I started reading a new book a few days ago. It’s called ‘How to Get Things Done’ by Richard Templar, and almost immediately, I began to struggle with it. Maybe it’s because the previous two books I’ve read (Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and Adapt by Tim Harford) were both extremely thought provoking and quite deep, in an unassuming way, whereas this new book on my list smugly purports to be clever, and apparently full of ‘secrets’ about how to get stuff done. Whatever the reason, each night I find myself flicking through the book looking for a helpful point to jump off from, and very quickly failing and letting it fall to the floor.
This morning on a rare pre-breakfast weekend wander around Twitter I happened upon something called ’50 Inspiring Quotes from 50 Top Social Media Power Influencers’. Rachel Miller had shared the article and despite it’s crappy title, I chose to read it based because Rachel often shares interesting stuff. I haven’t worked my way through the whole piece yet, but so far I’m particularly struck by this observation from Chris Brogan:
“Don’t settle: Don’t finish crappy books. If you don’t like the menu, leave the restaurant. If you’re not on the right path, get off it.”
Sorry Richard – on this occasion Chris is right. I think your book is crappy. It comes across as smug, twee and…crappy. I’m quitting on it, even though I spent £10 of hard earned cash, on this occasion I will not fall foul of post purchase rationalisation. On this occasion I will not finish this crappy book.