5 Day Reading Challenge in November 2023 📚✨

Day 1️⃣

1. The Eggbeater Effect: How Time-Saving Technology Just Makes For More Work by Tara McMullin (14 mins)

• Time-saving technologies like eggbeaters and mixers lead to higher productivity expectations, resulting in more tasks rather than less work.
• Historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan argues that despite the invention of labor-saving devices, household work didn't become less tiring or time-consuming in the 19th century.
• The advent of such devices and modern expectations has changed our perception of what's considered necessary or adequate work, often increasing the pressure to do more.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

2. Motivation vs. Discipline: Which Helps You Go Further? by Ivaylo Durmonski (16 mins)

• The article discusses the difference between motivation and discipline and their roles in achieving personal goals.
• Motivation is described as the initial spark that encourages action, while discipline is the ability to maintain consistent effort and focus over the long term.
• The text highlights that having both motivation and discipline is crucial for success and suggests that many people are overly motivated but lack the necessary discipline to follow through on their goals.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

3. The Definition of Knowledge and Its Management by flomo college (3 mins)

• Knowledge is a critical human resource that is characterized by being powerful, fluid, and fragmented, and requires active management to capture, distribute, and utilize it effectively within an organization.
• Knowledge management is essential in the information age, allowing for competitive advantage and better decision-making, involving not just organizations but also individuals who need to manage knowledge as a valuable asset for long-term success.
• Knowledge can be categorized by adaptability into general and specialized knowledge, by quality into facts, principles, skills, and human understanding, and by form into explicit and tacit knowledge, each requiring different management approaches.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

Day 2️⃣

1. Growing Old Gratefully: How to See Each Year as a Gift by Suzie Headley (3 mins)

• The article emphasizes a shift in perspective on aging, proposing gratitude instead of fear or disdain, as many often feel shame or panic at the signs of aging due to society's worship of youth and beauty.
• Reflecting on different cultural attitudes, like those in Japan where aging is seen as a period of maturity and rebirth, the author suggests embracing aging as a privilege and a gift, celebrating life and opportunities at every age.
• Suzie Headley, the writer, advocates for a grateful and positive mindset toward aging, living fully and naturally, countering negative societal messages, and appreciating every day as a part of the universe.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

2. The Single Greatest Habit You Can Build by Sahil Bloom (5 mins)

• The article champions walking as a simple yet immensely powerful habit that can enhance mental, physical, and creative abilities, referencing historical figures and supported by various scientific studies.
• It suggests building a walking routine through different types of walks, such as Active Walks, Tech-Free Walks, Morning Sunlight Walks, and Break Walks, and proposes incorporating these into daily life for substantial benefits.
• The writer issues a challenge to the reader to undertake a daily 15-minute tech-free walk to experience a positive change, offering a form of social support and accountability through sharing the experience on Twitter.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

3. To Organize The World's Information by Dmitri Brereton (7 mins)

• The organization of information has evolved from oral traditions to libraries like Alexandria, significantly aiding intellectual progress and innovation.
• The internet, with search engines and platforms like Wikipedia, revolutionized information access, using backlinks and user contributions for organization.
• Current search technology is still limited, struggling with complex queries and showing the need for better systems to fully organize and access global knowledge.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

Day 3️⃣

1. Thinking Models: 5 Little-Known Concepts to Navigate the World by Chris Meyer (7 mins)

• Thinking models, such as the Eisenhower Matrix for task prioritization and the SARA Model for problem-solving, are cognitive tools that simplify decision-making but must be matched correctly to the context of the problem.
• Mental models can help navigate conflicts and comprehend complex realities, but they're limited by their inherent simplifications, as highlighted by the Black Box and Map vs Territory models.
• Despite their utility in reducing complexity, thinking models are prone to confirmation bias, underscoring the need for critical evaluation and adaptability in their application.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

2. Leverage is brittle by Seth Godin (1 mins)

• Debt amplifies financial gains and risks: A small increase in property value can yield high profits with a 20% down payment, but a minor decrease can lead to a total loss, and over-leveraging in business can make one vulnerable to competition and market changes.
• In farming and supply chains, leverage increases vulnerability: Good weather and market conditions can lead to high profits, but any adversity can be catastrophic for leveraged farmers; similarly, lean inventory practices to maximize cash flow can collapse with a single delayed shipment.
• Leverage influences short-term over long-term decisions: Investors may prefer short-term profits over long-term community well-being, as leverage makes the immediate returns more attractive, often at the cost of resilience and sustainability.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

3. Establishing a Reading Habit by Nesma Nujum (4 mins)

• The author reflects on how technology distracted her from reading, which was once a cherished hobby, and discusses the challenge of re-engaging with books in a digital world.
• Key strategies for developing a reading habit include setting reading goals, fitting reading into daily life, tracking progress, and using technology like e-books and audiobooks as tools rather than distractions.
• The article advocates for promoting reading as a source of pleasure and learning among all age groups, highlighting the need to find the right book to spark interest and the various benefits that reading offers.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

Day 4️⃣

1. The Written Word by Morgan Housel (2 mins)

• Writing is both a subjective art and a performance, with the key to good writing being to write what you enjoy reading yourself, and to create work that resonates emotionally with the reader, as demonstrated by Mark Twain's practice of editing based on his audience's reactions.
• Good writing acts as leverage for ideas, turning even mundane concepts into engaging narratives; memorable sentences are crucial, as people tend to remember impactful lines rather than entire texts.
• Effective writing balances brevity with substance, aiming to say a lot with few words while ensuring each line delights the reader; starting to write without overthinking, much like a musician improvising, can lead to the most genuine and compelling work.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

2. Intellectual Sparring Partners by Sahil Bloom (5 mins)

• An intellectual sparring partner is someone who challenges and enhances your reasoning and decision-making skills through rigorous discussion, ideally possessing a different background, clear analytical thinking, and a direct yet kind personality.
• Regular "sparring sessions" should be structured, with a set time, frequency, and clear topics and outcomes to ensure productive and focused discourse.
• The author emphasizes the significance of such partnerships in personal growth and decision-making, illustrating this with a personal anecdote where a sparring session led to a pivotal life decision.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

3. Practice Made Perfect: The 10 Keys to Optimize Improvement by Scott H. Young ( 7 mins)

• Effective practice requires strategic methods, not just repetition; using examples, retrieval practice, spacing sessions, and varying practice types are key strategies to enhance skill development.
• To optimize learning, compare confusing examples, self-explain processes, analyze past performance, adjust difficulty levels, and utilize both direct and indirect feedback.
• Practice should closely match real-life scenarios, as transfer of skills is specific; understanding the context in which you want to apply your skills can inform the best practice methods.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

Day 5️⃣

1. One Question to Ask Yourself to Know Your Future by Nir Eyal (3 mins)

• Goethe posited that knowing how one spends their time can predict their future because it reflects their values and where they will likely invest effort, suggesting that distractions lead to missed opportunities and unfulfilled potential.
• The author advocates for living by one’s values and using them as a roadmap for future actions, exemplified by creating systems to engage in value-driven activities, like spending quality time with family, to become the ideal future self.
• The technique of timeboxing is recommended to manage time and attention effectively, ensuring that daily activities align with one's values and goals, which helps resist distractions and provides a measurable way to track progress towards long-term aspirations like writing a book.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

2. The Swedish philosophy of lagom: how “just enough” is all you need by Jonny Thomson (4 mins)

• The Swedish concept of "lagom" embodies the principle of "just enough," advocating for balance and moderation in all aspects of life, rather than excess, which aligns with many ancient wisdom traditions and promotes a sense of contentment with what one has.
• Lagom encourages a social awareness of fair use and the impact of one's actions on others, as well as a personal mental shift to find satisfaction in the current moment without the need for more, appreciating that less can be more.
• Practical applications of lagom include striving for work-life balance, approaching fitness with simplicity, and finding joy in staying in and enjoying simple pleasures, which all contribute to a well-rounded, fulfilled life.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress

3. The Feynman Learning Technique by FS Blog (19 mins)

• The Feynman Learning Technique, inspired by Richard Feynman, emphasizes teaching a concept as if to a child to reveal understanding and identify knowledge gaps, reinforcing learning by simplifying and clarifying complex ideas.
• The process involves four steps: teaching the concept to a child, identifying gaps in explanation and returning to the source material, organizing and simplifying the information into a narrative, and optionally, transmitting the knowledge to others to test comprehension.
• The technique is a tool for deep learning rather than superficial memorization, promoting a genuine understanding that enables application and connection of knowledge to various situations, and encourages growth by questioning and reconstructing ideas from the ground up.
  Share: Tweet Your Progress