10 Books EVERY Student Should Read - Essential Book Recommendations
Hey,
what is up guys? So, I have got some book recommendations for you today and I
am doing these in the middle of the summer so for those of you who want to get
ahead before the school semester starts. You'll have at least a month and a
half. Right, Martin? About two months, maybe? So, I've got 10 books. 10 books
that I think every student should read, starting with my favorite book from
last year which is Deep Work by Cal Newport.
This
book is at the top of my list because it tackles the number one problem that I
get emails, tweets and comments about. Which is, I can’t focus? I can't stop
procrastinating. I can't get into the flow of my work. And this is something I
struggle with just as much as most students and I think this book really helped
to point out the fact that when we get these cravings for novelty, cravings to
check our Snapchat or our Instagram, or just distract ourselves from our work
and we act on them. We're actually ingraining a habit and we're weakening that
focus muscle in our heads. And by contrast, by avoiding those distractions and
by sticking with our work we actually become more able to focus. And when that
was explicitly stated to me, I took it more seriously and I found it really,
really helpful in my work.
Book
number two on my list is a Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley. Now this is the
learning how to learn book. In fact, there's a course over on Coursera that you
can take for free called Learning How to Learn and it's created by the same
person and this book is basically the companion to it. And even though the
subtitle here is, How to Excel at Math and Science this really is a book about
general learning skills. Now, this book has a lot to offer so I can't really
summarize the whole thing here but a couple of the key lessons I took away from
the book. Were number
one, the process of memory formation how bits become
chunks. Which are essentially loosely grouped bundles of information that are
connected through meaning. And it talks about how to efficiently form those
chunks. And it also talks about the focused mode of thinking and the diffused
mode of thinking. Now, these are two complimentary forms of thinking. Focused mode
is what happens when you sit down and you focus on a problem with intensity and
you're mainly using your prefrontal cortex when you do this. But the diffused
mode of thinking is just as important and it uses a lot more of your brain and
it's kind of what happens when you background process a problem by taking a
break or sleeping on it. And a good example is, if you ever try to think of a
word and it's on the tip of your tongue but you just can't get it and then you
take a break, or you go for a walk, or you wake up from a nap later and it
comes to you. So, these two modes of thinking help you to solve problems in a
complimentary way and this books highlights the importance of taking breaks so
you can use that diffused mode just as much as the focused mode.
Third
book on my list is Getting from College to Career by Lindsey Pollak and I think
this is a great introduction to a lot of the career skills that you're gonna
need to be able to get a job or the job that you want after you graduate from
college. Now, I was gonna put So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport at
this spot in the list, but I've already talked about that book in the past. And
while that talks about that big overarching passion, hypothesis question. You
know, what do I do with my life? This book really gets into the details and
into the trenches of how to get a job and how to stand out amongst the
competition. Talks about interviewing, how to build a resume, how to build your
online web presence, all the skills you need to learn to be able to get that
job that you want.
Fourth
book on the list. Some of you definitely guessed it would be on here. The Power
of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Yes, I've talked about this book before but I
really think you should give it a read if you haven't done so already. And the
reason for that is that habits form so much of our behavior and when you know
how to intelligently build strong ones and break the ones that you don't wanna
have, that are hurting you then you're gonna be so much more successful and
you're not gonna be wasting as much of your limited willpower on the things you
wanna get done.
Book
number five on my list is Spark, the Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and
the Brain by Dr. John Ratey. And I'm recommending this book for two different
reasons. Number one, it is a surprisingly detailed introduction to how your
brain works on a biological level and I found that very interesting. But also,
for a certain subset of you out there the scientific explanation of how
exercise affects the way that you learn and can improve your overall brain
health can be a powerful motivator to get into the habit of exercising more
often. And, I know from experience that as a student or when you're just busy
in general it can be really tempting to put off exercising in lieu of giving
yourself more time to get your work done. But just like Cal Newport talks about
in Deep Work, the intensity of your focus times the time you put in, equals
your productivity. And when you don't exercise, you're robbing your brain's
ability to focus intensely and work efficiently at all. Book five point five,
Anime Club. 'Cause there could be no higher aspiration for a student than to
run their own anime club. Very serious recommendation right there.
Alright,
so the sixth book on my list is The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey. And
this book is my favorite general introduction to the concept of productivity. Now,
when most people think of productivity they think of time management, but in
this book Chris is very careful to stress that not all hours are created equal and
productivity is the product of your time, attention, and energy. So to that
end, the book goes through a ton of different productivity topics including
procrastination, how to focus on your tasks without getting distracted, how to
avoid multitasking, how to batch tasks, plan your day intelligently, and gets
into things like meditation. I also like how every chapter ends with a
challenge. So, if you wanna start putting things into action he gives you a lot
of direction to do so.
The
7th book on my list is The Happiness Equation by Neil Pasricha. I put this book
on my list because a lot of us aren't actually very good at knowing what's
going to make us truly happy when we're planning out our career goals or other
life goals. We might look at what society seems to value or we might trick
ourselves in different ways. But as Neil's research points out in this book a
lot of people who are rich, or in positions of power, executives of big
companies, they're not actually happy. Now this book goes through a lot of
different things and there's a lot to think about but one of the biggest
lessons that I took away personally from this book is that milestones don't
actually make us happy. And this is something that I've had to deal with quite
a bit in my life. I mean, if you look right down there at that subscriber count
that's something that I use as sort of a marker for my success in my YouTube
career. But, I remember the day when I hit 100,000 subscribers it didn't feel
any different. The bar just kind of moved to a million and it didn't make me
any happier. So, I realized that happiness actually comes from the fulfillment
in the work itself, not in the external rewards. And when you can internalize
that and accept it, you're gonna be a lot happier on a day to day basis.
Alright,
so we are now to book number eight in the list and that book is Steal the Show
by Michael Port. Which is a book all about communication. Now, a lot of this
book deals with how to give a great speech. How to prepare for it. How to
master your body language. How to get an ovation from the audience at the end. But
it also deals with a lot of interpersonal communication. Networking, job
interviews, negotiation tactics, and for that reason I think it's a great all
around communication skills book that you should read.
Book number nine is Your Money, The Missing Manual by J.D. Roth. This is a great introduction to personal finance. Now, there are a ton of personal finance books out there and I actually run a personal finance podcast myself so I can't tell you this is the best introduction to personal finance in the world but it's the one that I read and I found it very helpful for learning how to manage my money, how to pay off my debt faster, and how to start investing smartly.
And that brings us to my final pick on this list, my ultimate book
recommendation for you, which is, not actually any specific book at all. At
this point in the Article, I want to encourage you to go out and indulge your
interests. Productivity for productivity's sake is useless so you need to be
able to do something with all these personal development tips that you're
learning from all these books I'm recommending you. The problem is, a lot of
people who get interested in self-development, in productivity, they go too
narrow. They stick to the recommended lists by online gurus and they never
actually branch out and become experts in something unique. So, if you have an
interest, indulge it. Go read a book about the history of the telegraph and at
the next party you're at, you'll be able to tell a cool story that nobody else
will know. So, hopefully you're not too disappointed that I only really had
nine books on the list but I did think it was important to mention that at the
end. And, I'm gonna have List to all those books down in the end of article so
definitely check them out. Hopefully you found this Article helpful. Give it a
like if you did and I will Come up with some new list of books that I already
Read and working on to write summaries or Reviews for this Blog.
Books I mentioned:
1. Deep Work: Rules for
Focused Success in a Distracted World By Cal Newport
2. A Mind for Numbers:
How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra) By: Oakley PhD,
Barbara
3. Getting from College
to Career Rev Ed: Your Essential Guide To Succeeding In The Real World By:
Lindsey Pollak
4. The Power of Habit:
Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business By: Charles Duhigg
5. Spark: The
Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain By: John J. Ratey
6. The Productivity
Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy By:
Chris Bailey
7. The Happiness
Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything=Have Everything By: Neil Pasricha
8. Steal the Show: From
Speeches to Job Interviews to Deal-Closing Pitches, How to Guarantee a Standing
Ovation for All the Performances in Your Life By: Michael Port
9. Your Money: The
Missing Manual By: J.D. Roth
10. So Good They Can't Ignore
You: Why Skills Trump
Passion in the Quest for Work You Love By: Cal Newport
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