I recently read Rework By David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried. They are the geniuses behind the amazing 37 Signals line-up of productivity tools. I use Basecamp daily for not only organizing my work tasks, but also a number of personal items.

Rework is a great book to read if you want to get more out of your workday. Nothing in the book is revolutionary, but the ideas will get you get you back to basics or set you on the right path. I worked for a company where I found myself pulling data for nearly half a day in order to get ready for a weekly meeting. The data really wasn’t useful in my optimization and, honestly, wasn’t really what my manager needed to be looking at to determine my effectiveness. We also had another group meeting in which our entire team would present data for 2 hours. Each of us spent another entire morning preparing and then 2 hours in the meeting. That left just a couple of hours for actual work. The information presented by other members was interesting, but didn’t really impact my job.

Rework provides ways to cut down on meetings such as these and some great tips on how to organize your work and be more productive. The Rework website has some great videos and even a PDF excerpt for download.

Most business books give you the same old advice: Write a business plan, study the competition, seek investors, yadda yadda. If you’re looking for a book like that, put this one back on the shelf. “Rework “shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business. Read it and you’ll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don’t need outside investors, and why you’re better off ignoring the competition.

The truth is, you need less than you think.
You don’t need to be a workaholic.
You don’t need to staff up.
You don’t need to waste time on paperwork or meetings.
You don’t even need an office.

Those are all just excuses.

Head over to Lulu.com and purchase Rework for just $14.45 if you enter the code “rework” at check-out (expires June 30). They are offering FREE Shipping on all orders over $19.95 this summer!