DK Essential Managers: Manage Your Time

• DK Publishing Dorling Kindersley.

We all might manage our time better if we could get everything done in as little time as it takes to digest this nifty, palm-size, 72-page quick-reference guide. Everything is covered here in a kind of how-to shorthand, from analyzing your current use of time, working out priorities, and using time planners to making instant changes (like filing paperwork, avoiding interruptions, "filtering" information, making and taking telephone calls, and reading and writing) and managing other people's time when you're the one in charge. You'll get jiffy-quick advice on using the latest technology to do more in less time, getting more out of your meeting minutes, and even remembering how to schedule time off. On every page, boxed tips, lively illustrations, and handy checklists and flow charts bring the ideas to life. Granted, if you're looking for very specific or in-depth guidance, you might find this book too cursory and general in its approach. But, if you're looking for a thumbnail guide to the basics, it'll do just fine. It's worth mentioning that the book is part of the "Essential Managers" series by reference publisher Dorling-Kindersley--a series comprising 20 itty-bitty books on business and career topics that range from communication, leadership, and decision-making to the management of time, budgets, change, meetings, people, projects, and teams. Combining the talent of the "For Dummies" book series for breaking down a lot of information into bite-sized bits and sidebars with Dorling-Kindersley's signature design style of crisp, classy graphics on a gleaming white backdrop, the books don't represent the cutting edge of business thinking or reflect necessarily any unique individual perspective. Instead, it's as if someone had collated the best general thinking on these 20 topics, and rolled them out into 72 brightly designed and easy-to-read pages--studded along the way with boxed tips, color s of a multiracial cast of "coworkers" animatedly hashing through the workplace issues of the day, and, on the last few pages of each volume, a self-test of one's skills in the topic at hand. Again, they're not for anyone who's looking for more in-depth or focused help on any of the covered subjects, but they're perfect as a quick general-interest reference; and, let's face it, they're so damn cute, and look so smart in a neat little stack or row, that probably you'll want to buy a whole bunch to give as gifts to your entire staff or department. --Timothy Murphy