10 Minute Guide to Getting Organized (2nd Edition)

Book Description

This guide is based on the philosophy that organization is a skill and, like all skills, it can be learned. The author provides steps for creating systems that will save you time and labor, shows you how to keep your desktop clutter-free, helps you avoid procrastination and excuses,and introduces you to organizational tools that will benefit both you and your staff.

Book Description

Why do Americans work so hard? Are the long hours spent at work really necessary to increase organizational productivity? Leslie A. Perlow documents the worklife of employees who assume that for their own success and the success of their organization they must put in extended hours on the job. Perlow doesn't buy it. She challenges the basic assumption that the more employees work, the better the corporation will do. For nine months, Perlow studied the work practices of a product development team of software engineers at a Fortune 500 corporation. She reports her findings in detailed stories about individual employees and in more analytic chapters. Perlow first describes the individual heroics necessary to succeed in the existing work culture. She then explains how the system of rewards perpetuates crises and continuous interruptions,while discouraging cooperation. Finally, she shows how the resulting work practices damage both organizational productivity and the quality of individuals' lives outside of work. Perlow initiated a collaborative effort to restructure the way team members worked. Managers who were involved credit the project for the rare and important on-time launch of the product the engineers were developing. In the end, "Finding Time" shows that it is possible to create new work practices that enable individuals to have more personal and family time while also improving the corporation's productivity.

Customer Reviews:

So true, its almost scary........2006-11-17

I work for a Tech company in Silicon Valley. It's been about 10 years since this book was written and it's amazing to me how little has changed since then. The work culture in Silicon Valley corporations mirrors that of "Ditto" corporation. People feel obligated to work long hours while sacrificing their personal lives. To me, reading this book has been an eye-opening experience. I am now aware of the havoc that the work/life balance equation can unleash on people's lives. I see shades of the characters covered in the book in my colleagues and friends. Awareness of these issues is the first step in defining your personal values at work.

Good job, Leslie!

Practical Techniques of Time Management.......2003-07-29

Time Management skills are essential for successful people the book deals with practical techniques, which have helped the leading people in business reach the pinnacles of their careers. The skills explained in the book helps you to become reliable and effective and show you how to identify and focus on the activities that give you the greatest returns by explaining goal setting, which is a vitally important skill for achieving what you want to achieve with your life. It is neatly summed up in the Pareto Principle, or the "80:20 Rule". This argues that typically 80% of unfocussed effort generates only 20% of results. The remaining 80% of results are achieved with only 20% of the effort. While the ratio is not always 80:20, this broad pattern of a small proportion of activity generating non-scalar returns recurs so frequently as to be the norm in many areas. It also talks about issues like learn to say no, learn to prioritize, combine several activities, doing subordinate's work, doing the work of others, scheduling projects, monitoring staff, and setting long-term objectives. The absence of personal time management is characterized by last minute rushes to meet deadlines, days, which seem somehow to slip unproductively by, crises, which loom unexpected from nowhere. This sort of environment leads to inordinate stress and degradation of performance. Poor time management is often a symptom of over confidence: techniques, which used to work with small projects and workloads, are simply reused with large ones. However, inefficiencies, which were insignificant in the small role, are ludicrous in the large. You cannot drive a motor bike like a bicycle, nor can you manage a supermarket-chain like a market stall. The demands, the problems, and the payoffs for increased efficiency are all larger as your responsibility grows; you must learn to apply proper techniques, or be bettered by those who do. Possibly, the reason Time Management is poorly practiced is that it so seldom forms a measured part of appraisal and performance review; what many fail to foresee, however, is how intimately it is connected to aspects, which do. Leslie Parlow's, excellent practical application of Time Management.By Vivek Dixit, Stanford.edu.

Contains Constructive Ideas for Work Process Improvement.......2000-05-16

While this book explores work-family issues, it also gives concrete suggestions about how to improve management processes and allow workers more personal time without decreasing productivity. Essentially, the thesis of the book is that workers that can work uninterrupted for a significant period each day are more productive and efficient. This thesis is supported by a study done by the author at a Fortune 500 company named "Ditto" (probably Xerox in real life).

However, a depressing aspect of the book is that once higher productivity is achieved, Ditto Corp just piles on more work! Anyone who has worked in a high-stress, tight-deadline environment will be able to identify with the situations in this book.

In terms of action orientation, I found this book better than "Time Bind" by Arlie Hochschild. It also leaves out the liberal politics. Give it as an anonymous gift to the the CEO of your company!

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

International Banking Operations and Practices:Current Developments (International Banking and Finance Law, Vol 2)

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International Banking Operations and Practices:Current Developments (International Banking and Finance Law, Vol 2)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1853339970

Book Description

International Banking Operations and Practices: Current Developments is based on a conference which was held in Taipei on 22--24 June 1992. It represents a tightly coordinated and edited collection of scholarly and highly practical chapters prepared by leading experts on banking law. Important changes are taking place in the financial sectors in the Pacific Rim; vital roles are being played by Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei. This volume deals with the relevant legal questions regarding the changing international financial practices and is divided into two parts. Part I deals with Foreign Banks in International Banking Operations, and Part II covers International Banking and Private Law. This collection, which was designed as a broad foundation for comparative analysis of changes and reforms occurring worldwide in international banking regulation and practice, will be an invaluable aid to all domestic and international government officials, executives of banking and other financial institutions, professionals (attorneys, accountants and other advisers) representing such institutions and academics, in trying to understand both policies and practicalities reflected by these rapid changes and reforms. A separate, but related, companion volume on international banking regulation and supervision has also been produced, entitled International Banking Regulation and Supervision: Change and Transformation in the 1990s, which deals with the broad policy issues entailed in the liberalization and deregulation of the banking industry.

Book Description

From the big bang and pulsars to black holes and the Ice Age--a guided tour of the cosmos.

Is it true that the sun is shrinking at such a rate that our earth will disappear within a hundred thousand years? What happened to the sun's neutrinos to make them disappear on their way to the earth? Why does the fact that the sky is dark at night prove that our universe is changing and hasn't always been the way it is? What are the chances that, if ever we make contact with intelligent beings who evolved under conditions similar to those on earth, they too will be upright, bipedal, with two arms ending in five-fingered hands, with a head on top containing a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth? Questions like these are posed--and often answered--in this delightful excursion through the universe with John Gribbin, the noted award-winning astronomer and science writer. Exploring the topics of Gribbin's passionate expertise, such as astronomy, climate change, and the mystery of new discoveries, The Case of the Missing Neutrinos is the product of some twenty years of universe watching by a man with a rare knack for turning complex science into plain, everyday language.

Customer Reviews:

A well-rounded primer on recent discoveries in astrophysics.......2002-06-16

The seventeen chapters of this book were originally published in the "Griffith Observer" (a monthly magazine issued by the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles). More often than not, essay collections suffer from a lack of cohesiveness, but this book is a rarity: with little repetition, plenty of wit, and a well-planned narrative arrangement, this fascinating introduction to astrophysics travels smoothly from the evolution of intelligent life and the causes of ice ages to black holes and the inflationary universe. I was particularly impressed by how several of the chapters elucidated and expanded upon concepts presented in earlier chapters. It would have been helpful, however, if Gribbin had indicated when each of these chapters was originally written (a few originated in the late 1970s), since some of the ideas presented seem to have been eclipsed or supplemented by more recent advances.

Some readers with a more thorough scientific background may find the information here a little too general, but I wish I had read this book before I had tackled more complex volumes--they wouldn't have been such hard going!

Elementary, my dear Gribbin!.......2000-09-21

Having read quite a few of Gribbin's books, I tend to find that they rehash the same information quite often. Given the number of books he has written, this is not surprising, but it's still annoying. This book came as a pleasant surprise, since there was quite a lot of new content.

As a collection of essays written over the past 20 years, some are not surprisingly out of date, but not badly so. Gribbin has gone to the trouble to arrange the essays in a related fashion, and so the book reads almost as a continuous volume, with each essay flowing nicely to the next.

I was starting to feel as though Gribbin had nothing new left to tell me, but he obviously has plenty of good insights and interesting information still up his sleeve. Definitely one of his better books.

This is it.......2000-06-22

Don't believe anything negative written about this book. I could not put this book down. After having labored through books covering similar topics, this was one of those books that had a definite flow to it. John Gribbon is also very fair in the way he writes. Many experts seem to have an unyielding agenda in their books. Gribbon presents all of the viewpoints in an unbiased manner. Gribbon's selection of chapter/essay topics is excellent - all of the topics that would interest those of us who want a clearer picture on what it's all about. I am usually not easily impressed. People. Trust me. This is a definite must read.

Covers lot of territory, but not in detail.......2000-04-15

This is a nice little book with 17 chapters and not quite 250 pages. Each chapter is typically between 10 and 20 pages long, and reads more like an in-depth article that you might find in the science section of a better-than-average newspaper. These are high-level discussions for the intelligent and informed "man on the street." As such, there are no equations. Unfortunately, there are no figures, illustrations, pictures, charts, or tables, either.

The title describes the case of the missing neutrinos - referring, of course, to the fact that the flux of solar neutrinos found in experiments is only about 1/3 the flux predicted by the standard solar model, under the assumption of zero neutrino mass. The book, though, discusses lots, lots more than just the missing neutrino problem. This is a collection of short essays on issues of primary interest to physics - the hot topics of the day. The book is a joy to read - I bought it for the trip from Portland to Newark, and read it in just a few hours.

Chapter 1 consists of speculation regarding the likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and how likely it is that any such extraterrestrial civilizations might count with, say, base eight instead of base 10. It's interesting to compare Gribbin's assumptions and prejudices regarding the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations in light of Ward's recent book, "Rare Earth." The idea of intelligent extraterrestrial life is also extended in chapter 2, which also includes a very brief and simplistic discussion of the history of life on earth.

Chapter 3 reviews the evidence for the Milankovitch cycles, which are associated with ice ages on earth. The chapter predicts that the next ice age is imminent, but does not include speculation about how the current dumping of carbon dioxide and other "green house gases" might affect its onset. If you enjoy chapter 3, you'll also want to read "Ice Ages," by John Imbrie and Katherine Palmer Imbrie. You may also want to read "Is the temperature rising," by S. George Philander.

Chapter 4 is a real gem. It's called, "How Darwin Discovered Relativity." It's an historical recantation of how biologists discovered, through their study of the earth and evolution, that the earth is many thousands of millions of years old. However, at the time there was no known way to keep the sun shinning for that long. It drove everyone nuts, and resulted in some pretty interesting ideas - all classical, about how to provide earth with heat and life long enough for species to evolve the way they have. Eventually, of course, physicists discovered the energy released in atomic fusion, and that solved the problem. It's a great little chapter that illustrates how progress in one branch of science can stimulate progress in other branches.

Chapter 5 finally gets down to the book's title by introducing the fact that the sun does not seem to be emitting the flux of neutrinos that the standard solar model says it should. Gribbin introduces several possibilities, including the notion that neutrinos could have finite mass (in which case they can oscillate from one type to another) and the idea that solar cycles may result in the temperature dropping within the sun's core (blinking on and off) and thus modulating the flux of neutrinos. Gribbin develops these concepts over several chapters (5, 6, and 7), and includes some fine information about the history of measurements of the sun's diameter, and the solar cycles that result in the size and luminosity of the sun oscillating over time.

Chapter 8 is a fine summary of what happens in a super nova. Again, this is all very qualitative, and many details are omitted, but Gribbin does a nice job of presenting the salient issues involved in super novae and also gives some nice historical information and context. Chapter 8, for example, illustrates super novae by describing SN 1987A. If super novae interest you, check out "The Supernova Story" by Laurence A. Marschall.

Chapter 9 is another one that I truly enjoyed. This chapter is mostly an historical accounting of the discovery of pulsars by Jocelyn Bell. It also includes some of the historical highlights of Thomas Gold's explanation of pulsars as rotating neutron stars.

The rest of the book deals mostly with cosmology. Chapter 10 talks about galaxy formation, chapter 11 is an historical account of how Eddington verified the general theory of relativity by measuring the gravitational bending of starlight. Chapter 12 is about the early predictions of dark stars based on analysis done within the framework of Newton's theory of gravitation, and the interesting idea that black holes were really invented (discovered?) hundreds of years ago, long before the observational evidence for their existence came about.

Chapter 13 touches on some pretty controversial stuff about white holes and Narlikar's theory of the steady-state universe. Chapter 14 is called "Time and the Universe." It's really about the second law of thermodynamics, and attempts to use that, along with ideas in quantum mechanics, to explain time's arrow. Chapter 15 is a quick summary of white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes, and wormholes, and why empty space does not weigh billions of tons per cubic centimeter. The book ends with a chapter on particle physics and a final chapter on inflation.

As I said, I read this book on a trip to New Jersey. While I was there I visited the horn antenna used by Arno Penzias and Bob Wilson when they inadvertently stumbled across the microwave background radiation that confirmed the "big bang" theory of the origin of the universe. It seemed a fitting end to the journey Gribbin took me on with his book.

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES.......2000-03-31

GRIBBIN is a good mystery writer but none of his cases are ever solved. Another science popularizer-writer who tackles describing the content of empty mini space -- this is space smaller than the Planck length of ten to the minus 33rd centimeters. I must give him an A for effort! He would like to weigh the empty space of the universe. What is there to weigh? Here is a list of some of his efforts: a) virtual particles such as positrons, electrons and photons; b) quantum microscopic wormholes; c) "sort of a gas of shifting minispace bubbles" d) space-time foam and e) "monstrously labyrinthine spacetime froth". Thank God for wormholes, for according to Gribbin's reporting, the weightless nature of space "is due instead to an unseen froth of parasite universes that cling to our spacetime through a network of invisible wormholes. Without wormholes, the Universe would indeed be so heavy that it would collapse." (P.193)

Gribbin does no better with the case of the missing neutrinos. Four billion neutrinos per square centimeter per second are said to pass through the detector tank of cleaning fluid buried in a South Dakota gold mine. Only eight of the calculated 25 neutrinos have been detected per month. Two thirds of the little devils are still missing in action. Perhaps a Sci-fi reader can fill in this blank. As an aside, Gribbin reports that a Russian team has implied that a neutrino does in fact have mass, as much as 25 electron Volts, which would, if so, at least account for the missing mass of the Universe, hunted vigorously for decades, no small feat. Happy hunting.

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