This book is great. It's full of techniques to help improve the way you think and work. The most useful and interesting book I have read for a couple of years. Well written and insightful. Google ‘edwin thinking and learning’ to read it for free off an Ukrainian Server – but then go an buy it.
Some key ideas from the book, and some of my own
• Don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress.
• Less is more – use one laptop/use one OS and know how to do everything – use one editor and know it inside out
• Keep and archive everything as you go along - old work, methodologies, backups of old laptops, I regret loosing things in didn’t realise at the time were valuable – keep everything
• I maintain a single slim folder with perhaps 20 sheets in it – to keep all the documents I want quickly at my immediate finger tips. I include - the department org chart so I know who everyone is – it does just squeeze on to one folded A3 sheet – My objectives, a page of codes and reference numbers I need to know, skills matrix and charts – so I know who to go to find stuff out. System diagrams – to remind myself, and a couple of other specific pages to my role.
• When you send email take 20 seconds to give it a proper title. If the subject changes then amend that title to make it easier to reference in the future, I find it best to add a couple of words at the end
• When you write anything up – start with a template with title, date, location and if necessary chapters – then when you look for it in future it will be more valuable and easier to find. If you later need to share it your work will look more professional
• Use Outlook for note taking (despite attractions of Evernote, MS OneNote etc). All my notes and reminders to self are in Outlook, the key advantage - its always at my finger tips at work – or I can get at it via webmail. Use the coloured categorisations to help group things.
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