Archive for the ‘Notes’ Category

Notes on the books that I’ve been reading.

Loving Audio Books

I’ve been listening to The Art of Exceptional Living. It’s not the first audio book I’ve listened too by any stretch of the imagination, and I have to admit, I thought about only doing “real” books for my PMBA, however, I’m loving the audio book idea.

Now I admit, I’ve listened to some lame audio books, but not all of them are, and The Art of Exceptional Living is a fairly easy listen. What’s nice, is that I get to kill two birds with one stone. I spend about 1.5 hours in the car each day, 5 days a week going to and from work. Some times I talk to my wife, sometimes I speak to a client of my freelance business, and some times I listen to the radio.

Well I thought if I could be more efficient with my time, less radio, more learning, I get a win win, and I did.  I figure since I am driving, and I need to pay attention to the road – I ought to listen to serious books at least twice – so that’s what I’m doing.

The Effective Executive – Finished

Now that I’ve finished it, here are some more notes on The Effective Executive. A review will be coming shortly.

Organizing Your Time

I have been really thinking about how to implement these key elements in my own life. One of the first things I realized was in learning about my time, and as I wrote earlier, I worked on cutting out the unimportant parts of my life, and minimizing important but time consuming elements.  For example, I’ve reduced the number of times I check the blogs I read, to a couple times a day, so I don’t get interrupted as much. I can easily get distracted, and will always have to work on this I fear, but I think it is some thing I master.

Focusing on First Things First

I still have to work on making myself focused to work on the most important things to do. I look at my to do list, and notice 3 or 4 things which have been there for a few days, because they are important. But, instead of doing those things, I’ve worked on getting several smaller, but less important things done – if only so I could cross them off my list.

Making Effective Decisions

The last part I know I have to work on is making effective decisions. In the book, Drucker mentions two different stories. In both cases he talks about finding the effective outcome.

First, with the Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedy originally wanted inspectors on the ground to verify that the missiles had been removed. Something that Cuba and the Soviet Union wouldn’t allow. However, it turned out that spy aircraft with cameras could record the evidence well enough, so he could get the confirmation he needed, and compromise on the inspectors, as there was still an effective outcome.  It was an effective compromise.

The second story is with King Solomon. As the story goes, two women argued over who’s baby it was. Solomon ordered that the baby should be cut in half and one half given to each mother. The real mother knew that no baby was better than half a baby (in which he would be dead). In her case compromising wouldn’t have been truly effective. So she picked the most effective outcome, to let her child live, and thus identified who the real mother was.

I tend to make decisions and not like to compromise. I have to learn about when it is best to compromise, and over what. Something I see that many people need to do.

Notes on The Effective Executive

I’ve been reading The Effective Executive and have already been able to pull some good information from it, despite only starting a couple of days ago.

The two biggest things I can pull from the book so far is:

1. Knowing how I use my time, and
2. Determining what I can contribute.

What to Learn

The use of time is the essence of the second chapter. Drucker recommends keeping a log to see how your time is actually being spent. I view my day, realized what I should be doing by time, vs. what I am doing by time, and I wasn’t so happy with the results.

Your contribution made a large part of the third chapter. Each person can contribute, and can contribute different things.  The key is to contribute the right things at the right time.  Items, thoughts, and processes which can lead to long term growth and sustainability.

The Take Away

So I’ve started working on cutting out unimportant things, or things which are not as time critical.  One thing is reducing the number of times I check on the news and my RSS feeds.  By blocking off times to focus on them, I can be be more efficient with my remaining time, focusing without the interruption. I’ve noticed this has actually helped shave 30 minutes off my morning routine time, allowing me to squeeze some extra work out time in.

Learning what and how to contribute is more difficult, especially for the so called “knowledge worker”.  Drucker mentions how someone on the assembly line knows exactly what they contribute.  But it isn’t always so clear for someone who produces or works with knowledge situations.  So we have to look at how we can expand beyond those areas, or as a minimum make the most effective use of the area we are in.

First Book – The Effective Executive

My copy of the The Effective Executive arrived today.

Now I’ll admit, I have a used copy, and I have to say, I am a bit surprised. It is yellow and old.  Not bad, just not what I was expecting. I was thinking, you know the “best business books” would be full of new insights…. But then I was thinking, if something is truly good, shouldn’t it be good for a long time?

So I originally was starting to get discouraged, but then I thought I shouldn’t.  I should be encouraged that the book has stood the test of time, and will be good not just for today, but for a while.

I’ll be adding my notes and reviews about the book soon.