Others say...

"Takes a personal approach to organization and management"
When he wrote this book, Hyrum Smith was CEO of Franklin Quest, which has since merged with Stephen Covey, Ph.D. to form Franklin Covey. This company conducts time management seminars for corporations, organizations, and government agencies. Franklin Covey also sells a wide variety of day-planners, scheduling books, calenders, and other time management tools.

Smith contends, and rightly so, that there is more to managing time than getting things done. By understanding one's own value system, he says, one can decide what matters most, set priorities, and accomplish goals. The marketing strength of the company keeps the book alive.

"Looks like rephrasing of Time Power by Charles Hobbs"
I got the book at a second-hand story and as I read it, it was if someone had taken Charles Hobb's book Time Power and rephrased it. It even used the what would you cross a beam between the world trade towers for to discover what you valued most. It's a good book, but I think Hobb's is a much more useful book.

"Strategic! Helpful or not? Depends"
I have a very mixed feeling about this book. I like it much. That's for sure. However, it's so strategic (On the other hand, the author's another book "What matters most? The power of living your values" is even more strategic or less tactical)that talks much about the importance and benefits of time and life management. For those who dont know so, you will definitely gain much if you start acting on them. However, for those who want to further improve themselves and sharpen their edge by learning more tactical advice, they might not be very satisfied. For your own judgement, below please find a copy and paste of the 10 Laws. Hope you find them helpful.

Part I Managing your time:-

L1: You control your life by controlling your time
L2: Your governing values are the foundation of personal success and fulfillment
L3: When your daily activities reflect your governing values, you experience inner peace.
L4: To reach any significant goal, you must leave your comfort zone.
L5: Consistent daily planning leverages time and increases focus.

Part II Managing your life
L6: Your behavior is a reflection of what you truly believe.
L7: You satisfy needs when your beliefs are in line with reality.
L8: Negative behaviors are overcome by changing incorrect beliefs
L9: Your self-esteem must ultimately come from within.
L10: Give more and you'll have more.

p.s. I like the chapter on Law 10 the most. It's the author's own story of how to give more and have more by being a servant leader in the army. Really enlightening.


"10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management"
I have read many books on time management. Most of them are based upon the same theories, which are making to do lists and prioritzing your activities. The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management takes time managment a step further. This book is not just about time mangament, but about life management.


"First ask yourself this..."
Do you want to become more effective and efficient or do you want to feel better and motivated? The problem with so many self help books these days is that the allow a person to simply feel nice and motivated for a little while. These companies don't make money by solving the problems that impede your success, they make money by patching them. This book was nice, but I was looking for something to help people I care about actually become more effective, I find so few books accomplish this. Here is my best advice to people who are tired of patching and want to start enjoying the tasks that lead to success... I believe that you can enjoy everything that you do to meet your goals. I'm going to recommend a book that does not talk cute to you, it does not provide the kind of sappy success stories which at times can seem exaggerated at best such as Hyrum's book. It's a toolbox, a user's manual for your brain. The trick is that you have to spend sometime and apply the tools. When I first was given this stuff by a friend of mine, I thought he had lost it but the stuff works amazingly well. Introduction to NLP by O'connor and Seymore, when you read it, it's not going to tell you what to do to fix your life, it's going to provide you with tools. Here is what you can do with the tools... Allow your actions become congruent with your values, belief, purpose, whatever. I'm not religious myself but I imagine this can make things a little easier. It discusses "congruency" in a clear concise fashion that will be motivating in itself it's called the Dilt's model I believe. Essentially, if you understand what you want (may require some introspection, you maybe surprised how much we can learn by having a little internal dialog with ourselves) and measure all aspects of it's value relative to you, make some goals, short term, mid term and long term. Simple so far? Okay, to begin everyday, spend time planning your day in a way that reflects your values, i.e. your goals. Every time your doing something, anything, understand why your doing it, why it has value. This book will teach you to "anchor" your goal and it's attached value that it has, to everything you do, down to your valuable leisure time and taking out the trash. Done consistently over a period of time, and this may allow you to reframe the way you think about your opportunities to accomplish your goals how easy it is to "feel good" about your daily routine. Once you do this, which may require you step a little outside your comfort zone, you may find how easy it is to begin to be proactive in all aspects of your life leading ultimately to personal success. As far as the 10 natural laws book goes, it maybe worth while to some, I enjoyed the warm fuzzy teachings in the first 7 chapters of 10, Hyrum seems like such a nice guy I hate to criticize but I mean, he wrote a book, so hear goes...

Hyrum is fairly self absorbed and has lost touch with the outside world, his focus is overly concerned with convincing the reader that he has impacted others with his stories that only a few of these are very useful. I do admit that I really liked some of his stories before he began to fall off the deep end later in the book. The book has an underlying religious agenda which can be a great motivator for so many people that it seems appropriate and unobtrusive until he starts taking up large amount of one page space for scripture and devotes an entire chapter toward altruistic behavior. I suppose this wouldn't be offensive if I didn't feel that the author was a lot less than honest with his stories. I will never knock a person to exaggerate or fib to get a point across and motivate people, it's not my style, but none the less the author has good intent. I am concerned however that some of the authors stories seem very unrealistic especially when describing social interaction and in one example, the high school class incident for those of you who have read, showed a lack of respect, understanding, and a clear prejudice with respect to the students who have problems. The weirdest part is when you ponder what type of person would fabricate this type of story. Anyway, that stuff is mostly in the end of the book and up to that point he does an excellent job of framing the reader on things such as "time robbers". An excellent way to view the things that get in your way of spending your time in the way you planned. As long as you buy this book knowing that you will never reference it for time management, it's a nice motivational read to provide fish for a day, if your done with these pep talk books and want solution, maybe you want to give the NLP route a try. Just a thought.