Books which everyone should read

@pawan Enjoy the Friday reading! I’m still waiting for mine.

Funny take on Read only Fridays.

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Also came across this technique some time ago:

http://pomodorotechnique.com/book/
https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-work-40-hours-in-16-7-d9038681e652#.tlbb63en5

Haven’t tried it yet – but it sounds really interesting. Got an app on my iPhone, will try it out today.

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Interesting approach to time management @mrjn. It really comes down to focusing on one task at a time, minimizing context switching, and discipline. I’ve got to give this a try too.

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Did try this at work sometime back. It’s an amazing technique. Helps you divide your task into small chunks and stay focussed while completing them.

Its here :grinning:

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Now a picture of GTD :smile:

:slight_smile:

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Have you guys tried Audible or listening to Audio books in general ?

I used audio books back in the day when I had an hour long commute from SF to the South Bay. Mind you this was when I would drive. If on a shuttle or on public transit, then you have the option to read. Found audio books to be very useful and a good way to catch up books while driving without the option to read (same holds for the radio). Audio books give you more room to think while listening compared to the thoughts one has while reading the same material. Make sure you have uninterrupted time to really get into the flow of things with audio books. Otherwise it can get a bit irritating to start again after the interruptions. So it really comes down to your environment and whether it’s conducive to audio books. But ultimately there’s no substitute to reading.

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Right, I feel it might be easier to assimilate audio books compared to reading. I will give it a try.

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I’ve used audio books extensively over the years. Even now I’m an audible paid member. Same as @koppula, I listened to them largely in the US over long drives. We did over 1000 mile drives from Sunnyvale to Canada, then Sunnyvale to Moab, UT twice, another long RV trip with parents to Phoenix, Arizona, many trips to Lake Tahoe; and of course, driving around the bay area can take up quite a lot of time as well. Then once we moved to Canberra, we had to do many trips from Canberra to Sydney. I’ve slowed down now, because not much driving. But, just picked up Armada.

I’ve found that audio books are great for fiction and general story telling. We’ve listened to all the 3 Mocking Jay books, The Martian, Wild, Life of Pie, Zero to One, what not. But, every time we tried to listen to self help books, like say Lean Startup, or GTD, or others – they didn’t fare so well. Lot of self help books require lot more focused attention than you can provide when listening. Sometimes you’re supposed to do some tasks, like write down X things, or take notes etc., which don’t happen with audio books. Also, if you zone out for a bit, it’s trickier to go back to the same place where you were before – with reading, you intuitively just jump back and start reading.

So, after time, I’ve narrowed down my audio book list to fiction / stories – and keep all my reading to more serious books, where I could learn something. In the end, reading is just lot more effective than listening.

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Got my Kindle!

Should pick up Remote as well.

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Nice day to get it. Happy world book day guys.

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Nice convo here! Are y’all still doing Reading Fridays?

Also wanted to drop a reccomendation:

I was referred to this when struggling to break my comfort zone from a single programming language. I recommend it to anyone who asks me what language they should learn first. Learn psuedo code and how to think like a programmer and solve problems. Any new language after that becomes a matter of syntax and command memorization/cheat sheets.

So… learn Python? :troll:

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Time to pick up this thread :slight_smile:

This one’s a pretty good autobiography:

And this one’s a strictly logical answer to wonky questions: