Manage Your Day-To-Day. Edited by Jocelyn K, Glei

All my life, I have been a sucker for books that might effect 'self-improvement'. But there is only so much of even the good stuff you can digest; so during the past few years, I had stopped acquiring this genre and begun to wonder if some of the knowledge had fermented into wisdom. The answer to that question sends me neither into throes of ecstasy, nor slough of despondency. In other words, these books have been useful to a reasonable extent.

Last week I lifted the self imposed moratorium and requested Flipkart for Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind, a collection of articles edited by Jocelyn K, Glei. The title appeared tacky and appeared to signal poverty of promise, but if there is one book that can win the case for never judging a book by its cover, this is it!

The authors recognize that we are individuals and to lay down a template would be naive. Instead, we are offered great insights into what might work and are left to create our own recipe and eventually a full meal.There is an opening section on building a rock-solid routine that reinforces the point that great habits can free us from much of the self-sabotaging tyranny of a poorly thought out routine. There is another section on distractions and I found the chapters on dealing with email, social networking and surfing the net extremely relevant and useful.

It is an insightful and inspirational book. If you find the daily routine too overwhelming to allow you to be creative and to do what you would really like to, the book can get you thinking and started on an entirely different path. One that might head towards your personal goals.