Book Reviews: Getting Things Done and The Name of the Rose

I promised a review of these books a while ago, and never got around to writing it. Anyway, here it is!

Image from google

Getting Things Done by David Allen

This is one of the most famous organization books I've come across, and it was on my list of organization-type books to read. Anyway, it was interesting, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. The basic gist of it is that you should make extensive to-do lists with everything you need to do and include the very next action for each thing. Then, you need to review the lists regularly (daily). I thought it was an interesting idea and definitely had some potential. One of my big issues is not putting down everything on my to-do lists and not reviewing them regularly, so that I keep thinking of things I need to do and wasting brain power on them. However, in my attempts to use this system I've come up against two problems. Firstly, it takes me forever to set up the to-do lists and I can imagine that I'd find it difficult (though not impossible if I set up a system) to maintain them. Secondly, I find that things in my life change so quickly that it's hard to keep my to-do lists up-to-date.

Anyway, I am going to try to use some of the ideas, I just need to find ways to alter them to fit my needs better.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Image from google (apparently this copy
which is signed by the author and is in
good condition is worth $1,300! I guess
I should've been more careful with the copy
I got from the library!!

A long and strange book, but one I'm very glad I read. This is a fiction book set in an ancient (1327) Italian Monastery. It's a murder mystery, and I always enjoy those. It was translated from Italian, so I found that the text sometimes seemed a bit stilted. Additionally, I found it a bit hard to track who everyone was! There were a lot of very similar names it in. The author frequently digressed onto commentary about religious/political events at the time. They were interesting, but sometimes a bit boring and hard to follow. Anyway, I would recommend it, but be aware that it's a bit of a long haul!