 Could have been a great magazine article
I just finished this book and was curious to see how others had reviewed it because I found it so bad that it's hard to believe that it was published. Frankly, I am shocked that it received such positive reviews. It is extremely repetitive and basically just commonsense. This book would have made a great magazine article entitled "3 Tips for Better Time Management--Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize". The book consists of 35 very short chapters, so no idea is really developed. Some of the advice was laughable, like "buy lots of wastebaskets" and "wear seatbelts". I paid a dollar for this book at Dollar Tree, but I will never get the time that I spent reading it back.
 Ticket to the Limit
This book was extremely motivational and had carismatic energy and passion. I loved the stories and ideals that Randy Cohen shared and I am definitely ready to Ticket to the Limit.
Slowing Down
Dr. Hallowell is one of the best. Met him in person and he is concerned about helping those with racecar brains.
This book will help you become less busy
Sometimes a book's title will grab me . . . such was the case
with CRAZY BUSY by Edward
M. Hallowell.
That certainly describes how I often feel . . . consequently, I
picked up the to see what the author had to say about
the subject.
The key came very early in my reading . . . as Hallowell
notes on page 5:
* If you're busy doing what matters to you, then being busy is bliss.
You've found a rhythm for your life that works for you. This world is bursting
with possibilities; its energy can be contagious. If you catch the bug, you
want to jump out of bed each day and get busy, not because you are run
ragged by details or because you are keeping the wolf from your door,
but because you are in love with this fast life. At its best, modern life dazzles
us, giving us a chance to get more done in a minute than used to get
done in a month.
But if being busy keeps you from doing what matters most to you, or if
it leads you to do things you deem unwise, like getting angry at a rotary
telephone, then being busy is a problem.
Then there was this example that made me stop and think; laugh, too:
* Life these days is kinda weird. Lingering is a lost art. Such is our hurry
and our need for constant stimulation that a modern romantic conversation
might go like this:
"I love you."
"Oh, good, Now, what's your point?"
Everyone's this busy not (usually) because they want to be or planned
to be, but because they can't find a way not to be and still keep up.
Being extraordinarily busy-and at times frantic-appears to be the
inevitable, uncontrollable consequence of living in today's world. If
being busier than I'd like to be is the price I have to pay, most of us
seem to say, then so be it. After all, modern life is worth it. Life's
never been this exciting.
Fortunately, CRAZY BUSY didn't just point out the problems that
many of our face in our hectic lives . . . it offered many doable
suggestions as to what can be done about them, such as this one:
* Clutter is one of the major forces (along with the rush, gush, and
worry that have to be managed lest they not only distract but overwhelm you.
You have to work at clutter every day or it will win you out. One of the best
strategies is the acronym OHIO-only handle it once (whatever it is). File it,
shelve it, hand it up, use it, respond to it, or throw it away.
I also liked this bit of advice from Hallowell:
* Don't spend more time than you must to get good at what you're bad at
or don't like.
So on that point, let me conclude my review of this excellent book
before I spend any more time on something that I don't like doing;
i.e., writing more than you care to read!
 Expected more
I was disappointed by this book. He makes the same general points over and over with very little concrete steps to help people struggling with being "crazy busy." In the middle Hallowell shows off cutesy words he's coined to describe this phenomenon.
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