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Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload Kindle Edition
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJune 15, 2007
- File size973 KB
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Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
This is The Elements of Style for the digital age.
- Seth Godin, author, The Dip
Mark Hurst has written the indispensable guide to the digital era. Instead of a mere "how-to" guide, Hurst shows what's really going on when we struggle with e-mail and todo lists. For anyone who has ever used a computer, this will not just wildly increase their productivity (as it has for me!) - it'll also let their ideas fly.
- David Bodanis, author, E=mc2 and Passionate Minds
An informative and clear step-by-step guide on how to turn the ever-increasing avalanche of bits into a force that will propel your life and career.
- Tom Hughes, Chief Design Officer, Idealab
Mark Hurst is the smartest person thinking about ways technology can make our lives easier rather than harder. If you're willing to give up some of your useless bytes for true knowledge and crowded RAM for zen clarity, then get bit-literate today.
- Douglas Rushkoff, author, Get Back in the Box
A lot of people feel left out of the whole Internet and computer thing, but realize it could be really valuable for them. Bit Literacy provides the basic skills required for anyone to engage the wave of informational change.
- Craig Newmark, founder, craigslist.org
Most of us learned how to deal with digital technology in piecemeal fashion. We developed habits that served us well for a time. But for the modern digital age, almost all of our habits are bad. In Bit Literacy, Mark Hurst provides brief, no-nonsense, clear, and unbelievably helpful advice on how to replace those bad habits with good ones. Take his advice and instead of being tyrannized by the overload that comes at you daily, you'll be liberated.
- Barry Schwartz, author, The Paradox of Choice
The word 'empowerment' should be included in the subtitle of this book, as I believe reading it reduces the hypertension involved in our daily journey through the flotsam and jetsam of life. Bit Literacy helps make the complex clear.
- Richard Saul Wurman, author, Understanding USA
About the Author
As the founder of Creative Good and Good Experience, and host of the renowned Gel conference (Good Experience Live), Hurst and his companies help organizations work more productively and create better customer experiences. Hurst holds bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science from MIT. He lives in New York City with his wife.
Product details
- ASIN : B001CLFPMY
- Publisher : Good Experience Press (June 15, 2007)
- Publication date : June 15, 2007
- Language : English
- File size : 973 KB
- Simultaneous device usage : Unlimited
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Not Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 193 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #34,768 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #15 in Business Office Skills
- #40 in Time Management in Business
- #56 in Stress Management (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Mark Hurst, who founded Creative Good in 1997, has spent his career writing and speaking about how organizations and individuals can create better customer experiences. In 2003 Hurst founded the Gel conference, which annually spotlights people and projects that create some good experience. Hurst also wrote "Bit Literacy," the 2007 book about managing email and information overload, and created Good Todo, the mobile productivity suite. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from MIT and lives in New York City with his wife and son.
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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I used to think I was SO clever, for having discovered I could use my email inbox as an address book, database, calendar, bookmark, and to-do list all rolled into one. "Gee," I thought, "I bet most people aren't this effective in managing information." Was it any surprise that I had two thousand emails in one inbox, and seven thousand in another, stretching back seven years? And I even thought this was a GOOD thing. Oy!
It's the genius of Mark Hurst's Bit Literacy that he gives a thoughtful and convincing set of reasons for getting your email inbox down to ZERO every day. "Let the bits go" he says. He tells you exactly how to do it -- and no, it doesn't involve just deleting everything -- as well as why. He gives you the day-to-day method, and he gives you the one-time "induction" procedure that tells you how to get to that point. These MIT grads are so methodic about technology! Anyway, soon you too can share the shock of seeing an empty email inbox. And then... go on to get something done!
Hurst tells you how to perform the magic on your email in-box, your to-do list, your photos, tells you how and where you store your files (and a good way to name the files too) and how to manage your media diet. He recommends some free tools, and some you might want to pay for.
For me, the greatest value of this book will most likely be using what Hurst calls a bit literate to-do list. In a bit literate to-do list, you can create 'to-do' items with an email, with each item tied to a particular day, and display the items in priority order, showing detail as well as summary. The Bit Literacy book actually can serve as a manual for Hurst's online to-do list service, for which he charges three dollars a month. A cynical reader might suggest that the book ought to be given away free with a paid subscription, or the relevant chapter (Chapter 5) posted for free on his service's website (to be fair, maybe it is). Not being cynical, I simply signed up for the site, and am now moving forward in creating a more-aggressive summer vacation schedule. There has to be some personal payoff for increased productivity, doesn't there?
Whether you 1) just use his OEM strategy (open, engage, move) to clean up your email inbox, or whether you 2) sign up for his bit-literate to-do list gootodo dot com or whether 3) you go whole hog, and install and use the programs he recommends in a footnote on page 177 of Bit Literacy (you could drop six or seven hundred bucks), this book is worth well more than the modest amount time you will invest in reading it. This first edition lacks an index.
I learned that bit literacy describes the skill of managing digital information in efficient ways. The book outlines techniques for dealing with emails, digital files, and the often overwhelming amount of media we consume. The focus on specific tools, like email filters and file organization, was useful and provided some immediate benefits in my day-to-day work.
I felt the application of these ideas sometimes were repetitive or don't apply at all to my problems. The solutions proposed seem to scratch the surface of what could be an intense discussion on integrating digital productivity seamlessly into all aspects of one's life. Furthermore, while the books strategies are clear, I am convinced the book could benefit from updating some of its examples and recommendations to align with newer technologies and platforms that have emerged since its publication.
The writing style is straightforward but it sometimes lacks the engaging narrative that could make the subject matter more compelling. The text functions more as a manual rather than a source of inspiration for rethinking one's digital habits on a philosophical level.
Do you feel like you can't catch up? Are you stressed out by technology? Do you need a laugh? Mark Hurst's reinterpretation of verses in Ecclesiastes made me laugh. I agree that there is a time for email and a time not to check email. This book teaches you how to get rid of emails for good or how to sort and file them so they become less of a problem.
Now probably the most helpful part of this book is the explanation on how to organize your to do list. Mark Hurst recommends a site that works with email to organize you on a daily basis. You can send an email to the site and it automatically puts something on your to do list. Then all you do is figure out what you need to do each day without worrying about what you have to do a week from now.
This book also gives some good tips on how to manage photos.
Mark Hurst is a creative writer and his words are a pleasure to read. His advice for living in an age of bits is invaluable. For the overwhelmed computer literate person, this is a must read. By applying the methods this author discusses you should be a lot less stressed.
~The Rebecca Review
Top reviews from other countries
La gestion des mails, des to-do et le rangement des fichiers sont des chapitres particulièrement intéressants dans ce sens : combien de fois ai-je vécu des situations où des collègues (quand ce n’était pas moi…) n’arrivaient pas à retrouver tel fichier ou à savoir quelle version de fichier était à jour ou non…
Je rejoins l’auteur sur le fait que la bit literacy n’en est qu’à ses débuts. Les bits sont de plus en plus nombreux, et partout. C’est donc un livre intéressant, destiné à rappeler les bases aux plus aguerris ou à montrer la voie aux plus dépassés. Sans doute pas un incontournable, mais une lecture précieuse tout de même.
Adrien Delambre
[...]
This book aims to provide some basic advice on how to handle the constant stream of incoming data, by using the technology in a way to do some of the work for you. It is written in a plain, easy to understand way, and I would suggest that most people could start to implement some of the advice pretty quickly and that it would make their lives considerably easier. You do have to start at the beginning, but after that, you can dip in and out of certain sections.
The author does make quite a big thing of a product that he has developed; but don't think that the book is just an advert for that service, you can use other products as well. All in all, it is well written, full of practical advice, and if the advice is followed, would make many people's lives better organised.
The author loves Mac products. Not judging. Just saying. And after my cheapo Acer laptop running Windows crashed several times this week, it makes me want to go buy one.
If you were starting a new job, this book would be a terrific guideline for making a fresh start with your info system at the same time. I need to clean up my photos, so there's some good tips there as well.
I like the idea of doing everything in ASCII. I've always liked Courier New and figure it's time for a Return of the Simple anyway. In fact, ASCII is so simple that people would probably think using it was too weird. Bit levers are now commonplace but I am still reluctant to hit the space ar when the word auto-fills.
I'm not sure about the merit of the Dvorak keyboard. Old mechanical specs are the reason railways have their standard width. There is likely a good reason why the Dvorak has been around for eighty years or so but hasn't really caught on. Sometimes an old dog should be allowed to keep his tricks.
So please focus on working with the data, not the meta-work. And don't miss the developer wishlist in the Appendix.