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No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs, by Dan S. Kennedy
“Nothing is worth more than this day.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Matt Karamazov
September 30, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 17 minutes
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As far as eccentric multimillionaires go, this guy is worth listening to.
I’ve RARELY been this impressed with a time management book, and I ended up with more than fifteen pages of notes from this one.
It. Is. PHENOMENAL.
The author, Dan Kennedy, is one of the most sought-after copywriters and public speakers in the world, having been paid to speak more than 3,000 times, often earning more than $100,000 per speech.
Man. I mean, people say they like my voice! Maybe I should try that!
The dude has a lot of rather intense business practices though, which I’ll warn you about now.
Not everyone likes his style, but he directly influences more than 1,000,000 businesspeople every single year, he’s the author of 32 different best-selling books, he writes half a dozen monthly marketing newsletters, he writes novels and races horses in his spare time…just on and on and on.
There’s a Jim Rohn quote that has a lot of explanatory power here.
Rohn used to say, “Of course he’s successful. Look at everything he does!”
Meaning, ruthlessly effective management of TIME, ENERGY, and FOCUS!
Against all the distractions, the timewasters, the relentless assault on your attention that’s taking place every single moment of every day online.
Constant, conscious MOVEMENT towards the achievement of one’s chosen objectives. Against all odds, and against all opposition.
That’s what this book will help you cultivate in your own life.
It’s your first line of defense against a life wasted on trivia and nonsense.
Below, I share a short summary of No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs, as well as my best book notes, along with some additional recommended reading.
There are lots of incredible insights to be found in this book, so let’s get into it!
If you’re looking for a book that will teach you how to guard your time like a f***ing fortress, look no further than…
As always, my book notes and summary for this book are available on my Patreon, as well as my personal notes from more than 1,200+ other books. Updated monthly.
The support I’ve received on Patreon over the years has been nothing less than incredible. It honestly just started out as a way to make some extra money, but it’s become so much more than that.
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I appreciate the hell out of everyone who supports me on Patreon, which is basically what I’m saying, and I want to help you out too by sharing my best book notes and summaries on there for you to enjoy and profit from.
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They’re updated monthly with all the new books I’ve been reading and taking notes on, but I do have to say that my earliest book notes need to be updated, and I’m working on that.
Just to be fully upfront with you guys.
I mean, they’re very good, but my notes from 2020 onwards are much more in-depth and complete than the ones from, say, 2015.
Back then, I was taking notes just for myself, but now I have to go back and make sure that other people can navigate them easily as well!
I should have a lot more of them updated by the end of the year, though, and my latest reads are updated monthly.
That was kind of a long explanation, but again, thank you to everyone for either supporting me on Patreon or even considering doing so, and you can click here for my complete notes from today’s book and more than 1,200+ other books too.
Happy reading!
This book is a phenomenon. Dan’s is a radical approach to time management that I strongly resonated with because of his deep, visceral knowledge of how valuable time actually is. He gets it, and what do you know? I ended up with fifteen pages of notes from this one.
Okay, so for one thing, Dan refuses to communicate either by phone or email. He insists that anyone who wants to get in touch with him do so by fax. It’s one of his “rules of engagement” and it stems from his (correct) observation that way more thought gets put into faxes than emails. You actually have to think ahead when you send a fax, whereas with email, any pinhead can just ping you whenever a new thought pops into their head. But that’s not even the half of it…
Dan Kennedy also refuses to take any unscheduled incoming calls, and he will only fly by private jet when going out to meet clients. Faced with a choice of taking a cheaper flight to come and see him, or paying for Kennedy to fly private, they just end up coming to him, saving him who-knows-how-many hours of travel. Time he could more profitably put into his business, his writing, and his life.
Because that’s what this book is really about, by the way. Yes, you’ll pick up tons of valuable business lessons throughout that are only tangentially related to time, but you’ll also come away with a deep understanding of the infinite value of time, the infinite value of your own life, and you’ll start to get right and proper angry at the Time Vampires who would rob you of pieces of your one and only life.
Oh yeah, Dan also surrounds himself with clocks and other visible reminders of the passing of time, up to and including a hangman’s noose that he keeps in front of his writing desk, and a clock that looks like a ticking bomb, complete with flashing lights on the front for a timer.
This is all a conscious, concerted effort to continually remind himself of the infinite, unbelievable importance of time, and of not carelessly tossing away a single moment of your limited human life.
No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs is aggressive, it’s smart, it’s extreme, it’s unimaginably helpful, and it’s also sincere. Dan Kennedy lives his philosophy and he’s a convincing advocate for it. This will likely always be one of my most highlyrecommended time management books of all time, and I do not exaggerate one bit when I say that your life depends on reading it.
“The passing of time has stiffened my resolve about safeguarding it, wisely investing it, enjoying it, and bringing wrath upon any who would steal it, waste it, or abuse it.”
“In my workplace, conference room, and office (in my home), there are dozens of clocks, including one that talks every hour, and I can’t turn around anywhere in a circle without seeing one, nor can a visiting client. Facing me at my desk there is also a hangman’s noose. Not subtle.”
“If you don’t know what your time is worth, you can’t expect the world to know it either.”
“I largely prevent this bad behavior by refusing to be personally connected to the internet, use email, own a cell phone, or text at all. My time fortress is free of these holes in its wall.”
“These Time Vampires are evil. Often, they know full well what they are doing and that fact says they have disdain and disrespect for you. They are declared enemies. Thieves. If their bad behavior is thoughtless, the damage is the same, and their thoughtlessness is the evil.”
“Getting and being rich is behavioral. You can’t seek the goal but opt for incongruent behavior different than that of those who achieve the goal any more than you can claim sobriety but still get drunk every once in a while.”
“Come to your own conclusions about it all - fax, email, text, and cell phone. But be the master - not the slave.”
“If I were in my office or accessible by cell phone and took these 27 calls as they occurred, and each lasted an average of only 3 minutes - and lots of luck with that! - I would have let loose of 81 minutes; 1 hour and 21 minutes.
But much more importantly, I would be interrupted 27 times. The three minutes given each call would bear an added cost of ten, to get back in gear after each interruption. This equals SIX HOURS OF LOST TIME if you figure 13 minutes times 27 calls.
Further, some of those calls might actually be important but be handled half-assedly - if scheduled and dealt with as the priority of their assigned minutes instead of an irritating interruption, more might come from them.”
“Every exception is a hole that weakens your entire defense system.”
“In my business (and in many), being somewhat difficult to get to actually helps rather than hinders securing new clients and having those clients appreciate and respect my time and assistance. Rightly or wrongly, most folks don’t put a lot of value on getting to the wise man at the bottom of the mountain.”
“If the matter requires conversation with me, a phone appointment is set, for a specific number of minutes, with an end time, often with a delay of at least days to weeks before it occurs. Guess what? Occasionally, somebody’s irritated - which is their problem, not mine - but I have yet to notice this approach costing me any money.”
“Let me offer a bit of philosophy: you have absolutely no legal, moral, or other responsibility to answer the phone or take a call unless you want to.”
“It is very important that you have a CLOSED Door Policy. You need some times when everybody knows - because of the closed door, red light, stuffed purple dragon in the hallway, whatever - that you are 100% uninterruptable. And if you want to sit in there and take a nap, you go right ahead. It’s none of their damned business.”
“We are able to get a lot done in a short period of time when nothing else matters.”
Currently, I don’t have a complete breakdown of No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs published on the Stairway to Wisdom (my library of expert book breakdowns), but below I’ve listed some similar breakdowns that you may enjoy instead.
When you become a member of the Stairway to Wisdom, you’ll gain access to more than 100+ book breakdowns like these ones here, as well as a premium weekly newsletter that will help you build the kind of life for yourself that you’ll love living.
By wanting to become rich, you are also saying that you want to accept the challenge to be better at making money than 99 percent of the people on this planet. Just by attempting this, you are going to have to accept the fact that you must not just be good, you must be incredible. Are you ready?
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Discerning the "vital few" from the "trivial many" is going to be one of the most in-demand skills in the economy of the future, and those who can do this well are going to reap the majority of the rewards, while the rest of us are drowning in distraction.
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Against all the forces conspiring to steal your focus and attention, this book provides 87 strategies you can use to fight back. Not only that, but you'll also learn a 4-step strategy for reclaiming your time and energy so you can direct it toward what really matters.
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That’s it! I hope you found these book recommendations helpful, and I’ll be back with even more books for you very soon!
Mere “information” is everywhere today, but what’s going to separate you (and give you the life you desire) is consistent, meaningful action, backed up with the most powerful ideas from the greatest books ever written.
That’s what I aim to provide you with.
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your day!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
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