Customer Reviews

Breathing Space: Living and Working at a Comfortable Pace in a Sped-Up Society

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I use a lot of books in the executive training I offer, some of them well-known bestsellers like Flow, but only one do I advise my clients to read: Breathing Space. Jeff Davidson has filled each page of Breathing Space with insight, practicality, and specific advice. To get your hands back on the controls of your modern life, no book is better.

Life in the today's world is busy, full, and rife with distractions. Satisfaction can easily slip away without special efforts to create an environment and habits which support our own goals and priorities. Fail to do so and you life will -- as Jeff Davidson amply demonstrates -- be thoroughly colonized by advertisers, entertainers, and co-workers. It has often been said, and is even more true today, that if you are not working your plan you are working someone else's plan. Breathing Space is the most succinct and useable approach I have seen to get back on your own plan. I have used his methods myself and with many clients. They not only work but keep working.

I call my variation of the organizing techniques "Clutter Buster." I noticed that before I organized my workspace, it gradually got less usable until I was moved to clean-up. My cleaning blitzes never quite got the space up to snuff, however, and each succeeding cleaning frenzy had poorer results than the last, for a picture over time like the "Before" graph below. I was spending more time "getting organized" and less time feeling organized. After an extensive and thoughtful re-design of the workspace based on Davidson's principles, I noticed that my area stayed more workable longer plus (1) the messy phases were less horrible, (2) my office was easier to re-organize, and (3) I spent much more time enjoying the peaks of organization. Bottom line: more productivity and greater satisfaction.

My home office was something of a disaster before I thoroughly organized it with the help of a consultant and this book. Not only did it look great afterward, but it stayed that way permanently. The considerable time and expense invested in that clean-up has been more than repaid. I have since applied the techniques to my garage, briefcase, car, and other parts of my life.

Getting Breathing Space can give you your life back and even create space for the life you always wanted.

Breathing Space: Living and Working at a Comfortable Pace in a Sped-Up Society
by Jeff Davidson

During the early nineties when I was embarking on my departure from the corporate world & entering the Corridor to pursue my entrepreneurial interests, one book caught my personal attention. At that time, I was told that "information doubled once every eighteen months". Alvin Toffler, John Naisbitt, & Richard Saul Wurman were already riding high on the information anxiety phenomenon, even though each of them has his own perspectives.

The book I am referring to is 'Breathing Space'. I am gratified to note that this book is still available. Although some stuff may be dated as it was written during the pre-internet era, a lot of the strategies & tools advocated by the author are still applicable in today's context.

First, the author defined 'breathing space' beautifully as: "You know it when you have it. It is the feeling of having time & space, of being in control, or content or relaxed. It is the room to be, to explore or to do nothing."

Let me outline here the major parts of his work:

1. The root causes of the pressure you feel;
2. Hand tools;
3. Power tools;
4. Cerebral tools;
5. Metaphysical tools;

Back in the early nineties, the book fueled me with a lot of valuable fresh insights, which empowered me to live & work at a comfortable relaxed pace in a 24-hour society:

- information only becomes knowledge when it's applied;
- choose to acquire knowledge that supports or interests you;
- about 80% of papers retained in office environments are never used;
- periodically, the sweetest choice is choosing from what you already have, choosing to actually have what you've already chosen;
- whenever you catch yourself making a low-level decision, consider: Does this really make a difference? Get in the habit of making only a few decisions a day - the ones that count;
- consider the value of any product, service or plan as two fold: (1) the intended benefit & (2) the ease with which you can understand, receive & enjoy those benefits. If it doesn't, don't buy it;
- Rules of Thumb: any item that saves you one hour per week for a minimum of one year & costs US$1,000 or less is an excellent buy; never mind if you purchased the latest or fastest model; there will always be later & faster models;
- any activity consuming 30 minutes of your day consumes two solid years of your life;
- to get to know someone better, ask him what his life priorities are;
- if you don't know what you have & you can't find it, it is of no use to you;
- just because it is interesting or expensive doesn't mean you have to keep it;
- being neat & being organised are not the same thing;
- a powerful way to gain breathing space, perpetually, is by seeking completions;
- preserve your weekends for recreational activites. You're worth it!;
- if you're serious about having more breathing space, give up fast food forever!
- you can increase the likelihood of experiencing time warp effect by removing yourself from the time measured environment - by hiding the clock;
- one hour of uncluttered thought can yield more benefits than days of common desk work;
- jump starting often enables you to capture your first & sometimes best thoughts;
- use the day units as a convenient measure for charting progress in pursuit of your goals;
- living in the moment does not mean living for the moment or living to get to the next moment. It means total, unconditional acknowledgement that what is now, is your life; that now is the only moment there is;
- the relentless quest to move on to what's next keeps you from fully enjoying what's here;
- longing more strongly for what you no longer have, rather than reveling in what you do have, is a guarantee that you will miss the present & all the magic it holds. Revel in what you have;
- how you elect to feel is always your choice. the act of choosing is a simple but powerful technique that will further aid you in attaining breathing space;
- when people make decisions based on instinct, they end up happier than those who make decisions based on careful analysis;
- choosing to feel at home frees you to experience the present moment, wit its surrrounding scenery, to the fullest;
- when you are off course, re-direct your energies. Ask: "What do I want right now?"
- go for a walk if you are stymied;
- most decisions you could make are of little consequence. Not choosing can be restful!
- some people remain poor is that they accommodate poverty...as difficult as it is for them to live in abject poverty, they are not willing to accept the difficulty of making a better life for themselves (according to Prof Kenneth Galbraith);
- get ruthless, drop what doesn't support you;
- constantly read your priorities & goals list;
- clear all your files of deadwood;
- count twice; look for all the ways to re-apply the work you have already done;

Even up to today, the insights from the book still work for me! Many thanks, Jeff, for a wonderful exposition!

To conclude my review, let me say this: Read this book & see how much more you can accomplish in a day & how much more you can enjoy it!

Stress, busyness, information - it's all around you and it seems there's so much of it, and it's so insistent, and it's so loud, an it's so invasive.

And in reading Jeff Davidson's latest resource for leaders, managers, and just about everyone, it's clear that the pressure is here to stay, at work and at home - and it will get worse. There is no returning to an earlier, simpler, unhurried time.

So....we need some strategies, some tools, and some...breathing space.

Fortunately, Jeff Davidson makes good on his title. Breathing Space starts with a clear and compelling analysis of why we feel so pressured. The reader is then focused on very positive, healthy strategies to deal with a world where 565,000 books are published each year, 95 million printers are spewing paper from at least 95 million computers, and the typical executive receives 225 pieces of unsolicited mail each month.

In 22 succinct, comortably paced chapters, Breathing Space offers practical and innovative strategies for clearing up the clutter, breaking through procrastination, organizing your workspace, managing your reading, and choosing your priorities wisely - among other work and personal challenges.

Breathing Space attacks paper clutter with a vengeance, as in - get rid of it! Eighty percent of the paper we save will never be needed. Most importantly, the reader learns how to conrol paper at the intake point, so that it never piles up in the first place.

Davidson's insights are especially powerful on the widespread perceived need to keep up with information overload from print, media, and electronics. He draws our attention to how much we are exposed to information that does not really support us but which, day after day, robs us of breathing space. His sensible strategies leave the reader feeling that this too, can be handled, and that we need not waste energy in guilty responses to an information overload which we can never posssibly keep up with.

Chapters are broken up with short messages labeled "Fresh Air", that put our need for breathing space in perspective. One Fresh Air message captures a theme that radiates throughout the book:
"Telltale signs of being too busy: If you're too busy to enjoy life, you're too busy; If you're too busy to stay calm, you're too busy; If you're too busy to stay in shape, you're too busy; If you're too busy to see your friends, you're too busy."

Breathing space is really about quality of life, or more accurately - learning to leave enough space in your life so that you identify what matters to you, and then allocate your life efforts accordingly. It is about taking control and creating environments that support your choices in life, as opposed to reacting to useless information, negative people, and distracting but ultimately unfulfilling stimulus of many sorts.

Without a doubt, Breathing Space is must reading for anyone who wants to master the art of dealing effectively with more information, pressure and time crunch. From the looks of what is to come, that is just about all of us.

"Breathing Space" is a wonderful concept and is laid out nicely by the author in this easy-to-read book. It's only about 210 pages but mercifully, most pages don't contain a lot of text. So it's easy on the eyes, and easy on the mind. I agree whole-heartedly with the author's premise that the pace of life has sped up because of what he calls "macro-realities," a sort of mega-trends that are here now and continue to impact every element of our lives. Buy this book for yourself and for people you care about. It'll give you insights and perspectives that are unique and vital. More important, you'll have a broad-base understanding as to why we all seem to be in such a hurry all the time, and have a real good chance of getting past this trap.

This book is nothing short of a sensational. It is one of the most forward-thinking texts I've encountered in quite a while. Starting with the premise that an over-populated world creates more information and communication than the typical person can keep up with---more media, more paper, and more choices---you begin to gain a sense of why each day feels as if there's too much to do, too much to know, too much to keep on top of. With this book, you gain a perspective that enables you to approach your day, your week, your month and so on in a more common and reasoned fashion. Some of the tips in the middle and latter chapters I have seen in otherbooks, but in this context they seem to work particularly well. I like theauthor's approach in giving out the tips based on hand tools, power tools,and cerebral tools. If you are experiencing increasing time pressure or stress, this is the book for you.

This is a very insightful book and one that is unlike most others that I've encountered. The author maintains that the typical person in our society today is in a super-rush because of forces that uniformly impact us all. He then proceeds to lay out in a very logical fashion how to counter-act these forces and take control of your day as well as the spaces in your life, like your desk, your car, your closets, and so on, so that you're in control more of the time. I particularly like the sections called "Fresh Air" which are bulleted points offering innovative ideas for getting back in charge of your life.

* I would give this book an 11, if the scale went that high. From the opening gun, right through to the last words, I found this entire book to be easy to read and extremely helpful. The author doesn't preach, or get into technical gobbledygook. He stays on course, for the most part, addressing root causes of the situations that most of us face on a fairly regular basis, and then providing very doable suggestions to achieve desired results.

I read this book several years ago, and whenever it seems that information and paperwork and clutter sneakily inches its way back into my life, I immediately refer back to this book. And when I say, "refer", I most likely will not reach for the book but remember the tips and quips that allow you to easily recall the helpful hints. It's a fun read with information that any packrat (Myself included)can use to turn vertical filing to horizontal, or remove unneeded info without guilty feelings. This book will change your attitude about a lot of things.

The selection in our living room bookshelf is, admittedly, "eclectic." And maybe it's that good salt air, or the thoughtful mode you slip into when you're on an island. But our guests just DIVE for this book. Jeff's onto something when he cautions against attempting "time management." He's right...it WON'T be managed. Yet Jeff's notion of SPACE management can make a difference. Even when you're not 12 miles out in the ocean.

This is a very good book on a topic that a lot of people will start to be aware of. I mean, gosh, can we all just keep rushing around, working like dogs, and not taking any time off for personal growth? It focuses on things how all got into this culteral rat race, the imprtance of balance, rediscovering aspects of yourself, cultivating new interests and new hobbies and taking appropriate personal risks that you weren't up to taking before reading it.