Tag: pmba

How to finish 4 books in 2 weeks without reading !

Still on my frenetic audio book sprint I finished in 2 weeks :

  • Crucial Conversations
  • Made to Stick
  • The Goal
  • The 7-Habits Of Hightly Effective People


Actually with this method you can rapidely be overwhelmed. You shall :

  • Only listen in your car (I listen while shaving and dish washing but it’s to much.)
  • Slow down some times by not listening for one day. Just taking time to think.
  • Review it by writing a small article on each book. Even if somebody else did it.
  • Use a spreadsheet or any other mean to keep track of what you read. Otherwise you will loose sense of priority. In my Excel page for the Personal MBA I also put price of the books, and rate my desire to read them from 0 to 3. Then I can sort to determine what will be my next reading/listening.
  • Read a book in parallel (fiction is a good idea to breathe a little).

I apply only  a few of this tips for the moments. But writing them today helps me realize what I should do.

I’m listening to Pamela Slim’s” Escape from cubicle nation”. And I’m reading “Strength finder 2.0”.

And you ? What are you listening ? If you are following the PMBA program, what is you strategy ? Do you read by price/availability or just in random order or by category ? I’m really curious about it.

 

PMBA Going on…in my ears

I’m currently reading 10 Days to Faster Reading. It’s great to see improvement while reading. A stopwatch is needed, so I can’t read exactly when I want.

The moments where I have time to read is actualy : in my car, while shaving, while cleaning dishes… That’s when I can’t hold a book, but when my mind is free and I’m alone. The two essential condition to me for reading.

This is why I decided to listen to the books of the PMBA list (at least those I can find in audio form).

So far I’ve listened to :

Out of the PMBA I also listened to

  • “Cult Holmes” (funny for a fan of Sherlock Holmes like me)
  • “How to get anyone to do anything” (not so good).

Today I began Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High.

That’s magic. 5 books in 3 weeks ! And I’ll never be bored again in traffic jams.

Of course I still love to read the normal way. I will finish “faster reading” to be able to continue without distractions. I received “Strenght finder 2.0” wich I’m eager to read too.

And you ? What do you read ? Do you listen to books ? When is the most favorable time to read for you ?

Getting Things Done

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Nothing interesting here. Except for some advice or refeflections about self-management.

I went to the WHSmith library the other day. I was looking for some PBMA books to buy. It’s more expensive than amazon. So I took this book thinking it was the real “Getting Things Done”. But it was not the same…

Anyways I read it. Here is what I remember.

The book is divided into short chapters (what I like since I’ve been doing micro-reading lately). I read during breakfast, during a SVN Checkout, during a break…

It’s about managing your time. More than that : it’s about managing risks : if I forget to do this, what is the risk ? Should I do that before ? etc… Intersting approach to time management.

The most useful part is the one explaining this principle : never allow yourself to add something to your todo-list if you can do it NOW.

That’s what I did for this article. I was going for adding it to my todo-list. But I realized it would be easier to write it now quickly.

To quote Rework : Good enough is fine. Go for small victories.

Small articles are better than no article.

And you ? What are you reading lately ? Did you ever buy a book by mistake ?