Time Management from the Inside Out, Second Edition: The Foolproof System for Taking Control of Your Schedule -- and Your Life

The Monday after Thanksgiving I set out on a new career adventure. To partake of the training I need for this new career, I'm studying my new trade by correspondence course (the old-fashioned kind where you receive lessons in the mail). The course will go for six months, so I'll need to be self-motivated to get through all the material, learn the underlying wisdom and techniques, and complete the exercises.

Fortunately, I found Ms. Morgenstern's book during a visit to my local library. This came at the perfect moment for me and I began incorporating 30-minute sessions with Julie's book into my daily study periods.

With the help of Time Mapping, I've used the book to structure (and make ongoing adjustments to) my study goals. With the help of chapters such as Sort, Containerize, and Purge, I've become better at focusing my time to get through my to-do list and thus make better use of my leisure time.

I *feel* better about how much time I have, even though I've just added a big commitment in the form of 22 hours of study per week. I've been able to schedule realistic time slots for my other tasks as well as plenty of down-time. It's amazing how this book has helped me expand my concept of available time.

Using the visual aids in the book, and also researching more options online, I've finally chosen a planner that really works for me. This was a liberating step as I had not even realized I'd chosen a planner that wasn't right for me. I'd been subconsciously blaming myself for not making proper use of my old planner, but Julie's book helped me see through that defeatist thinking and find the solution. She works that magic in other areas also, helping demystify foggy habits such as procrastination and chronic lateness.

[Incidentally, since you're considering tools for better use of time, you might enjoy a little tip on planners that I stumbled across. While searching for your perfect planner (or, as I am, while getting through the final weeks of a waning year), you can supplement by using At-A-Glance QuickNotes Daily Planner. It comes as a tear-off pad with undated pages (you fill in the dates yourself) and each page has hole punches for optional storage in a ring binder. The cost is approx. five bucks for a pad of 50 sheets - which makes it an affordable way to experiment. It's a great way to practice structuring your day in a large format where you can spread out and really go ballistic.]

I've checked TIME MANAGEMENT FROM THE INSIDE OUT out of the library twice in a row so I could finish it. I now plan to buy my own copy from Amazon so I can go back over it and highlight the methods I didn't quite incorporate the first time around.

Unlike some of the other reviewers, I had not already read Morgenstern's book ORGANIZING FROM THE INSIDE OUT, so I did not find the material repetitious. I found it inspiring and very helpful. I would go as far as saying this book has changed my life. Time eating me alive has always been one of my biggest issues. Time now feels like less of a taskmaster and more of a personal tool.

I can't wait to see how I feel about time (and my accomplishments) once I've been practicing my new schedule for six months or longer.

P.S. I just found out there's a second edition, so I'll probably buy that one to get the updated features.

I loved this book. It's extremely easy to read, and I found it had a fresh, new approach to truly making a daily planner system work! Her Time Map really got me thinking of what areas in my life I really want to spend my precious time on. I read the book in 2 days because I found it so interesting, and have plans on going through it again and applying her advice to my life. It is the best time management book I've ever read.

Ms. Morgenstern's first book, Organizing from the Inside Out, was tremendously helpful because of its ease with which I could apply the principles to my life. Her kindergarten model of organizing space -- to create activity zones -- totally resonated with me the first time I read OFIO, and her use of it again in relation to time management is so great!

She advocates a goal-oriented approach to scheduling time and actually helps her readers think through their goals. In the second part of the book, which I found particularly helpful, she brings the kindergarten model back and applies it to mapping out time. Morgenstern also provides specific instructions about how to zone your own calendar so that you can make really effective and informed decisions about your time.

The most appealing part of Morgenstern's approach -- and the part that separates her from other self-help authors -- is that she never IMPOSES anything on her readers; rather, she teaches us _how_ to discover what's going to work in our own lives. She gave me freedom to figure out what was going to work for me, rather than making me learn a new, complicated system to impose on myself.

I found Julie Morgenstern's first book, Organizing from the Inside Out, so helpful, that I was happy to buy this one (and this from someone who rarely buys books when I can just check them out of the library--I never actually bought the first book!). It uses the exact same principals as the first book, only geared towards time management. The principals are organized and logical, and really help you make sense of your schedule. And it will help you create a schedule that will help you achieve your goals and achieve balance in your life.

She covers time management briefly in the first book. (In fact, she highly recommended using a planner and so I bought one and have found it extremely helpful). Here she gets into more detail, and I found the extra detail on how to create a time map especially helpful. I am working on my own time map now. It's too early to say that I have mastered time management (it does take time, after all). But I am starting to feel a sense of control over my time and space and that is more valuable than I had previously realized.

She recommends reading the first book first, because working with the space in your home is more tangible than working with time. I agree.

I was anxious to read Julie Morgenstern's brand new book on time management since I found her "Organizing" book very interesting and useful. This book provides lots of insight into better time management, something we can all use. We've all tried various methods and systems to help us succeed in time management. Some helped, some didn't. It's something I've always had difficulty in dealing with, and although I read various books on the subject, they didn't seem to help very much. Julie's new book really seems to help me balance my time so I can get more things done. She brings to light some of the things that hinder good time management and shows you how to improve on them by using the skills that you already have. Her goal is to help you manage your time better to allow you to do the things you must do, providing you with more time to do what you really want to do. She shows you how to determine how much time tasks really take, avoiding being late, keeping you to your required schedule, and how to cope with things that go wrong. This book offers her expert advice to guide you in establishing a plan or system that works best for you as an individual. It's NOT all work and no pleasure, either. Everyone can benefit by what this book has to offer. It will help you accomplish more in your work life as well as your home life. This will surely become a best seller, as it's a subject EVERYONE must deal with. Well worth reading !!