The Time Bandit Solution by Edward G. Brown

I requested this book because I really need to manage my time well. What I got was a book that was about time management, but focused on time management in the workplace. Oops.

To summarise the Time Bandit Solution, to manage your time, get rid of distractions by time-locking. What is time locking? It's setting aside a period of time where you are not interrupted by anything. The first part of the book was basically about how you can convince your bosses, clients and colleagues how to let you organise your time so this is possible.

While it was rather repetitive at first (especially since I was convinced of the benefits early on, and didn't think the rest was applicable), the last part of the book was slightly better. The author went on to talk about decision fatigue, scheduling, and all that. While I don't think I'll be using his focusing meditation exercise, I did manage to pick up some helpful tips about how to schedule my time.

I do have a thought though. Other books I read say that for studying, it's best to vary what you do and what you revise. Same goes for practicing sports. For example, it's best to practice a random mix of irons, drivers, putters and such in golf than to spend the whole practice on iron, the next one on drivers, etc. But here, the main focus is on setting aside a block of time to do one thing. The compromise that I can find is that in this one block, you can have variation, but you have to have only one purpose. Either that or the skills for study and work are different.

Basically, this would be an excellent book for someone who wants to learn how to be more effective in the office. The author goes into detail about what you should say, what you should write to convince your boss. For the rest of us, you can just skim and pick what you need.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.