to create book summaries for every book on the Personal MBA’s list of the 99 best business books, so subscribe now to ensure you don’t miss anything!

I’ve been going through the feedback I’m receiving on the re-launch of the Personal MBA Business Crash Course, and there’s a recurring theme I’m hearing from quite a few people who are choosing not to enroll:

“Looks great, but I don’t have enough time…”
“I’m too busy – I’ll do it when I find the time…”

I hear the same thing about reading the books on the Personal MBA’s list of the best business books – it’s a fantastic education, if you can “find the time.”

“Finding time” is a myth. Here’s the truth: no one ever “finds” time for ANYTHING, in the sense of miraculously discovering some bank of extra time, like finding a $20 bill you accidentally left in your coat pocket. If you rely on “finding” time to do anything, it’ll simply never be done – guaranteed. If you want to “find” time, you must MAKE time.

Once I figured that out, my life became a heck of a lot easier, more productive, and more fun.

The Meritocracy of Time

Use of time is an absolute meritocracy: each of us has 24 hours (~16 assuming 8 hours of sleep), and it always fills up very quickly, whether you’re an executive, doctor, blogger, or trash collector. No one has any more time than anyone else – we all have precisely the same amount, and have the same opportunity to use it well or waste it.

Deciding how to use your time is typically referred to as “prioritization.” Most popular prioritization methods attempt to structure your time by trying to decide what’s most important, then rank-ordering your to-do list in terms of most-to-least important. (The popular ABC method popularized by Stephen Covey fits this model.) While it makes intuitive sense to rank projects in this way, you rarely gain much clarity about what to do next – after all, even “C” priorities still need to be done, right?

Everything is NOT Important

In one of my first jobs out of college, my workload consisted of 6 complex, high-profile projects – more than enough work for two people working full-time. When I asked my manager which projects were more important so I could prioritize appropriately, I received a response I’m sure you’ve heard at some point in your life as well: “everything is important – make it happen.” The only thing that could be done was to wade through the daily craziness as best as possible, since I wasn’t free to choose what NOT to do – a major contributing factor of why I left that job as soon as I could. By trying to do everything at once, I ended up getting much less done and experienced significantly more stress.

Using time well means consciously deciding what NOT to do. In my upcoming book, one of the personal productivity concepts I discuss is the “4 Methods of Completion.” There are really only four ways to “complete” a task or project: (1) you can do / act to complete it, you can (2) delegate it to someone else, you can (3) defer it to a later date, or you can (4) delete it – consciously decide NOT to do it. When it comes to prioritization, deleting is by far the most important.

In order to focus on doing what’s most important, you must consciously choose not to do things that are less important to free up time for your priorities. I’ve spent the past several months working on the book, and you’ve probably noticed that my frequency of posting on this blog went down rather dramatically. That was a conscious decision: I could either spend most of my productive writing time working on the book, or creating new posts for the blog.

The best way to “find time” to write the book turned out to be choosing NOT to do something else – write new blog posts. Instead of feeling bad I couldn’t do both, I make a conscious choice that finishing the book was most important, then consciously deleted, delegated or deferred everything in my life that interfered with that goal. That’s the essence of effective prioritization.

3 Ways to MAKE Time Immediately

The best way to “find” time for an important project is to consciously delete less important competing projects, tasks, or time-sinks that interfere with getting it done. Here are three things you can do to “find time” immediately.

1. Get Rid of Your TV. Going cold turkey and canceling your cable or satellite service is the closest thing you’ll ever find to “discovering” more time – it’s amazing what you can accomplish when you’re educating yourself instead of passively absorbing useless content. If you have a few shows you like to watch, get them on DVD and watch them only when you need some time to decompress. (“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” – Bertrand Russell)

2. Refuse to go to unproductive meetings or obligations that have outlived their usefulness. One of my coaching clients recently landed a professorship and postdoc at a prestigious, well-known research university. Surprisingly, he found that his productivity went down significantly vs. what he was able to accomplish in his doctoral research program. The culprit was meetings: he was spending so much time going to meetings that he found it difficult to get actual work done. The solution was simple: he stopped going, and was prepared to accept the consequences. After he made this decision, he got so much useful research done that his advisor no longer expects him to waste time attending meetings that add little value. If you’re involved in groups or organizations that no longer serve you, simply stop going.

3. Cut your obligations to no more than three active projects at once. All of us must spend some time keeping ourselves healthy and maintaining relationships with family, friends, and colleagues in order to function optimally, which leaves only so much time for productive activities. In general, it’s best to limit your active projects to no more than three – any less, and you’ll decrease your impact, but any more, and you’ll spread yourself too thin. I’ve found three active projects to be the sweet spot between getting a lot accomplished while avoiding unproductive task switching and stress – you can focus your efforts on what will make the biggest difference in what you want to accomplish.

By MAKING time to achieve what’s most important in moving you toward what you want, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.

What are you putting off because you “can’t find the time”? What can you choose to delete or delegate to free up time for your most important projects?

(Photo credit: iotdfi on sxc.hu.)

I know when I talk about the ineffectiveness of MBA programs here, I’m largely preaching to the choir. However, I found it difficult to ignore a recent interview with Dr. David Garvin, a Harvard Business School professor, because of the sheer amount of plainly-visible psychological denial it contains, so watching it is a good (but somewhat painful) learning experience. (I haven’t read Dr. Garvin’s book yet – it’ll be here in a few days – but I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it’s different.) To watch the video, click here – I’ll wait.

This interview reminds me of three great quotes:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair

“To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.” – Abraham Maslow

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller

Notice how Dr. Garvin clearly dodges several straightforward questions about the effectiveness of MBA programs during the interview? There’s a reason: comprehensive research has been done about the effectiveness of MBA programs over the past several decades, and it isn’t pretty: The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets the Eye. I don’t know if it’s denial or obfuscation, but a world-class researcher who’s spent years studying this topic must know the numbers, right? It’s far safer to talk about “being better corporate citizens” and the “public / private divide.”

Here’s the TLDR summary of the research: getting an MBA essentially buys you a $150,000+ interview with a large consulting firm or investment bank, since it’s used as an HR screening criteria. (And as this recent article indicates, entry-level MBA positions are usually soul-sucking and often quite scammy.) For all other purposes, it’s a waste of time and money with a massive opportunity cost – there is absolutely no difference regarding long-term compensation, hiring, promotion, or job satisfaction between MBA-holders and business professionals that don’t have a degree. None.

Truly re-thinking the MBA means questioning whether or not it’s necessary at all. Based on all available evidence (and there seems to be a quite a bit of effectiveness research that colleges are deliberately withholding), MBA programs are not necessary at all – you can learn what you need to know to start, run, and manage a business effectively by yourself or far less expensive help from subject-matter experts, in less time, without debt.

I would LOVE if business schools actually changed the way they operate, but I’m not holding my breath for Harvard or any other business school to “re-think” their approach to business education. The model is broken, both in terms of content and cost – every business professor should know that the ROI of any investment goes down as the cost goes up, right?

I’ll believe Harvard is “re-thinking” the MBA when they start (1) treating business and management / leadership as separate skills, (2) teaching a clear, general framework for building sustainable businesses and (3) giving refunds to anyone who doesn’t get at least 10x the value they invested in the program in incremental compensation within a few years of graduation. Real businesses unconditionally guarantee their products and services – if business schools actually provide a valuable service to their students, they should do the same.

Personally, I’m betting my marbles on making the existing model obsolete. What about you?

“Every artist was first an amateur.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

True story: my friend Corey recently moved from Washington DC, where she worked as a satellite radio producer / programmer, to Manhattan. Like many industries, the entertainment business is pretty tough right now, so she wasn’t having much luck finding work.

One of the things Corey loves most is baking, and she’s awesome. Her culinary skills have been honed by years of dedicated practice in her own kitchen, baking simply because she loves to. (Her cookies and cakes are particularly good.)

After a few months of fruitless job searching, Corey decided to try getting a job at a bakery. There’s just one catch: workers in high-end Manhattan bakeries typically require degrees from the French Culinary Institute or a similar school, which costs upwards of $40,000.

That didn’t stop Corey – instead of enrolling in culinary school and taking out loans, she did something even better: she offered to work for a bakery for free as an intern. Here’s why, in her words:

“Interning is way cheaper than culinary school and I get to learn specifically what I’m interested in… I’m sure [my coworkers] could kick my butt in making puff pastry, but do I really want to make puff pastry? No. I want to make cookies, and that I know how to do (and I’m learning more)… without $40,000 in loans.”

Instead of paying for her education, Corey managed to get it for free – working side-by-side with some of the best bakers in the city. Even better: after one of the bakers decided to leave for another job, Corey was hired to replace her.

Last week, Corey mentioned to her boss that she felt a bit intimidated being the only one in the bakery that didn’t graduate from culinary school. Here’s what her boss told her:

“Culinary school is just a formality. You know what you’re doing.”

Are you interested in improving your skills, or having a document hang on your wall to impress people? The former is far more important than than the latter, and there’s always a way to get what you want faster / cheaper / better by doing things differently.

(Photo credit: hsin26 on sxc.hu.)

There’s been a huge amount of activity behind the scenes at the Personal MBA, and I’d like to fill you in on all of the latest and greatest…

The Personal MBA Book

The first draft of The Personal MBA: A World-Class Business Education in a Single Volume is complete, and my crazy-talented editor is working his magic now. The current schedule is to have the edited manuscript back in the next few weeks, after which I’ll have a few weeks to complete the final edits and ship it off to production. Completing the book was a huge learning experience for me, and I’ll be sharing several new concepts and techniques I learned in the process in the very near future.

The expected release date for the book is January, 2011, with pre-orders opening up in a few months. I’ll let you know as soon as I have updated information – in the meantime, you can learn more about the book here.

The Personal MBA Business Crash Course

In January, I launched the Personal MBA Business Crash Course, a 12-week comprehensive business education program that teaches participants the fundamentals of sound business practice. The initial launch of the course was far beyond my wildest expectations, with hundreds of participants from six continents. (I’m still holding out for a research scientist from Antartica.) Participants are consistently reporting that they’re getting more than 10x the value of the course from the first few weeks alone, which makes me very happy.

In the course, I teach the core elements of working with businesses, people, and systems – everything you need to know to create a new venture, improve an existing company, or evaluate an opportunity. If you’re feeling insecure, anxious, or confused about how to go about making good business decisions, taking this course may very well be one of the best things you ever do.

Many people were wondering when I’d be opening up the course for the next round of participants. The answer is today – you can visit the Personal MBA Business Crash Course website for details. As part of the re-launch, I’m giving away over two hours of free, in-depth training, regardless of whether or not you ultimately enroll in the crash course. Don’t miss it: http://crashcourse.personalmba.com.

Personal News

In late 2009, my wife Kelsey and I moved from the middle of New York City to the mountains of Northern Colorado. (I took the photo above after a 12″+ snowstorm last month.) Not only was the change in environment as drastic as humanly possible, we weren’t able to get a high-speed internet connection until recently, so I ran the Personal MBA and related businesses from a dial-up connection for a few months. Lessons from that unique experience are also on my writing agenda in the near future.

More exciting news coming soon…

Today, I’m happy to announce the 2010 updates to the Personal MBA Recommended Reading List – the PMBA’s sixth edition. While you’re here, be sure to check out the 99 best business books available, read the updated Personal MBA manifesto, and take advantage of the NEW official PMBA Reading List Tracker and other exciting updates…

We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

The PMBA Recommended Reading List has come a very long way since the 2005 edition. The list has doubled in scope, from 42 to 99 books, which has enabled the list to cover the fundamental business concepts every self-educated business professional needs to understand to be successful. Looking back to early versions of the list, it’s easy to see that the current version is the most comprehensive and well-balanced yet.

We’ve also added some great usability features to the website, like navigation buttons so you can browse through the list more easily. These changes make the site much easier to explore – special thanks to Kelsey Kaufman, whose help made this possible.

2010 Reading List Additions

The 2010 reading list features ten new books, each of which strengthen the reading list’s coverage of critical areas:

• The Human Mind: Making Sense of Behavior by William T. Powers
• Influence: The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
• Entrepreneurship: Escape from Cubicle Nation by Pamela Slim
• Value-Creation: Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank
• Marketing: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout
• Sales: Value-Based Fees by Alan Weiss
• Negotiation: The Partnership Charter by David Gage
• Systems: Work the System by Sam Carpenter
• Analysis: The Economist Numbers Guide by Richard Stuteley
• Personal Development: Self-Directed Behavior by David L. Watson & Roland G. Tharp

NEW: Personal MBA Reading List Tracker

I’m also excited to announce there’s now an easy to way to keep track of which PMBA books you’ve read. The PMBA Reading List Tracker is a new feature developed with the help of Aaron Forgue, a long-time friend of the PMBA. The Reading List Tracker will allow you to keep track of which books from the reading list you’ve read, using a simple and attractive interface.

The PMBA Reading List Tracker is for PMBA Insiders only – if you’d like to use the tool, as well as receive free Insider-only business training and PMBA blog updates, you can become a subscriber using this button – it’s fast and free:

After you sign up, you’ll receive access instructions via e-mail. If you’re already a PMBA Insider, you can log in via the new and improved PMBA Insider website.

The Future of the Personal MBA: A Slight Shift in Focus

To date, the focus of the Personal MBA has been on books – which ones you should read to get the most comprehensive and useful self-education available. I’m very pleased with the results of the past six years of research, and I think the list will be very stable for years to come. I’ll update the list as necessary, but only if a new book comes out that clearly supersedes a previous title, new editions are published, or a book goes out of print. I have no plans to expand the list beyond 99 titles.

Moving forward, the focus of the Personal MBA will shift to business concepts vs. books. Books aren’t important in and of themselves – they’re a means of teaching critically important concepts, which are more important. The PMBA will always have a reading list, but the time has come to focus attention on fundamental concepts you can use to build your business.

In addition, I’m in the process of finishing my first book, The Personal MBA: A World-Class Business Education in a Single Volume, which will be published by Portfolio this time next year. If you’re interested in receiving a sneak-peak of the book the moment it’s available, be sure to subscribe to the PMBA Insider – I have a ton of very cool things planned, and PMBA Insiders will experience them first.

All in all, 2010 will be a bright and shiny year for all of us – thanks for following the Personal MBA, and I’m looking forward to helping you make this a year to remember.

(Photo credit: shilders at sxc.hu)

Seth Godin‘s new book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?, comes out today. As with all of Seth’s books, it’s a quick and inspiring read – if you aspire to make a difference in the world, you’ll find this book thought-provoking.

I recently caught up with Seth to ask him a few questions about the book – I think you’ll find our conversation quite interesting…

First, let’s discuss the essence of the idea: what does it mean to be indispensable?

It seems like there are a million ways a person could potentially be indispensable. Are some forms of indispensability better or more valuable than others?

Can you figure out whether or not you’re already indispensable in some way? If so, how? Are there clues or characteristics to look for?

The world is a big place – if you’re not already indispensable to someone or some group of people, do you have any recommendations about who or what to focus on serving?

Is becoming indispensable an achievement, an ongoing process, a little of both, or something else entirely?

It appears to be far easier to become indispensable if you choose to walk your own path and consciously break away from the norms of large systems that seek stability and predictability, like schools, governments, and big companies. Is that true? Can “cogs in the machine” become indispensable?

As you note in the book, our ancient “lizard brain” is always instinctively searching for pleasure, safety, and security. The process of becoming indispensable is often uncomfortable and feels quite risky. Do you recommend ignoring these instincts, or is there some way to use them to our advantage?

Generosity seems to be a major theme in the book. The general approach to becoming indispensable seems to be giving away significant value; the more you give, the more indispensable you become. At the same time, the defining moment of every self-supporting business is the transaction – no sales, no business. At what point do you transition from giving to trading?

I love the connection you make between businesses that matter and art, which you define as “a personal gift that changes the recipient.” What do the most successful businesspeople and artists have in common?

Craftsmen and artists, more often than not, hate to compromise – even when their vision requires working with others, who may have different values or priorities. For example, changes to a building’s budget may impact an architect’s vision for the space. When is it better to walk away from situations that compromise your ideals? Is there a time and place for making tradeoffs to ensure the work becomes real? Does accepting tradeoffs make you any less of an artist or craftsman?

A strong mental association many people have related to the idea of art is the image of the “starving artist” – a person who chooses to live a life of material want in favor of living their ideals, which are often anti-commercial. Does commerce cheapen art? Is the business artisan destined to live a life of relative poverty?

In the book, you say that art is the product of “emotional labor,” which is always difficult and guaranteed to provoke inner resistance. How can you tell the difference between something that’s difficult because it’s important and something that’s difficult because your plan isn’t working? Where does “The Dip” fit into the picture?

Self-education and self-improvement are subjects that are near and dear to both of us. What encouragement or advice would you give to someone who is determined to become indispensable and make the most of their life without the benefits (and detriments) of formal schooling or advanced certification?

You can order Seth’s new book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?, from Amazon.com or your local bookstore. Additional interviews and commentary about the book can be found via The Linchpin Posts.

Announcement: today, I’m also happy to announce the 2010 edition of the Personal MBA reading list – the PMBA’s sixth edition. While you’re here, be sure to check out the 99 best business books available, read the updated Personal MBA manifesto, and take advantage of the NEW official PMBA Reading List Tracker and other exciting updates. Enjoy!

I was recently combing through the PMBA’s archives, and I did a quick analysis on which posts were most popular on the blog last year. Here are the top 15 posts from 2009… enjoy!

1. Do You Have These Core Human Skills?

2. The 4 Most Valuable Things I Learned in Business School

3. “Branding” Is an Overrated Buzzword

4. 10 Time-Tested Ways to Make Money

5. Use What You Make

6. The Dangers of Mystique

7. Experimenting with Delegation and Outsourcing

8. How to Get a Valuable Education Without Mortgaging Your Life

9. How to Handle Business Book Narcissism

10. Learning Via Self-Experimentation

11. 49 Questions to Improve Your Results

12. Absence Blindness

13. Resilience: The Secret of Surviving Anything

14. On Discounting

15. The Secret of World-Class Performance

Which one of these posts did you personally find most useful?