Either I\u2019ve become way better at choosing which books to read, or am able to get more out of reading each individual book than I used to. In any case, a surprisingly large number of books have managed to contribute long lasting ideas to my mental repertoire over the last couple of years, compared to years prior. Here\u2019s my brief summary of a few of them. This is not so much an indiscriminate compilation of reviews as much as a ringing endorsement of a handful of the books I read. You\u2019ll probably notice some common themes running through the list. I haven\u2019t added any negative comments about these books because they wouldn\u2019t tilt the balance of my recommendation.<\/p>\n
I first read this as soon as it came out, in early 2016. And re-read it again this year. It has many solid ideas, all based on the assumption that success in intellectual careers of the unfolding future depends on doing extremely mentally demanding tasks (\u201cdeep work\u201d) on a regular basis. Therefore, the author\u200a\u2014\u200awho has a PhD in theoretical computer science from MIT\u200a\u2014\u200asuggests that you should organize your life around a work routine which enables that style of work. You can take inspiration from a variety of people and professions who already operate in that manner, and you should avoid bad habits like multitasking, over use of social media.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve managed to incorporate some ideas from this book into my work life over the last couple of years and observed good results. Off the top of my head I can list the following: allocating big blocks of time in my calendar for deep work, conserving precious willpower to be able to take on such work, cutting down on social media, seeking out silence and solitude, and letting my mind actually feel bored at times so that it gets used to a lack of stimulation.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve restricted my summary to just a couple of paragraphs, but Newport goes into elaborate detail on what is meant by deep work, why its economic value is at an inflection point, and how he himself manages his intellectual energies. He has some proof of success in his productive academic career so far. I feel that every knowledge worker is going to find enough things that resonate within this book, and hopefully go on to try some of his tips.<\/p>\n
2.<\/strong> The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods<\/strong><\/a> by A. G. Sertillanges<\/strong><\/p>\n This early 20th Century book by a Christian monk is referenced in Deep Work. It extends Newport\u2019s economic value proposition of intellectual work into a broader philosophy of life, probably one more suited to academics and theologians of the author\u2019s ilk. What\u2019s pertinent is that many of us are trending towards leading such a life in today\u2019s intellectual climate, without being consciously aware of the fact. The author draws upon his own life experience, but one that is also rooted in hundreds of years of monastic practice. Thus, the book contains many subtle psychological nuggets, refined over time and presented in beautifully simple English.<\/p>\n For example: he believes there are 4 reasons to \u201cread\u201d, and warns you not to over indulge. The reasons being:<\/p>\n I use this categorization whenever I find myself browsing mindlessly. It\u2019s easy to fool oneself into thinking you are not<\/em> reading for entertainment. So being able to assign a specific category to the material at hand can act as a check. The book delves into his Christian belief system on occasion, but not so often as to detract from the core content of an intellectual life.<\/p>\n 3. <\/strong>A Mind for Numbers<\/strong><\/a> by Barbara Oakley<\/strong><\/p>\n This innocuous little book, based on a popular online course by the author, packs a powerful punch. Despite the title, it\u2019s not just about mathematics. Oakley presents a credible\u200a\u2014\u200aenough for me!\u200a\u2014\u200atheory of how the brain accumulates knowledge, retains it and recalls it. Expertise that is demonstrated through flashes of insight also fit into this theory. Based on this, Oakley suggests routines and practices that help you learn faster, recall better and of course, apply it to get crucial insights.<\/p>\n If the ideas in this book have any academic merit, I dearly hope they become part of the common vocabulary of students of all ages and kinds. Phrases like focused \/ diffused modes of thinking, chunking, active recall (as opposed to re-reading), spaced repetition, will power fatigue etc need to be on everyone\u2019s lips in order to create a more productive society. Perhaps these ideas have already made it into mainstream pedagogy but they\u2019ve been lost in translation? I don\u2019t know. But personally I\u2019ve had good success using these concepts when learning and solving problems. I create time for focused thinking, recall concepts as I go about my daily chores, figure out what chunks best abstract a piece of information, and so on.<\/p>\n The book is not a dry, theoretical walkthrough, largely because it was motivated by the author\u2019s own emotional journey back into a STEM degree, after having been a miserable failure at mathematics in school. She also cites famous people from the worlds of physics, medicine, art and so on who applied these practices although they didn\u2019t name them as such. And a few of them happened to be borderline academic failures, just like Oakley herself!<\/p>\n 4. <\/strong>Peak<\/strong><\/a> by Anders Ericsson and <\/strong>Talent is Overrated<\/strong><\/a> by Geoff Colvin<\/strong><\/p>\n Quite frankly, I\u2019m surprised that I hadn\u2019t come across Anders Ericsson\u2019s work till now! Apparently, Malcolm Gladwell\u2019s popular book \u201cOutliers\u201d goes over some of his territory, but in this new book Ericsson calls out Gladwell for misrepresenting some of his core ideas. Ericsson\u2019s thesis is that the way to become an expert at any skill is to follow a style of practice he calls \u201cdeliberate practice\u201d. A consistent application of deliberate practice over years can bring you within reach of world class performers in that field. Notice that the stunning corollary to that is that genetics and natural talents play a far less role in virtuosity than generally believed. And also, expertise is not automatically transferable across domains, unless they happen to share some common underlying concepts.<\/p>\n Ericsson is a psychologist who has been studying various kinds of experts\u200a\u2014\u200ain particular how they acquire their skills\u200a\u2014\u200afor many decades. Consequently, he has a lot of affirming evidence and presents it in a measured writing style that still manages to be engaging. He fearlessly breaks down the myth of genius around people like Mozart, Benjamin Franklin, modern musicians, Tiger Woods, chess grandmasters, marathon winners, memory champions etc.<\/p>\n So what is<\/em> deliberate practice? First you break down the skill to be acquired into distinct, objective components that are measurable during practice sessions. Then you go about working on each component\u200a\u2014\u200aseparately if required\u200a\u2014\u200ain a series of exercises designed to push you out of your current comfort zone. It\u2019s vital that you get continuous feedback as you practice (preferably from an onsite coach), so that you can make adjustments as you go along. Practice of this nature is mentally taxing and can\u2019t be kept up for more than a few hours at a stretch. Musicians who work in this manner, for example, take a deep nap immediately after.<\/p>\n If you keep practising in this manner, your mental representation of the skill keeps getting more refined and easier to recall. Finally, the different components come together in one fluid motion. Ericsson ventures into some brain studies as well, showing how people with advanced ability in certain fields\u200a\u2014\u200aLondon cab drivers who have detailed knowledge of the city, for example\u200a\u2014\u200adevelop a different pattern of brain cells over time.<\/p>\n All of this is fascinating stuff, and one hopes that Ericsson\u2019s findings aren\u2019t disproved at their core. The catch of course, is coming up with those specific set of exercises and mental representations that correspond to each skill.<\/p>\n Geoff Colvin is a popular journalist who has interpreted Ericsson\u2019s work for the layperson. His book predates Ericsson\u2019s by a few years, but hits roughly the same notes and in a fairly accurate manner. It features more anecdotes and first person interviews than the former. Colvin also allows himself to speculate more widely about the nature of expertise.<\/p>\n If you read both these books (and like me, the closely related one called The Talent Code<\/a>), you begin to sense their far-reaching implications. On an individual level, it shows clearly that you can improve far more than you think\u200a\u2014\u200ain whatever you choose to work on\u200a\u2014\u200aprovided you allocate sufficient time and energy to such deliberate practice. If the broader worlds of education and business are viewed through this lens, they suddenly appear very Darwinian. Today we do a good job of spotting talent and nurturing it, but offer little by way of hope to the shocking proportion of people who prematurely self-select out of even trying to master complex subjects. This could be remedied to a large extent.<\/p>\n 5. <\/strong>The Startup of You<\/strong><\/a> by Reid Hoffman<\/strong><\/p>\n Compared to the rest of the lot, this book is a swashbuckling ride. You get to see Hoffman\u2019s version of what lies behind successful careers. Hoffman\u200a\u2014\u200aas many might know\u200a\u2014\u200awas one of the founders of LinkedIn and in this book he radiates genuine affection when giving specific and actionable career advice. His premise is that the era of stable jobs that have well-defined career trajectories is over, and today you must treat your career the way an entrepreneur treats their startup (hence the title). At its core, this means you always consider your professional identity as being a work-in-progress (what he terms \u201cpermanent beta\u201d) and be willing to adapt.<\/p>\n Fundamentally, what you should be working on is developing your competitive advantage, as that is what makes your customer (or in this case your employer) choose you over others. He says that competitive advantage is a function of the following things: market realities, your abilities, and your aspirations or values. Always keep an eye out for whether the market for your expertise is on the up or down. Significantly, this is independent of whatever your current employer is paying you for those same skills. Similarly, you should be assessing your abilities and introspecting about your values.<\/p>\n Based on what such assessment tells you, create one main, ambitious plan of action for career progress and set that as your current default. At the same time, have a less ambitious one as the back up, and then a place of refuge that lets you stay solvent if things go horribly wrong. If you are operating with this conscious objective of increasing your competitive advantage, it might also be that a \u201cbreakout\u201d opportunity\u200a\u2014\u200awhich can accelerate it tremendously\u200a\u2014\u200amight serendipitously present itself, and you will be well poised to capitalize on it. He believes that people with remarkable careers usually took advantage of at least one such breakout opportunity. But without an acute awareness of your competitive advantage, market realities and so on you are unlikely to even notice such chances. He adds that your plan shouldn\u2019t be too detailed or project too far into the future. A couple of steps ahead from where you currently are, is a good rule of thumb.<\/p>\n My description of the book\u2019s contents so far might make it seem a tad abstract, but it is anything but. Hoffman is quite the Silicon Valley insider and has had long friendships with top tier executives and venture capitalists. So all this advice is backed up with credible anecdotes from companies like Paypal, Zynga, Draper Ventures and others.<\/p>\n By far the best part of the book is Hoffman\u2019s thoughts on the value of a professional network (he says it is \u201cI to the power We\u201d) and his recommendations for creating your own. He is brilliant at framing related issues. For example, his notion of allies, strong and \u201cweak connections\u201d is something to keep in mind as you get to know more people over your lifetime. He acknowledges that people with successful careers always operated in an enabling environment, and goes as far as saying the \u201cYou\u201d in the book\u2019s title refers to the set of people who make the individual you a success.<\/p>\n Most repositories of information\u200a\u2014\u200aincluding this article!\u200a\u2014\u200asit there passively once created, only leaving you with a few faint mental images after you are done reading them. No book can by itself pop out of your shelf on a Saturday morning and give you a rap on the knuckles for failing to follow through. Hoffman tries to address this partly, by providing exercises at the end of each chapter and exhorting you to make a plan, schedule meetings with people you think you should talk to, and so on.<\/p>\n 6. <\/strong>So Good They Can\u2019t Ignore You<\/strong><\/a> by Cal Newport<\/strong><\/p>\n Newport gets an encore on the list, thanks to his assiduous nature. When he was about to finish his Ph.D and find a job, he started researching about careers, and true to form wrote a book on the topic. He locates the book inside a somewhat contrarian outlook, done partly to garner attention (according to his own admission). He wants people who are starting out on their careers to stop thinking of \u201cfollowing their passion\u201d and instead focus on acquiring \u201crare and valuable\u201d skills. Passion is often a result<\/em> of having useful skills and being able to deploy them satisfactorily. It is neither necessary\u200a\u2014\u200anor sufficient\u200a\u2014\u200ato be passionate about something before developing related skills.<\/p>\n Newport believes in a craftsman-like approach to work, where you progressively get better at a task, and derive happiness by good execution. This may not appeal to someone who has grand visions like address injustice in society, tackle climate change etc. Newport\u2019s response to that comes in the form of a long segment at the end, called the \u201cMission driven life\u201d. He believes that it is perfectly fine to have lofty goals, but don\u2019t assume that will let you skip the phase of acquiring concrete skills. Also, it sometimes happens that worthwhile missions only become clear after you\u2019ve gained some expertise. An extreme case is of graduate students who embark on a Ph.D but soon find themselves disillusioned due to a lack of exciting ideas. The missing link here is an extensive knowledge of their field, which is a prerequisite for generating good ideas at the forefront.<\/p>\n But the rest of the book is more broadly applicable. How the quest for passion in a person too young can lead to looking inwards for non-existent answers, rather than looking outwards at society and figuring out what needs doing. It also leads to loss of valuable time that could have been otherwise spent acquiring skills. Newport draws on quite a few anecdotes, studies and books. Some of them do feel far-fetched (like an archaeologist who went on to host a TV show), and you could argue that there are enough people to be found who are competent but never had a fulfilling career. But on the whole, his suggestions feel sound to me. For example, Steve Jobs is famous for preaching the \u201cfollow your passion\u201d mantra, but he himself took his time to figure out what his \u201cpassion\u201d was, and it was more the success of the initial computer sales that made him decide to commit to that business, rather than any great childhood interest in computers.<\/p>\n Which brings me to what is arguably the best part of the book: a specific strategy for deciding on your plan of action, that Newport calls the \u201clittle bets\u201d approach. While Hoffman stresses on the power of networks and conversations, Newport relies on experiments. First you should identify a handful of promising future directions, and then for each possibility, commit to doing small projects within a fixed time frame. This generates real feedback, and avoids wishful thinking and various other cognitive biases. He has been using this approach to determine which research ideas deserve further investment.<\/p>\n Hoffman and Newport have different ways of going about things. Hoffman looks like the inveterate hustler, always believing that with enough networking and pivoting you will arrive at better outcomes. Newport is more internally focused (an entire chapter is devoted to \u201cthe clarity of the craftsman\u201d) and places more value on expertise gained over time, preferably in solitude. The way I\u2019d like to reconcile the two is by noting where each is appropriate. There is a time and place for hustling, and similarly for hunkering down and doing the grind associated with tackling mentally demanding problems. Being able to do both could dramatically improve your productivity.<\/p>\n 7. <\/strong>The Road to Character<\/strong><\/a> by David Brooks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n