Tag: self-help

Have you ever read a book that was highly recommended, and you just hated it from beginning to end? Well, that’s what happened to me when I read The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.

This book came highly recommended by a productivity podcaster I listen to. I am listening to the backlog, but I’ve been enjoying it. I have also read a couple of the other books said podcaster suggested, so I thought I would give it a try. To be honest with you, I was bored out of my mind. The book could have been 100 pages shorter. I was literally this dude’s journey to discovering how to use a checklist that works. I thought I would get tips and tricks out how to make my protocol better. In a way, it did give me that, but in others… Well, let’s say I got a really boring story that I did not remotely care about in the slightest in return.

In conclusion, make a short checklist to the point, specific, and made up of things that you may end up forgetting. There: I just saved you a couple of hours. Do something more interesting with that time that I did. I wish I could get it back.

As I’ve started undergoing my graduate school journey, I’ve been trying to decide if I should and how to keep up with the multitude of projects that I take part in on top of everything that school has. As part of that journey, I’ve been reading books on how to be productive and how to get the best done and living with less, now that I’m paying for everything. On the books I’ve read was Essentialism: The Discipline Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.

I usually dislike self-help books with a burning passion. For whatever reason, the voice comes across as if the author is way above the “little people.” I did not feel that way at all. McKeown was done to earth with his writing style and put things in a simple and digestible way. I also like that the way he would suggest actions who be feasible and an easily functioning way. While this book didn’t tell me how to keep up with all of the projects that I want to to do, it did teach me how to say no to the things I really really don’t want to do. I still say i won with this book.