Books of influence
Get ready to veer off to Google.
In this day an age, it’s hard to think of the time to simply pick up a book, and read it. Not just causally read (like you used to in the large bookstore on the Main Street of any urban city centre), but truly read. We’re all so busy with life. In particular, life admin. The mundane talks which one must do to move on with things more interesting.
The art of a good book can whisk us away from such tasks, and in turn — teach us a great deal. Over my career, I’ve sat in a vast amount of meetings which tend to start with banter on how people’s weekends were, or whether the meeting is taking place in the correct meeting room. You get twenty minutes into it and truly being in to wonder the value of time. One book which revolutionised my way of running the work day, was The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris.
Try not to take the back cover to heart (although you MAY) want to quit your job. This is a book which simplifies one’s day. Who knew that all meetings set up by either yourself or colleague, should have an agenda and next step within the invite?! This simple, yet effective task has saved months (slight exaggeration) of wasted hours. When there’s a strict way of running a meeting, it’s a method of letting people know ‘It’s business time’. Not in a snarly, top of the class kind of way — more a succinct method to ensure you make the day run in a smooth manner. Not too dissimilar to a decent red or double shot flat white. The book covers many other facets of work and personal life, and aims to reduce stress and make break tasks down. Highly recommend in this age of Digital.
As I’m typing this piece, I’m reminded of how much easier (and advanced) the art of writing has become. I’m not on my ‘desktop’ computer, nor laptop — but using Notes on my iPhone. Steve Jobs really did foresee the future when he developed Apple as a brand. His biography aims to shed light on his career and genius ideas he bought to so much of today’s technology. What struck me about his personality, was his uncanny ability to fuse technology with creativity. His sense for putting the customer first can be seen with the notion of bringing calligraphy as a font into the first Apple Computer. A hard read in some areas, mainly due to the amount of ‘tech speak’ — and easier in others as he works to change the way humans use and allow so many devices into their lives.
When we think of digital, there’s no one easy way to explain how it’s affecting our lives. As we chomp through more digital ‘things’ than ever before, I still very much like the idea of a traditional book. Books take us to a space in time which enables us to use our imagination — although things are more in our reach with this digital world we live in. Its nice to entrench oneself in a good book, because as we can all admit — it’s so easy to jump back into one of the 829 unread emails or any number of the social media apps you have — whilst on the Tablet.
