Take Back Your Life - Yet Another Review

 

I got a copy of Take Back Your Life by Sally McGhee a couple of weeks ago. I just finished reading through it and thought I would give my opinions.

 

If you have never heard about David Allen's Getting Things Done, this is a good read for you. This book is essentially the same as GTD. I did find out that Sally McGhee and David Allen have done some work together.

 

This book details using Outlook to implement GTD (In Sally McGhee's words, Integrated Management System). I found the writing a little bubbly. I don’t know how else to say it. This is a bit longer than David Allen's Getting Things Done, but in my opinion more useful in a digital world.

 

If you don’t already have a system and use Outlook extensively I would definitely suggest this book. It is well worth your time.

 

I have been using GTD and Franklin Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People on and off for a while. I also attended a course built around Sally's book around two years ago at Microsoft. All of these systems suggest the same thing: Reduce your collection points, empty your head, create tasks for everything in a trusted system and be disciplined in completing your tasks. Easily said, but very hard to maintain over a period of time.

 

- Venkat