Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind

If "procrastinator" isn't my middle name, it's only because my parents didn't want to embarrass me. I am a strange hybrid--a creative person who is also a type A++ personality. I do not perform at my best without some sort of structure. When I left graduate school for the life of a freelance writer, I found myself drowning in "free" time with little sense of how to reach my ever-growing (because I never actually reached one and got to cross it off!) list of goals. It took me years to develop the discipline and solid work habits that came to me so naturally as a student. MANAGE YOUR DAY-TO-DAY isn't a long or exhaustive exploration of time management and life balance. It's a tiny, targeted little primer full of good advice on building a solid work routine, focusing creative energy, surviving constant connectivity, and generating new ideas. Each section includes short articles by working artists and contemporary thought leaders that get straight to the meat of the given topic such as Harnessing the Power of Frequency, Making Room for Solitude, Learning to Create Amid Chaos, and Using Social Media Mindfully. At the end of each section are specific "Key Takeaways"--action steps the reader can take NOW to improve his or her day-to-day. What's great about such a little dynamo of a book, is that I can revisit it whenever I feel my old habits (or lack thereof) sneaking up on me. The result is immediate and relatively painless course correction. The way I see it, the only people who won't profit from this book are the producers and stars of reality television. I know my viewing hours of popcorn television have gone down...and my writing output has gone way up!

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.

Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine” is an indispensable guide for anyone looking to optimize their daily productivity. The book offers practical insights and actionable strategies to build routines that foster creativity, balance, and focus. Drawing on the experiences of top creative professionals, it provides a clear roadmap for managing the chaos of everyday life while nurturing personal growth. The blend of inspirational advice and concrete steps makes it a must-read for anyone striving to achieve both professional success and personal well-being.

I found this book to be very helpful and I made myself a list of ways that I think I can improve my days after reading this book. I'm very excited to start improving my schedule at my new job that starts next week. However I don't feel this book needed to be as long as it did. Perhaps it could've been shortened to appeal to people who, let's be honest, don't have enough time to read this to improve their lifestyle anyway. 加油 To everyone as you make your attempts at building a routine, finding your focus, and sharpening your creative mind!

"Manage Your Day-To-Day" was the first book I read and reviewed for my blog (Mad Man Thoughts)—and I was not disappointed. Anyone who knows me or follows my blog knows that I'm an unorganized person whose mind is constantly drowned in abstract thought and incomplete reflection. I felt like this book was written specifically for me. Behance—the company behind this book and the 99U program—interviewed a plethora of intelligent, witty, creative people and gathered their insights and strategies for building a routine, finding focus, managing new technology, pushing through creative blocks, and taking your skills and talents to the next level. I highly recommend this book to anyone who struggles to get organized, focus on the task at hand, and/or finish creative projects. This book flows well and is very easy to read (it's also visually appealing, even on a Kindle Paperwhite E-reader - Black, 6" High-Resolution Display (300 ppi) with Built-in Light, Wi-Fi - Includes Special Offers ). The only downside of this book is that it does not go into great depth on any of the tactics or strategies mentioned. However, this seems to be purposeful as it allows you to ruminate on what was said. Overall, I loved it! Next, I'm reading the other book in the series: Maximize Your Potential: Grow Your Expertise, Take Bold Risks & Build an Incredible Career (The 99U Book Series 2)

Despite repeating productivity tips you've heard everywhere -- meditate to enhance focus, do important work first, unplug and unwind from time to time -- this little book provides huge inspiration. If, like me, you know what you should be doing but don't always do it, you'll want to start now. Some contributors, like Mark McGuinness, provide more concrete motivation than others. He advises "Creative work first, reactive work second." I never considered most of my online time, even when justified, as reactive, but it is. I'll be putting that line above my computer. Linda Stone provided the most surprising insight -- many of us suffer from email or screen apnea. We hold our breath or breathe shallowly while sitting in front of a screen, whether a computer, a mobile device, or a television. This can lead to a slew of health problems, including inflammation and obesity. She points out we need a new set of skills related to posture and breathing in order to "embody" technology. I knocked off one star because the print book's design is surprisingly unfriendly considering that 99U is an Adobe project. After reading a few pages of "Key Takeaways" in white text/black background, immediately followed by a few pages of introduction in white text/hot red background, I felt I was doing that optical illusion where you stare at the American flag rendered turquoise, black, and yellow, then blink and see it in red, white, and blue. My vision is fine, but it'll be a difficult read for anyone with color blindness or an astigmatism. But I mostly enjoyed the insights gleaned from Manage Your Day-To-Day and especially liked being introduced to new creatives and authors. So many productivity books rehash the same contributors.

I don’t think I’ve ever said this about a time-management or organizational or artists’ business book: This is a must-read book for creative entrepreneurs. The pros: The information is delivered in short, easy-to-grasp concepts approached from different creative people’s points of view. It’s like a best-minds approach rather than one person’s opinion. Each section has a key-takeaways page which revisits what you just read. I found it quite helpful in making the points stick in my brain. Speaking of the brain, I like the way the book addresses the science of the brain (in layman terms, no technobabble). It’s reassuring when science backs up a creative person’s work habits. Also, it’s a beautiful book! The black, red, and white pages, and the black and white fonts, and the different sized fonts, and the raised and impressed text on the cover (and the little fold out flaps) . . . it’s so visually and texturally appealing. The cons: Umm, can’t think of anything. I wished for more . . . I suppose that’s like a con. Overall, a five-star, must-read, beautiful book!

This book, while seemingly small, and super inexpensive, is one of the best books I've read so far. I've been struggling with motivating myself to work, and trying to organize my schedule, and this book really helps to put things into perspective and offer many different ways of organizing your life. Plus, it's great because it knows that there are plenty of different ways to approach your own unique situation and offers a variety of experts advice, so you can pick and choose what works best for you. It's like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book for your life! I highly recommend it. And if you are a very creative person and would like some extra motivation and a boost of confidence, I highly recommend this book in tangent with Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative . I'm about to read the new Maximize Your Potential: Grow Your Expertise, Take Bold Risks & Build an Incredible Career (The 99U Book Series) , that just came out and goes along with this book. Here's hoping it's just as good. I'll post a review when I've read through it.

Able to teach practical stuff that can be used directly to improve daily life. Tackles very common aspects of life.

"Manage Your Day-to-Day" by Jocelyn Glei, with contributions from various creative minds, is a good read for anyone wanting to improve their creativity and seeking more control over their lives. The book is around 240 pages and has around 22 chapters containing suggestions from folks in the creative thinking community. Some of the contributors have multiple inputs for the book and each chapter is around 8-10 pages. This is not the book to be completed in one go, In my opinion, reading every chapter and discussing it with our closed peer group will be an value addition. Been an ardent fan of 99U for last couple of years, I find many topic already covered in their website and videos, but still as an complete package and as well as to lend to a friend in need, I had bought this book. I would like to reiterate my friend Micheal review below, I too found the below mentioned points interesting & imperative. Though it is not necessary to follow everything to the point, but a mix of the below will help us to see the big picture. Consider each one as the missing part of a Jigsaw puzzle to get the main picture. 1. Drawing a line between the world's demands and your own ambitions. 2. We can accomplish much by working slowly and consistently over a long period of time. 3. Setting a daily routine by regularly and reliably doing your work in an habitual way. 4. We are not designed to operate at high speeds for long periods of time. 5. Blocking off time for focused creative effort. 6. Multitasking is overrated (Finally Some one had the Guts). 7. Suggestions for improving self-control. 8. Being involved in the moment enhances your creativity. 9. Many people want success in so much haste that they do not take time to be true to themselves (what good does it do to gain the whole world if you lose your soul in the process?). 10. Disengagement from a situation may provide a solution for your problem. The book is a delightful read and may be completed in a few sittings. I will often refer to the book when needing either an inspiration or reminder of how to access creativity. This is not a Self-Help Book, I would recommend as a value add or opening up of your creative side book

I measure a book by the number of highlights I mark it up with and this is full of highlights. Allot of wisdom here without the fluff some books have to fill them out. Recommended for anyone who wants to manage their business, work life, self more efficiently and be more productive and creative.

I found this book both inspirational and very practical. I've already implemented more than one of the suggestions made. I loved having the input from a variety of successful people.

Die­ser Titel sprach mich gleich in mehr­fa­cher Hin­sicht an: Mich stär­ker fokus­sie­ren und kon­zen­trie­ren zu kön­nen ist genau mein Thema, an dem ich mich wei­ter ent­wi­ckeln möchte. Wie sich hier­für Rou­ti­nen für die täg­li­che Arbeit fin­den las­sen, inter­es­sierte mich sehr. Und dann habe ich mir auch noch vor­ge­nom­men, künf­tig mehr eng­li­sche und fran­zö­si­sche Bücher zu lesen. Gesagt, getan. Um es gleich vor­weg zu neh­men: Das Buch begeis­tert mich! Auf jeder Dop­pel­seite gibt es min­des­tens eine Erkennt­nis, ein Zitat, eine Zahl oder eine kluge Beob­ach­tung, die mich fas­zi­niert und die es wert ist, in Stein gemei­ßelt zu wer­den. Etwa die Erkennt­nis, dass es bei Krea­ti­vi­tät in ers­ter Linie darum geht, auf­zu­neh­men und nicht über­wie­gend Neues zu produzieren. Die geni­als­ten Schrei­ben­den sind in ers­ter Linie flei­ßig und fol­gen einer fes­ten, täg­li­chen Routine. „Brin­ging incredi­ble crea­tive pro­jects to life demands much hard work down the tren­ches of day-to-day idea exe­cu­tion. Genius truly is 1 % inspi­ra­tion and 99 % perspiration.” Ich habe gelernt, dass unser Geist umso bril­lan­ter funk­tio­niert, je acht­sa­mer wir ihm Ruhe­pau­sen gönnen. „Your mind will ans­wer most ques­ti­ons if you learn to relax and wait for the ans­wer.” Wil­liam S. Burroughs Ein wei­te­rer klu­ger Satz, den ich mir ange­stri­chen habe: „Look at the word responsi­bi­lity. RESPONSE-ABILITY — the abi­lity to choose your response.” by Ste­phen Covey. Oder die­ser hier: „It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.” by Lena Horne. Ich liebe die­ses Buch nicht nur, weil es schlau ist. Es ist außer­dem schön. Der Titel ist in rot auf's Cover gedruckt und hoch­ge­prägt. Die glatte Ober­flä­che mit den her­vor­ge­ho­be­nen Buch­sta­ben liegt wun­der­schön in der Hand, sobald man das Buch ange­fasst hat, möchte man es auch gleich nicht mehr weg­le­gen. Die Typo­gra­phie ist sehr anspre­chend: wich­tige Aus­sa­gen ste­hen ganz allein auf far­bi­gen Dop­pel­sei­ten. Die Kapi­tel sind in appe­tit­li­che Häpp­chen unter­teilt. Jedes davon wurde von einem ande­ren klu­gen Kopf ver­fasst, auf den ich durch sei­nen Bei­trag neu­gie­rig gewor­den bin. (Gret­chen Rubin war mir schon ein Begriff, sie hat das Hap­pi­ness Pro­jekt geschrie­ben.) Selbst ein müder Geist schafft es am Ende eines ereig­nis­rei­chen Tages noch, einen Abschnitt voll­stän­dig und auf­merk­sam zu lesen. Ich emp­fehle die­sen Titel jedem Krea­tiv– und Kopf­ar­bei­ter, der sein Poten­zial noch bewuss­ter für sich nut­zen möchte. Ganz neben­bei hat das Buch auch eine trös­tende Wir­kung, weil man erkennt, dass man nicht der ein­zige Spin­ner auf der Welt ist, der ab und zu einen müden Tag hat und sich fragt, was er heute eigent­lich genau geleis­tet hat. Kau­fen! Ich ver­leihe meins nicht ;-)