Review: `We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.'
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 21, 2014
South African Eddie De Jong is a born teacher/trainer. He worked for years as a corporate Technical Manager before opening a training school emphasizing Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office and it was in that role that he caught the bug for one-on-one training that eventually developed into his successful series of books on the various aspects of Excel. Bitten by the written word he now writes novels as well as training manuals for personal development.In TIME MANAGEMENT FOR A PRODUCTIVE LIFE (Book 2 in his Personal Development series) he keeps the written portion short (though the thought aspect lingers for a long time). He opens this book with some success stories of very famous people who started with little and became notable: Lincoln, Einstein, Disney, Cher etc. and from there he addresses how to utilize our time and make the most out of the way we use our days. He divides his book into sections: Timesheets, Which activities are most important?, Organizing your day, Procrastination, Consistency, and Dealing with Interruptions. Each section is explored with excellent examples of the point being made.By the end of the book de Jong summarizes his teaching as follows: Choose a method that you are going to be using for your time-sheet, Start keeping track of your time right now, In the beginning, work out a system to remind you to fill in your timesheet, Take your timesheet and classify all the activities according to the four quadrants (Urgent and Important, Not Urgent but Important, Urgent but Not Important, Neither Urgent nor Important), Look at quadrant one activities and think about how you can prevent them from becoming urgent in future, Look at quadrant three and four activities and either cut them out completely or replace them with quadrant two activities, Plan your day or week by prioritizing the important activities first, Identify the tasks that you keep on putting off,  Find the reason why you are avoiding doing certain tasks, Take control - just do it or split the task into manageable chunks, Celebrate as you achieve success in wiping out procrastination, From your timesheet, identify your idle time, as well as the times that you are busy with mindless activity,  Fill these times with meaningful activities, When you are working on a specific task, remove all sources of interruption where it is possible to do so, When interruptions occur, question and choose whether or not you will or must respond now, Communicate and negotiate interruption limits with the people surrounding you, and Regularly reorganize or re-write your list to keep it manageable.You may have read all of this before, but it is the manner in which de Jong infuses energy and spirit into the process that makes it count! Grady Harp, June 14