Protocol 80 Productivity Blog

I felt I might have been a little harsh on Brian Tracy yesterday, so I gave some more of his material a listen, they are fairly short audio books, an hour each and so I gave his “How to become a millionaire” a listen in full, and his “21 ways to earn more and be promoted faster”.

Now, I should start of by saying it’s not that I think a lot of what he says is wrong, it’s just how he says it is targeted at a different group of people I suppose. When I read Getting Things Done, and Seven Habits, and just this morning listening to some of Tony Robbins material they all have a clear vision of what they are trying to achieve, what direction they are leading you in. Where as each of the “21 ways to…” is really just a collection of sound bites - Many of which are reused - and several of them actually seem to conflict. One offers ways to save two hours a day by been more effective, another tells you that in order to get ahead at work you need to work two extra hours.

So lacking a single path dilutes his message combined with the fact there isn’t any meat to the sound bites he gives out leaves me wanting to hear a bit more offering 21 hollow bits of advice isn’t nearly as insightful as giving 4 detailed ideas - Everyone knows the general gist of how to achieve more productivity, or save money and so on, but with out the inspiration behind it, without the value of some new angle all he is doing is reiterating old ground.

It has been worth while giving his stuff a listen all in all, but it’s not something I’m likely to revisit any time soon, though I’m sure there is a whole market for his style - he does appear to be a successful guy after all - I’m sure for anyone crawling the internet for every last lifehack, work smart and productivity tweak then it isn’t a style that will suit what they are looking for.