Book Review: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (Paperback)

I read this book during the beginning of last year (2008) and have been practicing this method for getting organized for about an year. I can totally vouch for its effectiveness. The take away for me is that organize your work into a simple system consisting of file folders and a prescribed way to label and organize your folders. Then bring all your work items into that system. Then crank this system periodically by processing the items that come into the system. The premise is that if you have this operating system for your work, you will not get items piled up on your desk but you will be processing the items efficiently.

I have to admit that i am rather poor follower. The author's advice about using a good filing system to organize your workstuff is spot on. Labelling your files, making them easily accessible are all valuable advice. I have switched over to the plain manilla folder system instead of hanging folders. One practical tip i found out is that, if you want to use plain manilla folders, the best way to keep them standing up inside your filing cabinet is using bookends, especially the heavy tall magnetic bookmarks do the job admirably well. Authors advice to put everything into paper and organizing the folders instead of keeping anything inside your brain is very valuable. Surely by doing this, you reduce the stress. The only thing is that you need to visit your filing system periodically. That is the issue that keeps stumping me and I keep telling myself to go back to visiting my inboxes and processing my incoming stuff.

Book Review: ENIAC, the triumphs and tragedies of the world's first computer / Scott McCartney.

History of computing is full of unsung geniuses and hard work put on by so many people who are not given enough credit for their work. Eckert and Mauchly are these 2 great inventors of the first electronic computer who were not given enough credit for the invention of computer. This book claims that the computer scientist: John von Neumann stole away the credit for a lot of the ideas (especially the memory device) from the ENIAC team. History is kind to those who articulated and popularized an idea rather than the original minds who conceived an idea. The book also vividly illustrates how many of the inventions, especially those as complex as a computer do not occur out of the blue, but they are the result of a long tradition and history of ideas proposed around them and happen when various other conditions become favorable and the right people with prepared minds happen to be at the right place to take advantage of all those favorable factors to push the invention out. Also once an invention comes into being, it gathers momentum of its own and soon enough the envelope gets pushed so far ahead that the original invention appears so far removed and ancient. ENIAC is a fitting example of that where a light switch has more computing power than the 30 ton ENIAC.