WSIRN: Mattie James Archives

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

by Oliver Burkeman

I loved this book. The premise is this: life is short; each of us, on average, is alive for only four thousand weeks. It's impossible to accomplish and experience everything we want to. So how do we decide what is actually worth our time? I especially appreciated his thoughts on how everyone is just winging it, all the time, and that serializing our tasks will save us. I read this book very slowly: I rarely spend more than a week reading a book, but I read this one over the course of three, which was perfect for the material.

Everyday Magic: The Joy of Not Being Everything and Still Being More Than Enough

by Mattie James

From the publisher: Today we are all stretching ourselves more than ever to live up to life’s seemingly endless demands, so why do we still feel we are less than enough? Mattie James— mother, influencer, and CEO—believes that living a beautiful life amidst the chaos and pressures is possible. All it takes is a little everyday MAGIC. In this book, Mattie shows you how, helping you to evaluate the tasks and decisions you face in your daily life to make sure everything in your life is MAGIC: Meaningful, Aesthetically pleasing, Goal-oriented, Intentional, and Consistent. This honest and practical guide offers tools, insights, and encouragement to help you center yourself within the minutiae of everyday life and evaluate tasks to become intentional about everything you do.

What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture

by Ben Horowitz

From the publisher: Ben Horowitz has long been fascinated by history, and particularly by how people behave differently than you'd expect. The time and circumstances in which they were raised often shapes them—yet a few leaders have managed to shape their times. In What You Do Is Who You Are, he turns his attention to a question crucial to every organization: how do you create and sustain the culture you want? To Horowitz, culture is how a company makes decisions. It is the set of assumptions employees use to resolve everyday problems: should I stay at the Red Roof Inn, or the Four Seasons? Should we discuss the color of this product for five minutes or thirty hours? If culture is not purposeful, it will be an accident or a mistake.

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

by Atul Gawande

I nearly didn't read this book because of the horrible title, and that would have been a shame. I'm so glad I relied on a friend's recommendation, and my own enjoyment of Gawande's latest release Being Mortal, and read it anyway. This brief, engaging book is about how to successfully live and work in a world that's becoming increasingly complex. Gawande draws fascinating examples from medicine, construction, and aviation to explain why systems remain vulnerable to human error, and what we can do about it. Highly recommended.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

by James Clear

This was my first completed read of 2019, and a great way to kick off the year. And it's just as good for any fresh start. Drawing on personal experience (and with a big nod to Charles Duhigg), Clear writes about the basics of habit formation and follow-through. My favorite insight, and the one that's made a practical difference in my work life, is his insistence that 1% gains in performance—which many of us tend to disregard as "not worth the time to pursue"—make an incredible difference in our lives when implemented and compounded.

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters

by Priya Parker

Years ago I asked a handful of friends to share tips for running better meetings—and an uncanny number recommended this book. Parker doesn't take her subject lightly: she believes that it is the way a group gathers that determines what happens there and how successful it will be, and that the little design choices the organizer makes can make or break it. As someone who tends to be interested in the behind the scenes of any endeavor, I was fascinated by her insights into why some gatherings work—and others don't. With chapter titles like "Don't Be a Chill Host" and "Never Start a Funeral with Logistics," Parker pushes her readers to think differently about why and how they gather. Helpful and thought-provoking.

WSIRN: Mattie James

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Everyday Magic: The Joy of Not Being Everything and Still Being More Than Enough

What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters

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