The Ideas That Made MeLots of you are listening to my collection of book summaries. You can read or listen to these for free on Blinkist. Paul Vahur wrote back and said he thought the collection was missing an important book, David Allen’s Getting Things Done. I couldn’t agree more. Getting Things Done is an essential book and if you haven’t read it you should. This got me thinking, “What are the essential ideas of my life?” What ideas have become little background applications that chug along in my brain year after year? Below is what I came up with. This is not a list of the most important ideas or the best ideas, these are the ideas that resonated with me the most deeply and changed how I think and live. With every video I’ve ever made, I tried to do the same thing in some small way. And in a different way, this remains what I aspire to do. These are mostly listed in the order I encountered them. The links below lead to Amazon, and most of these can be found as summaries in my Blinkist collection. Fun Fact #1: I was 34 when I started to get into nonfiction books and ideas. Before then, I was mostly into movies, music, fiction and blogs. A few years after getting into nonfiction Everything is a Remix was brewing and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Getting Things Done, David Allen
I discovered this book in 2006
I think Getting Things Done is the first powerful work system I ever came across. I don’t think I had any formal methods at all before this. In particular, Allen’s framing of capture was a big deal for me. I actually need to re-read this book because I’m sure it’s full of stuff that I do everyday and have forgotten I got them from Allen. (I likely found this through Merlin Mann, who was an outspoken acolyte at the time.) Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Discovered in 2006
Flow gave a name to something I blissfully experienced but never knew what it was or had any idea how to recreate the magic. “Flow” is a psychological state of heightened experience where you are performing at the outer boundaries of your abilities, where the activity is not too easy and not too hard. The entire book isn’t required to get the idea. The summary, which is in my Blinkist collection, will be plenty for most of you. Fun Fact #2: If you can pronounce “Csikszentmihalyi” you are officially a card-carrying member of the intelligentsia. The Waste Book or Commonplace Book, Various
Discovered in 2010
The “waste book” (Newton’s term) or “commonplace book” (Ben Franklin’s term) is simply your notes. It’s simply snippets of things you’ve encountered or thought: ideas, bits of writing, memorable phrases—anything that created a little spark in your mind and potentially can be used later. Tiago Forte popularized this idea most recently by calling it a “second brain.” This is actually something I was practicing for a few years before I had any idea it was a thing people did. I explain the wastebook process I used back then here. This is still a great way to work; you can do awesome shit with just that. (I think I might have discovered this idea through Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From but I’m not totally sure. That book was a big influence on Everything is a Remix.) Mindfulness, Various
Discovered in 2010
This is something I found in a variety of ways and through no particular practitioner. Mindfulness is basically just being aware of the present moment and your emotional state. Meditation is a key component. It’s simple and endlessly difficult. I am actually bad at practicing mindfulness. I mostly don’t do it. But I always return to it. And being bad at mindfulness is far, far, far better than not knowing mindfulness exists. Fun Fact #3: I haven’t meditated in… years! I’m gonna break that streak this week. Nonviolent Communication, Marshall B. Rosenberg
Discovered in 2012
Nonviolent communication is a type of communication focused on expressing feelings and communicating needs. In our personal interactions, we all have a tendency to make generalized, exaggerated declarations and then defend those statements. For instance, “You’re being inconsiderate because you never put your dishes in the dishwasher.” If this is instead expressed as something like, “I feel hurt when you don’t put your dishes in the dishwasher because I have a need to have my time respected. When you don’t put the dishes away, I have to do it for you.” It might sound kinda goofy but this shit works. This is trickier to grasp than mindfulness because it’s surprisingly hard to identify emotions and needs. And like mindfulness, it’s endlessly challenging to do and keep doing. An unusual quality of this book is that I remember finding the writing kinda hippy-dippy and corny. Whatever. Deal with it, it’s worth it. Thinking in Systems, Donella H. Meadows
Discovered in 2012
This is a titanic book for me. It’s the most accessible introduction to systems thinking and systemic thought. It’s what really gave some detail and features to the vague, amorphous concept of the system.Thinking in Systems is what spawned my series This is Not a Conspiracy Theory. If there’s a single idea that still needs storytelling development, though, it’s systems. If you’re a storyteller and want a challenge, this is a worthy one. Thinking in Systems is great but I think somebody out there can do better and bring these ideas to more people. |
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