The Hamster Revolution is a timely solution to both the widespread problem of email overload as well as most people's inefficient (or nonexistent) systems for categorizing and storing email messages. This book provides the practical steps needed to deal with these problems and become more efficient in our work.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 29 Ratings

Great resource, quick and easy read. - 2008-11-05
Reviewer Rating:
This book has a lot of great, practical, easy-to-implement ideas on how to reduce the quantity of your emails, while increasing the quality. It's an easy, quick read written in fable format. Highly recommend!

Practical and easy to apply - 2008-12-17
Reviewer Rating:
Very worth the purchase. It's got lots of great stuff that's easy to apply. I've applied lots of the book's stuff and they work! I don't like how it was written, but I can't deny it was good stuff. It was written like a story and it was about a hamster...weird. The way it was written has made it a little hard to recommend to just anyone; keep an open mind and keep reading it even if you feel it's starting to feel like a children book.

Read it at noon, start changing by One! - 2009-11-20
Reviewer Rating:
Great book. Great advice. Fun presentation.
Simple to implement and sustain.
It works!

Only in the virtual world of email are people so rude as to expect to interrupt your life with their questions, comments and often inane chatter. Email has been a constant annoyance and productivity drain since day one. Let's get back to the fundamentals of proper and succint business communication.


The only advice I have to this great little book is turn off email alerts, and use a schedule to handle email as a task - such as my own 10 2 and 4 schedule (The old Dr. Pepper schedule.) Handle emails at 10 2 and 4 each work day. If you can't reply immediately and simply, it becomes a "to-do" to be prioritized and handled like all other work.

With this and "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" you should be set to tackle even the most demanding of lifestyles.

Join The Hamster Revolution!

Easy to Use Solutions to Common Communications Clogs - 2009-10-06
Reviewer Rating:
The Hamster Revolution's straight forward easy to use advice can be put into action before you finish the book. Finish the book, it's a very quick read, and whether you adopt one tip or all of them you will be on the way to conquering virtual clutter. Without a lot of fuss the solutions save time and improve communication.

This book may provide the fastest route to increasing one's productivity - 2009-08-04
Reviewer Rating:
I got the 3-hour long CD and now listened a third time. I've wanted off the treadmill to the extent possible. I started implementing the authors' suggestions after my first pass, and then began to use their tools after the second pass. I've become a believer in the Hamster Revolution and now recognize this work as one of the truly great business books of our time. That's why I deleted my first review - so I could increase the number of stars.

In my first go-around I immediately felt overly critical due to what I perceived as a self-serving forward by Ken Blanchard. I have nothing against Blanchard and recognize him as an outstanding thinker and corporate trainer; I just don't like it when people writing a forward use it as an opportunity to toot their own horn. In this state of mind, I found the hamster character cutesy. The second time I identified strongly with the hamster. The dialogue made me feel that I'm the hamster. Further, the use of the hamster character turned out to be an ingenious technique because it allowed the authors to teach their lessons in story format. The more I applied the lessons, the more apparent it became that the authors, Mike Song, Vicki Halsey and Tim Burress have a fine 129-page masterpiece here.

The first thing I started doing was strengthening my subject lines and sculpting my messages. Anybody can do this once they understand the first simple lesson. Like the hamster, I'm now sending fewer emails. This result did not come just as a matter of receiving and following instructions. There is theory behind the lessons and it seems so simple due to the story presentation. The reader (listener in my case) is made to understand the problem first. The problem is information overload and we all face it.

Skipping straight to the last strategy, the authors provide a powerful tool called COTA. This is a system for organizing email folders that works because of the logic behind its simplicity. I feel that it's a spoiler to tell what COTA stands for, but even so, COTA is not so simple that it can be used effectively without understanding the philosophical underpinning. This is the first tier of folders, and one can expect to have further tiers. Further, one should apply this tool to all one's business records, physical and electronic. This includes records in file cabinets, records on company servers, records in employees' My Documents and email folders. In the book, the hamster is advised that it will take about a day to reorganize his files using this tool. But the hamster could not completely do it all in one day. I think nobody can predict how long it will take to implement this tool.

The title of the book is inspired. The idea of "revolution" is that those of us using the design and principles will spread the word and create major change. One can imagine managers asking employees to join "the revolution." Those of us using the techniques will be able to recognize each other fairly quickly from the subject headers.

Finally, I did not read this book. I listened to the CD. The reader is Oliver Wyman. He has an enormous portfolio of famous books in several genres and is extremely versatile. I wholeheartedly recommend the CD because it flows smoothly and is soothing to the listener. I've also ordered the book because the CD is abridged and I want to make sure not to miss out on anything. This is an enjoyable 3-hour CD set (3 CDs). But let's be honest about something. This is about making work more satisfying. It's about being successful at work. It's about being more productive and therefore more competitive.

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