Review of “The Time-Optimized Life” by David Buck & Rev. Dr. Susan Rose

Score: 96/100 (9.6 out of 10)

The Time-Optimized Life by David Buck & Reverend Susan Rose is one of the most practical, useful, and valuable books to ever come our way!

In this book, the husband-wife team of Buck & Rose discusses the importance and challenges of managing the one thing that is important to everyone yet waits for no one: TIME.

Using your time wisely and optimizing it can be the difference between a thriving, successful, productive life and a sluggish, disappointing, and unfulfilled one.

This book is jam-packed and full of self-help gems—information meant to educate, inspire, and motivate the reader to be better organized, more mindful, and more disciplined.

It concerns issues that have affected many of us since childhood and that will continue to affect us until our twilight years: procrastination, discipline, coping with stress/anxiety, the fear of failure, trying to multi-task or swallow too much at one time, people-pleasing, and being afraid to say no. A lot of these things are unspoken and unacknowledged issues that linger long into adulthood, holding us back from being free, fulfilled, and productive like a ball and chain around our lives, careers, and relationships.

Everyone has something that holds them back, bad habits if you will. This book is about identifying and handling them appropriately.

Here are some of our favorite takeaways from this book:

• The keys to optimal time management are PLANNING and EXECUTION
• Proper planning prevents poor performance
• Always consider your WHY? Why are you having this meeting? Why are you taking time out of your day to do this task? Is it bringing to further or closer to your goal(s)? What is it costing you in terms of time, money, and energy?
• Control the controllables
• Be aware of distractions and don't let them control or derail you. Be in control of your distractions by scheduling “mini vacations” or breaks to do things like watch surfing videos.
• Still-arm your distractions by keeping them at arms-length where they can do less damage.
• “Your calendar is the single most important and powerful time management tool”
• Elon Musk uses “time blocks” in which he schedules accomplishing certain tasks in a certain amount of time. This also accounts for meals, sleep, and exercised, which are important.
• A short-term goal is not a task. Tasks bring you closer to your short-term goals in one way or another.
• Planning can be done electronically (as Buck does) or by paper (as Rose does)
• You can reaffirm commitment by adding the word “still” as an adverb—do you still value what you are doing/trying to do? Does it still make you happy? Does it still matter to you? Do you still gain something from doing it? This is key to determining motivation. If you're missing your “still” then you're missing your motivation—your reason for doing things.
• Good enough is good enough when timing goes awry. Having a schedule doesn't mean doing 100% of the things on that schedule, it's aiming to. There will be times when you need to call an audible and be fluid/flexible.
• You can't score a goal if you can't see the goal, so always know why you are doing something and what you ultimately hope to achieve.
• Don't be afraid to say no. If something is taking time, energy, and money from you and giving you nothing back, it might be ok to politely reject or refuse it.
• Being productive isn't the same as being busy.

These are a few of the great lessons we learned from this book, there are MANY MORE!

It's such a privilege to get to learn from David Buck, a successful businessman, and his wife, Dr. Susan Rose, a reverend. Their approaches to planning and execution may be a little different, but they both know how to get results.

It's also nice to have a somewhat spiritual, Christian touch to this book. It's not a book about succeeding at all cost, being Machiavellian and scorched-earth about achieving your goals. It's not a book about being selfish or greedy. It's a book about having a positive work-life balance and fulfilling God's purpose for your life.

Check it out on Amazon!