The book I have chosen to review and reflect upon is Cognitive Surplus, by: Clay Shirky.
1. The over all theme of the book is how we can spend our free time more productively and as such can work in such a way that can advance ourselves and society as a whole.
2. This book connected with the them of productivity and resonated with me as I struggled initially to allocate my time effectively. This helps me connect this to one of the major themes of being an entrepreneur which is to be efficient in all aspects possible. This also reminds me that in my free time I can be bettering my product such as through sales pitch practice, new ideas, or problem solving.
3. The exercise I would ask the class to do would be similar to the bug list where for a set period of time (a week or so) I would ask students to record what they are doing in their free time, then attempt to be more productive with it. One other option would be to take the list and add time to each activity so that students would realize just how much time they could be spending bettering them selves or their project .
4. In the third chapter Motive I realized how important motive was and at the time my biggest drive to complete my product was simply to finish it. I had little motivation to improve it, be the best it could be, or simply to even make money. This chapter made me sit back and reflect on myself and re evaluate my motives, which ultimately straightened them. I was not expecting this as I only sought the book because I was curious as to what exactly the author meant by cognitive surplus.
Hi Connor,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that time management can be a huge issue and that I too struggle with trying to properly allocate my time between school and work. From the summary and description of the book you gave, I can tell that this book probably had some good virtues and life lessons in it. I also agree that motivations is a huge facto in how much you're able to accomplish.
Connor,
ReplyDeleteI didn't choose the same book as you for this assignment so I thought that it was nice to see another perspective on a different book. I think spending your free time growing is way more useful than wasting it on meaningless tasks. I agree that being productive is important and I also used to have poor time management and have learned the value of it.