Welcome to Litsy!

This is a soft pick for me. I enjoyed the author's writing but agree with other reviewers that it could have been covered in a long essay. In a nutshell -- do fewer things, work at your own pace, and focus on quality.

📸 I liked the section about Jewel passing on a million dollar contract to focus on her growth as a performer first. Hence the picture of her. That dress is bananas! 😂

"In general, people are often too focused on their own problems to care about how you're solving your own."

#nonfiction #business #productivity

I started this in Spanish and finished it in English because I read too slowly in Spanish. I'm not sure if that's ironic or not. Newport writes in this book that he aims to write in a style that's a cross between Stephen Covey and Malcolm Gladwell, and I think he's succeeded. He presents anecdotes from which he derives hypotheses about productivity, and then he offers possible solutions to reduce performative productivity. It's interesting.

#nonfiction #business #productivity

In the midst of a fun but exhausting weekend, I have a lull between entertaining responsibilities. If I could nap, I would, but instead I'm drinking my coffee and trying to get my brain to focus on the Spanish translation of the tagged. I'm at an interesting point in my understanding of Spanish where reading is easier than I expect, but every now and then I get stuck with no idea how the words go together. This book might take me forever to read.

Following up Deep Work with this book which was also assigned to me at my job.

#nonfiction #business #bestseller

This was a thought provoking book about knowledge workers, unnecessary busy-ness and what quality truly looks like in the work world. It gave me a lot to think about and I‘m so grateful that the staff leadership at my organization is reading this together. A lot of work/self help/productivity books fall flat for me but this was worth the read! #BookspinBingo

I skimmed this because of course I am no good at slow. Good ideas here — allow twice as much time for projects as you think you need because you actually need that long.

I have read three of this author‘s books and I am surprised that this one has some ideas I want to bring up at work.

I enjoyed this book as I have the few others of Newport‘s I have read. I like his reframing of ideas and reevaluating cultural norms. His writing causes me to think more about the topics he covers. This one considered the influence of different things on knowledge based jobs. I liked how he wrapped up the second half sharing helpful ways to incorporate the information into real life.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 I‘ve read a few of Newport‘s books, and this is the one I found to be the most realistic and actionable, by far. I‘ve been trying to rethink the way I approach work for the last few months, and a lot of that is in line with the advice here about doing fewer things, working at a reasonable pace, and focusing on quality. I‘m hopeful that as I get better at that, work will feel both more manageable and more fulfilling.

I‘m going to need to either check this out again or get my own copy because I didn‘t take notes and there‘s so much good stuff in here.

This one really resonated with me. Last fall, I was let go from what I now realize was a really toxic company and I was suffering major burnout. I picked this up around the time I was starting a serious hunt for a new job and this really helped me narrow in on what I wanted my next opportunity to look like.

"Doing fewer things is the key to producing good work." How on earth can I get my boss and my boss' boss to read this book? This is clearly not a concept they are familiar with.