Garland Coulson aka Captain Time, delivers not just another Time Management book. In this personal scale size book, Stop Wasting Time, just the kind I really do love, he equips readers with a 5 week plan to identify where they are procrastinators and how to make a plan to overcome their specific style of procrastination. The scale is small and personal, and the impact is mighty!
Because the LOOK INSIDE feature was not yet activated
when I wrote the review but will be later, so I’m not trespassing on the
author’s Intellectual Property by sharing the TOC Table of Contents
here:
How to Use This Book vi
1 What’s Holding You Back? 1
2 Week One
Stop Avoiding and Start Achieving 19
3 Week Two
Build Your Superstructure 49
4 Week Three
Deal with Time Bandits 77
5 Week Four
Focus Up! 105
6 Week Five
Keep Motivated 131
7 Your Road to Success 153
References 163
Index 165
Coulson feel in love with Time Management systems over 30 years ago when a manager gifted him with the oft beloved Day-Timer system. I loved that one as well. Personally, my favorite was the Franklin Quest system, but we each have the systems we love. I still like PAPER for certain things because I can better SEE it and the vision of the space of time over a period of time presentation method. It’s about the unconscious mind responds well to visuals and physically hand writing things out.
He’s been teaching Time Management for 20 years now and earned the fun nickname Captain Time and has a small YouTube channel for over 11 years now which is cited on the back cover. I rather like his presentation of his very practical methods for managing time and surfacing and managing distractions which can all too frequently pose a hurdle and redirect our productive time pursuits onto the path of procrastination.
My own faulting of his book is that he provides some excellent techniques but doesn’t address any of the mental and emotional issues surrounding procrastination other than at a very superficial level; much like a really great Diet Book should at least touch on and point you to other resources for emotional eating. As a hypnotherapist, I’m well-versed in this, and it need not necessarily entail years of therapy unless there really is something massive going on.
On page 32 he only touches on it for those who have a major emotional issue going on. The thing is, there is always a mental and emotional component with Procrastination going on. He makes it sound like only those grappling with mental illness and disorders need that kind of emotional help. No Time Management System and Procrastination Release Guide is complete without bringing that in more than he does. They are more about Personal Development than just reading and applying only a Self-Help book as he describes it. Procrastination is compensation behavior. If you don’t address it with a mental/emotional tool, then it will come out and surface elsewhere in another place in your life like a whitehead. I’m harder on him about this because otherwise, I found this an excellent book about breaking free from Procrastination patterns. I’m not dinging his stars at all for this. Many people don’t recognize this or treat it only as an issue for Feelers in the Myers-Briggs typed folks.
Coulson provides a 5 Week Plan, like any high quality Diet Plan, think of this as a Diet Plan for your Procrastination Habit, he gives the reader a course to follow over an extended period of time, in fact, 2 weeks longer than the 21-days necessary to establish a new habit. By following and implementing his 5 Week Plan, you’ll not only have the new habit installed, with the additional 2 weeks to his plan, you’ll have those new habits well-cemented into your modus operandi daily life.
In the introduction Coulson walks us through a bit of how he got started teaching Time Management and starting his own consulting business where he teaches thousands time management skills. Early on, he lets his readers know that you’ll need only about 20 minutes per day to complete his exercises and the associated action steps necessary to implement them. That’s really quite reasonable and doable.
In Chapter 1
What’s Holding You Back Coulson distills his many years of working in
Time Management consulting to 5 basic Procrastinator profiles to better
understand ourselves and plan accordingly. I think upon reading them,
if you can’t identify with at least 1 if not more of the attributes of
these Procrastinator archetypes, then you’re a Time Management and
Productivity saint!
They are:
1. The Worrier
2. The Perfectionist
3. The People Pleaser
4. The Hummingbird
5. The Closet Procrastinator
Each chapter closes with a terrific summary reminder Takeaways page useful for all types of Procrastinators.
He closes with a very helpful Procrastinator’s Checklist to help you to remain on task and continuing to use his approach and assistance in your productivity and Time Management.
This is a terrific book to add to your personal mastery, personal and professional development, and business library. You’ll both utilized his 5 Week plan and want to reference it repeatedly with your partner/spouse, family, colleagues, and work team at the office. A must have book.
If you’re a manager in public administration, schools, non-profits, for-profits, healthcare, or solopreneur segueing to adding “staff” or other kinds of freelance helpers, this is a must have for you and your team. You’ll want to purchase multiple copies for yourself and your team. If part of your “team” is overseas where physical copies may not ship easily, snag extra copies of the Kindle version to deliver to their digital reading devices.
Highly recommend.
I hope my review is helpful for you in determining if this Time Management book is useful for you and your team. If it helped, please hit Helpful and leave me a comment about what was helpful for you. I’m always looking to improve my reviews. Happy reading, implementing, and productivity!
I received a copy from the Publisher for an honest review. Terrific book.