Owning the book doesn’t make it read

As better ways of doing things evolve, we have other ways to read books than actually holding printed paper in our hands, as glorious as it is! 

We can listen, read a summary abstract, talk about it in a club, on an app, or have someone read it to us. 

We can skim and scan and not even read the entire thing!

Oh, yes we can. 

Or do we think we have to read each book the ‘proper’ way ... word after word, cover to cover?

Some people give a book an hour (I prefer a day) to explore and get familiar with it. And then dive in further, for longer, if it’s a match. 

I have no guilt about books piling up, unread. It’s ‘Tsundoku’ in Japanese - acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up without reading them. 

Our pile o’books may signal what we hope or intend, but our action makes it so. Having the unread book on my shelf doesn’t give me the learning that’s in it. 

A book a week, a month or a year ... or 100+ books a year; whatever your appetite, satisfy it. 

Me? 
I go for a Spanish Tapas style:

Tasty morsels in small doses. Perhaps several in one sitting. Happy to return to my favorites. Some hard copy. Some digital. Some sound bites. 

Overwhelmed with options

There always seems so much to do. So many possibilities, options and combinations. 

And we get overwhelmed. 

Until we capture or map those options, they swirl about in our minds, taking up valuable space and attention. 

Clear thinking gets blocked, doubt is created when we’d prefer decisiveness and we slow to a crawl (or stop) in terms of speed. 

When you’ve made decisions in the past, you would have weighed up the options... possibly writing things down on a list of + and - or pros and cons. 

This action externalises the information, taking it out of our brain and into another source: like a note pad, a spreadsheet, an app. 

The ‘emptying’ of our mind is a deliberate technique we can use - and more frequently - to prevent our everyday information overload.

Don’t be fooled into thinking you can soak it all up or keep it all in your head. 

The less on your mind, the more you can be here, present for people, a conversation, deep thinking or that all-important decision. 

Empty your mind and get the options down anytime you like!

Then we get to enjoy a clean slate ... ready for the next round of incoming information. 

The perfect book

To read a book is a joy. 
To collect books is also a joy!

Have you noticed what you think as you start to read a new book? 

Are you open and curious, ready to explore or are you expecting something else?

Do we expect reading to be a frictionless, perfect experience? 
That we will sit down at the perfect time and read the perfect number of pages...

Or we will read and understand it perfectly because it’s perfectly structured, edited and presented?

Maybe we hope that the book, this book will be ‘the’ book, the perfect one that will answer the big questions we have, give us the perfect advice or address our biggest need.

Our expectations can at times set us up for disappointment. 

And at least knowing what our standards and expectations are before we start something can help. 

Whether we are reading a book, or writing a book or launching any kind of project, tap in to the expectation or hope you have for it. 

And know that perfectionism can still show up in the standards we have for other people and other things ... as much as it shows up in the standards we can have for ourselves.  

As we read, write and work, progress is still better than the unreal ideal of perfection. 

Determined to make it work this time

There can be those days when we:
- Don’t get done what we hoped we would
- Don’t achieve what was on our list
or 
- Don’t get that breakthrough we were needing. 

We might hope to achieve more ‘next time’ by ‘sitting down and doing better’. 

But berating ourselves in the hope of better outcomes is perplexing. Because what have we really changed? 

If we are just expecting to do better even though we don’t have a new process for it, how could that actually work? 

Our habits and older ways of working kick in.

Unless we change the way we do things, we won’t change what we can do. This is where a safe space to try new ways of doing things can help. 

Join me at ‘the work hack club’. I'm gathering with people who need some of these new ways, plus some accountability and support. We’ll work alongside each other, online, and try some newer, better ways of working. 

It's 
- Focused
- Accountable
- Collaborative
- Supportive

And breakthroughs are guaranteed! Come for one session or make this your more productive habit. Check my website for more details.

Little steps or a big step

Big? Ok, so we’ve seen how big change can be done! A global swathe of prescription and pressure to conform to new rules and restrictions. 

Big sweeping change. Wow. Shocked and shaken. Reverberation and big ripples with effects felt far into the future. 


But remember how change can also be done, bit by bit, step by step. 

Even a smaller half-step by half-step. 

We can become overwhelmed by the bigness of things, believing we ’should’ conquer it all in one hit or adapt immediately or cope with it all or get it done because of ... you know, reasons. 

These expectations are often unnecessary. 

Just take the next little step. You could even bring someone else along with you, showing them the next little step too. 

There’s some leadership right there in being able to break the big and daunting stuff down into the smaller executable parts. 

It’s not basic or trivial. 
It’s highly practical, empathetic and caring. 


Take it and break it down. 

Get started on something, take another step on it, and while you’re at it, show someone else the next little step. 

Size isn’t important here.