More than a million new book titles are published each year. Few people have the time to read even 0.01% of that number each year. Blinkist is a book summary service that has condensed over 3,000 of the most impactful non-fiction books into summaries that take about 15 minutes to read.
I maintain a list of about a thousand books that I want to read. I know I will never read the majority of them. That’s where Blinkist comes in. I use book summary services to “read” the books that I realistically will never find the time to read. These are mostly the longer books that I simply don’t have the enthusiasm to pore through.
Typically when I read a book, I take note of all the helpful and actionable content that I may want to revisit. Here are ten books I’ve read on Blinkist, along with the notes I took from reading the “blinks” (as Blinkist likes to call them). Think of it as a summary of the summary đŸ™‚
Ultralearning, by Scott Young: Gain a professional advantage by ultralearning. Apply metalearning by breaking down your topic into concepts, facts, and procedures, then create a plan for acquiring the skills you need to learn. Trick yourself into getting started by setting a timer for three minutes, promising yourself that you can stop working when the timer goes off, then getting to work. Use the Pomodoro technique by setting a timer for 20 minutes of focused work at a time, with 5 minute breaks in between. Apply interleaving by breaking up your study into short, regularly spaced sessions. Pay attention to your state of mind and take advantage of the best times to practice repetitive tasks and the best times for practicing creative tasks. Go for immersive learning when you can, or simulations if you can’t. Drill yourself on the areas you find most difficult. Try the copycat method for creative projects by emulating the masters as closely as you can. Instead of reviewing, test yourself by recalling what you learned—challenge yourself to write down everything you learned in detail. Pose questions in your notes instead of facts. Create projects that will test everything you’ve learned so far. Elicit quality feedback by pushing the limits to failure. The best type of feedback is corrective feedback. Use Spaced Repetition Systems (SRS) to memorize simple concepts. Whenever you face two ways to arrive at a solution, embrace the harder way to learn more. When faced with a challenging problem, force yourself to work on it for at least ten minutes before looking for a simpler solution. Pick the brain of an expert by finding a professional in your ultralearning field and interviewing them.
The Success Principles, by Jack Canfield: Practicing the principles of success will equip you to reach your life goals. Identify two of your strongest personality traits, describe the way you interact with others, imagine your ideal world, then combine these into a statement of life purpose. Create a mental picture of what your perfect future looks like, break it down into smaller goals, then create a timeline for achieving these goals. Create an affirmation to state your goals to yourself every day. Take a “completion weekend” to clear your slate of unfinished business or projects (either do it, delegate it, delay it, or dump it). Form a mastermind group of supportive people to regularly meet with, allowing each person 15 minutes to pose questions to the group. Find a mentor by emailing possible mentors and asking if they could spare 15 minutes per month to share ideas and ask questions. Offer your time to a worthy cause. Cross off a nagging task on your todo list today.
The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries: The purpose of a start-up is to find a sustainable business model. Get validation for your ideas as soon as possible. Develop a minimum viable product and talk with your customers. Loop through the Build-Measure-Learn cycle as quickly as possible. Run split-tests to optimize your product. Once per month, analyze your business and decide if you need to pivot your efforts to a more profitable part of your business. There are three major engines of growth and you should focus on one in the beginning: Sticky (retaining existing customers), Viral (growing customers by word-of-mouth), and Paid (growing customers by marketing). Find a useful metric to compare against, but avoid vanity metrics that say nothing about the actual success and sustainability of your business.
I Will Teach You to Be Rich, by Ramit Sethi: Make the most of your credit card benefits. Get a no-fees checking account and keep one and a half months’ worth of cash in there. Get a high-interest savings account at an online bank to save extra money. Set up a 401(k) account and automatically have money go in from your paycheck. Set up a Roth IRA account to invest on your own. Create a budget for fixed costs, investments, savings, and guilt-free spending. Automate your bill payments. Invest in lifecycle funds or index funds instead of buying individual stocks. Whenever you receive unexpected monetary windfalls, save half and spend the other half on whatever you want.
The Personal MBA, by Josh Kaufman: There is no correlation between career success and having an MBA. You can borrow money to increase leverage and amplify your profits (or losses). All humans have four drives: desire to acquire things, drive to bond with others, desire to learn, and desire to defend what we have. Make extra efforts to please your customers, and provide potential customers with testimonials. Most people are more productive in the morning, and our energy runs in 90-minute cycles.
Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius: The universe is governed by the force of logos, proof that all things happen for a reason. Everyone dies eventually, so you must embrace mortality, not live in fear of it. Life is too short to waste time complaining. Embrace logic and avoid making decisions based on emotions. The only pain you suffer is pain you inflict upon yourself. Always treat others fairly and with kindness, and you will never suffer as a result of your own actions.
Spark, by John J. Ratey MD: Your mind is strongly connected to your body. Intense exercise before work has been shown to increase brain function. Exercise also helps with stress, depression, focus, addiction, and overall health. Lifting weights helps your bones and triggers your brain cells to form new connections. A morning run benefits your blood vessels, including those in your brain.
The War on Normal People, by Andrew Yang: Technology and inequality in America are causing an economic crisis. The best solution might be to implement a Universal Basic Income to pull all Americans out of poverty. Healthcare can be reformed by paying doctors flat salaries.
A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson: Hiking the Appalachian Trail is beautiful and challenging. If you ever come across a grizzly bear, avoid eye contact and climb a tree or play dead. But if you encounter a black bear, just run as fast as you can.
Venture Deals, by Brad Feld: Venture deals are the best way to finance start-ups, but you have to be prepared and avoid common pitfalls.
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