It's About Time!
Transforming Chaos into Calm, A to Z
This engaging book by a personal productivity expert offers a multitude of useful tips on how to make the best use of time.
It is likely that almost everyone feels pressed for time at some point, which makes Mitzi Weinman’s lively book, It’s About Time!, a welcome addition to the personal productivity bookshelf.
Weinman immediately acknowledges the time crunch facing most by stating that her objective “is to help busy people with their time, keeping in mind that they may not have the time to read it—what an interesting paradox!” As a result, Weinman chooses a clever structure to facilitate reading the book in little chunks: She organizes It’s About Time! alphabetically, with each letter representing a unique concept.
“D Delegate” is a chapter about the art of delegation, for example. Here, Weinman quickly walks through the difference between delegating and assigning a task, providing wise counsel about ways to delegate. “T Time Traps” is a very useful chapter that artfully identifies multiple time traps, such as e-mail, interruptions, and meeting without an agenda, offering “time tips” for defusing each one. Weinman even created legitimate, albeit humorous, entries for X (“X Marks the Spot”) and Z (“ZZZ’s: slang for sleep”).
The obvious advantage of the author’s “A to Z” approach is that the reader can spend just a few moments leafing through the book, at any chosen time, to cull out little pearls of time-saving wisdom. Due to this structure, each chapter stands alone, so the book can be read a tiny bit at a time or all at once. The work also functions as a valuable reference tool.
Weinman includes a helpful “Next Steps” section at the end of each brief chapter. This technique, in addition to her friendly, informal writing style, serves to give the reader continuous positive reinforcement. Still, the author recognizes she is suggesting that the reader needs to make some fairly major modifications in the way he or she thinks about time. Weinman writes that “we need to shift from managing our time to managing ourselves,” and she points out that “it is a process, and it never ends.” She should know—Weinman has built a business called TimeFinder around helping people improve their personal productivity.
It’s About Time! is well written and well designed, with the occasional illustration to break up the text and an attractive cover to grab attention. Anyone looking for solid advice on how to make better use of time should find much of value in this breezy, helpful book.
Reviewed by
Barry Silverstein
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
