In the new book Getting Organized in the Google Era, former Google CIO Douglas Merrill and his co-author James Martin attempt to share ideas for better organizing information, frequently incorporating technology.

In general I thought the content was decent. Most of the content was either questioning obsolete paradigms (why do we have a 9-5 workday?) or applying common principles (don’t multitask or have frequent context-switches, so check e-mail at a break rather than having it interrupt you). I appreciated the emphasis on goals. I also think it had some reasonable information on skills that aren’t commonly communicated but should be: like how to use tagging and do better searches.

I had some disagreements and differences of taste. My largest concerns relate to privacy and security; I don’t think enough consideration was given to access to your data by the services you give it to or malicious third parties (especially concerning e-mail).

Stylistically, I found it irritating. I found the font distractingly displeasing. The text was frequently interrupted with boxes repeating statements, larger boxes telling tangentially related information, and song lyrics by bands which don’t appeal to me. I wonder if a different medium would have been better for the content.

Unrelated to organization, there were many ideas and behavioral patterns taken for granted which I disagreed with: evolution, cohabitation, job hopping, etc.

Overall, there is some content that might make this worth reading, but if you know what to look for, there are probably better options online.

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You might be interested in Matt Perman’s productivity blog, What’s Best Next.