Review: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

If you are uncertain in the choices you have to make in your life, if you lack self-confidence and feel you waste your life, this book might well be helpful and eye-opening. If you feel there is too much feminism, liberalism and disregard for religion and tradition in your country, this book might well reinforce your views.

Since I do not feel I belong to either category of people, this book was a disappointment. A lot of words, a lot of citing Bible, a lot of stories to explain rather straight-forwards truths.

These 12 "rules" makes a lot of sense: do not overprotect your children, select friends carefully, be humble, do not lie, wish good to yourself, benchmark your performance against your past as opposed to others and so on. But there are so many other - better - books you can find good illustrations for these "rules".

The only parts of the book I enjoyed were the anecdotal stories of Peterson's childhood and teenage years in rural Canada, with its harsh winters and plentiful booze to be cheered up. In that regards, Peterson is a good story-teller.

Review: The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done

The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter F. Drucker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a book from 1966 - and is said to be a founding book for self-help management literature. It is not an exciting book to read (a bit dry and academic, albeit witty style), but several of the advice here is timeless for any manager.

Some basic truths that a manager betters asks himself/herself time-to-time:

• Does my time tend to belong to everybody else?
• Does the flow of events determines what am I doing as a manager - or am I leading my own time?
• Am I focusing on the inside of my organisation (structures, politics, reviews, audits etc) - or on the outside, my clients?
• Do I have time available to me in comparatively large chunks, without constant interruptions and time-wasters?
• Am I being busy - or do I do things that contribute to achieving results?
• Do we as an organisation do something that we would not start over if we had chance to do so now? If yes, why are we still doing it?
• What are my “posteriorities” - that is, tasks not to tackle?

...and this reminder is worth contemplating over:

"The supply of time is totally inelastic. No matter how high the demand, the supply will not go up. There is no price for it and no marginal utility curve for it. Moreover, time is totally perishable and cannot be stored. Yesterday’s time is gone forever and will never come back. Time is, therefore, always in exceedingly short supply."