Get Abstract for short versions of Business Books
This is a quite nice service. GetAbstract.com offers summaries of over 4000 business books.
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So instead of reading 200+ pages, you get a 5 pages summary as a PDF, and a 20 minute MP3 summary for your Ipod!
The only downside of this service is their business model. You can choose between a gold and a silver subscription. I don't like those.
The gold subscription is the one I really want, but it's pretty steeply priced at 299$ a year. It's the one that'll let me pick and choose any book. And they'll me new summaries every week.
The silver one, is the one I can afford, at 89$ a year. BUT this only gives me a summary every other week, based on a personal interest profile (so I don't get to choose myself), and a bonus 4 books, that I can choose freely.
Check it out. You can download two free examples. One of the is Blue Ocean Strategy, which is a killer book!
- Jens Poder
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Reward yourself for frequent Weekly Reviews
It's a funny thing really. When you lead other people, you tend to use a lot of encouragement and rewards, to inspire the right behaviour. But when you lead yourself, these motivational tricks often gets replaced with tough self-discipline & harsh selfblame, when failing to reach goals set for oneself.Well... half a year ago, I decided to stop selfblaming and start self-rewarding instead. The reward-scheme was invented to get me into a better Weekly Review habit. The Weekly Review part of the Getting Things Done system is notoriously difficult to implement, probably because sitting down for 2-3 hours and reviewing your system, is a very big time-investment, and thus difficult to find the time for. At the time, my weekly review was more of a Montly Review actually, which meant the GTD-system simply wasn't working.So what to do?My idea was to find a very special reward, that I could gradually earn by making weekly reviews. (I have described the concept in detail in danish here)So for every finished weekly review, I would gain a little cash to get the special reward. The amount set was 100 dkr (19 US $).
The Extra Special RewardI chose a costly Coffee Grinder as the reward for all my efforts. The Rancilio Rocky was a wonderful piece of machinery, that I had wanted for a long long time. But it was so expensive, that I had never really seriously considered buying it. It just seemed too extravagant to spend 2400 dkr (445 US $) on a thing to grind coffee. 2400 dkr buys a lot of coffee! So as a special reward is was perfect!
- It was expensive
- It was something I had an irrational desire to get
- It wasn't something I would buy otherwise
For a every weekly review completed, I would take a physical 100 kroner-bill, and put it in an envelope. And with this routine in place I started the proces of saving up for the remarkable coffee grinder. This was the 1st of december 2006.33 Weeks went bySlowly the envelope got fatter, as a nice bundle of bills accumulated. It really was a nice experience for someone prone to swiping the credit card and getting instant gratification.Here is a diagram of my progress:
So I was able to get 24 weekly reviews needed to buy the Rocky in 33 weeks. This was quite a wonderfull success. I went from 1 montly review on average, to 3 monthly reviews on average. A threefold increase!Trophee Aquired!So now I have it! I bought it yesterday taking my envelope to the gourmet coffee store. It felt great taking out a fat bundle of bills, handing it over and getting the heavy cardbox box with the Rancilio logo on it.So now I have it in my kitchen next to the espresso machine. And every time I look at it, I get this happy sensation inside. It's not the normal feeling of: "I bought something expensive that I thought would change my life, but now I'm a little disappointed." It's a feeling of triumph!I is like looking at a treasured trophee. It is my prize for a great achievement!And now it's time to sit down with a cuppa, and figuring out the next big extra special reward, that my, ever more frequent, weekly reviews, will get me. I'm considering the following:
- A set of podspeakers for my Ipod?
- A B&O earset2 for my Nokia E61i?
- A vintage Parker 51 fountain pen?
What to choose? Any Ideas?- Jens Poder
Technorati Tags: GTD, weekly_review, productivity, lifehack
Husk at stramme møtrikken!
Jeg læste et fint citat her af Shigeo Shingo, ekspert i Toyotas effektive produktions systemer, som har været inspirationskilden til hele LEAN-bevægelsen.
Citatet er som følger:
"It's only the last turn of a bolt that tightens it - the rest is just movement."
Citatet minder mig om organisationsforandringer jeg har været deltager i, og også nogle jeg selv har været med til at gennemføre. Når man glemmer at dreje skruen den sidste omgang der strammer den, mister man hele værdien af arbejdet.
- Jens Poder
Se hvordan forandring sker! – Shift Happens
Min kollega Henrik fandt dette slideshow, der gennemg岠hvordan verden fundamentalt forandres.
http://www.slideshare.net/jbrenman/shift-happens-33834
Det er fra sitet slideshare, hvor man kan gemme og publicere powerpoint-shows.
- Jens Poder
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