dragonbook

22 THE GUARANTEE Is all this guaranteed to work? Will it bring a lifetime of accomplishment and happiness? Well, no. I talked with Jim Rich a couple of years ago, and I told him I was using him as an example of good student study habits. He told me I had his permission to continue to use him as an example—but he said that the truth of the matter is that he wished he hadn’t been quite such a dedicated student and that he had spent more time on things outside the classroom. So, if the Dale Carnegie approach isn’t really the way to happiness and success, what is? Well, it seems to me there is one and, at some personal risk, let me share with you what I think is…. THE REAL SECRET TO TIME MANAGEMENT The secret is here in an article I wrote for the Aberdeen American News. It’s more of the kind of stuff I’d getting in trouble for telling you, so be sure to skip right over it and go to the next chapter. Better to light more than one candle There are five candles on our dining room table. One of them has been lit. Once. And, unfortunately, that’s probably the way it will stay until Christmas day. It’s like this almost every year at our house. We start the Advent season promising ourselves that this Christmas will be different. We’ll spend time together as a family. We’ll sing carols together, read scripture together, and pray together every day. But somehow it doesn’t happen. There’s gift shopping to be done, packages to send off, and the usual rush of extra holiday events. There are columns to write, book reviews to finish up, and some final details on reports that I was supposed to have finished six months ago. And soon