Laura StackKirja-arvosteluja

Leave the Office Earlier by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

4 stars out of 5

Naturally, when I read a book title like this I want to read it. Who doesn't want to leave the office earlier? I've read many books similar to this, or so I thought, and I wondered if this would be the same; just broad principles without a lot of steps for action.

Not so.

It is truly useful advice on reducing stress and improving time management in the office. The highlighter came out quite often in reading it.

It is almost 300 pages but the content is actually broken down into specific tactics for improving workplace time management and reducing stress, and organized into ten chapters. There was worthwhile info in each chapter. Since it was written in 2004 I thought that much of the data might be dated. While some of it mentioned things no longer in use like PDA's, Blackberries, pagers, etc. each of the concepts were dead on for making your work life better.

From the forward:

"Too often leaders focus on input rather than output. There are times when arriving early and staying late are necessary, but the real test of an employee's abilities and commitment is an accomplishment. The proof is in the results, not the recorded hours."

And from the introduction:

"Therefore, the problem isn't time shortage; it's time usage. It doesn't matter how long you work; it's how you work."

Each chapter covers one of the factors affecting personal productivity.

Preparation - planning and scheduling
Reduction - time leaks and speed bumps
Order - organization and systems
Discipline - persistence and behavior
Unease - overload and stress
Concentration - focus and attentiveness
Time Mastery - activity and self-management
Information Control - technology and tools
Vitality - physiology and self-care
Equilibrium - balance and boundaries

Leave the Office Earlier opens with a focus on planning – and not necessarily just short-term planning, but also long term goals. Without something to aim at, it’s hard to make progress towards anything.

The final chapter in the book is about work-life balance, something that’s near and dear to my heart. I've worked plenty of jobs that I was way overqualified for primarily because of work-life balance. Balance is key in making both parts of your life run like clockwork – if the balance gets loopy, both sides suffer.

Leave the Office Earlier is a very good book with a multitude of advice that is truly valuable. Many overlap with other books I’ve read, but Stack breaks it all down into specific steps to apply.

I don't even think this book is about leaving the office earlier per se but just great tips for managing your life at the office. I’ve read tons of time management books – but there was still a message here to apply even though I'm already doing much of it.

This book's title borrows from Peter Drucker's famous distinction that management is doing things right and leadership is doing the right things. In the introduction, Slack says that she aspires to update Drucker's work on the executive worker for the Internet age. She does just that, incorporating advice for new situations throughout her work while remaining true to Drucker's principles.

That being said, she is no Drucker. Drucker's strength is focusing on the concepts in management. Most managers write management books as a bunch of tips. Drucker instead focuses on how to think as a manager. This is likely because Drucker never worked as a manager himself. He just coached managers in founding the field of management. He is the ultimate psychologist of management.

It's a high task to ask Slack to fill Drucker's shoes. In so doing, she reverts back to the "tips" style of writing, focusing on how to manage situations instead of how to think as a manager. She is compatible with Drucker's way of thinking, no doubt. And for this, she deserves a B or a B-minus. But somewhere along the way, she began to focus on situations more than thought.

I find reading books like hers nonetheless helpful check-ups on carrying myself at work. Management is more than being a manager. It is comporting one's self in a professional manner. It is managing one's own affairs rightly. It is prioritizing. It is making good judgments about resource allocation and conflict resolution.

Slack's book indeed touches on all of these areas and does an above-average job in each. She thinks through how email impacts time management and how the Information Superhighway impacts Drucker's concept of the knowledge worker well. (Doing email in bursts and segmenting time away from email helps productivity; the Internet discourages worker loyalty.)

I'm going to queue in my On Deck section Drucker's The Effective Executive, on which this book was patterned. I suspect Drucker will outclass Slack significantly in the ways described. Perhaps if I could find this book on audiobook, I would just read more of my favorite on management: Peter Drucker.

This book should have been titled more than the exhaustion cure. It is the makeover your life cure and boy does it work. There are some of the best suggestions to make your life work out just right. I couldn't help marking up page after page of this book and by the time I was done, the book was so dog-eared I could barely close the darn thing, let alone pile any other book on top of it without it tumbling off. Really! It was that good of a book! You should definitely read it. It will help you with family issues, work related issues, house related issues, bills, stress, educational, self help stuff, sleep, healthful eating and fitness, and more. Take my advice when I tell you to order this book today! When you're done with it, I guarantee that, like me, you will be tumbling to the site to find more books to read by Laura Stack. Because she is kick a** productive woman who can allow for us to make a world of change in our lives for the better. Thank God for Laura Stack! Keep 'em coming woman!

I picked this up after listening to The Ultimate Time Management System by the same author. Again, there is nothing groundbreaking here, but she does a good job combining and condensing a lot of the best advice into a workable system. By workable, I mean it has two very important features: it is both flexible and easy (or at least possible) to implement (which is not true of some other books on similar subjects).

She has chapters covering a broad array of topics, beginning with things like sleep, nutrition, and exercise, which makes sense because these really are fundamental factors underlying health and energy level. And there is of course material on time management and getting organized, which is her area of expertise. But she goes beyond that and covers everything from positive thinking and relationships to saying no (for more on which, see William Ury's The Power of a Positive No). There is even a section on the importance of dental hygiene. But I especially love that she included chapters on lifelong learning, and purpose and pursuing your dreams. She really covers all the bases, which is a pretty impressive feat. While some of her advice on, say, nutrition may be outdated, this is probably inevitable given the controversial, still-evolving nature of the field. In general, her advice is sound, and those who are suffering from a low energy level (assuming it's not caused by some underlying medical condition they need to have treated) would probably benefit a great deal by following it.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1L9QPXPO0N8NR

I don't know if this is the "ultimate" time management system, but it is an excellent one. There isn't anything particularly original here---readers of other time management books will recognize familiar elements from everything from David Allen's Getting Things Done to Tim Ferriss's The 4-Hour Workweek---but with a few minor differences, most of which are improvements or at worst optional, and Stack does a good job gathering all the best pieces of advice and integrating them into a useful system that you can tailor to fit your needs.

I'm especially time challenged, with ongoing medical issues eating up most of the hours of my days and weeks, and I had found GTD pretty much impossible to implement given my situation. I was able to use a few ideas from 4HWW which helped to some extent, but it's thanks to Stack's presentation that I actually now have the time to write this review (and others) again. I just wish that the "Productivity Pro" day planner featured in the subtitle were still available, because as she describes it it sounds incredibly useful and I can't find anything else like it.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R10PF88KGONLY3½

According to this book, the business cycle has increased so fast that you have to work your plan as you are planning it. All team building has to be a part of teamwork. You have to hit the floor running as soon as you get to the office, and adapt to changes on the fly. This is her idea of how to do that while not driving yourself crazy and taking your co-workers with you.

The book was mediocre at best. Most of the information is rather obvious and not insightful. Save your time reading this book and use your common sense.

The format is great -- especially for someone who IS fatigued. Quick little bites.

Unfortunately, there are at least a few pieces of outdated advice included, which makes me wary of the rest of the advice. Caffeinated beverages DO count in your daily water intake. Caffeine can INCREASE concentration. It happens that those two examples both involve caffeine, but they're two that I happen to know have been only recently "discovered."

Maybe those errors are the only ones in the book, but how can I trust the rest? It seems likely that the sections about time management and work environment would be less likely to have errors since those are the author's specialties, but having read the medical part first, I'm disillusioned.