If you're struggling to be productive at work or you're faced with too much of it for some reason, you need to get a better grip of it. Rick Pastoor's international best-selling book shouldn't just be in your radar, it should be in your target sights. And your mind will thank you for it.
As the book's sub-sub-title suggests (see the cover image), Grip is all focusing and better time management. Because even with all the digital tools that we have available today, for every kind of imaginable task, we’re still overwhelmed. Pastoor anchors his advice around the venerable calendar, a tool everyone uses but few people have really mastered.
The best part is that Pastoor isn’t claiming to formulate new ideas. He openly shares his own learnings from other business authors that have improved his work efficiency and incorporates those benefits into his own Grip method. A lot of it is also due to the former product manager's penchant for continuous experimentation. The end result is a guide that gives your the ability to reclaim your work by giving you the smaller wins you need before going to bigger accomplishments.
Pastoor’s book is divided into three parts: Grip and your Week, Grip and your Year, and Grip and your Life. He starts with the calendar and how we should divide and conquer it by literally scheduling everything one needs to do each day. He then moves on to the much-maligned to-do list. Pastoor is a big fan of the Eisenhower Matrix as a to-do tool to organize your list, and easily shows how to get kick-started with it. This helps readers to avoid the dreaded back-log that results when we take on too much to actually fill up our calendar.
A lot of these things may be a repetition of what we’ve already seen or read, but it’s when we really sit down to read Grip that we realise how truthful it is. For me, I’ve tried to practise a lot of what Pastoor espouses, but some of his advice - like the Friday Re-cap - provided insights that I hadn’t even pondered. Upon reading it, the logic in his advice made sense.
In 'Part 2: Grip and your Year', he gives a guide on how to create a yearly review (like an appraisal but without a boss!) and give a sense of direction. He then shows how you can work backwards with smaller chunks of timelines (the quarter and the month) to ensure you can keep track of your tasks that help attain your goal. Again, it all sounds simple but reading it is eye-opening.
Finally, in 'Part 3: Grip and your Life', he gives us the tools to jump off and tackle the big enchilada itself: our personal life goals; how to get a sense of what we should do and then how to break down a plan into quarters again.
There’s usefulness bursting out the pages at every turn. Pastoor ends his parts with a Cheat Sheet to help readers re-cap easily and start confidently. In between, he illustrates his ideas often with clear diagrams and makes liberal use of check-lists. In a cheeky nod to to the by-gone days of the Blu-ray DVD era, he even adds a couple of bonus chapters at the end of the book.
What we love about 'Grip' is that it is immediately applicable to work. You can sit down in front of a computer and put his ideas to practise the moment you open Outlook or Gmail, or whatever application you use. In an age of chat, he even has specific advice on how we should use it.
There are no things we dislike about Pastoor’s book. Everything is geared with purpose and a clear benefit. You might just prefer to not adopt all of his advice at one go or experiment with it, a notion Pastoor also wholeheartedly endorses. And that’s why we love this book so much. Either way, we're sure this book will stay on your desk as easy reference for a long time to come.
Summary
Readability: 8/10
Relevance: 9/10
Applicability: 10/10