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Ask HN: What are the best books for professional effectiveness?

• Nathanael_M 5y ago
  Deep Work - Cal Newport This might be too "baby steps" for a lot of people here, but it genuinely has had a huge impact on my life and I would recommend it to anyone at the early stages of their productive or professional life. It's an exceptionally easy read and very well composed and helped me learn and apply concrete goals to productivity and focus.
• alexmingoia 5y ago
  One book: • “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie Three lessons: • Be professional. Do what you say you’re going to do. Don’t take anything personally. • Commit to one thing at a time. Priorities always change. Decide what you need to do, do it, then decide what to do next. • Never assume. If you’re unclear, stop and get clarity before continuing.
  • gadders 5y ago
    I always recommend that book.
• austincheney 5y ago
  Effective at knowledge work? Do you mean more effective at career elevation or more passionate about technical capabilities? These goals are extremely divergent unless you are an entrepreneur selling a new technology you invented.
• cygned 5y ago
  Work Clean: The life-changing power of mise-en-place to organize your life, work, and mind Charnas, D. https://www.workclean.com/ https://www.workclean.com/
  • tailspin2019 5y ago
    I've not heard of this one before but I just read the first page on Amazon and it looks very interesting!
  • muzani 5y ago
    There's a more recent version of the same book, Everything in Its Place: https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Its-Place-Mise-En-Place-Organize/dp/1635650119 https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Its-Place-Mise-En-Place-Or... I actually wrote a comment recommending the same book, but might as well tuck it here. Mise-en-place is well designed but much of it doesn't translate well to knowledge work, which is why these books aren't more popular. It's still a great addition to your toolkit and sometimes when I'm overwhelmed, I remind myself to keep things clean and just finish stuff.
• tailspin2019 5y ago
  Some classics which have genuinely helped me quite a bit: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey The Effective Executive - Peter Drucker (Peter Drucker coined the term "knowledge work") Getting Things Done - David Allen High Output Management - Andy Grove If you have an entrepreneurial side: The E Myth - Michael E. Gerber The title is cheesy but I would second the recommendation of "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by one of the other commenters. As long as you don't take everything it says too literally and look for the wider principles it's teaching. Another one in the "cheesy" category, he's old school, but I've found Brian Tracy's books and audiobooks to be incredibly motivating and useful for crafting a positive mindset around work.
• foreigner 5y ago
  Getting Things Done by David Allen was very helpful to me. It's barely a book - if you skim over the cruft it's more like a pamphlet. I don't follow it religiously but some of his ideas have made a big difference in my productivity.
  • tailspin2019 5y ago
    > if you skim over the cruft it's more like a pamphlet I think this describes about 80-90% of business related books!
    • huge87 5y ago
      I've thought about this for awhile, and I think it's reasonable to read some books in their entirety to better understand certain things (although I will agree that some books are just fluff and can be condensed into a blog post). Take for instance the Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande. We get it, make checklists because they're good for making sure you don't miss stuff. Got it. But in reading the stories and personal anecdotes, we get a felt sense for why and how we should implement a system of checklists to offload cognitive load so that we can focus on things that require more discursive thinking. I guess what I'm saying is that you can tell someone to do something, but you may have a better shot at getting them to remember (edit: understand deeply) if you tell them a story. Humans may just be like that. Not saying these authors aren't trying to hit publisher mandated word counts or whatever, but it may not always be that.
      • tailspin2019 5y ago
        Yeah I do agree. I think some books are just obviously padded out, but others have legitimate repetition of the message, which does have value, eg. your example (great book!)
  • CPLX 5y ago
    Second this. I ignored it for 15 years unnecessarily because it sort of looks like a goofy self-help book. It’s not. It’s a matter of fact analysis and framework for understanding the problem of how to keep track of all the varied messages and projects that come at you. And the advice is simple and highly effective.
• bwb 5y ago
  yep, the happiness project: https://gretchenrubin.com/books/the-happiness-project/about-the-book/ https://gretchenrubin.com/books/the-happiness-project/about-... Hear me out :) It teaches you to do a lot of little things that over time make a huge impact on your well being and the people around you. I loved this book and found a huge impact on my life year after year as little habits it teaches started to add up. In the workforce it also helped me. I am already very empathetic, but it helped me do a lot of little things for my team and the people I manage to make their lives better. Great book.
  • tailspin2019 5y ago
    This makes a lot of sense. If you don't have this healthy emotional foundation, all other efforts towards more surface-level stuff are going to be compromised. It seems very likely that a happier person is going to be more productive/effective in all aspects of life, including work! I guess the key is probably a balance of working on both at once; your underlying emotional health and happiness, as well as learning some higher level tricks relating to time management, managing your workload etc.
    • bwb 5y ago
      ya and weirdly a lot of the science behind happiness is just the basics like not having much stuff, keep the stuff you do have organized and leave some room for more, and all these little cuts that just add up to a better life. It made me pay more attention to my energy levels and early warnings signs when I am pushing too hard. Which then made me better at helping my team with those, and making sure they were healthy/happy. (i use happy but really what they mean in these is content / fulfilled)
• physicsgraph 5y ago
  "you can negotiate anything" by Herb Cohen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can_Negotiate_Anything https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can_Negotiate_Anything
• bloopernova 5y ago
  Some that others haven't mentioned: How to take Smart Notes: https://takesmartnotes.com/ https://takesmartnotes.com/ Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. Good for helping you to recognize how your mind is working, and to work with it to improve yourself. How To Practice by The Dalai Lama. Again, understand your mind to improve your ability to deal with life. I suggest this and the previous book because you can't build a great house without a sturdy foundation. Dune by Frank Herbert. There's some lessons in here about managing your mind and your reactions to stimuli or adverse situations. Yes, seriously I'm suggesting a fiction novel :) Others if I think of them!
  • tailspin2019 5y ago
    Have you read "Destructive Emotions" which I think was a collaboration between Daniel Goleman and the Dalai Lama? The title may sound off-putting to some but it was a great book for me, following on from Emotional Intelligence (I second your recommendation on that one).
    • bloopernova 5y ago
      No, I haven't. I will definitely check it out, thank you!
  • pg_1234 5y ago
    Re. Dune: "I must not fear, fear is the mind killer." ... possibly the single best piece of advice for prospering in western corporate environments. Can be seen as a rephrasing of the SAS motto "Who dares wins", but with an added insight on how fear cripples your higher thought processes.
  • huge87 5y ago
    I just picked up How to take Smart Notes. In undergrad a lifetime ago, I remember feeling that my note taking skills were woefully inadequate. My notes became more scattered, less comprehensive, and on the whole less reliable to use as semesters went on. I think there's something important here to learn, so thanks. edit: This reading is relevant because I'm going back to school, but I'm part way through and can see this will also be useful for all the books I read about stuff I find interesting. The idea of a slip box to capture, refine, and connect information sounds fun.
• black_13 5y ago
  Back issues of Mad Magazine The Wizard of Oz The Pale King
• DeBraid 5y ago
  High Output Management by Andy Grove (Operations, people mgmt) Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive by Harvey Mackay Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jerry I. Porras and Jim Collins
• newshorts 5y ago
  The power of habit ~ Duhigg Seeing around corners ~ ??? The former is for developing habits that can change your team / organization. The latter is for developing a culture of innovation and synergy
• m0llusk 5y ago
  personal journals
• indiantinker 5y ago
  Thanks all for suggestions on this thread. I have another recommendation. As a designer, the book that helped me a lot is — The one minute manager [1]. It talks about setting one minute goals, one minute praises, and one minute redirects. As a person, who often has issues telling people to do things, I like the flowchart approach it takes. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763362.The_One_Minute_Manager https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763362.The_One_Minute_Ma...
• FarhadG 5y ago
  [Non-Violent Communication] has been the most impactful book for me over the past year...
  • throwbynight38 5y ago
    Also agree with this. The way we communicate with each other is the most direct method of changing the environment around us. I think NVC helps people to understand their own motivations, needs, and projections while they are having these conversations.
• maryrosecook 5y ago
  Anything about leverage. Here are the ones I read that were helpful. The second two are engineering-specific, but Principles is domain agnostic. * Principles: https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio/dp/1501124021 https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio/dp/150... * The Effective Engineer: https://www.amazon.com/Effective-Engineer-Engineering-Disproportionate-Meaningful/dp/0996128107 https://www.amazon.com/Effective-Engineer-Engineering-Dispro... * High Output Management: https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884 https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/d...
  • cmonaghan 5y ago
    +100 to The Effective Engineer. This is the best practical book on how to improve individual engineering effectiveness that I've ever read.
• gherkinnn 5y ago
  With very few exceptions, I find contemporary self-improvement books the perfect example of the “this book could have been a blog post could have been a tweet could have been left unsaid” chain. A core of truth, but terribly written. Zero imagination, neither wisdom nor joy. What they lack in depth they make up for with contrived examples. While authors like Hesse, Kafka, Tolkien, Goethe, Dickens, Fry, and Wilde have given me so much more. Sometimes it’s a sentence. Sometimes the mood of a chapter. Maybe a casual observation made by a side character or a short poem that carries the weight of many a novel. Never directly relating to my work, but deep insights in to humanity transcend everything. And if there’s nothing you find applicable, at least you’re left with beautiful language that is worth indulging in for its own sake. (A euro-centric list, antiquated maybe. But timeless. Naturally, every period and culture has gifted us with comparable works.)
  • gromitss 5y ago
    [dead]
  • throwbynight38 5y ago
    Love this. Vivat poetica etiam!
  • spacec0wb0y 5y ago
    Ouch. I came here to see if there are any contemporary self improvement books I've missed, then I read this. I've completely turned away from non-fiction books/audiobooks in recent years and find it difficult to even know where to start back.... Any specific book recommendations?
    • gherkinnn 5y ago
      No specific recommendations. You can’t force pleasure. Keep your eyes open and it will come to you. Grabbing a small assortment of Penguin Classics in any bookshop is always a good option. Pick three that peak your interest. They’re small, cheap, and don’t spy on you. Revisiting books you’ve read as a child is interesting as well. You no doubt see the world very differently now – observing the difference in one’s perception is fascinating. Don’t be afraid of the seemingly trivial. Treasure Island is the source of every single pirate trope. That realisation alone was worth it for me. Pay attention to the language. It matters so much. I often re-read passages in LotR for the imagery alone. It is so vivid, carries so much weight. Aeons are compressed in to a sentence. And sometimes the story doesn’t matter. It’s a means through which to have a conversation with the author. Lastly, what might be my favourite piece if writing: Blauer Schmetterling by Herman Hesse. [0] I prefer the original German, but this translation does it justice. 0 - https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=119749&RF=1 https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=119749&RF...
• claudiulodro 5y ago
  I'm going to say Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. Hear me out -- when you're debt-free in a modest paid-off house, you have so much extra "brain space" that used to be devoted to managing bills, worrying about layoffs or the next job, etc. Whereas if you're debt-free with low overhead, you can push back on management, be bolder in your current work, pay cash for continuing education, take interesting but not top-paid work, make mistakes and not stress about them, etc.
  • throwbynight38 5y ago
    I would agree with this. Although his delivery is a little over the top, I think there is some real truth in managing debt and finances.
• d0mine 5y ago
  "Learning how to learn" course (the corresponding book: "A mind for numbers ..."): evidenced based 101 on how to learn: the essence is ~12 points on what to do and the most important what not to do to learn something (100s references). https://barbaraoakley.com https://barbaraoakley.com You are learning almost all of the time on the "knowledge" job.
• blockwriter 5y ago
  “The Machine that Changed the World” and “The Toyota Way” provided me with numerous insights into a number of activities, both professional and recreational. Some of the thinking may be out of vogue in management circles, but the case laid out by the authors is compelling in itself and provides a new lens through which to look at workflow.
• tiahura 5y ago
  Will - G. Gordon Liddy Mission Earth - L. Ron Hubbard
• tjalfi 5y ago
  The Unwritten Laws of Engineering by W.J. King. It's a bit dated but has a lot of helpful advice - I wish I had read it when I started my career.
• hulitu 5y ago
  The Tao of Programming https://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html https://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html
• cafard 5y ago
  Gerald Weinberg's Secrets of Consulting and Becoming a Technical Leader are worth a look, as is his The Psychology of Computer Programming. Also Peopleware by Lister and DeMarco.
• astockwell 5y ago
  Atomic Habits - If you’ve ever had trouble making a good habit/routine stick, or making a bad habit stop, this book frames habits and their cause-effect relationships in a way I haven’t seen elsewhere, and in ways that I think about almost daily.
  • browningstreet 5y ago
    Yes to this. I’ll add: The Four Agreements
• popcube 5y ago
  try to something about Mindfulness-based stress reduction. this a "new" thing borrowed from Buddhism
• yboris 5y ago
  I think since communication is vital to any professional setting, one of the best impact-per-point-of-improvement may at first come from better communication. A great book that provides a framework for dealing with difficult conversations is Difficult Conversations, written by a team at Harvard that spent years on practicing and refining conflict-resolution. https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-What-Matters/dp/0143118447 https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-What-...
• deleted 5y ago
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