It’s resolution season, when we all have a fresh start, a clean slate, and plenty of good intentions.
But if you actually want to keep those resolutions, it’s time to get serious about forming the right habits and minding the right things. These 9 books will help you do just that.
10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works–A True Story
The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills
It Starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways
Eating well is a foundational habit: people who eat right find it much easier to follow through in other areas of their lives. I've logged a half dozen or so Whole30s, and found the experience so valuable I'm tempted to urge everyone to try it at least once. This terrific guide from the Whole30 creators shows you everything you need to know, and will make you feel like you CAN do this.
More info →168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think
Vanderkam's no-nonsense, no-excuses approach to time management just might convince you that you actually have time to accomplish anything you really want to do, when you focus on your core competencies and stop frittering away your time. To get the most out of this book you must do the time diary exercise.
More info →The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Habits can be built, and they can be changed. Duhigg explores the science that explains how in this readable book, and explains how to put these methods into practice in your own life. His methods and insights give you the know-how to put this information to use.
More info →Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives
Rubin’s much anticipated follow-up to her happiness books is all about habits: how we make them, why we break them, and how we can improve them. That may not strike you as poolside fare, but the chatty writing, illuminating insights, and story-driven narrative make this guidebook anything but dry and boring. Packed with relatable tales from Rubin’s life, which are easy to apply to your own. If you put them into practice, this book will change your life. Practical, engaging, entertaining.
More info →The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
If you want to tidy up once and for all, this is the best kick in the pants you can get for ten bucks. This book is more than a little woo-woo, but her extreme approach to decluttering WORKS. Kondo is a Japanese personal tidying expert (she doesn’t like to call herself an “organizer”). She originally wrote her decluttering manifesto to help the Japanese clients languishing on her waiting list. Not all translations are good translations, but this one has been praised for preserving the quirkiness of her voice. (It's quirky, all right.) I love this book (more thoughts on that here).
More info →Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD: Tips and Tools to Help You Take Charge of Your Life and Get Organized
This is a great little handbook I come back to again and again, especially when my home (or my calendar) begins to feel like it's spiraling out of control.
More info →Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind
The title says it all: this little book is about playing to your creative strengths and natural rhythms by building daily routines. Twenty-plus luminaries from a host of people who work in creative professions—Gretchen Rubin, Steven Pressfield, Teresa Amabile, Seth Godin—weigh in on the importance of their personal habits for email, solitude, social media, multitasking, and more. This inspiring and practical guide will spur you to evaluate your schedule, create better habits, and rethink your priorities.
More info →Want to start focusing on those new goals immediately? These shorter MMD blog posts on habits, goals, and time management will help you get right to it:
• The Fab Four habits for a better life. Want to create new habits, but not sure where to start? These four foundational habits greatly affect your well-being, directly strengthen your self-control, and should be your first priority.
• Forget about results: my new approach to goal setting. Progress over perfect, because sometimes SMART goals aren’t so smart.
• Planning for visual types. I really struggled with organization until I realized I was a visual type.
• Two big-picture concepts that help me plan my days/weeks/months. I’ve never been able to follow the typical create-your-daily-schedule advice, because it makes my head explode. This is what works for me instead.
• 3 time management rules I wish I’d learned ten years ago. They may be obvious to some, but it took me a whole decade to figure out these 3 rules. Hopefully, that means someone will find a shortcut today.
What books would you add to the list?
27 comments
I started 10% Happier last week and like it a lot. He reads his own audiobook, and I have to say I like the newscaster audiobook thing he has going on.
I read the hardcover but I keep hearing the audiobook is fantastic!
I read It Starts With Food this weekend and am so excited for my first W30.
Good luck!
I have read and enjoyed several of these so I will definitely look at some of the others.
I would add “The Four-Day Win” by Martha Beck. Brilliant strategy for developing new habits from a proven life coach. I also would include anything by Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection” and “Rising Strong” being my two favorites.
Thanks for the recommendation! Brené Brown is a great addition to this list.
I second Elaine. Brene Brown!
Thanks for including 168 Hours! There are a few new books out this month that might be worth looking into: The Productivity Project, The Last Safe Investment, and The Happiness Track come to mind right now.
Thanks for the titles!
I ordered HIIT It by Gina Harvey for a workout revamp!
I really enjoyed The Power of Habit and was thinking of reading it again soon. I might have check some of these out too!
Thank you for these recommendations! I loved “Better Than Before” and am looking forward to reading a few of the others.
Thanks to previous posts, I’ve been able to pick up several of these at a good price, and have an amazon list that I check for price drops on the others . . . can’t read them all at once after all 🙂 I started a Whole 30 today, and have It Starts with Food on my nightstand. I’m trying to finish up QUIET (another MMD suggestion) before my e-book loan expires from the library! Thanks to the great suggestions, checking in with the blog and the Kindle deals list is one of my daily habits!
Glad to hear it! Hope they all help make 2016 a great year for reading. 🙂
I am reading The Happiness Project now as my New Year’s book and am really enjoying it. Thanks for the recommendations. I just put It Starts with Food on my library hold list!
That’s a great New Year’s read!
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up has been recommended to me before so I might give that a go this year! 🙂
Will definitely be picking up 10% Happier the next time I visit the bookstore. I have a noisy brain and it’s a constant battle.
Love, V.
http://www.vrogue.co
I haven’t heard of a single one of those books, Anne. Which would you recommend for a guy who doesn’t make resolutions and doesn’t see a particular part of life that is more in need of work than others?
Thanks,
Tim
P.S. If I did make resolutions, the one I’d make is 2000 years old.
The Duhigg, for sure.
Is there not more to life than getting organized?? How about some books that will lead us to contemplate the meaning of the present moment–embracing life today? Let’s read the lives of the saints, the works of great poets and writers. Forget cleaning programs; take a walk in the woods.
Loved The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck! Completely refreshing reminder about what’s important to focus on and what’s just a waste of our time and energies. Listened to the audiobook in two days and bought the hardcover to highlight and refer to over time. Highly recommend!!