The Power of focus time (with 2021 Goodreads)
“ It’s 9:00 am sharp, the silent reading time start now.
As usual, we will read our individual book of choice in the next 1 hour and 45 minutes.
You can sit comfortably anywhere or walk around during the reading session, but you are not allowed to talk to each other.
I will remind you after 1:45 minutes. Then you can decide if you want to stay to share with us any thoughts related to the book you read or you can leave straight away. ”
This is a local book club I attended regularly in the past 3 years. The host of the owner will repeat the exact rules above at the beginning of every sessions. This book club inspires me reading over 78 books since 2019. It really surpass my original 1 book per month’s reading target.
Like all other local events, due to COVID 19 situation, the book club temporary stopped with the hope to continue sometime this year.
For me, this book club not only provided me a comfortable reading environment and community to meet with other readers with different reading interests, but more importantly it taught me the power of focus and deep thinking.
Every session, we got this 1:45 uninterrupted focus time, and this is life changing for me
This moment of silent, moment of deep thoughts, moment of self is so precious in our noisy life. I really enjoy the feeling that I can fully immerse myself in an ocean of new perspectives and calmness.
Even we can’t go back to the book club yet, 2021 I decide to adopt and apply the principles from the book club to read, to think and reflect.
With some additional inspiration from Adrienne Herbert’s book “Power Hour How to Focus on Your Goals and Create a Life You Love”
I leave 1 hour uninterrupted focus time every morning from 6:15–7:15 am to read, to think and reflect.
(And this very blog is the output from this Wednesday 6th of January’s focus time” )
A very sudden transition… Even this is a blog mainly writing for myself, I still decide to put my 2021 reading list at the end of this blog.
Charlotte’s booklist for 2021:
There will be updated throughout the year. So feel free to follow me on Goodread to see the latest list
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark
A Promised Land by Barack Obama
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Hurry Tyson, Neil deGrasse
Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In
by Roger Fisher, William Ury, Bruce Patton
Women and Leadership, Julia Gillard, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly by Evy Poumpouras
Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 by William Lazier, James C. Collins
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
by Malcolm Gladwell
The Practice shipping creative work by Seth Godin
The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman
The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy
by Mazzucato, Mariana
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved by Bowler, Kate
The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future by Guillebeau, Chris
Made to Stick by Chip Heath, Dan Heath
Above are the new books I am planning to read in 2021, I am also planning to revisit some books I read before :
- to better retain the knowledge
- deeper my understanding about that particular areas
- and maybe this is just a better time to read it when I did before
I will update them here in the future too.
P.S: Hey, dear readers.
Thanks for reading my blog, this blog is a mechanism to motivate me to form a habit of writing and reflection.
All opinions are my personal views. They are not suitable for commercial or academic reference.
Please be supportive and gentle to me, as I am team humanity and love — like you!
Thank you
Charlotte :)
