Kourosh writes again

The approaches …

There is GTD, and 7 habits, and scrum, and many more approaches, for lack of a better word, which aim to help us with our personal productivity. I for one started with 7 habits and graduated to a personal adaptation of GTD with some agile put in there to ensure I actually produce instead of tinker.

The science …

Then there is the science behind the approaches. One such study on GTD done at a Belgian University (pride!) explains how GTD actually works.

The understanding

And then there is deeper, almost intuitive understanding of the subject matter of personal productivity. It differs from the science in that it resonates at a deeper, more essential level. It may be storytelling about science, and perhaps less exact, but it leads to a fundamental comprehension of how personal productivity approaches work. And one such book is Kourosh Dini’s Workflow Mastery – building from the basics.

A comfy blanket

For those not familiar with Kourosh’ work, he is a psychiatrist working out of Chicago who has written and blogged extensively on personal productivity. I for one feel we need to reserve a special place in our hearts for people working out of Chicago. I would likely be wrapped in large comfy blankets the entire time, not getting any work done.

Deep resonation leads to deep understanding

All kiddin’ aside, Kourosh provides us in this update – actually, it’s an entire overhaul – of his original book with some very deep insights into what is behind personal productivity. It goes beyond that. When I read an advanced draft version of the book, I was struck by how deeply the content resonated with me and felt true at an almost intuitive level. It makes sense, in that it comes very close to making clear why we function how we do when we aim to achieve a higher personal productivity. And that approach, more than many approaches I’ve read and studied before, actually allows you to enhance your current workflow.

Not for the uninitiated

This book may not be the book for the uninitiated in GTD or any other personal productivity approach. For that, I would suggest you go and read David Allen’s GTD or Covey’s 7 Habits. However, if you have a personal productivity workflow – as I assume most of you have – this book is most certainly worth reading, because the deeper understanding it leads to will allow you to both better understand your own ways of working and allow you to tweak and enhance that approach.

A carefully crafted piece of a master

In addition, and that alone is worth the price of admission, Kourosh writes beautifully. As a non-native speaker of the English language and schooled in traditional European languages such as Dutch (close to German) and French (close to, well, French ;-)) I adore well crafted words, sentences and paragraphs. Kourosh almost composes an intricate piece of music when writing. Which should surprise given his background as a classically schooled pianist and musician.

Mindful at its core

It also shows you that the practice of mindfulness, which is ever present in the book, leads to amazing results. The book, clearly written in a very mindful state, exudes the benefits of mindfulness by its very nature.

If I seem to be very enthousiast about this book, well, I am. Kourosh contacted me a couple of months ago, when he was in the final stages of writing this book, and asked me to reread it. Which I did, and I learned a lot along the way. Some of my practices started to make sense. And I most certainly started to practice a significantly more mindful attitude. Which is highly conductive to higher and especially more relevant performance.

A free update for owners of version 1

For those who purchased his Workflow Mastery book before, this entirely new book is a free update. For those who have yet to purchase it, go do it now and read it. It will be well worth your time.