I was a little daunted when ‘How to be a Productivity Ninja’ arrived - the book was larger than I expected. However, I found it very readable with practical exercises for each chapter.

The starting point is that the world doesn’t work with existing time management methods – the pace has picked up and there are too many sources of information to manage with the traditional ‘to-do’ list. So we need something different.

Graham presents eight ‘Ninja’skills – plus the fact that we are not super human and do get things wrong - in the first part of the book. He then moves onto explain why these will help our productivity and the CORD model (capture and collect, organise, review, do). This is similar in concept to David Allen’s ‘Getting Things Done’ (a text he acknowledges) with techniques such as getting email to zero, collecting everything you are or could be doing into one place, using a next action list, projects and the weekly review.

For me it is a practical book and a useful refresher. I have already tried some of the techniques (an empty inbox is bliss - I just need to deal with the actions now!) and I will be dipping into the book again for future improvements. Well worth the read.