Just Enough: Tools for Creating Success in Your Work and Life

by Laura Nash

In Just Enough, top Harvard professors offer a revealing, research-based look at the true nature of professional success, helping people everywhere live more rewarding and satisfying lives. True professional and personal satisfaction seems more elusive every day, despite a proliferation of gurus and special methods that promise to make it easy. They conclude that many of the problems of success today can be traced back to unrealistic expectations and misconceptions about what success is and what constitutes it. The authors show where the happiest and most well-balanced among us are focusing their energy, and why, to help readers find more balance and satisfaction in their lives.

Genres: Self Help, Business, Nonfiction, Personal Growth, Leadership

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Carl Klutzke · Rating 3 out of 5]

The central insight of this book is profound: in order to be truly successful, you need to balance your life between four areas.

Happiness: Feelings of pleasure and contentment with your life.

Achievement: Accomplishments that give you something to strive for, and compare favorably against the accomplishments of others.

Significance: A positive impact on people you care about.

Legacy: Establishing values or accomplishments that benefit others in the future.

But that's pretty much all you need to know. There are lots of stories to support the thesis, but they are not necessary, because the thesis seems instinctively true to anyone who would pick up the book. There are examples of how NOT to accomplish this balance, but those are abundantly available everywhere in our culture.

Where the book really falls down is in providing any level of prescriptive advice in how to live the balance that it advocates. There are no rules to identify what "Just Enough" means. There are no tools for creating a balanced lifestyle. It's all left as an exercise for the reader, claiming that each person will have to find those rules and tools themselves.

Ultimately, reading this review of the book by Eric Barker gives you all the insight the whole book will provide. It is truly valuable insight, but I gained almost nothing more from having read the entire book.

[Don Gorman · Rating 1 out of 5]

(1 1/2). An esteemed estate attorney turned me on to this book. It has a very simple and reasonable premise, what constitutes balance in your life. It is 280 pages of trying to understand how you handle happiness, achievement, significance and legacy in correct proportions. A chapter or two would have been fine. A couple of the case studies are interesting, most of it is overkill, but that is the nature of these books.

[Abdulrahman Al Fawaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book argues that success is simply more of being content and living within your means than always aspiring for more. A must read for all people fooled into believing self help books rubbish!!

[Priscilla Altamirano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro para analizar en forma práctica y científica una metodología para reorganizar prioridades en la vida y abarcar diferentes ámbitos que pueden llevar a sentir plenitud:
Una forma diferente de enfrentar el concepto de “‘just enough” visto desde la satisfacción y no desde la sensación de conformismo y mediocridad.
Si realmente se está dispuesto a diseñar la metodología expuesta en el libro, se podría dar un giro a las expectativas de lo que realmente nos trae felicidad.
Se requiere disciplina y constancia para dar el paso y mantenerlo, como en todo.

[Katherine Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was recommended by Virgil Wood (colleague of MLK) and Harvey Cox (Harvard Divinity School legend) – that alone is enough reason to read it. Nash and Stevenson explore notions of success in a multi-dimensional way, highlighting that a successful life is not quite the same as success in just one arena. (A short summary article can also be found (for a fee) through HBS at harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu.)

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the kaleidoscope model explained and explored in this book. It has definitely changed the way I'm framing my personal success -- which is a great shift, especially coming out of b-school. I'm feeling empowered to both take on more, and let other irrelevant things go. Recommended!

[Patty Elliott]

Was just told about this book this morning and heard it is a must read.

[Elizabeth]

Not bad!

[Lori Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read book on work-life balance as you manage your career.