Simplify Your Work Life by: Elaine St. James published: 2001 This is part of a series on Voluntary Simplicity. It's goal is to help us take charge of "work" and give ourselves more time to live. The book has a bias towards those working for someone else (as does our culture, schools, etc.). Personally i feel one of the most rewarding paths is to become self employed. This trend towards large corporate employers, working for public agencies and other organizations isn't moving us towards increased freedom or democracy. Anyway, the book is divided into sections on: 1. Controlling work time 2. Using time effectively 3. Making better choices 4. Working with people 5. Using money efficiently 6. Changing the work environment 7. Changing attitudes Most of the material can be found in other books on business or personal growth. What Elaine did was give the material a push towards "voluntary simplicity". This is a great book for anyone starting out and asking basic survival questions. The combined topics of "work" and "simplicity" involve balance and lots of compromise so this is important material. The best part of the book for me was the last chapter on attitudes. It pointed out the insanity in many corporate environments where we are miserable working for money to enjoy life. Often the harder we work the less we enjoy life and many people do not see the relationship. One section talked about developing a belief system and comparing it to the work environment. Words like "success" and "happiness" need to be evaluated and we should not be working just to please others (parents, peers, bosses, etc.). jeff
