Paperback: 504 pages
Publisher: Wiley; 3 edition (June 28, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1118018370
ISBN-13: 978-1118018378
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #327,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #15 in Books > Business & Money > Business Culture > Health & Stress #155 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Human-Computer Interaction #362 in Books > Business & Money > Skills > Time Management
I will admit to being a sucker for books like this. I love books that offer ways to improve your time management, limit interruptions, and streamline your life. Lifehacker helps you do all that and more. It is the most practical book I have read on this subject, and I promise that it will improve the way you work.There are a ton of "theory" books out there. Books that will tell you to spend your time more productively, not visit certain site, and get rid of all the extra emails. All great advice, but it can be hard for you to put into place without the right tools. Adam Pash and Gina Trapani give you those tools in Lifehacker. From email reduction to time-wasters to creating doable to-do lists, this is the best resource to turn to.The book is structured in an easy to read way. At the beginning of each hack, the authors tell you the three most important pieces of information right up front:Level: How easy is this going to be?Platform: Where do I use this? Web, Windows, Mac, All?Cost: How much does it cost?This is a great way to evaluate the hacks that you will need quickly and will help you to find the information that will benefit you most. Fortunately, most of the hacks offered in this book are both easy and free.
I've read the occasional article from Lifehacker blog and often found them to be hit-or-miss. However, the Lifehacker guide is a great collection of the best-of-the-best tips and tricks for making you more effective and efficient. Most of the tips are completely free and many of them don't even require a third-party application (such as using your smart phone, Outlook, or Mail client more effectively).The authors also make an effort to provide instructions/tips for Mac/Windows/iPhone/Android/etc. They also provide step-by-step instructions and links to software to minimize confusion or hassle.The three caveats about this book are:1. The book appears written for a computer novice, but many of the tips require you to be fairly proficient with computers and "tinkering" with applications. While the step-by-step instructions make it fairly easy to follow, the troubleshooting instructions often leave something to desire (especially if mess up a step). However, there are ample warnings when you can irreparably mess up your computer.2. The tips have a relatively short lifespan--that is, within a year or two, many of the tips will be outdated or the instructions will be incorrect. There's a website to get updated instructions for the tips, but it's not clear how long the website will actually be maintained. A proficient computer user will still be able to understand and apply the tips provided even if the written material goes out of date.3. The sections on social engineering are not nearly as useful as the ones on tech tips. Unless you are a person who gets a lot out of self-help books, those sections won't add much value. They will sometimes throw in ideas on how to 'remind' yourself to be more efficient, but your mileage may vary.
My impression was that this book was intended to help you to be more efficient in your day-to-day activities. In the preface the author says it's a smorgasbord and that the reader should select the things they like. Unfortunately, the author and I don't see things the same way. I read this book cover-to-cover and the only thing I used was the Zendesk Wall for ambient sound.Let me start by saying that I am a computer programmer so installing and using software is a daily activity for me. There are a few non-computer related tips that some people might benefit from like making a to-do list but the majority of the book is about computers and software.All of the software the author introduces requires you to learn how to use a new product. Since most of the software is written by different companies, there is no consistency across products. That means that you would theoretically need to learn to use a lot of new programs. Personally, that sounds like additional work rather than a way to be more efficient. If you were to install all of the program the author introduces, you would have dozens of new products running on your computer resulting in a degradation of performance.The author also makes statements like your email inbox should be emptied every day. That statement alone makes me cringe. He then goes on to say that in a business environment you should not respond to emails quickly because it sets unrealistic expectations. In fact, he said you should respond to business emails in 4-6 hours and up to 48 hours later. If I did that, I wouldn't have a job.There were some browser tricks I didn't know about but these were covered too quickly to be of any value. The same applies to many of the email tips.And for the record searching for "Tax*.
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