I can’t believe I read the whole thing on my lunch hour! The concepts at points reminded me of GTD or The Five Choices to Extraordinary Productivity, but the author pinpointed what always got me about those methods…listing priorities and time blocking. I am very much a task list person. I don’t like moving them to a specific time on my calendar because when priorities shift, that means shifting the schedule. I make lists and break down the tasks. That is what the author says to do here, but she takes it a step further by catagorizing the tasks. I made a note of her categories and plan to take a blank notebook and start listing my tasks as she did :Next Actions, Future, Projects, Someday/Maybe, Waiting For, Location, and Talk To.

I am actually loving this book! I have been reading it slowly and doing everything she suggests. It's only been a week or so, but I already feel like I've accomplished more this week than I have all year. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who feels overwhelmed by their extensive "to do list" and don't know where to start.

Nothing revolutionary here. Very basic introduction to completing your tasks. The layout was very ordinary and I found the writing to be not very engaging.

*eArc provided by publisher and NetGalley

Thanks NetGalley and Maura Thomas for a copy to review.
A short efficient book that was useful for me personally as a project manager.
I am going to check the author's other work and website.
I liked it.

From To Do to Done: How to go from busy to productive by mastering your to-do list, is part of the Empowered Productivity series and is a short high level self help guide. Probably best suited to young people or anyone new to the productivity self help scene. It is an easy read and includes some staged photographs of neat organised environments. This makes it suitable as a gift book. A variety of topics are covered from time management, making tasks easier. choosing productivity tools and lots more. I have read lots of books in this genre and didn't find anything new, but for many new to this area it may be the perfect book.

Thank you, Netgalley, for the opportunity to read an arc version of this book!

I enjoyed this one-hour read! There are tons of images, and the formatting is really conducive to grabbing and maintaining your focus. At times, images seemed randomly place (ex. Pic of a desk or mug taking up a full page, in the middle of a sentence). Our author focuses on defining productivity as creating the life you want for yourself and details three stages depending if you’re reactive, proactive, or actively working towards your goals.

I appreciated that this book went beyond the basic recommendations of Google Calendar/a planner (although they talked about organizational tools at the end of the book). Throughout the book, there was also a strong use of metaphors such as how to effectively start a puzzle and equating it to tackling large tasks. Overall, I would recommend to folks looking to get started on organizing and prioritizing things in their life!

I'm always reading about productivity and to do lists, and strategies for getting more out of your day. This book is a good book - an easy chatty style, with tips that are possible to be implemented. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to achieve more within a standard week than they usually do!

From To Do to Done: Book Review

Have you ever wondered if there is a better way to manage your actions and control your To Do list? If you have, this book from Maura Nevel Thomas will give you the tools to evaluate how you organize and track tasks efficiently. Like, super-efficiently.
From To Do to Done: How to go from busy to productive by mastering your to-do list, is part of the Empowered Productivity series from Ignite Reads.
It’s a short, colourful, nicely laid out and giftable book, designed to be impactful in just an hour.
The book guides you through the following six steps:
1. Managing your actions
2. Organizing your time
3. Organizing your task list
4. Making things easy for you to do them
5. Choosing productivity tools
6. Working with your system.
The author takes the premise that productivity can be defined as doing what’s important to you: what life do you want? Work towards that. As with many modern productivity books, including Getting It All Done, there’s a focus on understanding what you want to get out of life and what ‘counts’ for you. Then building the rest of your time and activities around that.
Thomas provides detailed instructions on action management: the process of collating, tracking, managing, and crucially, doing tasks. I love the terminology ‘action management’ instead of what I usually use: task management. Action management implies that there is some movement, something happening, some work being completed. Task management implies you’ve made a list. You can see the difference.
I took away some tips from this book – and I consider myself to already be pretty good at task management. Being a project manager, organizing my tasks and those of other people come with the territory.
There were some ideas that challenged my way of thinking, such as her view on how to categorize tasks. Her take on time blocking – reserving time in your calendar for focused work on a particular topic – also goes against what I personally do, but that’s not a criticism. Other people will have different needs and different approaches to doing their work and it’s refreshing to read something new.
I’ve read a lot of productivity and time management books recently – there seems to be a glut of them, maybe as a result of COVID-19 and the move to more virtual working where tech seems to be both a help and a hindrance due to the culture in some places of being ‘always on’.
This one is a pleasant read. It won’t take you long to read and feels manageable, practical and with task management strategies you can start using straight away. Oops. I mean ‘action management’ strategies. I need to start adopting that shift in my own language to focus my mind and make better use of the time I spend organizing my own work.
From To Do to Done would make a great gift for your team or the busy person in your life. I don’t think they’d take it the wrong way…

From To-Do to Done details how to be productive in a mindful way to help you get what you want in life done.

I loved this book! I felt like she tackled getting things done in a way that spoke to me as someone who reads the literature, tries different tips, and still feels like there's an aspect of efficiency I could improve upon. Thomas captures that by explaining how the brain works and offering advice on how to channel that knowledge into life to get what you want done.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.