The Daily Edge: Simple Strategies to Increase Efficiency and Make an Impact Every Day
David Horsager
Berrett-Koehler Publishers (2015)

“Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.” Albert Einstein

The narrative consists of 35 “Tips” on how to accelerate and enrich personal growth and professional development. As David Horsager explains, a daily edge is an advantage almost anyone can gain when one’s priorities are crystal clear and there is a sharp, constant focus on serving those priorities. Horsager agrees with Stephen Covey that people tend to spend too much time and energy on what is urgent and not enough on what is important.

I share Horsager’s appreciation of the importance of setting priorities that can help to guide and inform our thoughts as well as our plans and behavior. However, circumstances can change significantly. When they do — more often than not — priorities need to be re-ordered. He offers a sound framework within which appropriate modifications can be made, if and when necessary.

He recommends a process that begins wherever you are now; he explains how to identify the objectives you wish to achieve; and then helps you determine what must be done — and how it must be done — to complete a journey from where you are to where you wish to be.

Each of the 35 “Tips” is accompanied by a brief but insightful explanation of HOW to use it to accomplish much more, in much less time, that will have much greater impact. These are among the Tips of greatest interest and value to me:

#1: How to formulate a 90-day Quick Plan and then make it work
#3: How to take full advantage of the “Power Hour” each workday morning
#4: How top complete 3-5 tasks better and faster by do them at the same time
#7: How to select and complete the right tasks to complete when you are most creative and productive
#10: How to use the last 15 minutes of a workday to prioritize and plan the tasks to complete the next day
#22: How to determine which tasks would be most efficiently completed together

This is a self-help book in the most admirable sense of the term. Although Horsager provides an abundance of insights and counsel, it remains for each reader to take ownership of beginning and then continuing the aforementioned “journey.”

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out two by Ken Robinson, written with Lou Aronica: The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything (2009) and Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life (2014).