Breathing Space: Living and Working at a Comfortable Pace in a Sped-Up Society

by Jeff Davidson

Book Overview

The breakthrough book for a time-pressed generation. Major features in USA Today, The Washington Post, Boston Herald, Chicago Tribune, and 75 other newspapers, plus Executive Female, USAir, Office... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1419657275
• ISBN13: 9781419657276
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: Booksurge Publishing
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Overcome stress

This book is nothing short of a sensational. It is one of the most forward-thinking texts I've encountered in quite a while. Starting with the premise that an over-populated world creates more information and communication than the typical person can keep up with---more media, more paper, and more choices---you begin to gain a sense of why each day feels as if there's too much to do, too much to know, too much to keep on top of. With this book, you gain a perspective that enables you to approach your day, your week, your month and so on in a more common and reasoned fashion. Some of the tips in the middle and latter chapters I have seen in otherbooks, but in this context they seem to work particularly well. I like theauthor's approach in giving out the tips based on hand tools, power tools,and cerebral tools. If you are experiencing increasing time pressure or stress, this is the book for you.

Everyone Needs Some

Stress, busyness, information - it's all around you and it seems there's so much of it, and it's so insistent, and it's so loud, an it's so invasive.And in reading Jeff Davidson's latest resource for leaders, managers, and just about everyone, it's clear that the pressure is here to stay, at work and at home - and it will get worse. There is no returning to an earlier, simpler, unhurried time.So....we need some strategies, some tools, and some...breathing space.Fortunately, Jeff Davidson makes good on his title. Breathing Space starts with a clear and compelling analysis of why we feel so pressured. The reader is then focused on very positive, healthy strategies to deal with a world where 565,000 books are published each year, 95 million printers are spewing paper from at least 95 million computers, and the typical executive receives 225 pieces of unsolicited mail each month.In 22 succinct, comortably paced chapters, Breathing Space offers practical and innovative strategies for clearing up the clutter, breaking through procrastination, organizing your workspace, managing your reading, and choosing your priorities wisely - among other work and personal challenges.Breathing Space attacks paper clutter with a vengeance, as in - get rid of it! Eighty percent of the paper we save will never be needed. Most importantly, the reader learns how to conrol paper at the intake point, so that it never piles up in the first place.Davidson's insights are especially powerful on the widespread perceived need to keep up with information overload from print, media, and electronics. He draws our attention to how much we are exposed to information that does not really support us but which, day after day, robs us of breathing space. His sensible strategies leave the reader feeling that this too, can be handled, and that we need not waste energy in guilty responses to an information overload which we can never posssibly keep up with.Chapters are broken up with short messages labeled "Fresh Air", that put our need for breathing space in perspective. One Fresh Air message captures a theme that radiates throughout the book:"Telltale signs of being too busy: If you're too busy to enjoy life, you're too busy; If you're too busy to stay calm, you're too busy; If you're too busy to stay in shape, you're too busy; If you're too busy to see your friends, you're too busy."Breathing space is really about quality of life, or more accurately - learning to leave enough space in your life so that you identify what matters to you, and then allocate your life efforts accordingly. It is about taking control and creating environments that support your choices in life, as opposed to reacting to useless information, negative people, and distracting but ultimately unfulfilling stimulus of many sorts.Without a doubt, Breathing Space is must reading for anyone who wants to master the art of dealing effectively with more information, pressure and time crunch. From the looks of what is to come

Best book I use

I use a lot of books in the executive training I offer, some of them well-known bestsellers like Flow, but only one do I advise my clients to read: Breathing Space. Jeff Davidson has filled each page of Breathing Space with insight, practicality, and specific advice. To get your hands back on the controls of your modern life, no book is better. Life in the today's world is busy, full, and rife with distractions. Satisfaction can easily slip away without special efforts to create an environment and habits which support our own goals and priorities. Fail to do so and you life will -- as Jeff Davidson amply demonstrates -- be thoroughly colonized by advertisers, entertainers, and co-workers. It has often been said, and is even more true today, that if you are not working your plan you are working someone else's plan. Breathing Space is the most succinct and useable approach I have seen to get back on your own plan. I have used his methods myself and with many clients. They not only work but keep working. I call my variation of the organizing techniques "Clutter Buster." I noticed that before I organized my workspace, it gradually got less usable until I was moved to clean-up. My cleaning blitzes never quite got the space up to snuff, however, and each succeeding cleaning frenzy had poorer results than the last, for a picture over time like the "Before" graph below. I was spending more time "getting organized" and less time feeling organized. After an extensive and thoughtful re-design of the workspace based on Davidson's principles, I noticed that my area stayed more workable longer plus (1) the messy phases were less horrible, (2) my office was easier to re-organize, and (3) I spent much more time enjoying the peaks of organization. Bottom line: more productivity and greater satisfaction. My home office was something of a disaster before I thoroughly organized it with the help of a consultant and this book. Not only did it look great afterward, but it stayed that way permanently. The considerable time and expense invested in that clean-up has been more than repaid. I have since applied the techniques to my garage, briefcase, car, and other parts of my life. Getting Breathing Space can give you your life back and even create space for the life you always wanted.

A most practical information management book!!!!

I read this book several years ago, and whenever it seems that information and paperwork and clutter sneakily inches its way back into my life, I immediately refer back to this book. And when I say, "refer", I most likely will not reach for the book but remember the tips and quips that allow you to easily recall the helpful hints. It's a fun read with information that any packrat (Myself included)can use to turn vertical filing to horizontal, or remove unneeded info without guilty feelings. This book will change your attitude about a lot of things.

Well Worth the Money

* I would give this book an 11, if the scale went that high. From the opening gun, right through to the last words, I found this entire book to be easy to read and extremely helpful. The author doesn't preach, or get into technical gobbledygook. He stays on course, for the most part, addressing root causes of the situations that most of us face on a fairly regular basis, and then providing very doable suggestions to achieve desired results.