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Comment by Jdam | Hacker News Reader

Getting things done: Too obvious and no groundbreaking new insight at this point in life

Zen and the art or motorcycle maintenance: That was just plain boring. I felt like falling asleep on 400 pages

I got stuck with Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance as well. I bought the book because I heard people praising it, but to me it was just a struggle to read. Didn't manage to finish it.

I did find it boring and repetitive about it's hierarchy of Quality at top. But you could try an audiobook version of it, which helped me finish it and did glean something from it. I'd never have been able to with finish an actual paper version.

I agree Zen was pretty over rated and oversold to me.

I like don't think i got it. I read the whole thing was so drudgerous i liked the bits about the motorcycle and his son that was easy reading but all the stuff about the university was so dull. in fact the motorcycle stuff was dull to but it was peaceful.

> Getting things done: Too obvious and no groundbreaking new insight at this point in life

I had my suspicions, but I was not sure. Thanks for saving my time :)

It's something I think is worth reading at a certain point in your life (younger, say below 25) or if you find you have poor abilities to stay organized and be productive.

Its core concepts can be distilled to 5-10 bullet points, and some of the original edition didn't age well (do you still use a rolodex?). The edition I have was updated to be a bit more general regarding tooling.

I'll put it in the same camp as some books on lean/agile software development: If you haven't learned it yet, they're useful reads. If you have, it may give you a better vocabulary to discuss it with others or think about it for yourself. But if you've already learned it (or other approaches), the value of the time spent reading versus the gain may not be worth it.

Hmm, I am both under 20 and have hard time being productive for long periods of time in anything other than programming.

Thanks for the advice :D

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