My Audible Library

dave Uncategorized

I’ve been an Audible listener since 3/7/2016. I listen almost everyday to books about business (leadership, career skills, startups), marketing, motivation, psychology, science, and technology.

First, a quick review of Deep Work by Cal Newport.

It’s a worthy read for all knowledge workers. Included is a thoughtful discussion on why we tend toward what’s easy despite the rewards of depth, strategies to fight on-demand distraction, and how we must train to achieve sustained focus and produce real value. And it’s where I learned a favorite phrase, “simulacrum of progress”.

It’s not entirely unlike other discussions of “being in the zone” and, admittedly, parts of it could have come from Sheldon Cooper (saying “shutdown complete!” when leaving the office). And it seems to describe a world in which we concentrate at work and everything else is vacation. Overall, there’s plenty of good stuff too—from why creative minds work like accountants, to Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, to Harry Potter, and the Ann Arbor Arboretum.

It’s the constant switching from low-stimuli, high-value activities to high-stimuli, low-value activities at the slightest hint of boredom or cognitive challenge that teaches your mind to never tolerate an absence of novelty.

7/31/2019: A second favorite phrase is “The Pygmalion Effect”—as described by Shawn Achor in Motivating a Team with the Pygmalion Effect.

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(These links sometimes break as Audible changes their catalog)

2021
2022