24 books for 2020

It’s not a purpose.

Este post también está disponible en castellano 🇪🇸

Of all the traditions present at Christmas and New Year’s, I must admit that the one that strikes me the most is to make New Year’s Resolutions. Everyone has them, but it is rare that they are finally fulfilled. According to Business Insider, 80% of them quit after 6 weeks. I propose to replace them with goals. Mine is to read 24 books by 2020.

How do you build a goal? I propose the following formula:

Goal = Plan + Communication + Perseverance

Let’s look at each of its components:

• Goal: It differs from a purpose in that it is concrete. It has to tell us what we want to achieve (quantitatively) and the time we have to do it. For example: “my goal for 2020 is to read 24 books in one year and publish an analysis of each one on my blog”.
• Plan: What will I do to achieve it? What intermediate goals do I have defined? How do I know if I am doing well or badly? In my case it would be the design of the reading calendar.
• Communication: It’s not mandatory, but it helps a lot. When we communicate that we have a goal to accomplish, we generate a “commitment” to accomplish it with those people (basically based on the fear that they will see us failing). I’m just doing this as I write these lines.
• Perseverance: How are we going to follow up on our goal? I personally recommend using the same tracking tool we use to work regularly, in my case, Trello.

After this small breakdown of my “technique for the non-responders”, it only remains to confirm my objective: to read 24 books this 2020 that deal with topics from entrepreneurship and productivity to science fiction and to publish an analysis of each one in this blog.

My list (which I will update) is as follows:

January

• Getting Things Done by David Allen.
• Scaling Lean by Ash Maurya.

February

• Strategic Writing for UX by Torrey Podmajersky.
• The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin.

March

• Bad Blood by John Carreyrou.
• Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.

April

• The Zero Marginal Cost Society by Jeremy Rifkin.

(To be updated)

Finally, I could not say goodbye without honouring another tradition, Happy 2020!

Originally published at jimenez.me on January 4, 2020.