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Recommend Double your income in a year ... by reading!? An update on reading for learning, plus a current list with brief comments (Email)

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Article Excerpt:
Reading "Meta" Thoughts

As I mentioned earlier (see How to read a lot of books in a short time) I've been reading like a madman. Why? First, to understand how David Allen's work sits in relationship to preceding efforts (part of my self-defined Master's Degree in Personal Productivity), and second to simply see what happens. (I tell people I'm mixing into a stew pot everything that catches my attention [1]; I don't know a) what it will taste like, or b) if it will even be edible - read value -> income - but that's what my current path seems to be.) I wanted to share a few ideas regarding the economic and intellectual value of reading non-fiction, and to give a quick update on what I've read, because I've had some "what are you reading" requests from readers.

First, something provocative: In his book Time Power: A Proven System for Getting More Done in Less Time Than You Ever Thought Possible [2], Brian Tracy encourages us to improve ourselves by reading an hour a day in our fields, expose ourselves to lots of ideas (i.e., possibilities). More specifically, he gives us his Guaranteed Formula For Getting Rich:
Invest as much in your mind each year as you do in your car." "The average driver spends $600 per month on his car... In the first year of practicing this formula, you income will increase 25 percent to 50 percent, or more, and your entire career will take off.
I love it! I've shared this with friends, who uniformly react very positively, or very negatively. Sadly, in my case we have only one car (a '95 Geo Prism), and our monthly expenditures aren't steep. Thus, I felt good having negotiated ~$200/month in wish list purchases with my wonderful wife.

Related to this is Tim Sanders' encouragement from Love is the killer app (one of my favorites) to READ BOOKS!!. He suggests an 80/20 ratio - 80% on books, rest on articles and newspapers. (He has much more on reading, including a four-step program to make knowledge work for you, which he breaks into aggregation, encoding, processing, and application.) One thing I love from his book is the idea of talking what you're reading:
When you talk about a book, it forces you to know it inside and out.
(I now try to keep a list of books in my head for conversations with new contacts.)

The last thought before listing my recent reads is that I'm satisfied with both a) the scanning technique of Jason Womack's that I describe in my How to read post, and b) the idea of "if you are recommended it more than once, read it," which has really paid off. (This is a specific example of the listening to your environment strategy.)


Recent books

I'll finish up with a list of what I've read so far, plus a thought or two that stood out from each. Note: In the last few months I seem to be averaging about 10 books fully read and summarized per month. This is about 1/2 or 1/3 of the ones I receive (i.e., a good percentage doesn't make it past the scan stage - something I may have to think about).

As always, I love to hear your reading suggestions!
References


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