1. Greg McKeown “Essentialism. The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.”
Greg McKeown is a psychologist and business coach. He conducts consultations among employees of Apple, Google, Facebook, and other large corporations, conducts a course on productivity at Stanford University. McKeown conditionally divides people into two categories – essentialists and non-essentialists. The former know exactly what to spend their time on, the latter “drown” in tasks and do not have time for anything. What is the reason for the difference? According to the psychologist, internal attitudes.
The essentialist is guided by the principles:
I’m making a choice. There are only a few important things. I can do a lot, but not everything.
The non – essentialist is the following:
I have to do this. All of this is important. I will do the first, and the second, and the third.
To join the team of essentialists, having stopped exhausting himself with useless deeds, McKeown calls:
Learn to dismiss the unnecessary. Start focusing only on what is really important.
However, what is important is not always correct within the framework of stereotypical thinking. For example, to enroll in a medical institute, because it is prestigious, or to get married and have children before the age of 30, because it is accepted, is it right, but is it always necessary? When we try to do everything planned and get everything we want, in the end, we very often find ourselves where we would never have ended up on our own. If we can’t choose where to direct our time and energy, others do it for us: bosses, colleagues, clients, or even family members. After a while, we will stop understanding what makes sense to us. In each chapter, one of the aspects of the life of absolutely every person is considered. And McKeown makes a comparison of what an essentialist would do. In short, the author’s thoughts boil down to the following:
multitasking is exhausting, so it is appropriate only if it can be justified; only specific goals and objectives matter; minor and insignificant projects dissipate attention and reduce efficiency; be sure to find time to recuperate, rest helps to “reboot”; The main idea of the book: it is better to do less, but qualitatively, than more, but not good.
2. Laura Vanderkam “Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done”
Laura Vanderkam is the author of books about time management. She hosts a podcast about productivity and an Instagram account about the everyday life of a mother of five children. The main idea of the book: if the work is not done entirely, it is not the volume of tasks that is to blame, but inefficient time management. Do you want to keep up more? Try to understand what and with what frequency time is wasted. This list will boldly include hours spent on useless chatting, endless flipping through the news feed, spontaneous online shopping, etc. To understand where the time is going, experiment – record any of your actions daily for a day in this way:
12:00 – lectures; 13:00 – lunch; 13:40 – correspondence in the messenger; 14:15 – reading the news; 15:00 – completion of the training task; 16:20 – coffee break;
After a week or two, summarize the results. Calculate how many hours on average it took to study/work, move around the city and shopping, do household chores, communicate with loved ones, social media, etc. This method will help to analyze what took more time than we would like, and what, on the contrary, was unfairly given much less attention. Think about what you would like to devote yourself to, but there is not enough time for this. For example, finally, go to a therapist, see a friend, take an online course, etc. Make a schedule of things not for a day, but the whole week. At the same time, it is important to exclude cases that mercilessly kill time, and include those discussed in the second paragraph. You can download the schedule template in a variety of formats on the official website of Laura Vanderkam. Also read: Trending Books to Read – Recommended Best Sellers
3. Chris Bailey “The Productivity Project: Proven Ways to Become More Awesome”
Chris Bailey is a Canadian writer and productivity consultant. The concept of the idea of how to learn to keep up with everything with minimal time spent began to develop as a teenager. This made it possible to successfully graduate from school and university. Today, the coach participates in conferences and gives masterclasses, maintains a blog, and writes books. Before writing this book, Bailey studied scientific articles and interviewed management experts for a year. Then — the most interesting part: numerous experiments to understand which practices increase productivity, and which are meaningless. For example, Bailey got up at 5:30 every morning, worked 90 hours a week, isolated himself from society, and consumed only water for a month. Which of the experiments became successful and which failed, it will become known only after reading the book ” The Productivity Project: Proven Ways to Become More Awesome ” Chris Bailey urges you to focus on three important tasks every day. Every morning, mentally transfer to the evening and ask yourself what three things you would like to see completed. Concentrate on these tasks and keep them in mind throughout the day.
4. Jacob Teitelbaum “From Fatigued To Fantastic”
Jacob Teitelbaum personally faced a prolonged energy crisis when he was a medical university student. Even then, in the 70s, the American started developing his methodology for the treatment of chronic fatigue. He later earned his doctorate and wrote several books. According to official data, about 1% of Americans have experienced chronic fatigue syndrome. But Teitelbaum claims that this indicator is much higher (about 90% of cases are not diagnosed), and attributes this to the fact that medical institutes do not study either the syndrome itself or how to detect it. Symptoms are expressed by fatigue, apathy, and muscle pain, which can also indicate some other diseases. Teitelbaum’s book will help you understand if you really have chronic fatigue syndrome or if it’s just time for you to take a vacation. The recipe for health and vigor consists of two components:
proper energy generation; the expenditure of forces for the intended purpose, and not for nothing.
What should I do if I feel a loss of strength? First of all, check for infections and make a hormonal analysis, take time to exercise, and start observing the daily routine. Common truths like “sleep for 7-8 hours”, “exercise”, “eat right” – all this is in the book, but in a more detailed description — from the point of view of an expert. Dr. Titelbaum writes that the techniques he offers will help increase energy levels by up to 91%. There are also answers to more ambiguous questions here. In the book, he explains what causes restless legs syndrome (uncontrolled movement of the lower extremities at rest) or what to do if anxious thoughts do not allow you to fall asleep. There are answers: to the first question – because of the lack of iron in the body, to the second — try to put on paper what exactly is bothering you. The next step is to make an appointment with a therapist and a psychologist, respectively. Also read: Tips to Become & Stay Successful
5. Kelly McGonigal “Why self-control is the secret to success”
Kelly McGonigal is a psychologist, Ph.D., lecturer at Stanford University. For 7 years she was the editor-in-chief of the yoga magazine “International Journal of Yoga Therapy”. She has written several books about neuroscience. Surely there has been a moment in everyone’s life when, being aware of exactly what you want to do, and even have found time for it, you still did not dare to start. The reason for this may be a temptation – internal and external, knocking down the mood. Or the fear of failing (I won’t be able to master the full course, it’s not worth trying). Kelly McGonigal, using research from the field of medicine, neuroscience, and psychology, tells how to deceive the brain and still achieve the goal. The idea of the solution is to use mirror neurons in our favor, which make us copy what we see. The most obvious example is involuntary yawning when noticing the same yawning person. However, this is the most harmless thing that mirror neurons can do to us. It is proven that if your partner or one of the family members has gained weight, you probably face the same thing. Create an environment around you whose representatives could serve as an example to you. Mirror neurons also work positively. Make friends with someone who always manages everything, and the brain will do everything for you – productivity will increase unconsciously and without much effort. Concentrate only on the most important things, and the subreddit will help with secondary tasks. Tasks include various college assignments and academic papers.
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