Author(s): Rick Pastoor

Business & Finance

A motiving and no-nonsense manifesto about work and time-management that was an instant bestseller when published in the author’s native Netherlands. It’s surprising that, although work dominates our lives, we are never taught how to organise it. Amidst all the books telling us how to be successful at our jobs, how to digitally detox, or how to achieve a perfect work-life balance, there aren’t many helpful guides to the practical mechanics of structuring your day. This is what Dutch entrepreneur Rick Pastoor discovered when he found himself running various tech-startups at a young age. He devoured inspirational books like David Allen’s Getting Things Done and Cal Newport’s Deep Work, but he soon realised that knowing which tip to apply when is an art in itself. Gradually, through trial and error, he developed methods centred around the thoughtful use of your calendar in planning your day, your week and your year – the big goals and the small. So helpful were his techniques to friends and co-workers that he published them in a book. And then an extraordinary thing happened: GRIP became an overnight bestseller in the Netherlands where it has sold 60k copies since 2019 and is still selling strongly.