Graham Allcott - How to be a Knowledge Ninja: Study Smarter. Focus Better. Achieve More.

GRAHAM ALLCOTT

Published in the UK and USA in 2015 by
Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,
3941 North Road, London N7 9DP
email:
www.iconbooks.com

Sold in the UK, Europe and Asia
by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House,
7477 Great Russell Street,
London WC1B 3DA or their agents

Distributed in the UK, Europe and Asia
by TBS Ltd, TBS Distribution Centre, Colchester Road,
Frating Green, Colchester CO7 7DW

Distributed to the trade in the USA
by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution,
The Keg House, 34 Thirteenth Avenue NE,
Suite 101, Minneapolis, MN 55413-1007

Distributed in Australia and New Zealand
by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd,
PO Box 8500, 83 Alexander Street,
Crows Nest, NSW 2065

Distributed in Canada by
Publishers Group Canada,
76 Stafford Street, Unit 300,
Toronto, Ontario M6J 2S1

Distributed in South Africa by
Jonathan Ball, Office B4, The District,
41 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock 7925

Distributed in India by Penguin Books India,
7th Floor, Infinity Tower C, DLF Cyber City,
Gurgaon 122002, Haryana

ISBN: 978-184831-816-8

Text copyright 2015 Graham Allcott

The author has asserted his moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset in Myriad Pro by Marie Doherty

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

To Roscoe. This ones for you, chief

1. THE WAY OF THE KNOWLEDGE NINJA

The alarm goes off. Your brain slowly remembers that its not the first time youve heard that alarm this morning. You look at the time. I cant have snoozed for that long, surely?! Its Wednesday. You have an assignment due tomorrow. Time is running out and this mornings planned extra hour of reading just became an extra hour in bed, which isnt an ideal start. Oh, and youre probably going to miss the bus now and be late for the start of the class.

You shouldnt have gone out last night. Your friend just said to come round for dinner, but then dinner turned into the whole night. You feel tired and foggy and not quite ready to face the world. As you look at the texts on your phone you remember that you said yes to an extra shift at work tomorrow night (well, you do need the money), but with another deadline looming on Monday, its going to be a busy few days ahead. A crazy few days. In fact, you already know that these next few days will look nothing like the peaceful and serene plan you created for tackling this term, just a few short weeks ago.

Why dont things work out like I planned?

Why do I always find myself in a mess?

Juggling all these things is so damn hard.

These issues are what this book is all about. Its about helping you move from muddling through to becoming a Knowledge Ninja slaying the enemies of stress, chaos, procrastination and feeling overwhelmed, and creating a sense of playful control and momentum in all that you do.

Its easy to feel like everyone else has cracked it and that youre the only one in a mess. So Ill let you into a little secret everyone feels like this. From the most powerful business leaders and politicians to the coolest people on TV to your friends, family and role models theyre ultimately all human beings with their struggles and faults. As human beings were more prone to mistakes than we like to think: we plan badly, were not realistic, were not organized enough to have a good enough view of whats ahead, we struggle with prioritization, we get scared and nervous and oh, how we wish there was an exam for procrastination, because wed be guaranteed an A for that one (although wed probably put off that exam until tomorrow, come to think of it!).

Thats part of the problem with creating study plans or reading study guides life isnt perfect and we forget that were not perfect either. We keep finding ourselves in a mess because life is messy. Yet study books and our own grandiose plans sell us the dream of perfection and we fall for it every time. We dream about this perfect life we can lead and convince ourselves that buying a smart new notebook and some highlighter pens is but the first step on our inevitable journey to awesomeness. Three weeks into the term, those dreams have faded again and were back to feeling disappointed, flustered, daunted and messy again.

How do I know this? Well, Ive spent the last six years coaching and training senior business leaders in how to be productive and successful, and I wrote a bestseller that helps people do that in their work and life, called How to be a Productivity Ninja.

And how did that become my job? Because I was spectacularly bad at productivity. Because I tried to live the perfection myth too. Because Im naturally flaky, lazy and disorganized. Because Id struggled so hard at making myself productive that I found it easy to relate to other people struggling and could help them find solutions.

I was far from a grade A student. You should see my school reports. Oh wait, my mum still has them in her loft. And now Im reading them again after all these years, theyre even less pretty than I remember them. And I have even less of an idea about why she might choose to keep them

Grahams mark here is about average but does not reveal the number of reminders that have been necessary before work appeared
Mr Abyss, Chemistry

Graham is still satisfied with inaccurate work in his writing. He continues to rush his homework
Mrs Bettany, French

Its the same old story Graham can work well in class, but not out of school
Mr Cartwright, History

Incapable of simply arriving on time in the morning, I am not surprised at his present problems with coursework
Mr Goodes, form tutor

The progress he has made has been pulled out of him, and most credit for it goes to others, not himself. He sees it as a little local difficulty, but his attitude to organized study is in fact a major future problem
Dr Rex Pogson, Headteacher

What those reports dont tell you is that I was learning loads in those school years, but very little of it was in school. I was editing a music magazine, singing in a band, campaigning for political change, putting on music events, writing a music column for my local newspaper, DJing on a local radio station, as well as delivering newspapers six days a week and working in a bank three evenings a week. But I still look back on some of those school years as a wasted opportunity. If Id have known what I know now about topics like productivity, attention, psychology, self-control and motivation, my school days and my qualifications would have been very different.