Curating Your Life: The End of the Work-Life Balance Struggle

by Gail Anna Golden

Choosing the things you keep in your life and where you focus your energy is doable, and Gail Golden shows you how. Curating your life means selecting those activities that are most important, meaningful, and joyful for you and fiercely focusing your energy on those endeavors. It also means putting a whole bunch of stuff in the back room, to be reconsidered at another time.Curating your life means sorting your activities into three things you are not going to do, at least not right nowThe things you will be mediocre at The things you will be great atThis is not simple. But the payoff is amazing. Living a well-curated life is doable. You get to succeed at the things that really matter to you, and you still get to enjoy life. Join Gail Golden on a tour of how to curate your life for success, happiness, and fulfillment.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Audiobook, Self Help

176 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 8, 2020

Reviews

[R.M. Hamrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Golden has some good analogies in here that have stuck with me after reading.

How do you decide "whether to cut out the Renoir or the Degas from the art exhibit"?
"Don't try to cook seventeen pots on a four-burner stove." (Six is OK though, right?!)

There are some great techniques on how to say 'no' in a professional or personal setting, which I will seek more information on. And use... (maybe.)

Golden doesn't spend a lot of time delving into life curation. The book is primarily about delegation and leadership roles -- how do you let roles and responsibilities go as you move up the corporate ladder? How do you promote creativity in your employees? How do you model time management for your corporation?

Interesting topics, but the book is a bit mis-titled.

[Byzbets · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated some of the concepts from the first two or three chapters the most. I especially appreciated her focus on our energy and attention over our time. Too often I find time management travel strategies focus on blocking out our time as if each minute an hour in the day has equal efficacy or potential. And that’s just not true. And I appreciated the idea that the way we balance or arrange the things in our lives changes over time.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A perfectly acceptable book talking about the difficulties in even thinking anyone can have it all, where having it all means having all things you want to do most working well and happening at the same time. I appreciated the anecdotes, and in general prefer books written by women with kids and a working spouse in this space be cause the trade offs the author makes are closer to my own.

[Adam Zuwerink · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another entry in the long list of perfectly fine, perfectly average, self-help books about living your best, upper middle-class privileged life. The best thing I can say about this book is that you can tell Ms. Golden actually wrote it herself, not a ghost writer, which was refreshing.

[E.W. Pierce · Rating 1 out of 5]

Humorless and boring. Manages to be both too long while saying little to nothing of value.

The best thing about this book is the title, which unfortunately is inaccurate. The book is about delegation and leadership, and not really about curating your life.

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid book that unpicks the cliches of 'work and life balance.' There is a methodology that is able to reduce the clutter in our lives, and increase the focus on the important tasks, behaviours, people and outcomes.

It is pretty straight forward, but well written and carefully structured.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5–some great advice.

[Tamara]

DNF

[LemontreeLime · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what i thought itd be, but alright enough.

[RevaC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good if you haven’t already read a bunch of life balance books. If you have- this’ll be more of the same. I like a couple of the analogies- the museum curator and the stove and pots.

[Jinhee Shim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Discipline and liberation.
Be mindful and ask proper questions to self to focus on what are valuable to each one’s life. Determine what to be mediocre at or Great at. Anyone can be great.

[Luanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently attended a presentation by the author at a professional conference. She was an interesting speaker and I enjoyed book.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too repetitive and therefore too long. The basic message was good.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful and encouraging. Better talks about how to build a good life.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was looking forward to this book based on a review I had seen. I felt there were some revealing and insightful points, but most of it was repetitive and was anecdotes or quoting other authors/psychologists, etc. The tone also came off fairly preachy, especially toward the end "don't go into the black zone...". I did appreciate the candidness of the book - in that if you want to do a few things well, you have to sacrifice in other areas. In the modern day, many women receive messaging that they "can do it all", when that is not necessarily true - you have to pick and choose what you want in your life and what things go by the wayside in order to have a strong career and children/good family life.

[Vic Roe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely fantastic book. If you feel overwhelmed and unbalanced with your life, I highly recommend taking time to read this. Even coming away with one or two ideas to implement could pay dividends over time.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent tips at any age or stage of life/career. Like the suggestion to create a "not do" list, I appreciate the encouragement to carefully "curate."

I wish there were a workbook to accompany this. 4.5