Category: Non-Fiction

So I’ve had bad luck with business books that are recommended by CEOs and by the people I work for in general. So what about a business book about something that is pertains to something that has been a bit of a pain point and of particular interest to me?

This book is almost entirely about something called OKRs: Objectives and Key Results. This is a pretty straightforward concept in terms of metrics that measure success. You decide on an objective (We are going to be the best at thing) and figure out what will happen in order for that to be true (NPS score you will hit (Do not ask me about NPS, I will rant at you for an hour), number of purchases, conferences attended, etc.) and then use that as a bit of a guide for the future. Everything you work on should be towards moving those numbers closer to success.

I will admit that I read this in large part so that I could find something to throw at some of my coworkers who are a little new to the world of measuring success, and I think this is a nice foundational look at how OKRs could be used and integrated, as well as making the case of them being a successful methodology.

And, you know, I can use them for some of that life stuff.

It does absolutely make them seem like the only solution as opposed to part of a more robust strategy, but it’s a good starting point. Overall, good read, a lot better and significantly more practical than most business books out there.

So work keeps recommending books. It has not had a great track record so far, but who knows, maybe the next one is going to be the one that I finally like, right? Right?

Sigh.

So this book is another one of those books that tries to give you simplified rules for life with a big emphasis of “You are only stressed because you choose to me” which is a lesson that seems to be very popular with these books. This one adds on a very heavy spiritual-not-religious-but-only-talking-about-Christianity angle and at one point mentions Buddhism in a way that makes it clear that the author knows nothing about Buddhism? It was off.

I’m sure this kind of book is very useful and enlightening to some people. If it helps you to find peace in your life with just four questions, that’s fantastic. I am just ultimately not the demographic for this book, and I really need to stop taking book recs from CEOs.

Hey look, it’s a book that looks like it was written specifically for me! As someone who has absolutely zero chill and has had to force myself to chill out1 this seemed like a good thing to look into. I’d like to know how to take it easy! It is not a skill I have!

I’m pretty sure this book is just cognitive behavioural theory written in a cute and punchy format, though, which is ultimately not a thing that works well for me. The idea of “Slow down, realize that there’s nothing you can do about it, and let that emotion go” is just not something that clicks well in my brain and is not a practice I can really adopt.

And the idea of logic-ing yourself out of stress is really the vast majority of the book, which made it a book very specifically not designed for someone like me. That is not to say it is a bad book, just that this was not a book that was ultimately for me. You may have better luck with it.

1. Chronic fatigue is awful [↩]

How many self improvements books must I read before I figure out how to get my life together? All of them! Surely one of them will give me the trick to fixing my life!

This book, however, was not the one. That’s not to say it was a bad thing! It’s just that I have read a lot of these and the ideas tend to repeat themselves. I’m starting to think there’s only so much advice, and these sorts of books are very specifically targeted at someone who is disorganized and needs to create an organization system.

The framing of “Creatives are naturally disorganized and not like those people who have office jobs!” feels as dated as the references to the rolodexes, and there’s a strange amount of charts of data relating to women with children, which makes this feel very 90s-00s. It appears to be mostly a marketing tool, as it’s honestly a book full of strategies for anyone who feels in need of a starting place with a lot of options for things to try.

For me, though, I’ve read all the elements in this book before. It is admittedly pretty comprehensive, as I don’t think I’ve had a single book cover all of these strategies and topics before, but ultimately it was not the something new I was hoping for.

It might work better if you’re just starting, but ultimately this was not for me.

Am I horribly burnt out? Yes. Was that the only reason I picked up this book? Also yes.

It’s mostly a book about burnout, the causes, and a bit more of a clinical take with the voice of someone talking to you over coffee. In the way a lot of books with clinical studies in them tend to do, it does tend to restate the same point in several different ways and angles, but each chapter ends with that TLDR which is useful when you find yourself glazing over the materials.

I thought the addition of putting a feminist lens on it was interesting, but ultimately it lost me around the parts where it started bringing in the patriarchy as well. I stopped relating because a lot of what was talked about centers more on women with families and filling very traditionally female roles, and I am burnt out because we are understaffed, I worked for a good while at 150% capacity, and only got a reduction in workload when my life went to hell and excess 50% was taken up by the flood matters.

I think I was expecting it to provide a lot more concrete strategies and advice on how to approach things, not just explain why it was not your fault and that we live in a society and all of those matters.

Overall it’s fine? It falls in the category of self help books where I didn’t really align with it and I might not be the person who this was for. I’ve seen others find this book to be lifechanging, so maybe it will be for you.

I am just leaning into this self improvement book habit at this point. And somehow I keep finding these ones that feel kinda dated with talk of pagers and rolodexes and talk of paper clutter, but here we are.

This book covers the basics of organization. It’s structured to give you sections and areas of your life to focus on, from work to home, and encourages you to make changes piece by piece. The advice is pretty similar to other books of this sort, but there is a nice set of caveats that are added now and then accounting for people who may struggle due to things like health issues.

I feel like this is good for if you are just getting started on getting your life together and needed a starting point. Some of the advice is solid, but I’ve been putting together my systems for a few years now. There’s nothing new in here that I could really incorporate, and the book is a little dated in the references. I don’t think it actually introduced any new concepts to me, at least.

However, if you’re just starting out in trying to get your life in order, maybe this would work for you.