Tag Archives: Personal Management

The Value of Knowing What Lies Ahead

When I was in 8th grade, my English teacher wanted to give everyone a book to take into high school.  She had a cardboard box full of various books. There was literary fiction like Toni Morrison.  There was a memory aid for American presidents. But I came to class really late that day, so by the time I went up to the box, there were only a few books left.  I had the great choice between Billy Budd (dryest. book. ever.), Atlas Shrugged, and this book called Getting Things Done.

I picked up Getting Things Done because Atlas Shrugged didn’t fit in my bookbag.   It would be years before I realized that self-help productivity books is in itself a major genre of nonfiction.  At the time it just didn’t make sense why anyone would need such pathologic level of compulsion to keep things organized.

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