Title : Getting It Done: How to Lead When You're Not in Charge
Author : Roger Fisher
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : filled with powerful tools and ideas
Fisher, Sharp and Richardson have an astonishing ability to design simple but powerful tools for clear thinking and focused action.
Title : Be Your Own Life Coach: How to Take Control of Your Life and Achieve Your Wildest Dreams
Author : Fiona Harrold
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Buy this
If you make the effort to do the exercises and treat the book like a 'course', it will change your life.
Title : The Life You Were Born to Live: Finding Your Life Purpose
Author : Dan Millman
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : frighteningly accurate
I would not normally even approach such a book, if it were not lent to me by someone whom I trust and admire so much.
I consider myself a skeptic, but found the information given incredibly accurate, and specific.
This book is a little unsettling as it does not fit with my understanding of the universe. I deny neither the rational nor the mystical, yet this book's placing between the two was uncomfortable for me. It is beyond my understanding that what seem such arbritary divisions of people can be so squarely and accurately categorized. But if the universe fitted entirely with my dull and tiny understanding, there would be no life either.
Title : Sink Reflections
Author : Marla Cilley
Rating : 3 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Great system - poor book
I came across Flylady last year, starting with the BabySteps, and found very quickly that I could keep my over-cluttered home clean and tidy by following these routines - this was a great help when my flat went on the market, as it would be ready for viewings with a simple 'swish and swipe' each morning!
I bought the book to help me move onto the next stage of Flylady - decluttering, zone cleaning and the control journal - but I was really disappointed. I found the book poorly laid out (the chapter on babysteps introduces a number of new steps, numbering them would have made the book easier to read and the routines easier to follow) and the tone of writing grated on me after a couple of chapters - too many references to God and how cleaning your home will demonstrate to yourself and your family how much you love yourself and them (I'm not a lazy frump with a filthy house, I'm just a busy full-time worker who can't keep on top of the housework and can't afford a cleaner). All of the recommendations in the book, and more, are already covered on the Flylady website.
The Flylady system does work, but I would recommend saving yourself a few pounds and using Flylady.net instead of buying the book. 5 stars for the system, 1 star for the book itself.
Title : Goals! How to Get Everything You Want - Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible
Author : Brian Tracy
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Insightful!
The author grins, distinguished, gray-haired, gray-suited, from the dust jacket of this book, looking like everything a hokey, hustling confidence man should be. The book's subtitle, promising "everything you want," seems designed to provoke skepticism. But, hey, it's the new age: give this the benefit of the doubt - the confidence at stake here is yours. The core recommendation is simple and undeniably effective: define your goals, write them down, make a plan to achieve them and work on the plan every day. How could you fail if you really did this? Whether you would achieve "everything you want" is another matter, but you can't fault the method. Putting it to work is the hard part. To preview the gist of the book or review the meat of it, we recommend the convenient bullet charts that concisely repeat: take charge of your life, set goals, plan, implement and progress. If the message is repeated often enough, you might even write something down and just do it.
Title : The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Author : Stephen R. Covey
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Might change your life #8211; or sit on the shelf
This is a powerful guide to self-improvement. The "habits" are common-sense: be proactive, or "seek first to understand, then to be understood". The writing is clear, presenting each habit in a way which is easy to apply to oneself. If you're looking for a self-help guide to living a more focused, targeted life, you can hardly do better than this.
The downside is that this is a massive, densely-written book. Just reading it, let alone internalising and acting on it, is a major project. Many readers will dip into it; lose interest; and let it gather dust on the shelf.
Summary: excellent self-improvement guide, won't work for everyone.
Other Related Resources:
1: http://tigergrowl.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/flash-of-inspiration/
2: http://www.bmrt.com/2008/10/05/operation-inspiration-7c-tee-shirts/
3: http://www.dezeen.com/2007/12/19/stick-chair-by-emmanuelle-moureaux/
4: http://www.lowpings.net/gamingnews/half-life-1-deathmatch-classic-news/4-lessons-from-a-half-life-deathmatch-classic-server.html
5: http://www.reapmoneyonline.com/01/funny-blog-names/
