This book was a struggle to read. It takes forever to get to the meat of the book, as it starts with a Talk to Us page, a preface, Author’s note, and a very long prologue.

The first thing I noticed about this book (which even started in all the pre-reading listed above) is that the author’s self-promotion goes beyond obnoxious. It seems like every couple of paragraphs or so, he’ll reference his website and encourage people to visit it. After a while, he leaves off a bit on the self-promotion, but it seems that at some point he remembered that he hadn’t done it in a while and started right back up. Although a lot of the references to his website are noted as “reach out, I’ll help you out”, it came across more as an overdone attempt at promotion than assistance to his readers.

I do have to give credit that the author had quite a few solid business concepts to share, which are very much worth knowing. The book is creatively divided into sections that address the value of tasks and what they are worth to your business. The author does seem like a hard-working, and determined individual, which I probably would have gathered without his self-promotion. He does seem to know his stuff, but he does give a strong vibe that he’s a bit arrogant about it. He touts his opinions as absolute facts that in no way can be contested, and he tends to word them in a way that can put an audience on the defensive, even if they agree with him. At times, the author even comes across as combative.

Another thing that didn’t seem quite right: in the middle of the book, the author threw in one or two swear words. I understand that he was trying to make a strong point, but it was out of the blue, and it came across as very unprofessional. For myself, I felt that it detracted from his credibility.

I received this book through a Library Thing giveaway.

This book is a good read for any business owner at any level, even if you're just thinking about it. This is a great resource and will make you wonder why you didn't think of half this. Easy to understand and engaging. Need to get on task then get this book! ( )

This was a different type of book indeed. It had easy to follow step by step guide. The chapters were understandable and relatable to me. Some of the the steps seem easy like stop doing things that are not working for you or your company. These easy to follow and actually archivable goals if followed could truly make a difference to your business too. ( )

While only a department head and not a business owner, I found the majority of the book to be filled with valid points on how to maximize results. Before reading The 400 hour workweek, I did not realize that I was using several methods mentioned within the book, such as "planning your life", "creating and/or improving systems" and "reacting immediately to email/texts". While I did not agree with all, I will incorporate several methods into me daily habits. I enjoyed David's light tone and his style of writing made me feel as if he and I were holding a private conversation. I appreciated his referencing of productivity theories and maxims, which in my opinion helped to lend credibility to his message. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for ways to increase output from their department or business.

This book gives an overview of simple and easy strategies that every business owner that wants to expand needs to adopt. My overall take away is essentially to find the most important and valuable things to grow your business and stop doing everything else. Come up with the strategies and procedures but then delegate the actual tasks in order to free up your time for the important things that cannot be delegated. The author gives real life examples to help show the importance of this and also how much it can hurt your business by not following these steps. Unfortunately, the links to additional resources currently lead no where, so hopefully in the future the links can be corrected so the reader can really study, learn and apply the information to transform their business and their self. ( )