Attack Your Day! Before It Attacks You: Activities Rule. Not the Clock!

by Mark Woods, Trapper Woods

Avoid overwhelm, deal with interruptions, and enjoy your best life.

The new time management is activity management.  An activity is anything we do.  It's a phone call, responding to an email or drop-in visitor, a work-related task, an unplanned meeting, exercising, spending time with family or friends. It’s even eating, sleeping or an emotion that we feel.  We engage in an activity every second of every day.

The activities we decide to do (or not do) can either direct us towards our goals in life or drive our stress level up to the point of overwhelm where we can’t seem to get anything accomplished.

Most old, established time management strategies do not fit today’s high intensity, rapidly changing, fast-paced environment.  What we need is fast, flexible, easysolutions. You’ll find them in this book.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Personal Development, Productivity, Business, Leadership, Amazon

206 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2011

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

Reviews

[Avolyn Fisher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Organization should be simple, if not, it won't be done. I do not have a perfect method of organizing my day but the stress level I currently manage is less stressful than his "easy tips" which include 3-4 steps for the same thing. I don't need 3-4 steps to accomplish one thing, my half-assed plan is much simpler and easy to follow. I know everyone has their own way of doing things but I don't see how this plan would aid anyone struggling with getting things done. It would take me all day to set up his system and the busy flow of my day with all of the distraction and shift in plans as I "flexicute" my day would surely cause this plan to collapse on a daily basis. I simply start with a list each day of what I have yet to do, get as much done and what needs to be done and carry over the rest. I also keep a calendar of dates and appointments, that's it. Hopefully this book will benefit someone, I was not one of them.

[Liam Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, simple, and informative!

[Alain Burrese · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Attack Your Day! Before It Attacks You” by Mark Woods and Trapper Woods is a good time management, or activities management, book if you are not familiar with others or don't have a system working for you. Because of the plethora of books on this topic, there really isn't much new, just different ways to say it. The authors put their spin on the topic, and do so well. Trapper Woods worked with Dr. Charles R. Hobbs and was one of his Time Power seminar facilitators, so it is no wonder there are similarities. (I read Time Power way back when it was first published. Good book.)

The main system of this book is contained in the first 97 pages. The biggest differences are how the authors use colors to prioritize activities and “buckets” as the six lists you need to keep to ensure nothing slips through the crack and that you are getting everything done. I also liked their “Flexicute” concept. Basic time management advice told in a simple and engaging manner.

The rest of the book consists of 101 productivity strategies. These are short and easy to digest, but are nothing that different from many other books on the same topic.

Bottom Line: if you are looking for a time management book that is easy to read and provides some simple advice and strategies to get your activities organized and done, this is a good little book to do just that. If you have read other time management books and are still looking for the “solution” or the magic formula, you may be disappointed in this book.

I'd recommend this book to anyone new to the ideas of time management or activities management and needs an easy book to get started on controlling their life. For sure, if you followed the advice and implemented all of the productivity strategies, you would find yourself being much more productive and getting more done with the time you have available.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got lucky and saw this as a free purchase on amazon and grabbed it. I'm an advocate of the GTD process and thought if I could gain even one take away from this then the more the better. I actually took away quite a few ideas and was pleasantly surprised.

The authors ideas seem very similar to the GTD process so it didnt contradict anything I currently follow, but some of the methods such as taking 30 minutes prior to your day to organize and plan all of your buckets has helped me a lot in mentally preparing for the onslaught of tasks that I face on a regular basis. Compared to doing the weekly mind sweep found in GTD, this just helps keep the focus and has energized the determination to take my day on.

Now the book is short and does come up a little dry and I would have given this a 3 star rating, but he included at the end 101 ideas that he has gathered from other sources and himself and this addition gave me a couple of more nice ideas. So over all for the contribution of overall poroductivity ideas, this is a great addition to anyones time management library.

[Autumn]

Too simple. Too redundant.

[Nora · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overview of time management. Nothing real exciting. Same could be said of the writing. It is clear and not too verbose.

[John Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a bad aid in organizing your day, using buckets, traffic-light color coding, focus breakers, activity planners and finally 101 productivity strategies with explanations. There are lots of good ideas, some that I'll use, some that I'll keep in mind and some I'll forget. And of course, as in everything flexibility is key.

[Lesley Looper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing new, really, on the time-management front, but some good tips that bore repeating. The title and orange cover aren't exactly soothing, but...

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Tips

This book is great. Most of it applies to a business/workplace setting. I would appreciate a chapter on living with a toddler 😂.

[RZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

一本可以快速读完，但又会有很多收获的书。赞同书中提到的一些理念，比如可将时间管理看成活动管理；保持专注力的重要性，不提倡多任务同时处理，可改为不同活动的切换；我们的时间何其宝贵，不要浪费在一些无意义的活动上……珍惜利用好时间，值得学习和自勉。

[Ahmet Uzar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guzel ve faydali bir kitap olmus. Tavsiyeler de guzel. Kısa bir sürede okuyup bitirebilirsiniz.İyi okumalar.

[Amber Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Self help

Some of these are helpful and I do already but a lot of these I would spend more time writing things down than I would be doing them.

[Nita Ostroff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Activity planner

Check out the author's recommended 'activity planner'. What an idea! Just the descriptions of how to use a standard day planner makes this book worth it

[Maria Fernanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me ha gustado

Me pareció un libro muy practico y bien redactado acerca de como bajar el nivel de stress planeando todas las tareas y organizarnos zanjó el día a día.

[❤Marie Gentilcore · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little book has been such a help to me. I recently was given additional responsibilities at work and I needed a way to maximize my time and keep track of a variety of assignments, tasks, and projects. This book has given me a fantastic method of "thinking inside the box," that is, picturing each hour of time as a box that you put activities into. A box can only hold so much so this has really helped me to focus and plan. I find that when I stick to the concepts I accomplish much of what I need to both at work and at home, but when I don't get my time to arrange my day, then I find myself jumping from item to item and feeling stressed at the end of the day. The first half of the book has the concepts and the second half has 101 tips you can work on. I highly recommend this book for people who have a lot to do but need some help getting it done. The concepts are common sense and easy to follow.

[Tina Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Attack Your Day!: Before it Attacks You" by Mark Woods and the late Trapper Woods is a simple guide to taking control of your time, in both your personal and private life. "Ridiculously easy" methods should help you create new habits as you stop wasting valuable time.

Six concise chapters make this a very fast read and are the heart of the book. The '101 Productivity Strategies' that follow are all good ideas, although most of them are repeating information you learned in the first half of the book.

This book should provide useful organizational methods for time management for most people.

[Maria Miaoulis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tad repetitive, but full of great time management tips. This book doesn't claim to change your life for you - you still need to put in the effort using the strategies provided, but they're quite easy to implement.

The book also explains that separating work and personal life into two different spheres is not possible and thus becomes a cause for major stress. It's important to create a work/life alternating lifestyle in order to accomplish everything you want to, while still valuing time spent with family and doing things you love.

Definitely an important read in today's fast-paced world.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book to learn ways to help you be more productive during your day. Find your time wasters and work to eliminate them. Plan your day. I definitely need help with this aspect of my life, I tend to lose focus and find myself bouncing from activity to activity. Simply having a form for things to do close at hand will help you keep from losing focus. This and a plethora of other ideas are in this book full of practical time management advice.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

A whole book supposedly to make your scheduling and productivity simpler and quicker: The stop and go with color focus was good, after that he lost me with piles of buckets and this and that to remember and put into. Complicated mess. I do keep trying to find ways to get 24 hours done in a day plus 7 hours sleep, but this is not it. I read some reviews that it helped others. To each his own, but it made me cringe.

[Chris Craddock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a lot like Getting Things Done by David Allen. I am following this. My dog has decided that she isn't going to let me type anymore tonight. And we missed Nashville for this? OK, I will write a longer review on Amazon. Got this from the Vine Program. 1st book of 2013 for me. Like a New Year's Resolution. Already feel like I am more productive.

[Nancy Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick read and useful tips. Good realistic goal planning tolls/skills not only on New Year's Eve type thing but how to keep things in-check and build realistic longer term objectives while attacking your daily crazyness. Great especially if you run a family and are an athlete and weave in activities. Over great.

[Roseanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was it the most brilliant book ever written? No. However, it has a lot of useful pointers packaged in a small, easy to read book. It also made me think about my relationship to the hours in my day and made me look at how I can be more efficient in my usage of them. Part philosophical, part practical with some obvious thrown in, I enjoyed it and will be employing some techniques.

[Cindy DeLong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book on time management. The author breaks down his ideas into simple rules and concepts. This book is realistic and straight-forward. I can see myself referring back to these rules often. I especially like the end of the book that consists of a list of 101 suggestions to try over time.

[Linda Van Wert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives advice on how to manage your day and accomplish more. I already use many of the strategies offered in this book. I am planning to incorporate a couple of the strategies to accomplish more in my day. Glad I read this book!

[Mystie Winckler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Free kindle book.

Mostly a rehash of basic time management, but with a more flexible execution model without rigid rules. The style it teaches allows for more wisdom and common sense in the day-to-day doing, which I appreciated.

[Randy Elster]

I've read many time mgmt. books and this is another one. Most concepts I had heard before although it was good to have some reminders and inspiration. Picked this up for free on kindle a few months back.

[Nancy Goldberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book and the common sense adviced geared toward the average person, like me. There are some days when I feel like my day really is attacking me, instead of the other way around.

Will definitely try all the helpful tips!

[Bridget Coyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A refresher on time-management skills forgotten due to lack of use. The explanation on using either technology or paper and then the possibility of merging both was help in breaking down some self-i posed brain barriers for me.

[Rodney Stanfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. It was required reading. I wish I had read it years ago. This is a great and simply applicable way to approach time managment.

I would and will be recommending this book to anyone looking to find a way to get in control of time management.

[Su · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's more concise than books like Seven Habits or 168 Hours, with some of the same good ideas. This being such a short book means that some of the "why" or "how" that other productivity books address is left out, though.