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Getting Results the Agile Way: A Personal Results System for Work and Life
In Getting Results the Agile Way, author J.D. Meier introduces Agile Results(R)-a simple system for meaningful results! It's a systematic way to achieve both short- and long-term results in all aspects of your life-from work to fun. It offers just enough planning to get you going, but makes it easy to change your course as needed. It also provides fresh starts for your day, week, month, and year. Even if you already use another time management system, Agile Results can supplement it to increase your impact and sense of fulfillment. In today's world, change happens quickly; learn how to be flexible and responsive to new opportunities. Don't just check off tons of stuff from your to-do list; do the things that make a difference. Stop trudging your way through life; bolster your energy with habits that will carry you forward each day. Quit sacrificing your personal life for your work life (or vice versa); give each facet of your life its due and find balance. In other words, learn the skills to go the distance in an ever-changing world. The beauty of Agile Results is that you don't have to adopt the entire system to see the benefits; just start with the following three basic tenets. First, adopt The Rule of 3 and you avoid being overwhelmed and become mindful of your results. Second, adopt the Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Refection pattern and you set the wheels in motion for weekly results while giving yourself a fresh start each day and each week. Third, set up boundaries for your Hot Spots and begin to experience work-life balance. When you're ready for more, flip through the chapters to learn how to use stories to design your day, week, month, and year; how to find your motivation; how to improve your productivity; and many more. Agile Results is a time-tested system that J.D. Meier has honed through his years at learning from some of the best minds, leading virtual teams, and mentoring people around the world. It is a system he can bet on time and again. This guide is the playbook for getting results that he wishes somebody had given to him so many years ago. Now, he's sharing it with you.
272 pages, Paperback
First published October 28, 2010
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2198 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 102 reviews
January 20, 2013
This book is very fractal. It introduces a concept and then circles back to it a couple times in increasing depth. It's a logical structure, but you end up feeling like you've read everything a couple times. Perhaps this is better for readers who skim.
My other overall comment is that most productivity systems written out of software make me resentful because they assume that my home-life schedule is something that can be managed. I think I speak for a lot of working parents when I say that my schedule is something that I manage the same way surfers manage waves.
Useful concepts I will take from this book:
Outcomes, not activities. You don't want to be doing something, you want a finished product to show for your work. Write your tasks to reflect that.
Fix time, flex scope. You have the time you have. Instead of changing that, change how much you are trying to get done in that time.
Use your vision of the end result to drive your motivation and self-analysis.
Don't wait for inspiration. Even uninspired work is more useful than nothing.
Pretend to think like someone else to work your way through problems you are stuck on. Pick problem-solving heroes and ask yourself what they would do in a similar situation.
Work from an abundance mentality. Instead of assuming there is only so much of anything to go around, ask yourself how you could make more.
Growth feels awkward.
Things I could have lived without:
I thought that even for the structure of the book, there was a lot of repetition.
I found the emphasis on exercise and diet pretty ableist. Not everyone can "work out to maintain their health".
I was completely vexed by the assumption that emotional work was a knowable obligation. That may be true for other people, but I think that system would come up against a lot of grief given one week with kids who have the flu. To me, emotional work is much more interrupt-based, and when it's happening, it's the thing that's blocking everything else.
Read if: You are looking for a way to think about organizing and timeboxing yourself that is derived from Agile development methods. There is a lot to be gained from some of the concepts presented here.
Skip if: You will feel angry at a book that assumes you are in charge of your time allocation. You are not feeling patient about repetition.
Also read: Cheaper by the Dozen for another way to think about time use.
My other overall comment is that most productivity systems written out of software make me resentful because they assume that my home-life schedule is something that can be managed. I think I speak for a lot of working parents when I say that my schedule is something that I manage the same way surfers manage waves.
Useful concepts I will take from this book:
Outcomes, not activities. You don't want to be doing something, you want a finished product to show for your work. Write your tasks to reflect that.
Fix time, flex scope. You have the time you have. Instead of changing that, change how much you are trying to get done in that time.
Use your vision of the end result to drive your motivation and self-analysis.
Don't wait for inspiration. Even uninspired work is more useful than nothing.
Pretend to think like someone else to work your way through problems you are stuck on. Pick problem-solving heroes and ask yourself what they would do in a similar situation.
Work from an abundance mentality. Instead of assuming there is only so much of anything to go around, ask yourself how you could make more.
Growth feels awkward.
Things I could have lived without:
I thought that even for the structure of the book, there was a lot of repetition.
I found the emphasis on exercise and diet pretty ableist. Not everyone can "work out to maintain their health".
I was completely vexed by the assumption that emotional work was a knowable obligation. That may be true for other people, but I think that system would come up against a lot of grief given one week with kids who have the flu. To me, emotional work is much more interrupt-based, and when it's happening, it's the thing that's blocking everything else.
Read if: You are looking for a way to think about organizing and timeboxing yourself that is derived from Agile development methods. There is a lot to be gained from some of the concepts presented here.
Skip if: You will feel angry at a book that assumes you are in charge of your time allocation. You are not feeling patient about repetition.
Also read: Cheaper by the Dozen for another way to think about time use.
December 31, 2013
Seriously? The guy needs a better editor. The whole book is a mess of buzz words. Examples: "unimportant items slough off.....you'll rehydrate the when needed." Rehydrate? Rehydrate. "Find a way to flow value...chunk your results down." I have no clue what he means. "Create glide paths". "Identify hot spots". "Create scannable outcomes". "Threats" "levers" "actionable"
This is a Dilbert cartoon. I suspect the book could be rewritten in one chapter if the editor asked him to use regular, that is, untrendy, phrases.
This is a Dilbert cartoon. I suspect the book could be rewritten in one chapter if the editor asked him to use regular, that is, untrendy, phrases.
August 12, 2012
My best friend is a person who is, to all appearances, effortlessly organized. When we were roommates in college, he was up early, finished his homework in a demanding scientific discipline (while studying Chinese on the side) before dinner, and went to bed promptly by 9:00 p.m. after a leisurely dinner and a couple of hours of science fiction. This book is not for him.
Being the opposite of my best friend on the organizational scale, much of my life has been spent on a journey to bring life into focus and clean up my act. I am a modest, but not obsessive, consumer of organizational self-help books, from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow to David Allen's Getting Things Done to Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project.
J.D. Meier's Getting Results the Agile Way, based on his experience as a program manager at Microsoft, strikes me as a thoughtful and important contribution to the genre. Meier does not despise the minutiae of task management, but he attempts to transcend it. His emphasis is on identifying measurable goals, working toward them systematically, and evaluating the results regularly. In addition, he emphasizes the importance of recognizing that time and energy are finite resources, and he writes at some length about both effectiveness — doing the right things — and efficiency — doing them well.
Part of being both effective and efficient is boundaries and balance. If you work to exhaustion, it affects your ability to perform in every other area of your life. If you do not get at least a minimum amount of sleep, you won't function effectively. If you do not have some fun, your motivation will plummet. And if you do not pay attention to your relationships with other people, they will atrophy. While these observations may seem obvious, it nevertheless takes a certain amount of planning and discipline to ensure that people schedule a ceiling to the amount of time spent at work and a floor to the amount of time spent for fun, sleep, and other people.
Beyond his emphasis on the importance of short and long term goal setting, Meier is also an astute observer of the self-defeating mind games that prevent people from working effectively toward their goals, and he breaks down a number of simple strategies for addressing them, from settling for something less than perfection on a first iteration to plunging into work to escape analysis paralysis.
In all, Meier's book achieves what should be the goal of every good organizational book: it does not settle for tidying our schedules, but insists that we examine our goals in the hope that we will choose to live more meaningful lives.
Being the opposite of my best friend on the organizational scale, much of my life has been spent on a journey to bring life into focus and clean up my act. I am a modest, but not obsessive, consumer of organizational self-help books, from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow to David Allen's Getting Things Done to Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project.
J.D. Meier's Getting Results the Agile Way, based on his experience as a program manager at Microsoft, strikes me as a thoughtful and important contribution to the genre. Meier does not despise the minutiae of task management, but he attempts to transcend it. His emphasis is on identifying measurable goals, working toward them systematically, and evaluating the results regularly. In addition, he emphasizes the importance of recognizing that time and energy are finite resources, and he writes at some length about both effectiveness — doing the right things — and efficiency — doing them well.
Part of being both effective and efficient is boundaries and balance. If you work to exhaustion, it affects your ability to perform in every other area of your life. If you do not get at least a minimum amount of sleep, you won't function effectively. If you do not have some fun, your motivation will plummet. And if you do not pay attention to your relationships with other people, they will atrophy. While these observations may seem obvious, it nevertheless takes a certain amount of planning and discipline to ensure that people schedule a ceiling to the amount of time spent at work and a floor to the amount of time spent for fun, sleep, and other people.
Beyond his emphasis on the importance of short and long term goal setting, Meier is also an astute observer of the self-defeating mind games that prevent people from working effectively toward their goals, and he breaks down a number of simple strategies for addressing them, from settling for something less than perfection on a first iteration to plunging into work to escape analysis paralysis.
In all, Meier's book achieves what should be the goal of every good organizational book: it does not settle for tidying our schedules, but insists that we examine our goals in the hope that we will choose to live more meaningful lives.
January 11, 2015
This book had a number of tips that I found really helpful in terms of getting into an outcome-oriented mindset, but...
1. It's horrendously written. Full of corporate-buzzword-salad, full of overly wordy repetitively verbose redundancy and cliches (I don't even want to count how many times he talks about "seeing the forest from the trees", or how many times he just repeats nearly the exact same material without actually adding any new information).
2. I didn't actually find it very useful in the long-run. I might borrow a couple of concepts (which is why I give it an extra star) but overall it's just not very helpful advice.
There's free info about the system online. I'd recommend just looking at that. You'll waste a lot less time.
1. It's horrendously written. Full of corporate-buzzword-salad, full of overly wordy repetitively verbose redundancy and cliches (I don't even want to count how many times he talks about "seeing the forest from the trees", or how many times he just repeats nearly the exact same material without actually adding any new information).
2. I didn't actually find it very useful in the long-run. I might borrow a couple of concepts (which is why I give it an extra star) but overall it's just not very helpful advice.
There's free info about the system online. I'd recommend just looking at that. You'll waste a lot less time.
April 27, 2013
People organisationally challenged like myself need to have a system to keep ourselves on track. For the past few years I have been doing GTD, which has been tremendously helpful but I feel it's lacking in some respects, mostly on setting priorities and ensure things are done. The system presented in this book is quite different from GTD and in some sense diametrically opposed, the most notable difference being that you are forced to think about outcomes for the day, month, and year, versus GTD where you don't attach time frames to things. There are some other interesting bits to the system, like defining "hot-spots" for your life (work, exercise, mental, etc..) and ensure everything is balanced. Overall, I feel it's a quite sensible system and I can see it definitely making a difference in my life and productivity, although I haven't implemented it fully yet.
On the writing: as noted by other reviewers, the book is awfully repetitive, repeating the same sentences over and over again. The last one third of the book has this very "self-help" feel to it and it's made mostly of bland, generic advice without any context to make it useful. I think it would be a much better book without it. Other than that, I can definitely recommend this book for anyone interested in being more organised and productive.
On the writing: as noted by other reviewers, the book is awfully repetitive, repeating the same sentences over and over again. The last one third of the book has this very "self-help" feel to it and it's made mostly of bland, generic advice without any context to make it useful. I think it would be a much better book without it. Other than that, I can definitely recommend this book for anyone interested in being more organised and productive.
December 13, 2015
Productivity systems are very personal, one has to sample, experiment and combine until arriving at something that works for him/herself, the tasks at hand and temperament. Therefore the star rating here is not necessarily informative. Your millage might vary.
Meier's book seems to work for me - the main reason is that it is a really small extension to my existing workflow, addressing something I was missing. As for the "tactical" side of my work management, I think I'm quite happy with that. Since a longer time I was however searching for something to give me a higher level/long term, strategical view.
Getting Things Done offers this in spades, but it is too involved, whereas Meier's system was super-easy to graft on my system.
The book also condenses a ton of positive psychology and productivity research into very brief taglines. As such it might sound slogan-y and not very substantial - it usually doesn't give reference to the quoted lit. But if you already know about most of this work, the integration of all these elements can be quite helpful.
Now to the bad side of the book - the writing here is insanely repetitive. Not in the standard sense, when 50 pages of material is fluffed up to 250 with useless paraphrasing and restatements. No, Meier simply cut-n-pastes full sections several times in the book. Incredible.
And yet - I've read it cover to cover, taking in the repetition as a didactic tool. Was it meant so? I don't know. It comes of lazy rather than "efficient". I can absolutely understand, if you chuck it into corner for the repetitive slogan regurgitation. For me this was however very useful.
Meier's book seems to work for me - the main reason is that it is a really small extension to my existing workflow, addressing something I was missing. As for the "tactical" side of my work management, I think I'm quite happy with that. Since a longer time I was however searching for something to give me a higher level/long term, strategical view.
Getting Things Done offers this in spades, but it is too involved, whereas Meier's system was super-easy to graft on my system.
The book also condenses a ton of positive psychology and productivity research into very brief taglines. As such it might sound slogan-y and not very substantial - it usually doesn't give reference to the quoted lit. But if you already know about most of this work, the integration of all these elements can be quite helpful.
Now to the bad side of the book - the writing here is insanely repetitive. Not in the standard sense, when 50 pages of material is fluffed up to 250 with useless paraphrasing and restatements. No, Meier simply cut-n-pastes full sections several times in the book. Incredible.
And yet - I've read it cover to cover, taking in the repetition as a didactic tool. Was it meant so? I don't know. It comes of lazy rather than "efficient". I can absolutely understand, if you chuck it into corner for the repetitive slogan regurgitation. For me this was however very useful.
February 6, 2021
Context & Why I read this book
This is the fifth book I read this year as part of my 52-book challenge. I am highly interested in personal productivity and in my profession (software engineering) agility is a big thing. That's why this book looked quite interesting to me.
What the book is about
In this book, J.D. Meier presents his personal productivity system called "Agile Results" which is based on his experience in the area of software engineering. "Agile Results" consists of
1) "Hot Spots" (a way of balancing different life domains or areas)
2) Weekly Results (Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection) — a way of planning and reviewing on a weekly basis
3) Action, Reference, Calendar (Distinguishing actionable from the non-actionable matter)
The author himself calls it a "results framework for work and life". Compared to other popular systems, it is very modular and light-weight. There is no need to adapt it as a whole. While this is one of its strengths it is also its weakness. After reading the book no real "system" emerges. Rather loosely couple techniques are presented which is not necessarily helpful for a beginner.
One lesson I am taking from it
I specifically want to remember the idea, that one should not become a slave of one's backlog. A backlog is a catalog of potential action, not a must-do-list. Time changes the value of things and focusing too narrowly on everything in a backlog results in missed opportunities. So instead of being "backlog driven" one should think in terms of "value delivered".
Reading Recommendation / Who should read this?
Every modern book about personal productivity has to be compared with Getting Things Done
by David Allen. Making this comparison, I would not recommend this book to the average reader. Instead, just deeply read GTD and be done with it. For personal productivity geeks like myself, however, it can be a worthwhile read, though. It does not really read as a "book". It feels more like a collection of strategies, techniques, concepts, and metaphors. Like a summary, one has written for an upcoming exam, even. That is also why, although it contains good ideas, over time it got quite monotonous. There is just too much loosely connected content here.
I am rating it a 6 on my personal rating scale:
1 ⭑ — Abysmal; extremely bad. Couldn't / wouldn't finish. No one should waste his time on this!
2 ⭑— Very bad; skipped part of it; skimmed most of it.
3 ⭑⭑ — Bad, but forced me to finish; close to no nuggets to be found.
4 ⭑⭑ — Rather bad; finished but definitely would not give it a re-read.
5 ⭑⭑⭑ — Modest; a few nuggets; reading recommended in certain circumstances
6 ⭑⭑⭑ — OK; the average read. Tangible weaknesses, but recommended with some reservations
7 ⭑⭑⭑⭑ — Good read, despite minor weaknesses; generally recommended
8 ⭑⭑⭑⭑ — Very good; would recommend nearly without restriction
9 ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ — An outstanding work; worthwhile to be read twice or more often; a definitive recommendation
10 ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ — A work of genius; should be required for everyone
This is the fifth book I read this year as part of my 52-book challenge. I am highly interested in personal productivity and in my profession (software engineering) agility is a big thing. That's why this book looked quite interesting to me.
What the book is about
In this book, J.D. Meier presents his personal productivity system called "Agile Results" which is based on his experience in the area of software engineering. "Agile Results" consists of
1) "Hot Spots" (a way of balancing different life domains or areas)
2) Weekly Results (Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection) — a way of planning and reviewing on a weekly basis
3) Action, Reference, Calendar (Distinguishing actionable from the non-actionable matter)
The author himself calls it a "results framework for work and life". Compared to other popular systems, it is very modular and light-weight. There is no need to adapt it as a whole. While this is one of its strengths it is also its weakness. After reading the book no real "system" emerges. Rather loosely couple techniques are presented which is not necessarily helpful for a beginner.
One lesson I am taking from it
I specifically want to remember the idea, that one should not become a slave of one's backlog. A backlog is a catalog of potential action, not a must-do-list. Time changes the value of things and focusing too narrowly on everything in a backlog results in missed opportunities. So instead of being "backlog driven" one should think in terms of "value delivered".
Reading Recommendation / Who should read this?
Every modern book about personal productivity has to be compared with Getting Things Done
by David Allen. Making this comparison, I would not recommend this book to the average reader. Instead, just deeply read GTD and be done with it. For personal productivity geeks like myself, however, it can be a worthwhile read, though. It does not really read as a "book". It feels more like a collection of strategies, techniques, concepts, and metaphors. Like a summary, one has written for an upcoming exam, even. That is also why, although it contains good ideas, over time it got quite monotonous. There is just too much loosely connected content here.
I am rating it a 6 on my personal rating scale:
1 ⭑ — Abysmal; extremely bad. Couldn't / wouldn't finish. No one should waste his time on this!
2 ⭑— Very bad; skipped part of it; skimmed most of it.
3 ⭑⭑ — Bad, but forced me to finish; close to no nuggets to be found.
4 ⭑⭑ — Rather bad; finished but definitely would not give it a re-read.
5 ⭑⭑⭑ — Modest; a few nuggets; reading recommended in certain circumstances
6 ⭑⭑⭑ — OK; the average read. Tangible weaknesses, but recommended with some reservations
7 ⭑⭑⭑⭑ — Good read, despite minor weaknesses; generally recommended
8 ⭑⭑⭑⭑ — Very good; would recommend nearly without restriction
9 ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ — An outstanding work; worthwhile to be read twice or more often; a definitive recommendation
10 ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ — A work of genius; should be required for everyone
March 13, 2020
Possibly the most important book I’ve read on productivity as a lifestyle of habits, rather than a fad of buzzwords
This is one of the most important books I’ve ever read about real productive systems, as a lifestyle.
What’s so significant here, is that it’s about the interlocking and compounding systems that are composed of habits you create at different scales.
This is something that is missing in just about every other method I’ve encountered, including GTD. It’s not to knock gtd or other systems, it’s just to acknowledge that the practices in Agile Results are really about lifestyle changes across different scales, where as GTD and similar approaches, tend to be a bit more about complicated rules and practices that are about organizing lists and inboxes etc. Your an clearly do that kind of thing within the Agile Results framework, but its not the point of Agile Results in and of itself.
The essence of Agile Results, if I had to boil it down, is basically that you need to be able to have habits that you can continually rely on, to adjust and process what’s important, across the many areas and timescales of life. The reason that Agile Results is very unique in my opinion, is that its about creating a lifestyle where you have a “rhythm” of adjusting and creating results across difference scales.
I highly recommend it to anyone, not just those interested in productivity.
This is one of the most important books I’ve ever read about real productive systems, as a lifestyle.
What’s so significant here, is that it’s about the interlocking and compounding systems that are composed of habits you create at different scales.
This is something that is missing in just about every other method I’ve encountered, including GTD. It’s not to knock gtd or other systems, it’s just to acknowledge that the practices in Agile Results are really about lifestyle changes across different scales, where as GTD and similar approaches, tend to be a bit more about complicated rules and practices that are about organizing lists and inboxes etc. Your an clearly do that kind of thing within the Agile Results framework, but its not the point of Agile Results in and of itself.
The essence of Agile Results, if I had to boil it down, is basically that you need to be able to have habits that you can continually rely on, to adjust and process what’s important, across the many areas and timescales of life. The reason that Agile Results is very unique in my opinion, is that its about creating a lifestyle where you have a “rhythm” of adjusting and creating results across difference scales.
I highly recommend it to anyone, not just those interested in productivity.
August 9, 2016
This books would have been more suitable as a corporate workshop handbook on time management rather than a serious read. The same concepts, ideas even sentences kept re-occurring all though the book. Everything could have been summarized in 30 pages. I found chapter 10 - results frame, personas and pitfalls the most interesting part.
I heard about this book while working at Microsoft, and could "feel" the corporate approach of the author who has been a program manager at Microsoft for many years while reading it. I am a person who keeps weekly and daily todo lists, and even for me some of the techniques suggested, such as time-boxing your day, and having an exact plan, e.g.
7:00AM wake up
7:10AM workout
7:40AM shower
8:10AM breakfast
8:45AM drive to work
...
seemed too obsessive compulsive. I think it is much more effective to plan for the main goals for the day, rather than have specific slots allocated for each activity.
Overall an interesting read, but it could have been really shortened.
I heard about this book while working at Microsoft, and could "feel" the corporate approach of the author who has been a program manager at Microsoft for many years while reading it. I am a person who keeps weekly and daily todo lists, and even for me some of the techniques suggested, such as time-boxing your day, and having an exact plan, e.g.
7:00AM wake up
7:10AM workout
7:40AM shower
8:10AM breakfast
8:45AM drive to work
...
seemed too obsessive compulsive. I think it is much more effective to plan for the main goals for the day, rather than have specific slots allocated for each activity.
Overall an interesting read, but it could have been really shortened.
May 27, 2020
I want to give this book 5 stars. I just can't. I stumbled upon Agile Results while reading the great book Creating Flow with OmniFocus. Checked out the website, like what I read and purchased the book.
I could have stuck with the website.
The book is poorly edited, extremely repetitive and felt derivative. Some of the concepts I had heard before by different authors. That part isn't too bad because he does bring them together in an interesting way.
The big takeaway for me was the Rule of 3.
I'd suggest the author find a new editor and for the second edition focus on quality, not quantity. You have a lot of decent raw material here it's just poorly organized. It seemed like you took a bunch of blog posts put them together and didn't really hang a structure on it.
In the end, I'm going to put some of the ideas into practice and if it helps me, I'm happy to have supported the author. I just wish the material was laid out in a better way.
I could have stuck with the website.
The book is poorly edited, extremely repetitive and felt derivative. Some of the concepts I had heard before by different authors. That part isn't too bad because he does bring them together in an interesting way.
The big takeaway for me was the Rule of 3.
I'd suggest the author find a new editor and for the second edition focus on quality, not quantity. You have a lot of decent raw material here it's just poorly organized. It seemed like you took a bunch of blog posts put them together and didn't really hang a structure on it.
In the end, I'm going to put some of the ideas into practice and if it helps me, I'm happy to have supported the author. I just wish the material was laid out in a better way.
September 21, 2013
Although it repeat itself, there are a lot of good tips.
I'm putting into practice to do the worst things first and to delivery three things per day.
I'm putting into practice to do the worst things first and to delivery three things per day.
June 5, 2016
Nogal weinig ruggegraat in dit boek, dat dan nog eens vol met herhaling zit.
December 11, 2018
This book gives you three ways to read it - as a guide, cover to cover, or as a template, or take it for a test drive. I read it as a guide. I read it a few pages a night over a long period of time and I tried to use some of the basic ideas presented in my life, but never adopted the full structure.
I am an Agilist at work, mostly using Scrum, and I use personal kanban a lot in my daily work and personal life. This book presents a fairly complicated structure for being Agile in your life. Some principles of Agile are sprinkled throughout, but mostly it just seems like a structure that worked for the author and that he or she wished to share.
It's not a bad structure, and there are some good helpful ideas in this book. I find the Personal Kanban works a lot better for me, because I already had a fairly complex structure, actually not too dissimilar to the one recommended, and need more the limitations and simplicity of the Kanban board. That said, I will likely save this book and use it from time to time.
I gave it only three stars because a) it was not easy to read and understand the complex system. It needed to be broken down a bit more, or maybe put the test drive/templates earlier in, 2) it needed more practical examples of what various items like "hot spots" were intended to read, 3) although you could adopt some of it and not all of it, I was looking at the whole and it seemed unwieldy to me, 4) I didn't like the font/format and that took away from the pleasure of reading as well.
That said, I like the rule of three, but that can be similar to Kanban or woven into it. I liked the reference chapters with ideas and will return to them. For instance, I liked the idea to watch your mottos and pick good ones. And finally I want to say your mileage may vary. This book may be just the spot o' tea for you and your goal planning system.
For me, it had some value, but also some flaws, but overall I'm glad I read it. Maybe I will use some more of it and return and update if I find more value in time from the ideas, but I think my notation about organization will remain.
I am an Agilist at work, mostly using Scrum, and I use personal kanban a lot in my daily work and personal life. This book presents a fairly complicated structure for being Agile in your life. Some principles of Agile are sprinkled throughout, but mostly it just seems like a structure that worked for the author and that he or she wished to share.
It's not a bad structure, and there are some good helpful ideas in this book. I find the Personal Kanban works a lot better for me, because I already had a fairly complex structure, actually not too dissimilar to the one recommended, and need more the limitations and simplicity of the Kanban board. That said, I will likely save this book and use it from time to time.
I gave it only three stars because a) it was not easy to read and understand the complex system. It needed to be broken down a bit more, or maybe put the test drive/templates earlier in, 2) it needed more practical examples of what various items like "hot spots" were intended to read, 3) although you could adopt some of it and not all of it, I was looking at the whole and it seemed unwieldy to me, 4) I didn't like the font/format and that took away from the pleasure of reading as well.
That said, I like the rule of three, but that can be similar to Kanban or woven into it. I liked the reference chapters with ideas and will return to them. For instance, I liked the idea to watch your mottos and pick good ones. And finally I want to say your mileage may vary. This book may be just the spot o' tea for you and your goal planning system.
For me, it had some value, but also some flaws, but overall I'm glad I read it. Maybe I will use some more of it and return and update if I find more value in time from the ideas, but I think my notation about organization will remain.
January 1, 2020
I liked it a lot, and I feel like it is a much better fit for me than any of the other productivity systems which I have tried. At first glance, looking at all the various elements to it from the Rule of 3, to the learning sprints and everything in between it can seem somewhat daunting, but only if you attempt to implement it all at once and/or in exactly the same fashion as the author, which he very specifically encourages you not to do.
Start small and add from there one element at a time allowing you time to familiarize yourself with some of the ideas and the concepts before adding another one on, knowing that the second you get overwhelmed with the system or it feels like it's too much is the second you stop making use of it at all. There are a lot of intricacies to it which makes sense considering the fact that it is designed to be flexible and all-encompassing.
I'm also a huge fan of the fact that this system is much more goal-oriented and reflective which allows me to write my thoughts out long-form, which is what my natural inclination is towards in the first place. It is also hugely beneficial to me to know that regardless of whether or not I make a mistake, skip a day, a week, a month, the fresh start is part of the design, forcing me to keep it moving forward and to let it go and not dwell in the past, which anyone who knows me already knows happens to be an underlying strength of mine.
I would definitely recommend this book without reservations to anyone who is trying to make big moves in their life pursuing their dreams, hoping to make them reality, whether it's pursuing the perfect job, purchasing a home, anything else you can imagine (sidenote: this system even helps with that part as well!), and who aren't already sold on the idea of an inbox which you later have to go back and sort once more as opposed to using good common sense and making use of the touch it once principle.
Start small and add from there one element at a time allowing you time to familiarize yourself with some of the ideas and the concepts before adding another one on, knowing that the second you get overwhelmed with the system or it feels like it's too much is the second you stop making use of it at all. There are a lot of intricacies to it which makes sense considering the fact that it is designed to be flexible and all-encompassing.
I'm also a huge fan of the fact that this system is much more goal-oriented and reflective which allows me to write my thoughts out long-form, which is what my natural inclination is towards in the first place. It is also hugely beneficial to me to know that regardless of whether or not I make a mistake, skip a day, a week, a month, the fresh start is part of the design, forcing me to keep it moving forward and to let it go and not dwell in the past, which anyone who knows me already knows happens to be an underlying strength of mine.
I would definitely recommend this book without reservations to anyone who is trying to make big moves in their life pursuing their dreams, hoping to make them reality, whether it's pursuing the perfect job, purchasing a home, anything else you can imagine (sidenote: this system even helps with that part as well!), and who aren't already sold on the idea of an inbox which you later have to go back and sort once more as opposed to using good common sense and making use of the touch it once principle.
April 7, 2024
Read Part 1, Scan Part 2, don't bother with Part 3
This book starts off when a bang, I was immediately motivated to start putting some of it into action. And it has improved my task/time management. I like how the pieces are presented as stepping stones instead of a rigid all of nothing system the way many productivity methodologies are.
Part 1 explains all the pieces and how to use them. The Rule of 3, Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflections.
Part 2 uses those building blocks to build a system. The first few chapters of Part 2, give you some practical knowledge for using the building blocks, but as it moved along it started becoming repetitive and not as inspirational for me.
Part 3 is where things went downhill for me. The amount of repetition in these 5 chapters is off the charts, it is the same information repeated again and again, with a few words changed here and there. Apparently, even the editor got bored with Part 3, judging by the dramatic increase in grammar errors, cumbersome sentences, etc, that were not in the first 2 parts. It feels like the publisher said the book wasn't long enough, so they just kept rehashing the same info with a slightly different spin, to create an extra 80 pages.
I still gave the book a 4 star review, because of the power of the first Part. If I hadn't wasted my time reading Part 3 hoping to find any additional nuggets of wisdom, it would have been a 5 start review.
This book starts off when a bang, I was immediately motivated to start putting some of it into action. And it has improved my task/time management. I like how the pieces are presented as stepping stones instead of a rigid all of nothing system the way many productivity methodologies are.
Part 1 explains all the pieces and how to use them. The Rule of 3, Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflections.
Part 2 uses those building blocks to build a system. The first few chapters of Part 2, give you some practical knowledge for using the building blocks, but as it moved along it started becoming repetitive and not as inspirational for me.
Part 3 is where things went downhill for me. The amount of repetition in these 5 chapters is off the charts, it is the same information repeated again and again, with a few words changed here and there. Apparently, even the editor got bored with Part 3, judging by the dramatic increase in grammar errors, cumbersome sentences, etc, that were not in the first 2 parts. It feels like the publisher said the book wasn't long enough, so they just kept rehashing the same info with a slightly different spin, to create an extra 80 pages.
I still gave the book a 4 star review, because of the power of the first Part. If I hadn't wasted my time reading Part 3 hoping to find any additional nuggets of wisdom, it would have been a 5 start review.
January 17, 2021
Getting Results the Agile Way is a productivity book on building a Personal Productivity System to manage your life - both work and personal. I’d recommend this book for anyone starting to build a productivity system for themselves. If you are familiar with Agile concepts and methodologies, a lot of it might be familiar, but still worth a quick skim if you are looking to pick up a trick or two.
Key Takeaways:
Rule of 3
Favor Action over Thinking - Iterate and improve
Fix Time and Flex Scope
Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection
Having a good system is an important aspect of being and staying productive. Motivation get's us started, habits and systems are what keeps us going. This is a great book to lay the foundation of that personalized system for you.
Review:
I have been working with Agile methodologies for a while and familiar with a lot of concepts mentioned. Also, I felt the book repeating the same ideas and concepts a lot over and over again. It also got a bit confusing with the same concepts and ideas coming under different sections.
If you are interested in the book summary/notes check out here.
Key Takeaways:
Rule of 3
Favor Action over Thinking - Iterate and improve
Fix Time and Flex Scope
Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection
Having a good system is an important aspect of being and staying productive. Motivation get's us started, habits and systems are what keeps us going. This is a great book to lay the foundation of that personalized system for you.
Review:
I have been working with Agile methodologies for a while and familiar with a lot of concepts mentioned. Also, I felt the book repeating the same ideas and concepts a lot over and over again. It also got a bit confusing with the same concepts and ideas coming under different sections.
If you are interested in the book summary/notes check out here.
September 14, 2020
New and very helpful techniques
I am a perpetual procrastinator and always late. I love self help and time/life management books and find them informative and inspiring. I always find useful ideas and gain insights from these books, but have trouble applying the principles in my daily life. Getting Results the Agile Way uses pretty much the same principles as other classic and popular books, but it really tweaks the way you look at time/life management and incorporate it into your own life. He has good questions for you to ask yourself, ways to look at your day, your week, your life, techniques and tricks for salvaging a day or week gone wrong. Useful ideas are presented, then reinforced throughout the book. The author anticipates snafus and walks you through ways to avoid them or correct them.
Stephen Covey presented new thinking on time/life management and was the most inspirational author on the subject. Getting Results the Agile Way is in sync with Covey’s thinking, but the author holds your hand by sharing unique and practical ways to make time management actually work for you; then he reinforces and repeats his techniques throughout the book.
I am a perpetual procrastinator and always late. I love self help and time/life management books and find them informative and inspiring. I always find useful ideas and gain insights from these books, but have trouble applying the principles in my daily life. Getting Results the Agile Way uses pretty much the same principles as other classic and popular books, but it really tweaks the way you look at time/life management and incorporate it into your own life. He has good questions for you to ask yourself, ways to look at your day, your week, your life, techniques and tricks for salvaging a day or week gone wrong. Useful ideas are presented, then reinforced throughout the book. The author anticipates snafus and walks you through ways to avoid them or correct them.
Stephen Covey presented new thinking on time/life management and was the most inspirational author on the subject. Getting Results the Agile Way is in sync with Covey’s thinking, but the author holds your hand by sharing unique and practical ways to make time management actually work for you; then he reinforces and repeats his techniques throughout the book.
June 21, 2019
Overall, I really think this book has some great concepts and they are applicable to a variety of jobs.
I find the book itself overly repetitive and that makes it feel confusing. I found it difficult to get started even though the author said it was easy as just making a list of your top three outcomes.
In my case, I have a lot of projects and I feel overwhelmed with it all. My challenge is in capturing it all and then breaking it done. It’s in Detroit wining my outcomes and not my tasks. That’s difficult for me and I can probably give a dozen reasons why, but ultimately it’s knowing how to prioritize and understand the scope of your work. I’m going through a lot of transition right now (and rebelling ) and that doesn’t help.
I’ll continue to try this method because I do believe it will help but I have to figure out how to do it with my life.
I find the book itself overly repetitive and that makes it feel confusing. I found it difficult to get started even though the author said it was easy as just making a list of your top three outcomes.
In my case, I have a lot of projects and I feel overwhelmed with it all. My challenge is in capturing it all and then breaking it done. It’s in Detroit wining my outcomes and not my tasks. That’s difficult for me and I can probably give a dozen reasons why, but ultimately it’s knowing how to prioritize and understand the scope of your work. I’m going through a lot of transition right now (and rebelling ) and that doesn’t help.
I’ll continue to try this method because I do believe it will help but I have to figure out how to do it with my life.
August 16, 2021
There was nothing new in this book for me having done the secret weapon technique for years combined with MIT's (most important tasks), eating that frog and bullet journaling. There's also some elements from the book Kaizen by Sarah Harvey. Though the could would should prioritising of your three tasks is something I will take away from this.
I would recommend this book to someone who has never done any productivity methods before. It's one of the better written productivity books that isn't just a glorified blog post.
Unfortunately you could easily get overwhelmed as a beginner by all the content and miss something key.
I also think that the language is very inaccessible to those outside of the tech industry. Something to watch out for if you've never worked on an agile software development project.
I would recommend this book to someone who has never done any productivity methods before. It's one of the better written productivity books that isn't just a glorified blog post.
Unfortunately you could easily get overwhelmed as a beginner by all the content and miss something key.
I also think that the language is very inaccessible to those outside of the tech industry. Something to watch out for if you've never worked on an agile software development project.
January 28, 2018
The book describes systems and practices for getting to the outcomes one aspires to, while also making sure that their life as a whole is balanced and the 'right' attention and care are allocated to all the realms that make up a functioning life.
The ideas and systems presented seem to be rooted in a lot of common sense and distilled through experience and a lot of self reflection. Thus, I personally value most of them.
The evident caveat that the book has though is that it is pretty repetitive. In this case, though I didn't mind it that much because it makes you reflect more. But it can be a bit dragging.
The ideas and systems presented seem to be rooted in a lot of common sense and distilled through experience and a lot of self reflection. Thus, I personally value most of them.
The evident caveat that the book has though is that it is pretty repetitive. In this case, though I didn't mind it that much because it makes you reflect more. But it can be a bit dragging.
August 27, 2018
A good summary of many different techniques I've read about through the years. I've thought of making a hybrid productivity system a long time ago since I read "Getting Things Done" to update it to this analog world.
This is exactly what I had in mind. The book suffers due to lack of depth but it summarizes neatly all the things I want to build on the system. It can be more cohesive and synergistic but this is still a good intro.
I suggest reading this cover to cover, then going to The 7 habits of highly successful people, Getting Things Done and read about SCRUM to get more in depth data.
This is exactly what I had in mind. The book suffers due to lack of depth but it summarizes neatly all the things I want to build on the system. It can be more cohesive and synergistic but this is still a good intro.
I suggest reading this cover to cover, then going to The 7 habits of highly successful people, Getting Things Done and read about SCRUM to get more in depth data.
September 25, 2018
Redesign Your Processes
I really found this book helpful. It is full of information. Sometimes I get bored when there are a great number of stories to illustrate the principles that the author is speaking about. This was just right.
The author structured the book so that you can understand and remember the concepts. At the beginning of each chapter, he would say what you would learn. Then he gave the concepts. At the end of each chapter was a summary.
The Rule of Three was great to learn. I usually overwhelm myself with way too much to do, and then I get frustrated. By focusing on the top three items for a day…month…year really helps me focus.
I really found this book helpful. It is full of information. Sometimes I get bored when there are a great number of stories to illustrate the principles that the author is speaking about. This was just right.
The author structured the book so that you can understand and remember the concepts. At the beginning of each chapter, he would say what you would learn. Then he gave the concepts. At the end of each chapter was a summary.
The Rule of Three was great to learn. I usually overwhelm myself with way too much to do, and then I get frustrated. By focusing on the top three items for a day…month…year really helps me focus.
December 10, 2018
This book is complete waste of time. It's the purest example of a book pumped up by endless repetitions and meaningless phrases, just to make it voluminous. For example, the author introduces the concept of "life Hot spot:mind, body, emotions, career, financial, relationships, and fun" and repeats the whole phrase dozens of times throughout the book.
Another striking example is the following "pearl" : "One of the best ways to make the most of any situation is to ask yourself, 'How can I make the most of the situation?'"
This is my first one-star review. I'd give this book even less, but it is impossible. Highly not recommended!!
Another striking example is the following "pearl" : "One of the best ways to make the most of any situation is to ask yourself, 'How can I make the most of the situation?'"
This is my first one-star review. I'd give this book even less, but it is impossible. Highly not recommended!!
July 25, 2021
Don't get me wrong - this is not a bad book. There is a lot of great, useful advice. It's just that I read most of it already somewhere else, and I didn't especially connect with the writing.
This is a solid book, with concrete advice. There are a fair amount of repetition, but that is how you burn the important information into your brain.
What I will definitely take out from this book is Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection Principles.
This is a solid book, with concrete advice. There are a fair amount of repetition, but that is how you burn the important information into your brain.
What I will definitely take out from this book is Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection Principles.
November 12, 2018
For someone who's trying to create a system for productivity, there were some useful tips that I was able to apply such as the Rule of 3, and the templates that were provided.
What made me NOT finish the book though is that it contains a lot of repetitive and redundant ideas that I just decided to skim the rest of the book.
What made me NOT finish the book though is that it contains a lot of repetitive and redundant ideas that I just decided to skim the rest of the book.
July 21, 2019
This system works for me. I use it daily. I learned from his 30 Days of Getting Results website. http://www.30daysofgettingresults.com I thought reading the book would help. Far from it. The first half of the book over-explains his process; the second half of the book is nothing more than lists full of redundancies. If you don't want to despise the system, skip the book altogether.
November 3, 2019
In general, I am attracted to applying SW engineering or computer engineering concepts into real life situations. This book starts out good while discussing the planning methods and the friday reflection concept which I liked. However, it then moves on to useless talks about techniques and motivation,...etc.. I felt I am just reading an endless self help book.
March 14, 2017
Good as a reference for people who have read about these ideas in other books. But this would probably be a dull read for anyone just getting into personal productivity. Many lists of ideas without much explanation. Lots of repetition.
May 16, 2017
It was pretty repetitive, but it does have a lot of good examples to live your life in an agile manner. I would have liked more examples of what some of the daily, week, monthly visions would have looked like.
December 25, 2017
A mix of Stephen Covey, Getting Things Done, and agile development. Some people complain it's repetitive, but I think it's more iterative -- you can skim to the parts that resonate for you, and then read deeper, and some points will be reiterated there.
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