I hope you enjoyed, The Joy of Missing Out by Tanya Dalton, the January 2022 selection for our Facebook Book Club. If you did, hopefully you’ll also like something from this list of books designed to help you become more productive while leading a more positive, happier life.
The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi
The chorus of “shoulds” is loud. You should enjoy the moment, dream big, have it all, get up before the sun, track your water consumption, go on date nights, and be the best. Or maybe you should ignore what people think, live on dry shampoo, be a negligent PTA mom, have a dirty house, and claim your hot mess like a badge of honor.
It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed by the mixed messages of what it means to live well. Kendra Adachi, the creator of the Lazy Genius movement, invites you to live well by your own definition and equips you to be a genius about what matters and lazy about what doesn’t.
The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment by Elizabeth Grace Saunders
The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment addresses the three key elements of effective time investment: priorities, expectations, and routines. Saunders helps you identify negative mental patterns that sabotage your attempts to change and teaches how to create new “rules” that align thoughts with desired results. Her method combines high-level introspection about where to focus with practical skills for making decisions, cultivating relationships, saying “no” at the right times, and investing in proper self-care.
Noise: Living and Leading When Nobody Can Focus by Joseph McCormack
In the current digital age, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to stay focused. Smartphones, tablets, smart watches, and other devices constantly vie for our attention. In both business and life, we are constantly bombarded with tweets, likes, mentions, and a constant stream of information. The inability to pay attention impacts learning, parenting, prioritizing, and leading. Not surprisingly, attention spans have gotten shorter. Already being pulled in a dozen directions every minute, managers and business leaders often struggle to address important issues and focus on everything that needs attention.
Noise: Living and Leading When Nobody Can Focus teaches managers and leaders how to help themselves and others sharpen their focusing skills. In this follow-up to his first book, Brief-the proven, step-by-step approach to clear, concise, and effective communication-author Joseph McCormack helps listeners cut through the static and devote their attention to what is important.
Don’t Take Yes for an Answer by Steve Herz
A self-empowerment guide to achieving your fullest professional and personal potential, Don’t Take YES for An Answer explains why positive feedback limits personal and professional growth and then teaches you how to embrace hard truths and critical feedback to escape mediocrity and break away from the pack.
To stand out, to attract the attention of those who can raise your profile, to protect yourself during lean times, or to gain the interest of future employers, you must harness three critical communication traits that human beings respond to most: AWE: A—Authority. W—Warmth. E—Energy. When all else is equal—education, work ethic, intelligence, experience, ambition—the single biggest factor in winning business, promotions, friendships, or followers hinges on our ability to communicate and connect. Mastering AWE gives you an unparalleled advantage over the competition, no matter your field.
The Power of a Positive No by William Ury
No is perhaps the most important and certainly the most powerful word in the language. Every day we find ourselves in situations where we need to say No–to people at work, at home, and in our communities–because No is the word we must use to protect ourselves and to stand up for everything and everyone that matters to us. But as we all know, the wrong No can also destroy what we most value by alienating and angering people. That’s why saying No the right way is crucial. The secret to saying No without destroying relationships lies in the art of the Positive No, a proven technique that anyone can learn.
This indispensable book gives you a simple three-step method for saying a Positive No. It will show you how to assert and defend your key interests; how to make your No firm and strong; how to resist the other side’s aggression and manipulation; and how to do all this while still getting to Yes.
When Less Becomes More: Making Space for Slow, Simple, and Good by Emily Ley
Smartphones constantly ping and alert and demand your attention. And social media can eat up hours of your days with mindless scrolling and tapping while leaving you feeling empty and lonely. Add to that family commitments, work that is accessible around the clock, and overscheduling, and you have a life that can feel out of control.
In When Less Becomes More, Emily Ley, author of the bestselling Grace, Not Perfection and Growing Boldly, takes you on a journey out of that empty place and shows you how to fill your wells with the nourishment that only true connection can provide. She also presents some radical concepts that push against the tethers of modern life, with the promise that more of the good stuff comes when we say yes to less of what keeps us empty.
