Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better 2nd Edition

I was a big fan of the first edition of Gina's LifeHacker. "Upgrade Your Life" is the expanded, revised, resized and renamed Second Edition, which should make it more accessible to the self-described "non-hacker."

The book's new dimensions and title make it look less like a computer book and more like the self-improvement book that it is. To the uninitiated, "lifehacker" sounds like something Dr. Frankenstein dabbled in, where "upgrade your life" could have come from Tony Robbins. These are small changes, but "small changes" for improving your productivity is what this book is all about.

The book is not designed to read front to back. Each "hack" has a a "level/platform/cost" header, which I find helpful, but I would have liked to have some or all of this info in the table of contents. Otherwise, the ToC is excellent, organizing the Hacks by productivity type ("Clear your mind," "firewall your attention") and descriptive Hacks and subtopics of each hack. At times, just reading the ToC is enough to set off the "a ha!" reaction and make a difference. For example, "remember 100 different passwords with one rule set" was enough to change my approach to passwords, even before I'd read the full text.

Many of the tips are simple common sense, which we can often miss because of habits we've already built up. Other tips introduce useful applications like Remember the Milk, or remind you of features your phone already has (Hack 72, "Access web apps and search via text message").

Gina is an excellent writer; her LifeHacker.com site remains a daily read. A lot of these tips have been covered on the site before, but having them available in compact, physical form is particularly helpful when I'm stuck on a project or assignment and need to make a mental break. Just learning something new and practicing it for a few minutes often helps me get back into the productive zone.

Highly recommended.

An unavoidable problem with writing any tech book is how quickly they get outdated, and this book is no exception. Saying that the first part of the book on general time management skills is still highly relevant and usable, its only in the last part of the book which goes into more specific software that the book shows its age.

Nicely formatted so its very easy to skip outdated sections, or just those sections that are not relevant to you. The book is also written in a clear and concise manner that is easy to follow. I still give the book high marks because those early on tips, like handing my inbox and keeping it empty, were so valuable I have had a noticeable improvement in my work productivity and other aspects of my life as well.

If there's one book that's provided me with value for money recently, this is it. I've had it for over a week and I look at it every day. The other reviews here do a fine job of telling you the content, so mine is a more personal review.

I have plenty of experience in computers, so I can see the advantage of many of the tips. Since buying the book I have changed my browser from IE and my e-mail from Yahoo to Thunderbird, as well as downloading some of the many freeware programs she recommends. It's improved my life immensely, and often the time spent downloading has been paid back in minutes.

I stop short at some of the suggestions for advanced users, but that's because I don't want to change things for the sake of changing them. Otherwise I have more programs that I know what to do with, but that's because there are so many of them.

What's good is that Gina has covered the recommendations down to the last detail, especially living your life with them. Too many books on software run through the features with no recommendations as to where and how to use them. So if you're a person with any level of computer experience you will be using these programs and tips more or less from when you adopt them.

So thank you Gina (and Terra) for bringing this book about. I would guess it's made me 50 percent more effective in the first week. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't do marvels after reading this.

Love this book! I learned so much when I got it. They should make a new version!

The information. Thank you this book is so helpful.

I found this book a good primer on workflow and organization. Many of the technological references may be familiar for the tech savvy, but even those are presented with new usage ideas. Well written and entertaining. I specifically enjoyed the references to other works that you can pick up for deeper study in various areas. Would recommend this book to anyone who wants to get things organized and streamlined as a good starting point.

outdated obsolescent info

This book is packed with tons of great ideas and tricks to get more done and understand why you own a computer, which sometimes is hard to answer. I highly recommend it.