And Sharpen Your Creative Mind (99U) - Build Your Routine

This book is just "OK" by me. Interesting but nothing of exceptional value if you use your head a bit. These thoughts in the book are only things that we don't think about so it is a good reminder.

I learned so much about myself reading this book. I felt that finally I understood how I work and don't work. I was able to identify a weight on my shoulders that I had carried for a long time that was slowing me down to a stop. This book helped me identify that weight and learn how to get rid of it.

What I read in this book has revolutionised my thinking. I can't wait to read it again and again. It'll be like watching 'Back to the Future' - finding new things at each viewing.

Recommending this book doesn't seem enough. Compelling you to read it seems more appropriate. If you're a creative, you'll be the better for it.

I found this book really helpful for several reasons:
* most of the chapters are really practical, and easy to find take aways from
* with short chapters its easy to read a chapter a day in pricess of evaluating your habits
* different voices gives a refrahing feel of never having"got" what will come for rest of book.

I can highly recommend it.

If I where to say anything negative it would be that the last few chapters probably didn't li e quite up to e high standards of rest of the book.

I love this little book of inspiring essays. It is small and I keep it in the console of my car for reading whenever I get 'stuck' somewhere. It is fun to read, but also puts a fire under my butt about being creative and using time well. Five star, highly recommend.

Such an inspiring and practical book.

After reading it I changed my work schedule. No emails or social media before lunch. Use the morning for focused, intentional work. That was nearly four months ago and it has borne me some superb fruit.

Buy the paperback as the design adds to the enjoyment of this book.

I purchased this book because I have repeatedly struggled with finding and sticking to a daily routine that allows me to focus and produce my best work. Many insights were things I've heard before; however, the different authors perspectives really challenged me to think deeper and decide which solutions I can implement to make the most of the gift of today.

I am a freelance multimedia designer and I am now reading this book for the 4th time through.

I recommend it to all of my friends. It has a lot of great insights into business and artistic habits both for commercial and independent artists like myself. The fact that many people contribute to the book makes it a really easy and re-readable book too. I love the fact that they highlight Key Takeaways at the end of each chapter too so when I am feeling down about a certain area I can quickly refer to a checklist of things to help keep things moving again.

From a design standpoint the book is beautiful. Great quotes, colors, and font choices all around.

This is chicken soup for the creative soul. Brief inspirational essays that offer opportunity to.reflect on one's creative endeavors. All are aimed at supporting the transition of would be professionals at making the transition to becoming a creative professional. Worth a read, but ultimately a light read. To get the most out of it, read. through once and then again, writing or drawing the resonant elements of each essay and review that work from time to time.

There is plenty of solid good advice in the book. But I suspect there will be little that you have not come across before. That said, it’s relative brevity and range of contributors allows for a handy quick reference or refresher.

Relevant, insightful, thought provoking. This book has helped me look at my work and personal life and make changes that have improved my time and life. I recommend this to everyone I talk to. You're crazy if you don't read this.

A good compilation from different authors, providing insight and dissipating miths and habits sabotagging our creative minds.
Practical, but not a "one size feats all" approach. It provides suggestions and ways to deal with your priorities and self management to improve your creative mind.

Really good book for getting your life's schedule to be more productive and more satisfying. I really enjoyed the ideas for staying focused
and on track for achieving the best of your creativity every day.

This satisfying compilation challenges longheld assumptions about creativity, productivity, and the brain's fractured ability to multi-task. It's helped me examine how I work and why I veer from short-term jobs and long-term goals. For me, the book offers a new filter for viewing workaday life -- a view that's helped re-energize my work at age 60.

This is a compilation of thoughts, interviews and reflections from a wide variety of intellectuals and creative individuals. I was surprised on how easy it was to go through this book and how many of its ideas made an impact on me.
This is truly a great book and something worth reading more than once!

The book is packed with great tips and techniques from creative professionals that will help you stay productive and perform. It has practical insights and great anecdotes which should keep you engaged all the way till the last page. Most of the essays are filled with productivity gems broken down into simple easy to follow lists that can have great impact on your daily routines .

Overall a great book on productivity

This book is a collection a many different authors who focus on how to channel creativity and to maximize your time in a world full of digital distractions. I enjoyed several of the studies discussed in which email is defined as one of our biggest distractions.

In a world with ever increasing demands and diversions it becomes more and more difficult for most of us to manage our time. Specifically, having the opportunity to dig into work and get things done can be the ultimate challenge. Emails, group schedules, and virtual meeting may be useful tools hatched from the information age, but they also present a new set of distractions that make bearing down and producing good work problematic. Add in android phone applications and social media (Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Pinterest) there are even more balls to juggle.

The idea with the book is to compile best practices from specialists that have the expertise and the collective abilities to explain how to get things done. The book is laid out through a series of brief but effective chapters with each of the book’s contributors presenting a short article or interview describing what they have found to be the best ways to manage work.

To make it practicable, the Manage Your Day-To-Day is broken down into four sections each hold their own as separate pieces while flowing seamlessly from one to the next.

The first such section, Building a Rock-Solid Routine, zooms in on practices that are imperative for having a system in place to get work done but also leave inspiration for creativity. An interview with marketing guru Seth Godin is a motivating piece entitled: Honing Your Creative Practice.

The Finding Focus in a Distracted World section includes five best practice stories for dealing with workplace diversions. The best of the bunch is a question and answer piece with the behavioral economist Dan Ariely. Understanding Your Compulsions explains many of the traps that email creates for sidetracking our work day. Ariely also suggests viable solutions to such distractions.
The section Taming Your Tools explains how to best blend and utilize the growing choices of internet and technology tools with the more traditional problems of workplace efficiency. The stand out here is Banishing Multitasking from Our Repertoire by psychologist Dr. Christian Jarrett.

Sharpening Your Creative Mind makes up the book’s final section which emphasizes the need to enhance our creative work on a regular basis. Letting Go of Perfectionism by Elizabeth Grace Saunders is one of four standout pieces in this unit.
I enjoyed this well-organized series of best practices for time and workplace management presented in Manage Your Day-To-Day. It’s a good change of pace and sometimes makes sense to have multiple expert recommendations instead of the standard, elongated, one author-single theory book.

Manage Your Day-To-Day is one of several recent books that address the growing problem of workplace productivity. Several months ago I read the book The Four Hour Work Week, where author Timothy Ferris offers up his unique ways to eliminate work distractions and unique methods for working less and working when and where you really want to. According to Ferris, doing work that excites you is more important than that next conference call. The Four Hour Work Week set the business world on its ear when it was first released. Another book that comes to mind is Boring Meetings Suck which draws a line in the sand for the tired and outdated practice of “meetings, just to have meetings”.

Manage Your Day-To-Day provides a logical follow up to both of these books. With a minimal amount of monetary and time investment, Manage Your Day-To-Day is a great choice to have close by for those times in the day when you wonder exactly what you are supposed to be doing.

Bottom Line: In addition to being an interesting and enjoyable read, Manage Your Day-To-Day can serve as a reference guide or a go-to source for those times when your work week is careening off the tracks.

This book has great tips for a creative juggling many ideas and projects. It has literal examples and reminds the reader that their day job is only part of the creative equation. Just what I needed to develop a better routine for my day to product better results.

This book changed my life. As a creative person, if you have ever dealt with procrastination, perfectionism, or have just found yourself needing a more productive way to get stuff done, this is the perfect book. It's full of insightful stories and advice from numerous artists and successful do-ers. I've found myself quoting this book multiple times to friends, family, and co-workers.

This was an amazing read that helped me to prioritize the work in my life. I now wake up, take a run, have a cup of tea and make it my business to create something that makes me happy prior to hopping onto my computer for work. Highly recommended for any artist.

I actually expected to be disappointed by this book. I've read so many business and creative development books I'd almost sworn off them. However, there were so many things I highlighted that I look forward to going back and rereading them to kick start the new year.

I found this book to be incredibly insightful and it's fun to watch how it's affecting my day to day work life.
I'll start doing something and realize that I learned a new tip or trick or even just became self-aware of a certain behavior because of something I've read in this book.
This book is teaching me to become more grounded in my work and my personal life.
It's much more than just another "business book". It's a little life guide!

Cant put it down, so much great info and facebook status gold (if your inspirational ever)... Great read for creatives or if you need a change from a computer job. Would def recommend it to any designers.

I like the format. Little nuggets of information/ inspiration. This is not one "guru" dictating the "one true path" towards stress free organization. Consider it more like a pep talk. I have been recommending it.

This was a nice collection of articles with inspiration and techniques for doing the hard work even when you don't feel like it. I especially appreciate the sections on overcoming procrastination and perfectionism, as well as the discussions of limiting/eliminating distractions.

Although most of us believe that we have our schedules, responsibilities, and lives in check, there's so much we can improve upon. Almost with every chapter I was nodding my head "yes" in agreement because the experiences and examples were so familiar. This is a great read and I would recommend it anyone.

Not every article is this little book will interest or apply to you, and some of them certainly will. What a great idea to include short pieces from so many people. So often a book that promises to straighten out your life misses just because you're oriented to life differently than the author. Aspiring writer? Try laughing off Gretchen Rubin's "Harnessing the Power of Frequency" or Erin Rooney Doland's "Learning to Create Amidst Chaos."

This book has given enlightenment to assess the use of our time. It is practical guidance that if you apply it every day, you will be able to become more productive. This book won't be useful if you do not put your effort to change your habit. Small thing that we keep repeatedly do it everyday can make greater difference than big thing we only do it in one day.These words from this book has glued in my mind. I get valuable advice from different persons in this book. The book is easy to read.

Short, sharp bursts of inspiring yet practical tips - highly recommend for anyone wanting to set up much n ended rituals in their lives. I liked the input from various creative professionals & the acknowledgement that there is no "1 size fits all' cookie cutter approach.

Consider yourself a creative? You need this book (especially if you work for yourself). As someone who has to read everything on The Internets even remotely related to design, business, creativity and productivity, this is like the best of all of those articles, by the rock stars of the creative world. It's essentially a blog in book form - not something you want to read in one sitting, but digest a chapter a day and revisit often.

In addition to my own, I've purchased 3+ copies of this now to give as gifts. Especially great for designers who don't have time to read everything on The Internets or (like myself) actually prefer paper and ink. On this note - the layout is, as expected, fantastic, and the cover is embossed and has a soft-touch coating, which is awesome both because a) it's cool and b) it can be wiped down, since you have a 50% chance of receiving with bonus greasy fingerprints.

As an aside - if you're not familiar with 99U, remedy that quickly. It's one of two blogs I read religiously, and I'll continue to purchase every book they put out (the other blog is anything from the guys at Buffer).

I am finding that this book has little nuggets of wisdom that I can apply immediately-- and they work. I have learned how to spend my time better and get more things done. Plus, I love the short quotes at the beginning of each chapter.