Comments on: Review: Leave the Office Earlier

By: Jennifer Bingham-Heart

Jennifer Bingham-Heart — Wed, 28 May 2008 21:44:21 +0000

I am so happy I found your site. Very informative and along the lines of where I want to live and live some of the time now. Thank you for all your hard work.
As for “Leaving the Office Early” I think it is true that many of the things stated other books like 4HWW and GTD write about. I know depending on the writer different readers can garner the information better. Thanks for the recommendation.

Much success to you and thank you again for your site.

Hugs,
Jen

By: Meags

Meags — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:21:49 +0000

The thing I don’t like about these books is how misleading the title really is. Where is the book that teaches me how to convince my boss that I can actually LEAVE earlier? If you make the rules, that’s great, but the large majority of us don’t. I’m incredibly organized and efficient, but I still spent a large chunk of my day dawdling just so I don’t have two hours of free time left at the end of my day.

By: rhbee

rhbee — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:08:53 +0000

Okay, I am going to stop reading this post and get out of my office for memorial day. Time to take a long bike ride up into the hills and enjoy sunshine and wind in face luminosities.

By: Heidi

Heidi — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:16:02 +0000

Sounds like a good book, I’ll definetely check it out. I’m an IT Manager who constantly finds herself swamped in papers and endlessly agonizing over minute details. Thanks for the recommendation!

By: almost there

almost there — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:44:40 +0000

I work on my feet not at a desk. I keep my in box/mail slot clear. I discard most of what enters it. Delete most e mail after I read it. Stop thinking about work after the 12 hour shift. By the time I get back in things could be totally different from when I left, so I segment my concern into 12 hour blocks of time. I do try to set things up correctly so the next shift has an easy transition.

By: nuveena

nuveena — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:28:17 +0000

I agree with bakednudel (#8)about having to keep e-mails to CYA. But I archive them and have the organized so I know where to find them when I need to find them. And I have had to go back and find e-mails from a year ago to cover my butt at work.

Yes, I agree that the information in this book is regurgitation of ideas presented earlier. But on the other hand, if we’d already known this and practiced this, would there need to have yet another book written on it?

I have a co-worker whose desks looks much like Trent’s desk, except there’s a ton of personal stuff along with the piles of papers. I used to sit next to her, but when another cube opened up, I moved because her clutter was stressing *me* out.

By: justin

justin — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:14:24 +0000

I agree with Mike, about writing a piece about planning for the unthinkable. I believe you have in the past, but we all need refreshers.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:28:44 +0000

We heard about the terrible storms in the Des Moines area, Trent. I hope you’ll post soon, letting us all know you’re okay. This would be a great time for a piece about planning for the unthinkable.

By: Lisa Spinelli

Lisa Spinelli — Mon, 26 May 2008 11:38:13 +0000

My thoughts on this book:

-it’s a regurgitation of what’s been said a million times.

-another example of fancy misleading marketing trying to get our money for nothing new-

Lisa

By: Aric

Aric — Mon, 26 May 2008 04:57:24 +0000

Thank you for posting this review! I think this book is a must read for anyone starting out or struggling in the workplace.

For me, #15, personal shortcomings, was most powerful. Once I opened up the communication between my boss and co-workers about my strengths and weaknesses, I found our relationships blossomed. Since I showed interest in our interactions and valued their opinion/insight, I gained a remarkable amount of their respect and found them more willing to help me than I expected. Such a simple thing goes a long way!

By: bakednudel

bakednudel — Mon, 26 May 2008 04:15:10 +0000

ha ha ha. I WISH I only had 1600 emails in my inbox. Emails have very much become the cover-your-ass area, at least in my workplace. If you were told (or not told) to do something 3 years ago…you might need to know that tomorrow.

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Mon, 26 May 2008 03:19:22 +0000

woops, meant “touch paper only once” :)

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Mon, 26 May 2008 03:18:11 +0000

Thanks Trent, lots of great ideas of your own that will help me in getting my productivity levels up.

#27 “Only Paper Only Once”

It’s in my nature to procrastinate and I always find myself shuffling bills, and other important documents all over my office promising myself that I will get to it when I have the chance.

Well, I either forget about them, or when the time comes to “take care of them” I can’t find them place it because I have moved it around so much!

That is a seriously “busy” desk you used to have! Glad that you were able to come up with a more productive system!

By: Chris Burgwald

Chris Burgwald — Mon, 26 May 2008 02:13:18 +0000

Trent, I’m planning to read GTD… is this book complementary, or does it take a (radically) different approach than GTD?

By: JM

JM — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:12:28 +0000

Woops, meant to type “30″ years, not 40. And its Alan, not Allen…

By: JM

JM — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:10:41 +0000

Trent – Have you ever read “How to get control of your time – and your life” by Allen Lakein?

I noticed several of the tips in this book – such as prioritizing tasks and only touching paper once – were written by Lakein almost 40 years ago! It is hard finding time management books that don’t regurgitate the same thing and although there are some similarities this book sounds great.

Lakein’s book is short, I’d recommend it to anyone.

By: clint

clint — Sun, 25 May 2008 23:46:49 +0000

I have used a lot of the principles from this book in my life to get out and stay out of debt. Thank you for putting it all together for me.

Great post keep up the good work.

clint lawton

http://www.a-debt-free-life.come

By: Fico Queen

Fico Queen — Sun, 25 May 2008 23:01:57 +0000

I was wondering how many pages this book is? A lot of it I do already, but if it was a quick read might consider it. Great title for a time management book though.