The 7 Minute Solution: Creating a Life with Meaning 7 Minutes at a Time

by Allyson Lewis

With The 7 Minute Solution, you can be a different person tomorrow from the person you are today—more energetic, more resilient, and more positive. A straightforward, inspirational process for getting from where you are to where you want to be, The 7 Minute Solution will help you in your relationships, personal life, career, and health. Allyson Lewis is a renowned time-management expert, productivity speaker, and financial adviser who has spent the last twenty-seven years developing and teaching concrete, actionable business ideas to executives all over the country. Now, in The 7 Minute Solution, she shares these winning techniques and explains how you can apply them to all aspects of life. Lewis offers simple, effective strategies to help you prioritize, organize, and simplify your life for greater meaning and productivity. By breaking down big-picture goals into tiny, manageable, daily actions, you will find that you are able to achieve more than you ever have before. First, you will learn your “7 vital signs of living with meaning”—conscious awareness, motivation, growing and learning, engaging, persevering, living in flow, and living with faith. Then, you will bring each one into clear focus and balance with practical tools and techniques such as “5 before 11” (accomplishing five high-value tasks before 11:00 a.m. every day) and “7 Big-Life Questions,” which shows how to evaluate what’s most significant in the long term. Applying proven, practical science, backed up with plenty of real-life human stories, The 7 Minute Solution tackles sometimes overwhelming challenges in manageable chunks. It is a process for creating an open mind-set so that you can respond to opportunities for learning and growing, engaging and giving; a book for businesspeople looking to increase their productivity and effectiveness as well as for anyone looking to deepen and grow personal relationships.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Productivity, Business

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 27, 2011

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

2 years after I read this and I'm still remembering bits of it and using some of the techniques or having some of its effects in my life.
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The planner was helpful also. The planner is geared toward business, particularly sales types or people who make a lot of phone calls or meetings per day. But, as a stay-at-home mom and homemaker, I feel like the format of the planner gives us a great jumping off point to make our own planner. Tracking water, sleep and other health actions. Doing 5 before 11 a.m. is an amazing life tool for productivity. Just the simple act of sitting down to plan the next day--no matter how many minutes I invest in thinking ahead, it always pays off!
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This book:

Text is little repetitive, but it worked for me to spread reading it over a month or more so that I was continuing to remind and reinforce to actually implement the solutions and change behaviors. The process could have various effects, depending on what you bring to it. It could be life changing as in re-prioritizing, or it could just help you manage daily tasks. I did some of both with this book. I got motivated to start exercising regularly instead of continuing to put it off "until I had time." The focus is on doing what's important and letting unimportant activities fade away. Basically, I needed this to help me cut through the "to-do" list that weighed on the back of mind. This helped me step back and take a look at my priorities. And, the most useful tool was "5 before 11" to get stuff done! I also liked the inspirational stories, especially those about Shackelton at the South Pole, sprinkled throughout. I might re-visit this book again later for an annual reassessment of priorities. One of the questions I like to sit with is: Who will I be or what do I want my life to look like when I'm 85 years old?

[Candy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't exactly get the "7 minute" part of this ... most of the things the author suggests take more than 7 minutes. But I liked her exercises on setting priorities & suggestions for making goals. The day progress reports are pretty involved, but I picked up some good tips on adjusting focus and concentrating on what's really important in my life.

[Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seven minutes is about all the average person can focus or it's the average length of time a person has before they are interrupted.

For a flighty unfocused person like me, it actually gave me a boost to think I should/could use the moments I have to keep moving forward.

[Stephanie Funk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like I have a new understanding of how short-term memory works (or doesn't) and how to leverage my brain power.

[Fikah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I.FINALLY.FINISH.THIS.BOOK.

Like finally. Took so long because, well, it's a self-help cum self-development book, on time management, so yeah, you get what I mean.

I love the final part of the book, which is the Epilogue. It summed up what the book was trying to tell someone *cough* like me *cough* with time management and self-esteem issues.

My brain got refreshed once I got to the part where the author was sharing her ideas of brain and its amazing neuroplasticity. It was interesting part, that our mind, which divided into conscious and subconscious parts could do so much more than we ever expected.

The author also provided (one of my favourite parts of ANY self-help books!) tools and worksheets for us (me, especially) to fill out, so that I could clearly plan my goals and write all the actions needed to be taken as soon as possible.

All in all, it was an eye-opening read.

[M-J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat useful. Got some great worksheets and a clear explanation on how to use them. Gist of the story: plan, plan, plan, and stick to your plans.

[Melissa Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the book and all of the worksheets that came with it. I even looked that there is a website for continuing information

[Amanda Cottrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some insightful ways to look at time management

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book but it was so wordy and drawn out that I just couldn't finish it. I felt like the writing style was really heavy. In the 150 pages I read I don't feel like I really learned a lot of practical tools on being productive. I just read a whole bunch of information.

[Kim Moistner-Bartlett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read by Allyson Lewis. I use a lot of the strategies she shares and teach quite a few of them to franchisees who attend Kona Kollege. I've had numerous conversations with the author - a true delight!

[Ashley_saress · Rating 2 out of 5]

Useful but really geared toward productivity in a corporate setting. Less useful if you don't have a typical 9 to 5 sort of life. Was even less excited about all the random religious talk.