Do More Better by Tim Challies

So maybe I’ll just use my blog as a place for my book reviews.  You’ll get very… personal and somewhat self-absorbed reviews.  My reviews are written for personal edification, but maybe they can help someone else as well?

I’ve go to say, this is an excellent book. It’s my second time reading through it. And while I have some vague systems in place still from the last time I read the book, I am far from being an expert in productivity. So far from it, that I had to read it again.

I have a new job, and unlike working nights where my responsibilities were to just do whatever I needed to as it happened, my new job is quite different. My new job requires balancing multiple projects, training everyone department-wide, updating and writing new policies & procedures, being the driving force in an IV room remodel, and… well, this new job requires a very different set of skills. I am excellent at being a night shift pharmacist, but after a month of being responsible for our sterile compounding, I’ve found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Enter this book. As I mentioned, I’ve read it before and found it to be very useful. The basic premises of it are to define your roles in life so that you may know what it is you should be doing. From there, he helps to further breakdown and define your roles, and then why are you doing them? The answer is ultimately for the glory of God, but why do I do what I do? Why do you do what you do?  The way he has you break down your various roles (mine are Personal, Family, Church, Pharmacy, and Social), and then duties within those roles.

From there, he helps set up a task manager (focusing on Todoist), a calendar (focusing on Google Calendar), and information management (focusing on Evernote). I chose Todist, Google Calendar, and Microsoft OneNote. His descriptions are specific for each of the programs, but I had no problem setting up OneNote in place of Evernote; I’m sure you can use the task manager and calendar of your choice.

Overall, this is a very short book. It give stringent examples, but is open to say that they are just examples.  He makes it clear that setting up your own system should be adapted to fit your own roles and responsibilities, and should not be set in concrete.  Everything he suggests comes across as a suggestion, and adaptable over time.  I easily got the book read and everything set up in a single day (granted in a single day off from work with the kids in school).  Tim Challies has a way with taking information and putting it into understandable and concise words. It’s a short book at only 120 pages, but the amount of useful processes it contains, are more useful than most any book I’ve ever read on productivity.

My brain is already relaxing from having an external system for capturing and processing information.

☆☆☆☆☆