I’ve taken a bit of a detour in my reading/listening of the “7 Habits” because my audio book is either abridged, or a different edition to my hard copy (I have the latest revision), plus there are clear cuts in sections. Which makes it near impossible to follow since I can’t tell how much I’ve missed by flicking into my book.
So, not to be put off I picked up one of the other collection of audio books I read, “21 ways to be more productive” by Brian Tracy. Wow, was this a different approach, while reading “Getting Things Done” and “Seven Habits” had given me pause for thought on my opinions of various self help styles, this guy just reconfirmed some of the worst clinches. Words of wisdom like gaining more time by getting up at 5am or 6am, doing an hour and a half from home before you get in the office, and working an hour before everyone else and an hour after everyone else. To compound it, you should also work during lunch hours, so you don’t disturbed so much. Sure, but when do you take your lunch? He does have some interesting things to say, but nothing new to bring in what I’ve listened to already, a few techniques that are mention in seven habits as well, and a few basics like writing lists.
Gems I picked up seem to go like:
- How to over come procrastination? “Stop been lazy and get on with it.”
- How to get more work done? “Get up at the crack of dawn and work earlier hours, longer hours, and during lunch to get ahead of everyone else”
- Are you poor, and want to be rich? “Decided to be rich, stop being poor!”
- Want to succeed? “You have to make sacrifices, and you better make them now”
I’m sure in the distance I could hear Stephen Covey shouting “See, I told you there were no quick fixes!”
Now, to be fair it still makes for interesting listening from the point of view other people obviously listen to this kind of thing, and I want to be sure I have a healthy understanding of it even if it’s from the point of view of seeing how it doesn’t hold up to close scrutiny. And maybe some of his other material evolves into more substantial knowledge that I could draw on.
But my initial gut reaction to Brian Tracy is simple, he speaks to a less enlightened, and more arrogant level of management professionals that seem to be relics of past mind sets compared to the more informed and aware people who seek to work smarter, rather then “harder” in the traditional sense of the word. Perhaps that’s a bit of an idealistic point of view though, and while I keep following up in paths that lead to more organic concepts of working there is still a huge amount of people who really believe things like if your not in the office 12 hours a day, and making calls while in the car, and doing at least an hour before you have breakfast then your not working “effectively”
