Ruby

What a load of drivel

Revisado: 05-07-21

Big take away is that the author believes that procrastinators hate themselves and suffer from low self-confidence. There's a whole chapter about why you should have better self-esteem. The productivity part of the book just trigger a ton of burn-out workaholic alarm bells - between his definition of what procrastination is (which is anything that isn't focusing on your primary goal in life) and his constant nag about how you need to be productive to be happy in life, and if your not spending 100% of your time being productive - you're a waste of space. Okay that's a little hyperbolic - only a little.

I am a self-identified procrastinator and this book has missed so many marks - it's as though the writer has only viewed procrastination through the lens of someone who looks down on people who have the audacity of showing up for work a exactly 9am and leave at exactly 5pm when their paid time is done. If your time isn't spent 100% on work - you're doing something wrong.

I gave up when he was talking about weathering the storm of your emotions. Nothing wrong with the concept - but the sheer level of repetition just annoyed me. It took 2hrs of just trying to get through all of the drivel to final just abandon ship.

Readers - if you take this book seriously, follow up your research with recovering from burn out, because you're going to need it.

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esto le resultó útil a 7 personas

Fantastic Insight

Revisado: 07-06-17

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

This is the perfect book for aspiring writers who also want to be prolific at what they do. Sure, there's a bit of a mind shift a writer needs to make when going from typing to dictation, and it's not quite the same as verbal storytelling, which is a different beast. I've already had two sessions and i'm already seeing my word count climb.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Writer's Guide to Training Your Dragon?

I saw the advantages of dictation programs for writing ages ago, Dragon being the one of the best on the market at the time, but it was horrible for accuracy. A couple of years back I bought Home edition 12, and though it was an improvement, it was still a nightmare to edit my drafts as paragraphs of text would come out as gibberish. I implemented the first couple of tricks right away: use a proper mic, the same one i used for professional video narration (garbage-in garbage-out) and reset my profile to ignore emails, on-board training, and uploaded my manuscripts. Instant change in the accuracy levels! I'm a huge fan! Now it's time to focus on getting that word count up and teach my brain how to tell the story verbally instead of through typing.

Have you listened to any of Scott Baker’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No i have not. But i have heard him on podcasts and the tone he uses here is just as personal, one-on-one, as though he's talking directly to you and teaching you everything he knows about the program. Apart from a few accent related quirks that make me giggle, he spoke clearly and the recording was professional quality.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I enjoyed his story about tight deadlines and his drive to overcome physical issues. It's inspiring.

Any additional comments?

i'm so happy he gave me a reason to go back to Dragon. I'm planing to implement the dictaphone process at some point in the future, especially since i know i'll be spending a lot of time in the garden during the summer.

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Great tool for refining your writing habit

Revisado: 09-07-16

Where does Lifelong Writing Habit: The Secret to Writing Every Day rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's a great book to listen to on your computer so that you can quickly access something to record your ideas and your tasks. I found myself hyped to put into practice some of Chris' exercises right away and have on most exercises. Reviewing and implementing some of the larger items over the course of the week, but focusing on the core writing habit.

What did you like best about this story?

I love that Chris covers the area of mental clutter and how it can have a negative impact on your overall productivity. I'm going through a massive cleanse right now, decluttering my workspace and dumping all of my to-do items into my preferred task management system 'Trello'. I've also refined my existing word count tracking from calculating how many words i need to write for a deadline, to just tracking and aiming to do better. My previous method caused a lot of mental paralysis that resulted in my just ignoring it just to get on with my writing.

Have you listened to any of Ryan Kennard Burke’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I've not listened to anything from Ryan Kennard Burke before, so I have no basis for comparison.

What did you learn from Lifelong Writing Habit: The Secret to Writing Every Day that you would use in your daily life?

I haven't learned anything new per-say. I found it interesting to see how he implemented some of his own tactics to reprogram his habits, and I'm willing to try them for myself to see if it can yield to improvement in my own failing habits. Procrastinating by doing mutually important tasks is still procrastinating... *lowers head in shame*

Any additional comments?

On his chapter about continuous learning and listening to podcasts: absolutely! A hungry mind is a creative mind. Don't limit yourself to just writing podcasts (though they do serve as good creative mojo), listen to all sorts of podcasts that suit your interests, the themes of your latest creative work and more. Don't limit yourself!
I'm of two minds of the naysayer chapter, but I felt that he articulated the difference between 'you can't do it' and 'your finger painting is crap' rather nicely. It could have used repeating as I come across many authors who feel that anything said that may not connect with their reader/market is the equivalent of naysaying.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Not what I thought it was

Revisado: 08-15-15

What would have made A Whole New Mind (Live) better?

It's a live motivational speech complete with slideshows and graphs you can't see while the speaker is demonstrating his point. You can get the jist of where he's going and I suppose that's good enough.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

I could feel his excitement and it was easy enough to get caught up until you realize it's all hype.

Any additional comments?

I work in the creative industry and just because my skill set is necessary to differentiate one product from another, doesn't mean the corporate system will see the value in it and/or not try to convince the artist that this project is just stepping stone and should be done cheap/free.

It's a nice thought, just not doesn't fit with common business practices.

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