Lee Herman

Interesting and helpful exposition of how we pay attention in various situations, what parts of the brain are involved and how to improve your focus and attention.

This is an excellent biography by a journalist and author who became personal friends with Steve Jobs and had close access to Steve when he was alive and most of the key figures in the history of Apple. Unvarnished and honest but largely sympathetic to his subject, Schlender has richly researched and interviewed Steve Jobs and his inner circle and other industry figures for many years, so he knew Steve Jobs and Apple over most of the period he covers. He writes well and the book is a pleasant read.

Robert Crais does a great job of keeping the story moving, painting 3-dimensional characters (animal and human in this case). Set out to finish in 3 days so the book could go back to the library and ended up finishing it in one sitting. And then realized it was my second time reading it. Still a great read.

First issue I've read in a long time. Now I remember why. It is “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.” And I'm just not a huge fantasy fan. Still a good mix of shorter and longer stories, some great, some OK, assuming you like the genre.

Personal Kanban is a recognized productivity approach and one I'm experimenting with. I see great potential in Personal Kanban as a tool and technique but I was disappointed with the book, in spite of really wanting to like it. I felt too much time was spent extolling the virtues and benefits of the techniques and not nearly enough describing how to apply Personal Kanban to personal productivity.

As a long time GTD (Getting Things Done) adherent and practitioner, the point where the authors suggested Personal Kanban as an adjunct approach to GTD resonated more for me than a lot of the rest of the book. I don't see how to make Personal Kanban work with the numbers of tasks and projects I have to deal with in personal and work life. How to scale the system and work with it were discussed only briefly. These were probably the most important issues to me after the basic description of the two rules and the cards that make up the system.

Should you read this book? I don't want to discourage anyone since it is the seminal work on Personal Kanban. And my responses are only to the book as a reading experience. I have just begun to explore the system, so my response to the book might change on a future re-reading after I've actually used Personal Kanban as a system.

Others may find the approach less annoying than I did and it does introduce the system successfully. Less selling the benefits and more hands on discussion of the system and ways to use it would make this a much stronger book.