Last updated on September 30, 2021
In previous posts I have shared my favorite books on the topics of spirituality and money. Now I’d like to highlight those books that have most helped me to do my work. As a long-term solo entrepreneur, I’ve rarely had someone looking over my shoulder to ensure that I was actually doing my work. That may sound heavenly to you, but it’s meant that I’ve had to develop systems and habits so that I actually get things done. Like previous posts, this list is in the order of when I first encountered these works.
First up is Time Management for Dummies, by Jeffrey Mayer. You may chuckle with this one, but this was the first productivity book I ever read. I read it during a time I had a job in which no one was there telling me what to do. I had to figure out how schedule my days so that I actually got things done. While I don’t remember much specifically about the book, there is one exercise that I continue to use. It’s the master list. You take a yellow notepad and write down everything that you need to get done. I now primarily use Nozbe for my to do list, but when there is a lot on my plate, I come back to that master list. There’s something about getting everything from my brain to a piece of paper that is clarifying.
Next is The 4-Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss. I’m a big fan of Tim Ferriss. I’ve been listening to his podcast since soon after it launched in 2014, and I’ve read just about all of his books. It was through this book that I first began thinking about concepts like life design, mini-retirements, and remote work. I’m fairly certain that a lot of my thoughts on working the system probably came from Tim as well. This is a book I come back to every few years.
Next up is StrengthsFinder 2.0, by Tom Rath. I first took the StrengthsFinder assessment back in 2001, but I didn’t have anyone really help me to understand it. But in 2010 our church had a consultant come and spend a weekend with us. I learned that my top five strengths were Command, Self-Assurance, Adaptability, Activator, and Arranger. This gave me language to understand the tasks I do that make me feel strong. I began to understand that this is a unique way that God has designed me, and it’s good for me and others when I spend the bulk of my time living and working out of these strengths. If you’ve never taken this assessment you can do so here. I highly recommend it.
Next up is Anything You Want, by Derek Sivers. The subtitle is 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur. I like that. I first heard Derek on the Tim Ferriss podcast, and I was immediately a fan. He is about as outside the box as you can get, and more than just about anyone I’ve ever heard about, his decisions and day to day activity are so rooted in his values and desires. This is a short book with short chapters, and it’s another one that I come back to every few years.
Greg McKeown’s Essentialism came at a perfect time in my life. I was doing too many things, and this book helped me make some radical changes. What do I feel deeply inspired by? What am I particularly talented at? What meets a significant need in the world? At the center of these three questions are just a few things. I understood that my focus needed to be on these things. That meant that I needed to stop doing a lot of other things. And that’s where the next book helped immensely.
Before Free to Focus was a book, it was a course by Michael Hyatt. It was one of the best investments I’ve ever made, and it continues to bear fruit in my life. It was from Hyatt that I learned how to construct an ideal week. The course/book also helped to give me the courage to cut out a lot of things I was doing that might have seemed urgent, but that weren’t really that important. It also gave me the skills to automate a lot of the tasks that I did on a day to day or week to week basis.
Deep Work, by Cal Newport, was another big one for me. The idea behind the book is that a lot of the work that is needed today is what he would call deep work. The problem is that the way so many of us spend our working days pushes against deep work. We are so easily distracted. What I learned through this book was to have time set aside during my most productive hours (morning) that was devoted to this kind of deep work. During that time I wouldn’t check email or browse the web for whatever entered my mind at that moment. It’s a discipline for sure, but it’s one that totally pays off.
The Complete Enneagram, by Beatrice Chestnut, is similar to StrengthsFinder in that I believe that the more I understand about myself, the better I’m going to be. Everything starts inside and works itself out. I’ve written on the Enneagram before, so I won’t repeat myself here. But of all the books on the subject I’ve read, this one is by far my favorite.
There was a time in my life when I was a workaholic. I worked a lot because I loved my work, but I also worked a lot because I felt better about myself when I did. Burnout was of course the end result of this kind of unhealthy lifestyle. Rest, by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, taught me to take seriously the need for intentional rest and play. There are chapters in this book about taking walks and taking naps. Simple yet very counter-cultural.
Off the Clock, by Laura Vanderkam, has been out for awhile, but I didn’t read it until this year. I had read a couple of her other books, but this one is definitely my favorite. In one of her earlier books, Vanderkam encourages the reader to keep track of how their 168 hours (one week) were spent. This is an activity that I’ve done several times, and it’s one that I highly recommend. The subtitle of this book isn’t just a catchy line. I think it’s truly possible: “Feel less busy while getting more done.”