The Hamster Revolution: How to Manage Your Email Before It Manages You [Hardcover]

The aim of this book is to reduce email volume, improve email quality, encourage sending email that is more actionable and organize folders using COTA (Clients, Output, Teams, Admin) approach. Although, some ideas of the book are arguable, the book makes you think once again about your way of emailing. Some readers may find COTA useful, but for me it is too complicated and counterproductive. You can do more in less time with a simpler scheme. I prefer the method advocated by David Allen in his book "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity": where the messages are divided by four categories: "next actions", "projects", "waiting for" and "someday/maybe".

I also disagree with the authors' advice to use instant messaging (IM) in addition to email. The authors did not get the major point of e-mail: you write your emails in the most convenient time for you, and the recipient reads them in the most convenient time for her. What the authors do not understand is that you cannot disturb somebody by sending an email in an inappropriate time. For example, the authors wrote that an email may be "...unnecessary interruption in a workday already filled with interruptions. .... You are working on an important project that requires a lot of concentration.... your masterpiece... and ding, an email comes in". The authors do not understand that is not the arrival that made you interrupt, but the counterproductive configuration of the email software that notifies you about the incoming messages. If you will disable the notifications, an incoming email will never break off your concentration again. You will read all the incoming messages in a proper time. The authors also forget about spam - a potential source for interruptions. IM is also the big source of interruptions, and not as efficient as the telephone.

"Turn off your email alarm" is advised by Julie Morgenstern, author of "Never Check E-Mail In the Morning", and by Gleb Arkhangelsky, author of "Time Drive". I highly recommend the two books above mentioned, as well as "Getting Things Done" by David Allen.

This book contains about three genuinely powerful, transformative ideas concerning the effective management of information as pertains to the dynamics of email.

If the authors applied those ideas to the book they wrote about them, the actionable parts of the ideas would be expressed in a well structured bullet pointed page, perhaps with a chart, and perhaps followed by two or three pages of elaboration of the details, and perhaps three more pages of their conceptual basis.

That makes about 21 pages.

The remaining 110 some odd pages are chock full of every motivational speaker/business coach/corporate trainer's cliche', buzzword and artifice known to man, which can be irksome to the experienced reader of books of this type.

All in all, the book is worthy, but if, like me, you're the type for whom the painted smiles and unnnaturally sustained exuberance of the corporate trainer rings false, be fully prepared to power skim about 100 pages to pick out the substance.

This book is a great read. The authors have clearly taken their own advice in writing the Hamster Revolution. They have packed their story full of great practical tips and advice and presented it in an entertaining, engaging and very efficient narrative.

Take this book with you on your next commute or plane trip - it will be the most productive ride you have had in a long time.