How to Stop Procrastinating: 7 Timeless Tips

Image by tbondolfi (license).“Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.”Spanish Proverb“How soon ‘not now’ becomes ‘never’.”Martin Luther“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”Karen LambOne of the most common problems is procrastination. We know what we want to do and should do. But still we end up spending hours upon hours doing “easier” work or escaping via TV, blogs or music.Now, nothing wrong with a little escape from time to time. But if you procrastinate too much you will not get the most important things done. And you will also send yourself into negative spirals where your self-esteem plummets and you spend your days or more in a vague negative funk.So what can you do? Here are 7 timeless tips to help you to stop procrastinating and start living your life more fully. And if you want to then you can learn much more about becoming more productive, focused and minimizing stress in my training kitThe Art of Relaxed Productivity.1. Stop thinking. Start doing.“To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.”Eva YoungA bit of planning can certainly help you to achieve what you want to achieve. A lot of planning and thinking tends to have the opposite effect.You think and think and try to come up with “the perfect plan”. A plan where you don’t have to make mistakes, where you will never be rejected, where there will be no pain or difficulties. Such a thing does of course not exist. But as long as you work on that plan you can protect yourself.2. Don’t blow a task out of proportion.“If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.”Olin Miller”Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.”George Claude LorimerBy over thinking and putting things off you are not only trying to protect yourself from pain. You also make mountains out of molehills. The quotes above are so true it isn’t even funny. The more hours and days you put something off the worse it grows in your mind.Because you are dwelling on it. And so it expands in your mind. And since you are putting it off you are probably thinking about it in a negative way. This makes a little thing a big Godzilla, a horrible beast that is threatening to ruin your life.So plan a little and then take action.Often you don’t even have to plan, you have been there before and you know what needs to be done. So stop thinking and just do it no matter how you feel and what you think. How you feel right now changes as quickly as the weather so it’s not the perfect guidance system or anything. And you don’t have to obey what it says (it’s not chains made of iron). You can just do what you know is right anyway.3. Just take the first step.“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”Martin Luther King, Jr.When you start to look too far into the future any task or project can seem close to impossible. And so you shut down because you become overwhelmed and start surfing the internet aimlessly instead. That is one of the reasons why it is good to plan for the future but then to shift your focus back to today and the present moment.Then you just focus on taking the first step today. That is all you need to focus on, nothing else. By taking the first step you change you mental state from resistant to “hey, I’m doing this, cool”. You put yourself in state where you become more positive and open, a state where you may not be enthusiastic about taking the next step after this first one but you are at least accepting it. And so you can take the next step. And the next one after that.The thing is, you can’t see the whole staircase anyway and it will shift and reveal itself along the way. That’s why the best of plans tend to fall apart at least a bit as you start to put it into action. You discover that your map of reality doesn’t look like reality.4. Start with the hardest task of your day.“Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.”Dale CarnegieMaybe you have an important call to make that you also fear might be uncomfortable. Maybe you know you have gotten behind on answering your emails and have big pile to dig into. Maybe you have the last five pages of your paper to finish.Whatever it may be, get it out of your way the first thing you do.If you start your day this way you will feel relieved. You feel relaxed and good about yourself. And the rest of the day – and your to-do list – tends to feel a lot lighter and easier to move through. It’s amazing what difference this one action makes.5. Just make a decision. Any decision.“In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”Theodore RooseveltWe feel bad when we sit on our hands and don’t take action because it’s unnatural. The natural thing is to be a decisive human and take action.When you procrastinate you want to do something but you don’t take the action that is in alignment with that thought. You become conflicted within.What you do always sends signals back to you about who you are. Sure, doing affirmations where you say to yourself that you are confident can help you. But taking the confident actions you want to take over and over again is what really builds your self confidence and a self-image of you being a confident person. When you procrastinate you lower your self esteem and send signals back to yourself that you are a ,well, a kinda lame and indecisive person.6. Face your fear.“Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the “someday I’ll” philosophy.”Denis WaitleyI think this is true. It’s easier to live on that “someday…” thought. It’s harder to just take action. To risk looking like a fool. To make mistakes, stumble and not avoid that pain. To take responsibility for your own life.The easier choice can come with a sense of comfort, with a certain level of success, pangs of regret for all the things you never dared to do and a vague sense of being unfulfilled. You wonder about what would have happened if you had taken more action and more chances.The harder choice gives you, well, who knows? But it will sure make your feel more alive.7. Finish it.“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task”William James“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started.”David AllenNot taking the first step to start accomplishing something can make you feel bad. But not finishing what you have started can also leave you in a sort of negative funk. You feel fatigued or stressed and sometimes you don’t even know why. It’s like someone zapped your inner power.If that is the case, go over tasks and projects what you are currently involved in. Is there something there you know you want to finish but haven’t yet? Try to get that finished as soon as you can you will start to feel a whole lot better.Just be careful. Don’t think you have to finish everything you started. If a book sucks, read something else. Using this as an excuse to quit something that feels hard or unfamiliar is not a good idea. But there is no law that says that everything has to be completed.

Leaf Cut Art by Lorenzo Durán

Credits:Bilawal shams

16 Things I Wish They Had Taught Me in School

I don’t think about the past or regret things much these days.

But sometimes I wish that I had known some of things I have learned over the last few years a bit earlier. That perhaps there had been a self-improvement class in school. And in some ways there probably was.

Because some of these 16 things in this article a teacher probably spoke about in class. But I forgot about them or didn’t pay attention.

Some of it would probably not have stuck in my mind anyway. Or just been too far outside my reality at the time for me to accept and use.

But I still think that taking a few hours from all those German language classes and use them for some personal development classes would have been a good idea. Perhaps for just an hour a week in high school. It would probably be useful for many students and on a larger scale quite helpful for society in general.

So here are 16 things I wish they had taught me in school (or I just would like to have known about earlier).

1. The 80/20 rule.

This is one of the best ways to make better use of your time. The 80/20 rule – also known as The Pareto Principle – basically says that 80 percent of the value you will receive will come from 20 percent of your activities.

So a lot of what you do is probably not as useful or even necessary to do as you may think.

You can just drop – or vastly decrease the time you spend on – a whole bunch of things.

And if you do that you will have more time and energy to spend on those things that really brings your value, happiness, fulfilment and so on.

2. Parkinson’s Law.

You can do things quicker than you think. This law says that a task will expand in time and seeming complexity depending on the time you set aside for it. For instance, if you say to yourself that you’ll come up with a solution within a week then the problem will seem to grow more difficult and you’ll spend more and more time trying to come up with a solution.

So focus your time on finding solutions. Then just give yourself an hour (instead of the whole day) or the day (instead of the whole week) to solve the problem. This will force your mind to focus on solutions and action.

The result may not be exactly as perfect as if you had spent a week on the task, but as mentioned in the previous point, 80 percent of the value will come from 20 percent of the activities anyway. Or you may wind up with a better result because you haven’t overcomplicated or overpolished things. This will help you to get things done faster, to improve your ability to focus and give you more free time where you can totally focus on what’s in front of you instead of having some looming task creating stress in the back of your mind.

3. Batching.

Boring or routine tasks can create a lot of procrastination and low-level anxiety. One good way to get these things done quickly is to batch them. This means that you do them all in row. You will be able to do them quicker because there is less start-up time compared to if you spread them out. And when you are batching you become fully engaged in the tasks and more focused.

A batch of things to do in an hour today may look like this: Clean your desk / answer today’s emails / do the dishes / make three calls / write a grocery shopping list for tomorrow.

4. First, give value. Then, get value. Not the other way around.

This is a bit of a counter-intuitive thing. There is often an idea that someone should give us something or do something for us before we give back. The problem is just that a lot of people think that way. And so far less than possible is given either way.

If you want to increase the value you receive (money, love, kindness, opportunities etc.) you have to increase the value you give. Because over time you pretty much get what you give. It would perhaps be nice to get something for nothing. But that seldom happens.

5. Be proactive. Not reactive.

This one ties into the last point. If everyone is reactive then very little will get done. You could sit and wait and hope for someone else to do something. And that happens pretty often, but it can take a lot of time before it happens.

A more useful and beneficial way is to be proactive, to simply be the one to take the first practical action and get the ball rolling. This not only saves you a lot of waiting, but is also more pleasurable since you feel like you have the power over your life. Instead of feeling like you are run by a bunch of random outside forces.

6. Mistakes and failures are good.

When you are young you just try things and fail until you learn. As you grow a bit older, you learn from – for example – school to not make mistakes. And you try less and less things.

This may cause you to stop being proactive and to fall into a habit of being reactive, of waiting for someone else to do something. I mean, what if you actually tried something and failed? Perhaps people would laugh at you?

Perhaps they would. But when you experience that you soon realize that it is seldom the end of the world. And a lot of the time people don’t care that much. They have their own challenges and lives to worry about.

And success in life often comes from not giving up despite mistakes and failure. It comes from being persistent.

When you first learn to ride your bike you may fall over and over. Bruise a knee and cry a bit. But you get up, brush yourself off and get on the saddle again. And eventually you learn how to ride a bike. If you can just reconnect to your 5 year old self and do things that way – instead of giving up after a try/failure or two as grown-ups often do -you would probably experience a lot more interesting things, learn valuable lessons and have quite a bit more success.

7. Don’t beat yourself up.

Why do people give up after just few mistakes or failures? Well, I think one big reason is because they beat themselves up way too much. But it’s a kinda pointless habit. It only creates additional and unnecessary pain inside you and wastes your precious time. It’s best to try to drop this habit as much as you can.

8. Assume rapport.

Meeting new people is fun. But it can also induce nervousness. We all want to make a good first impression and not get stuck in an awkward conversation.

The best way to do this that I have found so far is to assume rapport. This means that you simply pretend that you are meeting one of your best friends. Then you start the interaction in that frame of mind instead of the nervous one.

This works surprisingly well. You can read more about it in How to Have Less Awkward Conversations: Assuming Rapport.

9. Use your reticular activation system to your advantage.

I learned about the organs and the inner workings of the body in class but nobody told me about the reticular activation system. And that’s a shame, because this is one of the most powerful things you can learn about. What this focus system, this R.A.S, in your mind does is to allow you to see in your surroundings what you focus your thoughts on. It pretty much always helps you to find what you are looking for.

So you really need to focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want. And keep that focus steady.

Setting goals and reviewing them frequently is one way to keep your focus on what’s important and to help you take action that will move your closer to toward where you want to go. Another way is just to use external reminders such as pieces of paper where you can, for instance, write down a few things from this post like “Give value” or “Assume rapport”. And then you can put those pieces of paper on your fridge, bathroom mirror etc.

10. Your attitude changes your reality.

We have all heard that you should keep a positive attitude or perhaps that “you need to change your attitude!”. That is a nice piece of advice I suppose, but without any more reasons to do it is very easy to just brush such suggestions off and continue using your old attitude.

But the thing that I’ve discovered the last few years is that if you change your attitude, you actually change your reality. When you for instance use a positive attitude instead of a negative one you start to see things and viewpoints that were invisible to you before. You may think to yourself “why haven’t I thought about things this way before?”.

When you change your attitude you change what you focus on. And all things in your world can now be seen in a different light.

This is of course very similar to the previous tip but I wanted to give this one some space. Because changing your attitude can create an insane change in your world. It might not look like it if you just think about it though. Pessimism might seem like realism. But that is mostly because your R.A.S is tuned into seeing all the negative things you want to see. And that makes you “right” a lot of the time. And perhaps that is what you want. On the other hand, there are more fun things than being right all the time.

If you try changing your attitude for real – instead of analysing such a concept in your mind – you’ll be surprised.

You may want to read more about this topic in Take the Positivity Challenge!

11. Gratitude is a simple way to make yourself feel happy.

Sure, I was probably told that I should be grateful. Perhaps because it was the right thing to do or just something I should do. But if someone had said that feeling grateful about things for minute or two is a great way to turn a negative mood into a happy one I would probably have practised gratitude more. It is also a good tool for keeping your attitude up and focusing on the right things. And to make other people happy. Which tends to make you even happier, since emotions are contagious.

12. Don’t compare yourself to others.

The ego wants to compare. It wants to find reasons for you to feel good about yourself (“I’ve got a new bike!”). But by doing that it also becomes very hard to not compare yourself to others who have more than you (“Oh no, Bill has bought an even nicer bike!”). And so you don’t feel so good about yourself once again. If you compare yourself to others you let the world around control how you feel about yourself. It always becomes a rollercoaster of emotions.

A more useful way is to compare yourself to yourself. To look at how far you have come, what you have accomplished and how you have grown. It may not sound like that much fun but in the long run it brings a lot more inner stillness, personal power and positive feelings.

13. 80-90% of what you fear will happen never really come into reality.

This is a big one. Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just monsters in your own mind. And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time.

This is of course easy to say. But if you remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more of that worry from your thoughts.

14. Don’t take things too seriously.

It’s very easy to get wrapped up in things. But most of the things you worry about never come into reality. And what may seem like a big problem right now you may not even remember in three years.

Taking yourself, your thoughts and your emotions too seriously often just seems to lead to more unnecessary suffering. So relax a little more and lighten up a bit. It can do wonders for your mood and as an extension of that; your life.

15. Write everything down.

If your memory is anything like mine then it’s like a leaking bucket. Many of your good or great ideas may be lost forever if you don’t make a habit of writing things down. This is also a good way to keep your focus on what you want. Read more about it in Why You Should Write Things Down.

16. There are opportunities in just about every experience.

In pretty much any experience there are always things that you can learn from it and things within the experience that can help you to grow. Negative experiences, mistakes and failure can sometimes be even better than a success because it teaches you something totally new, something that another success could never teach you.

Whenever you have a “negative experience” ask yourself: where is the opportunity in this? What is good about this situation? One negative experience can – with time – help you create many very positive experiences.

What do you wish someone had told you in school or you had just learned earlier in life?

40 websites that will make you cleverer right now

khanacademy.org – Watch thousands of micro-lectures on topics ranging from history and medicine to chemistry and computer science.

freerice.com – Help end world hunger by correctly answering multiple-choice quizzes on a wide variety of subjects.

artofmanliness.com – Blog/site dedicated to all things manly, great for learning life skills and good insights.

Inktank.fi – Awesome and awe inspiring articles all in one wonderful place.

unplugthetv.com – Randomly selects an educational video for you to watch.

coursera.org – Educational site that works with universities to get their courses on the Internet, free for you to use.

conversations.nokia.com – Learn about the world’s most innovative smartphones and future mobile tech.

lizardpoint.com – A collection of browser-based games and the like to improve knowledge of geography, math, and such.

ted.com – Collection of TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) talks in which knowledgeable speakers address a variety of topics in short videos (< 18 minutes)

lifehacker.com – Learn to hack life! Tips and tricks for improving all areas of your life.

lifehackninja.com – Recently started life hack site that offers lists of useful knowledge

good.is/infographics – Collection of infographics which showcase useful information in an easy to digest visual format.

mathrun.net – Practice your basic maths skills with a simple game.

Litro.co.uk – All you need to know about the wonderful world of books and writing.

justinguitar.com – Hundreds of free guitar lessons as well as some basic music theory.

duolingo.com – Learn a new language for free while helping to translate the web.

memrise.com – Learn things quickly and efficiently with flashcards that are spaced based on the spacing effect

cookingforengineers.com – A site containing one man’s explorations in food, with step by step instructions for making a wide variety of dishes.

thedatingspecialist.com – A weekly blog run by a professional dating coach, offers advice on a wide variety of relationship topics.

zenhabits.net – Blog about improving your life by making it simpler.

nerdfitness.com – Fitness resource for the average person.

mentalfloss.com – Interesting articles guaranteed to make you smile and get you thinking.

openculture.com – Compendium of free learning resources, including courses, textbooks, and videos/films.

charitynavigator.org – Site dedicated to reviewing charities so you can easily research any you’re interested in.

lettersofnote.com – Their tagline says it all: “Correspondence deserving of a wider audience”

thedailymiscellany.com – A daily dose of useful knowledge, quotes, and other random things.

MIT Open Courseware – Free access to quite a few MIT courses that are on par with what you’d expect from MIT.

codecademy.com – Website packed with introductory courses for various programming languages and web technologies.

investopedia.com – Learn about the world of finance, from basic terminology to in depth analysis of various areas of investing.

udacity.com – Free courses mainly focused around mathematics and programming. Aimed at people of all skill levels.

lang-8.com – Write posts in a language you’re trying to learn, get them critiqued by a native speaker (and in turn help that native speaker learn your language)!

careerbuilder.com – Job hunting site to help you find a new career.

ureddit.com – Reddit’s very own University. Learn from redditors, or try to teach them.

engineerguy.com – Collection of videos in which Bill breaks down various feats of engineering in layman’s terms.

zooniverse.org – Take part in a huge variety of interesting studies of nature, science, and culture.

quora.com – Ask questions you’re curious about, answer those you’re knowledgeable about. Tailor your own feed to fit what interests you.

thenewboston.org – A fascinating collection of videos and tutorials related to maths and computer science.

aldaily.com – Aggregation of articles from various higher education journals and publications.

noexcuselist.com/everything – A huge list of awesome sites to learn from.

livemocha.com – Community dedicated to the idea of everyone being fluent in multiple languages, teach or be taught another language with the goal of conversational fluency.

simplesciencefitness.com – Breaks down the science behind fitness into layman’s terms.

30 Books I’m Glad I Read Before 30

In various ways, these 30 books convey some of the philosophy of how Angel and I live our lives.  I honestly credit a fraction of who I am today to each title.  Thus, they have indirectly influenced much of what I write about on this site.  A medley of both fiction and nonfiction, these great reads challenged my internal status quo, opening my mind to new ideas and opportunities, and together they gave me a basic framework for living, loving, learning and working successfully.

If you haven’t read these books yet, I highly recommend doing so.  They will enrich your library and your life.

1. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert – Gilbert, a Harvard professor of psychology has studied happiness for decades, and he shares scientific findings that just might change the way you look at the world.  His primary goal is to persuade you into accepting the fact that happiness is not really what or where you imagined it would be.  This is my favorite book on happiness by a long shot.
2. The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck – Pretty much the granddaddy of all self-improvement books, it’s easily one of the best nonfiction works I’ve ever read.  By melding love, science and spirituality into a primer for personal growth, Peck guides the reader through lessons on delaying gratification, accepting responsibility for decisions, dedicating oneself to truth and reality, and creating a balanced lifestyle.
3. Getting Things Done by David Allen – The ultimate ‘organize your life’ book.  Allen’s ideas and processes are for all those people who are overwhelmed with too many things to do, too little time to do them, and a general sense of unease that something important is being missed.  The primary goal of this book is to teach you how to effectively get your ‘to-do inbox’ to empty.
4. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey – Covey presents a principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems by delivering a step-by-step guide for living with integrity and honesty and adapting to the inevitable change life brings us everyday.  It’s a must-read.
5. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand – This novel is an explanation of what hasbeen and always will be at the core of America’s prosperity: freedom and capitalism.  It should be required reading for every American.  All 1,069 pages are worthwhile.  Hands down, Atlas Shrugged is one of the best, most influential books I’ve ever read.
6. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – More parable than novel, ‘The Alchemist’ uses the story of young shepherd Santiago’s search for his personal legend as an allegory for everyman’s struggle to break from the comfortable confines of conformity and pursue his life dreams.  Along the way, of course, our young everyman is beset by numerous setbacks, testing his resolve and forcing him to become attuned to the Soul of the World in order to survive.  By paying attention to the details in the world around him, which serve as omens guiding him towards his goal, young Santiago becomes an alchemist in his own right, spinning unfavorable circumstances into riches.  I’ve read this tale a few times now and it always provides priceless inspiration.
7. Walden by Henry David Thoreau – Thoreau spent two years, two months and two days writing this book in a secluded cabin near the banks of Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts.  This is a story about being truly free from the pressures of society.  The book can speak for itself: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
8. The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz – Schwartz gives the reader useful, proactive steps for achieving success.  He presents a clear-cut program for getting the most out of your job, marriage, family life and other relationships.  In doing so, he proves that you don’t need to be an intellectual or have innate talent to attain great success and satisfaction in life.
9. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely – Looks at the reasons so many of us continuously make irrational decisions on a daily basis.  It’s a scientific but easily readable and unquestionably insightful look at why we do what we do on a daily basis, and why we never change our ways even though we often ‘know better.’
10. The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss – Ferris challenges us to evaluate our perspective on the cost and availability of our dreams, and he teaches us that hard work isn’t very hard when you love what you’re doing.  Although there’s certainly some pages of self promotion within, Ferris provides invaluable tips to help us remain aligned with our goals, set expectations on our terms, and eliminate unnecessary time-sinks while increasing our overall effectiveness.
11. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie – Easily one of the best and most popular books on people-skills ever written.  Carnegie uses his adept storytelling skills to illustrate how to be successful by making the most of human relations.
12. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse – A short, powerful novel about the importance of life experiences as they relate to approaching an understanding of self, happiness and attaining enlightenment.
13. 1984 by George Orwell – 1984 still holds chief significance nearly 60 years after it was written in 1949.  It’s widely acclaimed for its haunting vision of an all-knowing government which uses pervasive, 24/7 surveillance tactics to manipulate all citizens of the populace.  In today’s world of continuous online connectivity, Orwell’s visions hit pretty close to home.
14. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – Set in the Jazz Age of the roaring 20’s, this book unravels a cautionary tale of the American dream.  Specifically, the reader learns that a few good friends are far more important that a zillion acquaintances, and the drive created from the desire to have something is more valuable than actually having it.
15. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck – Steinbeck’s deeply touching tale about the survival of displaced families desperately searching for work in a nation stuck by depression will never cease to be relevant.
16. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason – The best book on money management ever written.  Although only 145 pages, this book is packed to the brim with powerful, life changing information.  I’ve read it three times and I still pull new pearls of wisdom out of it.  Babylon should be mandatory reading beginning at the grade school level, then again in college, and should be given as a gift right along with a college diploma.
17. Quitter by Jon Acuff – If you’re looking for an honest account of what it’s like to make the transition from your day job to your dream job, this book is for you.  The author doesn’t sugarcoat the journey or convince you that it’s worth making stupid decisions now that you’ll pay for later.  He stays grounded in reality while inspiring you to truly connect with the things you’re passionate about, and he gives you hope and a plan for getting yourself there.
18. The Success Principles by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer – The creator of the ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ series reveals secrets to success with sixty-four timeless principles packed into this one book.  Sixty-four principles may seem like a lot, but each receives a concise, easy-to-digest chapter that challenges readers to risk creating their lives exactly as they want them.  This is easily one of the most practical books I’ve ever read on achieving your dreams.
19. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz – Faced with too many options or decisions in your life?  We feel worse when we have too many options.  This book will make you feel better and change the way you look at them.  Schwartz discusses people making difficult decisions about jobs, families, where to live, whether to have children, how to spend recreational time, choosing colleges, etc.  He talks about why making these decisions today is much harder than it was thirty years ago, and he offers many practical suggestions for how to address decision-making so that it creates less stress and more happiness.
20. The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman – Unfortunately, the title may limit the market to business people, but the truth is we are all in the business of managing and selling ourselves no matter what our occupation.  What makes this book warrant such a strong statement is the fact that it’s a comprehensive synthesis of all of the concepts you need to know to understand business inside and out.  There are no complex models to learn or outdated theories to memorize just to get marks or pass exams.  What you get is a clear, comprehensive set of ‘rules of thumb’ for any possible scenario you might encounter in running a business (or just your life in general).
21. The Art of War by Sun Tzu – One of the oldest books on military strategy in the world.  It’s easily the most successful written work on the mechanics of general strategy and business tactics.
22. The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowieckiv – Great examples of how groups of diverse people acting independently are smarter than any one person in the group.  This is one of the most entertaining and intellectually engaging books I’ve come across in a long while.  The author has a gift for making complex ideas accessible, and he has a wonderful eye for the telling anecdote.  The material within has huge implications for management, markets, decision-making and more.
23. The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz – The authors worked with the best athletes and executives for years and found that the best ones knew how to push themselves, then recuperate, push, recuperate, and so forth.  Take this same approach to your emotional, mental, physical, and even spiritual life, and it’s a powerful metaphor.  Think of sprints, not marathons.  Be fully in whatever you’re in, then give time to recuperate.  But push further each time, past your comfort zone, like a good exercise plan.
24. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath – An easy to read psychology book about real ways to make change last – both personal and organizational.  So many powerful insights, based on fact not theory.  Inspiring counterintuitive stories of huge organizational change against all odds.  Highly recommended for people in all walks of life.
25. The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz – I have read so many books promising joy in my life, yet I have read none as simple and practical as that of ‘The Four Agreements.’  This book is a beautiful instruction guide to achieve a life of freedom and happiness.  The author teaches four lifestyle commitments which can transform life into the realization of your own personal dream.  Simply put, this small book has made profound positive changes in my life.
26. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt – The chapters are short, the prose is easy to follow and the logic is compelling.  I’ve never seriously studied economics in my life, yet I had no trouble following the reasoning in this book.  This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand basic economics and the keys to widespread prosperity in the long run.
27. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki – It is unfortunate that in America, arguably the greatest nation in the free world, few people including those with high incomes understand the value of investing and the proper use of money strategies.  You can live off your income, but you can’t get wealthy off your income.  True wealth is the result of using principles described in this book.  This is a classic, must read for everyone.
28. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – This novel is hilarious and depicts some pretty insightful observations about life, people, and the world in general.  Under it all, it’s an enjoyable read that will leave you yearning for more.  If you don’t like science fiction, it doesn’t matter; read this book just for the laughs.  The most amazing thing about Adams’ humor is the fact that everyone seems to get it.
29. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee – The themes within primarily involve racial injustice and the destruction of human innocence.  The author also addresses issues of class, courage, compassion, and gender roles in the American Deep South.  It’s simply a classic piece of our American history that depicts racism and prejudice, childhood innocence, and the perseverance of a man who risked it all to stand up for what he believed in.
30. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey – The plot followers a sane man that, due to a brush with the law, opts for being committed in a mental asylum rather than be incarcerated with hard labor.  Upon his entry into the secluded world of the asylum, he strips all the barriers formed and starts laying his own rules, in his own way.  This leads to problems with the head honcho of the place.  The rollercoaster that the protagonist takes the inmates through finally leads them to realize the ultimate goal.  That man, no matter the situation, can always hold his destiny in his hands.