Customer Reviews

Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better

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I've read the entire book and implemented quite a few of the Hacks in my daily routine. Based on the amount of time I've already saved in just a few weeks, this book has easily paid for itself 2 or 3 times.

Some of the specific Hacks that I'm using and their results:

* Email Control - My Inbox is empty and I've finally got my email under control with filters and the 3-folders system created (I added a 4th folder - Print - for emails that I want a hard copy of but my laptop isn't connected to my printer)

* Digital Photos - I've got all my photos tagged and organized for fast searches

* Repetitive Typing - how did I ever get along without Texter???

* Google Calendar - I love using my mobile phone to update my calendar when I'm on the road or need to post a quick reminder that Calendar will email and text me.

I've still got a few things from the book on my To-Do List:

* Get my bookmarks moved over to del.icio.us as described in the book
* Setup my automated data backup to my external hard drive (I do it manually right now)

Gina's written a great book that really works. The book is platform independent and she tells you when something is Mac or Windows specific. She also lets you know the skill level (Easy, Medium, Advanced) that a Hack will require.

I enjoyed reading it and will probably go through it again soon to make sure I've implemented any hacks that can make my life easier - I'm sure I missed a few.

I remember reading the first edition of Gina Trapani's Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better and thinking how wonderful it was. Of course, when the second edition came out, I had to get that one too. And as with the first one, I have all sorts of post-it notes scattered throughout the book for reference and "go back and try this" notes. Well worth the time and money you spend here.

Contents:
Control Your Email; Organize Your Data; Trick Yourself into Getting Done; Clear Your Mind; Firewall Your Attention; Streamline Common Tasks; Automate Repetitive Tasks; Get Your Data To Go; Master The Web; Hone Your Computer Survival Skills; Manage Multiple Computers; Index

Over the span of the chapters above, Trapani presents 116 different "hacks" that you can incorporate into your daily computer life to, well... work smarter, faster, and better. As with most books that are a compilation of different tips, some will resonate strongly with your current needs, while others are skimming material that may not be relevant. For instance, the hacks in the first chapter, Organize Your Data, hit home. I'm working towards consolidating multiple email addresses with Gmail, and I'm cutting down the number of folders I have, relying on search to find what I need. Master The Web also had some cool tricks, like having multiple home pages in Firefox and using Google Notebook for web clippings. I wasn't quite into the Managing Multiple Computers as much, as my current setup doesn't call for that. Still, it's good information to have around should you need it at a later time.

I actually found a couple different things occurring as I read through the material. There were hacks where some software was presented that did a certain task, and I'd realize I've been looking for something just like that. Similar to scratching an itch that you couldn't quite reach. Then there were the hacks that opened your eyes to whole areas you didn't even know you needed. Let's call that finding AND scratching the itch you didn't know you had five minutes prior. After going through some of the Automate Repetitive Tasks hacks, I have started to look at a lot of things I do with a view towards eliminating the manual repetitive effort that I just accepted as necessary before.

I highly recommend this book to everyone who spends most of their waking hours in front of a computer, and/or earn their living in front of one. Taking away even a small handful of nuggets can radically change the way you do things.

This is a collection of hints, tips and hacks for the technologically inclined. Areas covered are email, organizing your data, tricks to overcome your procrastination, clearing your mind, focusing your attention, streamlining common tasks, mastering the web, honing your computer survival skills and managing multiple computers.

Not at all ironically, the people for whom this book will be most useful - real geeks - will already know some, not all, of these things. I am most definitely a geek, but I did learn many new things and happy for that.

In some ways, the book will a half-loaf for many. There's a lot of Macintosh stuff that will not be helpful to Windows users and vice-versa. There's Windows Vista material that will not be useful to those (most of us, perhaps?) who are sticking with Windows XP. But this is not a major problem: the book has so much good stuff in it, that there is plenty for everyone.

Trapani's writing style is wonderfully clear, direct and concise.

Overall, other than calling it useful, versatile, eclectic and well-done, this book is difficult to classify. It merges real life (remembering to pick up the milk) with the technical (setting up a VPN) and lots, lots more. It is definitely a fun book to browse, packed with lots of great information.

A very worthwhile addition to your library.

Jerry

First I have been working diligently on de cluttering my personal and business life. I have read so many simplifying and de-cluttering and efficiency books I almost have a clutter problem with all the books on the subject. (Cured that recently too with the Kindle 2.)
I run three business. One brick and morter and two online. I was getting over four hundred emails a day and was drowning in mail and spam. So I utilized ideas / suggestions from several sources to cure my problems. From the Four Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss we started using detailed faq's lists on our websites and an auto-responder that answered many questions so we would no longer have to reply to as many emails. For the ones we do answer the questions are predictable and we saved the answers as email drafts that way we just cut and paste and all done.
For the Spam we ran our eight email accounts into one google mail as they have the best spam filters and you can reply from the email address to which the mail was sent so they dont know that anything is happening. And suggestions from the life hacker Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better by Gina Tripani has some interesting ideas for sure.
Keeping your inbox empty we use suggestions from Stress Less and Zen to Done by Leo Babauta and you would not believe how much better you feel when things are under control. But it is you who must Work the system or you will be overwhelmed again.
A much more detailed program is used in Getting Things Done David Allen book, but the above is kind of the simplified version that I currently prefer.
And for just getting rid of all the clutter in your life any of the books from Peter Walsh, How to Organize (Just About) Everything, and Enough Already, are great even though they tend to recover some of the material from his other books somewhat but thats not a big deal since the info is worth repeating. Another good author but she covers pretty much the same thing is Julie Morgenstern. The books by Koch on the 80/20 principle are also worth looking into. For the paper clutter in my life I have a digital sender scanner and have scanned over four full file cabinets into Adobe PDF computer files. I have done this with pictures too as you can also save them info Jpeg and Jiff files. While there are tons more books out there and I seem to have most of them, these are the best to get things under control and to get you the time to do the things that matter to you.

I read through this book over the course of a few days and highlighted everything that pertains to my workflow.
I have turned these into a task list and I am trying to implement one of them every other day or so.

The chapter on simply buying a good quality filing cabinet has made life immeasurably better already :-)

I'm using Text Expander to save time on timing out often used phrases.

I'm integrating google apps to take my work into 'the cloud'.

The tips on how to handle your email inbox are great.

This book is well written and easy to understand with lots of great tips that you can quickly implement to make you workday a little easier to get through and a lot more organized.

The split between PC and Mac tips is pretty balanced so no need to worry that your platform is being left out here.

This book is about what Gina told in an [...] blog, the three things she would teach in a Lifehacker MBA course would be:
- how to install a personal organization system,
- how automate repetitive tasks,
- how to firewall your attention.

Tips in the book are on the Lifehacker website; however, it is much easier to digest. I have read the book while travelling, identified the hacks I wanted to implement, and made a small to do list from the Table of Contents. Then, back at my PC, I just implemented those I felt interesting.

There are tips for life in general (i.e. without computer), and there are many tips to improve on computer usage. Differences for Windows and Macintosh are highlighted. The book is very practical and easy to understand, which doesn't mean it is light on content. There are easy to do hacks, but there are hacks for the very advanced computer user, too.

Among all hacks, the most important to me is that I have completely changed how I deal with e-mail. I have implemented the Search style instead of Organizing in folders style, and changed how I respond to e-mails. Before e-mailing was time consuming and energy intensive, now it is quick and fun.

Some of the tips I have implemented became daily routine to me in such a way, that I only realize reading the book that they come from this book.

Finally, there is just some great fun about reading about a nice hack, even without implementing, it makes me think more creatively.

This book has some great tips as responses have noted. My one issue - at least a quarter of the book -- possibly more -- are tips that apply only to PCs. While often there will be a separate entry for PCs (usually longer) and Macs, there are a good number of suggested tools/tricks that only apply to PCs. I would have like to be able to read through only relevant ones.

This is a great book. The hacks described in this book can simplify anyone's work (and personal) life. If you are too hard-pressed to implement even the simple suggestions of the productivity guru David Allen, Gina Trapani makes them even simpler. I randomly implemented some suggestions from the first edition of the book with very satisfying results. I believe that this edition is a major upgrade and I hope to get a lot more out of it. (I haven't finished reading it yet -- but what I have read and implemented so far is impressive enough.)If you are not a full-time geek, it is hard to figure out all the shortcuts to streamline your work and make it as "online" as possible. This book not only describes many hacks but provides step-by-step instructions to implement them. This is one of the best practical books on streamlining your life. I'm glad Gina Trapani wrote it. (I guess that anyone whose last name ends in "rapani" has to have something going for them.)

I'm not the most disorganized person on the planet, but I'm not the most organized either. I found the book to be a good reference and helpful in getting things organized. The chapter on e-mails - first chapter - actually worked. I feel my inbox is managed well. 200 new messages a day (that's not as much as some folks!) and I'm breezing through them without backlog. On the down side, I found a few tips a little too "organized" for my taste. I'm more about simple effective solutions and this book provides quite a few. It's well worth the investment.

If there's one book that's provided me with value for money recently, this is it. I've had it for over a week and I look at it every day. The other reviews here do a fine job of telling you the content, so mine is a more personal review.

I have plenty of experience in computers, so I can see the advantage of many of the tips. Since buying the book I have changed my browser from IE and my e-mail from Yahoo to Thunderbird, as well as downloading some of the many freeware programs she recommends. It's improved my life immensely, and often the time spent downloading has been paid back in minutes.

I stop short at some of the suggestions for advanced users, but that's because I don't want to change things for the sake of changing them. Otherwise I have more programs that I know what to do with, but that's because there are so many of them.

What's good is that Gina has covered the recommendations down to the last detail, especially living your life with them. Too many books on software run through the features with no recommendations as to where and how to use them. So if you're a person with any level of computer experience you will be using these programs and tips more or less from when you adopt them.

So thank you Gina (and Terra) for bringing this book about. I would guess it's made me 50 percent more effective in the first week. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't do marvels after reading this.