I’ve been working through various productivity and time management books as part of my drive to be more efficient, and I picked up 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management by Kevin E. Kruse expecting some useful insights. Unfortunately, this one was a letdown.
The book promises to share productivity habits from 7 billionaires, 13 Olympic athletes, 29 straight-A students, and 239 entrepreneurs. That sounds impressive, but the reality is that about two-thirds of the book consists of emails from people who all seem to have read the same productivity books and who took the time to respond to the author’s cold email marketing. As you would expect with the sort of time invested into responding to cold calls, there is little value added sifting through the repetative material, although I did stick with it to the end.
The “secrets” themselves aren’t really secret or even novel if you have read other productivity books I’ve read, like Eat That Frog. The book feels like it was written to hit a page count rather than to provide genuine value. There’s a lot of repetition and filler. If you’re interested in productivity and time management, there are much better books out there.
Overall, this is one to pass on.