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One of the most frequent questions our community asks during Product Hunt LIVE chats is, “Do you have any book recommendations?”
Whenever we walk into a bookstore or start reading a book, we’re looking for something. Sometimes, we’re looking for entertainment or great literature. Sometimes, we read to learn about a specific person, company, or moment in time. But, other times, we are looking for a specific outcome—we want what we read to help us become healthier, happier, smarter versions of ourselves.
In the list below, you’ll find seven thought-provoking reads that will help you make better decisions, learn any new skill fast, get more done, and manage your time better than you ever have before. Can’t argue with that, can we? 🙂
And if you’re looking for more smart reads, you can find it in this collection on Product Hunt:
This book isn’t a very long one—but it’s packed with such important and useful information that you’ll want to read it several times to soak it all in. The premise of The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking is that, by adopting several relatively simple strategies, you can significantly improve the quality of your strategic thinking and decision making. If you’ve ever gotten stuck on a challenging problem and didn’t know the best way to go about solving it (haven’t we all been there?), this is the book for you.
You’ll learn how to ask better questions, structure ideas in your day-to-day life, find the essential information in any data set, use failure to better inform your future decisions, and create new ideas from old ones. This book is sure to help you realize your goals more thoughtfully, creatively, and efficiently.
These days, most of us are swimming in a sea of information. With so much data at our fingertips, it’s hard to sort through all of it well—or fast. Yet, more than ever before, there’s an unrealistic expectation to make smarter, faster decisions in both our personal and professional lives. It’s no surprise we’re feeling increasingly overloaded with each passing year.
Enter: The Organized Mind. At over 500 pages, this book isn’t exactly a quick read. It’s more like something you’re going to keep on your nightstand for a few months and read in little chunks at a time. Nonetheless, it’s one of the most comprehensive and thought-provoking reads on how the brain processes and organizes information. The end result? A book that will help you manage the daily onslaught of information and teach you how to regain mastery over the organization of everything—from how you structure your thoughts to how you manage your time.
Do the Work is an absolute classic. It’s a short read, and you can get through it in an afternoon. The author, Steven Pressfield, caters to an audience of creatives—but this is a powerful read for anyone who’s procrastinated when trying to finish (or start) a project, goal, or company (in other words, all of us). The main premise of this book is that “resistance” is the killer of our best work—not a lack of time.
This book will take you on a journey from the starting point to the finish line of any major project, and helps identify the inevitable mental roadblocks you’ll stumble upon along the way. If nothing else, it will serve as a reminder that you are not, in fact, as lazy or crazy as you may sometimes feel. We all hit roadblocks in our creative or strategic work, and Pressfield provides some comfort by shedding light on the very universal, human reasons why.
The first thing you’ll realize upon picking up this book is that you will never be able to correctly pronounce the author’s name: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Exactly. The second thing you’ll realize is that you are holding not just a book on “optimal experience,” but also on the ever-popular topic of “happiness.” Flow starts off with a look at how people define and go about seeking happiness. He then digs into a desired state of consciousness he calls “flow”—when people experience boundless creativity, deep enjoyment, and full immersion and focus. Ever emerge from a work sprint and wonder how four hours zoomed by when it felt like minutes? BAM! That’s flow, baby.
Amazon reviewer Erika Borsos articulates the heart and soul of this book beautifully: “The author contends…most people are not happy because the universe was not created to make us happy. On the contrary, it serves to frustrate us and help us grow. The primary focus of this book is to show us that ‘flow’ states happen to people despite the challenges of the universe.”
A must-read.
Many of us know about the famous “10,000 hours” theory, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. So, the prevalent line of thinking is that to be great at something, you have to work on it forever and ever. But, The First 20 Hours author Josh Kaufman proposes a different idea: that there’s actually a way to rapidly acquire a new skill by tweaking those first 20 hours of learning.
In this book, you’ll learn how to take a complex skill and break it down, optimize the practice of learning, and identify patterns inherent in the process of acquiring any new skill—from programming to windsurfing. It’s not a comprehensive guide to learning, but it is an insightful read and will change the way you think about pursuing new skills in the future.
Seriously. Don’t pick up this book unless you are prepared to realize how easily susceptible you are to cheap (but admittedly clever) sales and marketing tactics. Nudge is all about how we’re unknowingly guided into making particular decisions about everything—from the size of the popcorn bag we choose when we go to the movies, to how we feel when we wait on long lines.
The authors, Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, are so freaking smart, it’s mindblowing. They warn us against making common mistakes when it comes to the foods we eat, the investments we make, and the donations we give. The authors note, “We could easily make people both wealthier and healthier by devising friendlier choice environments, or architectures.” Nudge is about presenting alternatives to our current “choice architecture” in the hopes of us leading—both collectively and individually—healthier, wealthier, and happier lives.
There is no shortage of productivity books on the market. Everywhere you turn, someone is offering you a complex system or theory about how to be more effective in your day-to-day life. The ONE Thing, however, is refreshingly simple. The title says it all—the premise of this book is that, by focusing all of your energy on a single goal at a time, you’ll accomplish far more over the long run than anyone attempting to tackle multiple big goals at once.
While many productivity books focus on helping you plan numerous goals and organize all of the information coming at you every day, this book is about eliminating anything on your plate that distracts you from accomplishing the ONE most important thing. This includes monotonous things like: emails, texts, social media, meetings…and the list goes on. The question author Gary Keller repeatedly asks throughout the book is, “What one thing can you do that will make everything else easier or unnecessary?” This book will help you figure out what that one thing is—and how to thoughtfully eliminate or delegate everything else that is not as important. We feel lighter already.
Looking for more reads that will help you shape the way you make decisions and spend your time? Find more in this collection on Product Hunt:
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