The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**K – Sarah Knight

Voordat Mark Manson zijn Subtle Art publiceerde had Sarah Knight hetzelfde onderwerp met een al te gelijkvormige titel uitgebracht.

Volgens Knight zelf is een inspiratie voor haar boek (en ongewild ook de titel) The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up van Marie Kondo.

Het boek helpt de lezer bij het identificeren en prioriteren van de zaken waar je wel en geen fuck om zou moeten geven. We geven veel te veel fucks volgens Knight. Voor een blijer en comfortabeler leven is het goed om van een groot deel van die vreugdeloze fucks af te komen en meer toe te komen aan de fuck die je wel belangrijk vindt.

Knight categoriseert de fuck in 4 groepen: Dingen, Werk, Vrienden en Familie. Elk van deze categorieën worden door Knight uitgediept en voor elke categorie is komt ze met een aanpak.

Halverwege het boek heb ik het wel gezien, en blader de rest van het boekje door. Fuck It. Geen zin meer om alles te lezen.

Save time

Free after Seth Godin:

Don’t watch television

Don’t go to meetings

Instead:

Look at the blank space beween you and the future.

What is high leverage work.

(versus what crappy task is there only to keep you from doing the real work).

How to change a habit

Not mine, but from James Clear:

Start (very) small)

Increase in very small ways – 1% better every step

Break habits into chunks

When you slip, get back on track immediately (don’t let the slippage become a habit). Don’t Miss Twice.

Be patient. Stick to your pace. It is not the last sentence that finished the novel.

Mik Kersten – Project to Product

An addition to the more lyrical and tactically oriented DevOps foundation books from Gene Kim, this book presents a method to scale agile in large organizations.

Mik Kersten introduces the Flow Framework, a way of linking product development planning, the activities around product development and the integration of supporting tools.

The different types of “flows” (work that must be done do improve the product – my words) that Kersten identifies are Features, Defects, Risks and Technical Debts. Flows must attribute to some business result, whether improved product value, cost (reduction), better quality or customer happiness.

Martin Parr booklet by Phaidon

The small book “Martin Parr” from Phaidon has a relatively extensive introduction (I mean: for such a small book) to the work of Martin Parr. We see how he develops from a black and white photographer of British life into the critical flash & color photographer of life’s peculiarities as we know him today. 

The book  furthermore is a guide to how you can read a picture. Maybe a bit over the top now and then:

… the picture recalls Bernini’s sculpture of Daphne sprouting leaves and branches… (picture of girl on school party).

It must also refer to the psychological complexity of attending school”(boy with mother a grammar school).

Wonderful pictures of a stuffed owl, sausages, a cup of tea, and many other ordinary objects and scenes depicted in Parr’s unique manner.

Cool tools – anything you need

The cool-tools website makes many tools review sites superfluous.

I stumbled upon the YouTube channel from Mark Frauenfelder, Editor In Chief of the Cool-Tools website and had great fun watching the video they made of the first podcast. 

The Cool Tools initiative has a website, podcast and Youtube channel. It is just fantastically nerdy. Watch the semi-scientific comparison between the Bernzomatic TS4000 vs. TS8000 and other great videos.

To think you have to be two persons

To think you have to be two persons (or more) at the same time. And you have to disagree with yourself (make sure the one person thinks up ways to justify the opinion of the second person). You have to tolerate conflict, negotiate, compromise. Adjust your thinking.

More importantly, you must not only question your own opinion, but you have to ignore the public opinion.

(After Jordan Peterson)

Peterson’s rules for supporting arguments

Reading Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life. Many of the foundations for his rules he enforces using the stories and metaphors from the bible. A bit too much to my taste, but

Peterson in 2018
Photo: Gage Skidmore 

I am willing to agree that a lot of wisdom is gathered in this book. However, when Peterson cites Adolf Hitler to support his arguments that people should not live with lies, I wonder what he was thinking. Does he really think quoting Hitler would enforce his viewpoint in the mind of any decent person?