Sometimes reading just comes natural to me and sometimes things are very slow. I intend to write about the books I read on this blog because of the fact that it forces me to reflect on books just before I put them back on the shelf.

I tend to have a couple of topics for books that I like to read. I blend them together with autobiography types of books. Generally you can learn a lot of people who take the effort to write down what happened to them.

As part of the Thomas Nelson Book review blogger initiative I got the chance to read the book “Through the Storm” by Lynne Spears, the mother of Britney, Bryan and Jamie Lynn Spears. This book has given me an peek into the hectic life of a family that went into a world not suited for them nor even made for them. As Lynne tells herself in this book they were just a middle-class small-town family.

The book is very well written. It is an easy read but not boring at all. Balanced and with tension are words that come to mind. Two things really stand out after reading this book:

1. Stars are just ordinary people not prepared for the things that come with stardom. In a sense the Spears family didn’t ask for a lot of things that came with the tremendous success of Britney. They just have a place where they grew up just as all of us. They come from the same planet. The people and the media treat stars as if they are from a different planet.

2. Your life is greatly affected by the choices you make. Thinking about big decisions in your life is really, really important. I see a sad combination of wrong choices, wrong people and bad luck as the factors that attributed to the trials this family went through. Lynne sums it up quite nicely somewhere in the book when she writes:

“I wish now I had trusted the professionals a little less and given myself more credit for my own instincts.”

Together with the fact that she puts here hope on GodI makes this book a strong story because not all whent well. In the end a glimpse of hope is evolving and I sure hope and pray that life will bring more joy for the Spears family.

Title: Through the Storm, a real story of fame and family in a tabloid world
Author: Lynne Spears with Lorilee Craker
Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Book review as part of the Book Review Blogger initiative by Thomas Nelson (http://brb.thomasnelson.com)

When I came across the Book Review Bloggers program from Thomas Nelson I immediately signed up. I love reading and writing about books that have impacted my life. I heard about The Noticer project from @michaelhyatt on Twitter.

The book is a novel about planting seeds of perspective in peoples lives. It is a lovely read, beautiful stories tied together by Jones who appears in the lives of people just at the right moment. The only thing Jones does is offering people a new perspective on their lives. And frankly until you read it this might sound odd to you, but the words are really powerful.

Around the book – available this week -  is a campaign to notice the five most influential people in your life. On a special web site people are encouraged to notice and acknowledge these people for the things they have done. I have added an item to my quarterly review list to think about and name the five most influential people in my life.

Title: The Noticer
Author: Andy Andrews
Publisher: Thomas Nelson

As part of the Thomas Nelson Book review Bloggers (http://brb.thomasnelson.com)

When I get new books I put them on a special shelf. I have dedicated one shelf of my book closet to books I want to read. I got this from readingThe Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life by Steve Leveen. He also has one shelf dedicated to books he wants to read. And here is my catch, I now have more books that I want to read then there is room on that shelf. And that’s when I know there is something wrong, professionaly.

I’m not sure what’s wrong right now, only that I take less time to read than I used to, say 6 months ago. Reading for me is a way to grow, to break barriers, to learn new things and change the way I look at things. Having a to read shelf is not threathening. It doesn’t make me feel guilty but this shelf is a constant reminder of new things to discover. A gentle reminder of the wonder of reading and learning.

Over the last two months I have seen an incredible increase of visitors to my blog and readers of the feed. I have also seen a lot more subscriptions to the email service of my blog.

So a big welcome to all of you who are new around here!

Most of you have been visiting because of the serie on Evernote and GTD. I am so pleased that a lot of you are using Evernote for your GTD process. It has been a tremendous step forward for my workflow when I started to use Evernote as my main GTD cockpit. I am looking for more stuff to write about in this regard so stay tuned.

Feel free to comment on this post or others with your tips, questions or just to say hello. Interaction is great fun in this online world.

For those of you who haven’t read the about page, please do. It will give you some background on who I am and what this blog is all about.

So again, welcome and stay tuned for more practical posts with new tips, tricks and ways to enjoy life to the fullest.

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On this first day of a new year I would like to take the opportunity to thank all readers for their comments, emails and reading of  my blog. About a year ago I started with this blog and I had written down some goals for this blog.

At first I aimed at writing 4 posts a week. Well, I didn’t succeed. I also wanted to experience fun when writing and communicating through the blog. I can honestly say that through my blog I have met and interacted with a lot of people I never would have come across if I didn’t have this blog. It was great fun writing the posts I have written.

Some of the posts on productivity I want to highlight:

• Make a productive visit to your local library!
• Too much info, do something about it.
• How I take regular breaks to stay productive
• Doing more and more GTD stuff online
• My Weekly Review, perfect start for the weekend!

On a personal note 2008 was at times though as you can read here:

• Complexity brings stress in your life
• Getting back on track…

But in all I feel privileged and blessed. That is also why I am looking forward to 2009 with anticipation. I sure hope that this will hold true for all of you, both in your private and business life.

What I never would have considered myself started when someone sent me a book to review. This has started off a series of book reviews and I definitely am going to do book reviews this year. Primarily on productivity but also on other topics since I love reading that much. Here are two reviews I did last year:

• What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
• A Dutch perspective on the Faith of Barack Obama

Of course I will keep on writing on productivity and will continue with the series on Evernote. So keep on reading!

One last goal was to generate at least the costs for maintaining this blog by putting Adsense ads on the blog. This goal has been reached, that is exactely the amount of money needed for the domain and hosting was provided through the Adsense income. Because of the fact that I am so pleased with Mozy as on no-hassle online backup service I can recommend them. I am an affiliate for Mozy as well. If you sign up for their free or paid backup service I get a commission and you get 10% of your first annual or biannual subscription of MozyHome Unlimited or MozyPro signup. Just click on the logo below and use JANUARY as your promo code.

One of the wonderful things about being a blogger is that every once in a while someone wants you to review something. Or you get opportunities you normally won’t have. I don’t blog because I want to become a rich man, although money is something you can’t without in our Western Society. If you don’t have money you can’t provide your family with the basic needs of life like eating, drinking and clothing. Let alone education and healthcare.

A couple of weeks ago I read a tweet from Michael Hyatt where he announced that the first 100 bloggers to respond would get a free copy of the new book by Stephen Mansfield on the Faith of Barack Obama. I follow Michael Hyatt on Twitter and have read his blog post about the book. I am living in Europe but American politics have had my interest for a long time. There have been times in my life I seriously wanted to move to the US. Being a husband and dad of five wonderful children makes that to sheer impossible journey. But I still have a genuine interest in the history of the US. I also follow the news on what is happening across the pond.

The 2008 election campaign is something not easy to miss. Even here in the Netherlands during the Clinton and Obama battle news has been dominated by these events. For us here it is sometimes hard to understand and grasp what all the fuss is about. So I already had this book on my To Read list. So when the tweet came by, I was online and was amongst the first 100.

The faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield has clearly helped me getting a better understanding of what is going on in the US right now. If Barack Obama will become president of the US, it will be in more than one way a big change in US history. Not only because of the color of his skin but also his outspoken religious left standpoint will be new. The problem is that not everybody will have that in mind. It was a pleasure reading the book. Stephen Mansfield has succeeded in giving a nice and comprehensive overview of a big part of the political issues that are surrounding the election this year.

It is my opinion that especially those voters that want their christian worldview to be reflected in their president should read this book. As I write this McCain is in the lead in the polls. My fair guess after reading this book is that it is still too early for Obama to be able to win this election. I personally think that in the end most American citizens will choose for McCain because the America Obama stands for is still to come.

On The faith of Barack Obama, written by Stephen Mansfield, Thomas Nelson 2008, ISBN 978-5955-5250-1. 

]]> http://www.fokkekooistra.nl/blog/2008/09/08/a-dutch-perspective-on-the-faith-of-barack-obama/feed/ 4 http://www.fokkekooistra.nl/blog/2008/06/19/one-of-the-wonders-of-the-internet/ http://www.fokkekooistra.nl/blog/2008/06/19/one-of-the-wonders-of-the-internet/#comments Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:01:05 +0000 Fokke http://www.fokkekooistra.nl/blog/2008/06/19/one-of-the-wonders-of-the-internet/ One of the wonders of Internet is that it has opened up so many perspectives on life in ways no one thought off a decade ago. I have been thinking about this topic for quite some time now. In the last week two blog entries I read on the Internet made this abundantly clear to me, again. I wanted to share them with you. Allthough I never have met both of them they have provided me a glimpse in their life that has touched and encouraged me. Michael Hyatt did a wonderful post on Life is like a Tapestry. And the story of Phil and his family on dealing with Leukemia.

Due to a job change I had to switch from OSX to Windows XP. On the internet you can find info for switchers from Windows to OSX . You can find info on that path here and here.

To be honest, after 6 years OSX it is ….. well, hard. I will not go into Windows bashing because I can get the work done. A system is a system and not the Holy Grail. David Allen has taught me the basic ingredients of a good system to stay productive. I now think switching to paper will keep me as productive as I was on my Powerbook. It isn’t the system that makes you productive but some key elements like getting everything out of your head and maintaining a good set of lists. This will help you use your head for new ventures and opens up creativity.

Pondering on what makes it so hard brought me to this conclusion: the main thing that bothers me is the complexity of Windows. Windows has just too many options, toolbars, buttons, menu items and possibilities. The sad thing is that I don’t use most of them. And frankly I guess not a single person has never used all of them.

So here is a golden tip for all you Windows users: strip as much functionality as you can. I did it: eliminate toolbars, uncheck extra features and look for ways to make using Windows just simpler. And learn as much shortcut keys as you can. I just invested an afternoon to get this sorted. And it really pays off.

I would like to point to two utilities that really helped me the last weeks: fingertips, a time saver like Quicksilver for the Mac and Virtual Desktop Manager, a Microsoft Windows XP PowerToy.

If you have any tips on using Windows more effectively, let me know in the comments!

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

2 Timothy 4:7

Combine that with a change of jobs and you probably understand why writing blogposts haven’t been on my mind lately.But gradually I am trying to get a hold of things again. The fun part of using GTD is that in any given crisis in life you can just drop everything. The moment you feel the energy again to actually do things, you just start where you left off. My system was current when I had to refocus and reset my priorities to the bare minimum.

But now I just picked up where I left several weeks ago.