Accidentally in Code

Tag: books

  • Book: Essentialism

    Book: Essentialism

    essentialismEssentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (Amazon) is about what you don’t do. It’s about accepting the reality that you can’t be great at everything, ruthlessly prioritising, and saying no.

    I found it a useful book to follow Better Than Before with, because it dived into the thing Better than Before made me think about most: what was I doing that I shouldn’t be? Was I going along with other people’s priorities out of some misplaced sense of obligation? If I stopped doing that… what would that look like?

    There were a few places in it though where I wondered how applicable the advice is to people who aren’t white men. The whole “just say no, people will respect you for it!” – when it comes to things like work for the collective, when women do it, it’s unappreciated. When they don’t… they are not a team player (see: Women Don’t Ask for more on this).

    In the manner of most productivity porn it’s “you too will be successful if you follow this simple advice” and sure “say no to things” sounds simple, but 1) negotiation is hard and 2) so is loss aversion.

    Anyway I thought it was worth a read. It encouraged me to think about how to focus more, and be more willing to say no to things.

  • Book: Better than Before

    Book: Better than Before

    better than beforeI’ve been reading Gretchen Rubin‘s blog for a long time, including (I think) the whole time she was writing this book, so wasn’t sure how much I would get from reading Better than Before. A lot of the ideas in it I’d seen in her blog, but actually having it all in one place at one time was a helpful prompt for me to think about my habits. Bonus: one of my friends was reading it at the same time which made for a spontaneous book club! We made time on a Sunday afternoon to video-chat about it.

    One of the most helpful ideas in there was this one of “questioner”, “rebel”, “obliger”, “upholder” which is about what prompts you to get things done – because you consider it and deem it worthwhile, because you feel like it, because other people want to, because of any kind of commitment. I’m a questioner. Questioners come with either rebel or obliger tendencies, and I couldn’t decide which I had! This prompted me to spend May trying to eliminate my obliger tendencies, something I called #choosememay. In May I made a point of when it came to a decision between myself and some imaginary obligation, I chose myself. It was amazing. I’ve been trying to keep parts of that with me once the month ended, with mixed success.

    The focus is on finding what works for you. This caused me to realise things like the reason why I have never got a morning gym habit going for long is that I like working out in the evening too much (it allows me to disconnect from my day). I see morning workouts as an opportunity to do a double, not replace my evening me-time. So for example I’ll miss a morning workout because “now I’ll have to work out this evening” when the truth is I just want to work out in the evening. As a result I started to experiment with breaking my workout in two, and doing half in the morning and half in the evening. This worked really well and I super enjoyed it, but did eat into my work day a bit. Still working on finding a balance there.

    Another type is whether you are an abstainer or moderator. Do you abstain completely? Or do you moderate and have a little? A friend and I talked about things where we will say abstain for part of the day. For example: no carbs after 2pm. Reflecting on this I realised something that sounds really obvious – if you are a moderator you have to actually moderate, and these “partial abstention” strategies are actually strategies for moderation. This has also prompted me to look for ways to moderate. For example with food not finishing things I’m not enjoying, and reminding myself “I had X earlier” which is a more positive framing than “I shouldn’t have that”.

    Loopholes – the excuses we make to ourselves to justify our choices – are a big topic! And as a result I’ve also been thinking more about the excuses I make. Maybe it’s also turning 30, but when I catch myself I think about how this is my life, not a loophole. It’s making it easier to make good choices.

    There’s a quote “habits are the foundation of our lives” and it’s true. Better than Before is worth reading – it’s inspired me to be more mindful of the foundation of my life.

  • Book: Data Driven

    Book: Data Driven

    datadrivenData Driven is about how to fit Data Science into your company. It’s strategic rather than tactical.

    Has a brief overview of the history of Data Science, including facts like Walmart was the first company to embrace data science starting in the 80s.

    One of the most interesting aspects I found was stories from turning LinkedIn into a data driven company, moving from a Data Science org to embedding Data Scientists in teams, but aiming to have 2-3 together (single ones get lonely).

    It’s a quick read so if you’re interested in Data Science, especially how it fits in to an organisation, I think it’s worthwhile.

  • Book: Just Fucking Ship

    Book: Just Fucking Ship

    jfsIn this spirit of “just fucking ship” Just Fucking Ship, the book, was written in 24 hours (although it has been edited and updated since then).

    There’s a dinner party metaphor worked throughout which I didn’t connect with because I don’t cook. But essentially it’s about: break things down, work backwards, and don’t make your goals (or tasks) so big that you’re intimidated to start working on them.

    It reads like a series of motivational blog posts designed to make whatever it is you’re working on shipping seem more possible. I think it worked, but I guess we’ll see!

     

  • Book – APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur

    Book – APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur

    APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book

    The main thing I got from APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book (Amazon) was that writing a book was much more possible than I had thought. This was mainly the “publisher” section which breaks down how to get your work into people’s hands, what self publishing entails, and what the options are.

    I don’t remember much of the “author” section other than you need to write (no kidding!). The entrepreneur section focuses on social media and refers to Enchantment a lot. 

    Anyway if you are contemplating writing a book and self publishing this is worth a read, or at least the publisher section.

  • Book: Wear Sunscreen: A Primer for Real Life

    Book: Wear Sunscreen: A Primer for Real Life

    sunscreenOf course I had heard the song “Sunscreen” and thought that it was advice from Baz Luhrmann himself, but I came across this book – Wear Sunscreen: A Primer for Real Life – by Mary Schmich. Who it turns out was the author. It opened explaining what happened, and how she was erased from her creation and how it was attributed to various men. Then followed the text. I have heard the song so many times, but when I read it I thought – “how could I have thought that this was written by a man?”

    It’s a short read, and you can find the text for free on the internet. The benefit of buying it was this perspective, and also making a financial contribution to recognising the woman who wrote it. I’m glad I did.

  • Book: Hot Seat

    Book: Hot Seat

    hot seat - dan shapiroI’ve been talking to Dan online for a while now, mostly about women in tech stuff, and I have frequently thought that he (being a 4x startup CEO, and having made this really cool game) is the kind of person who I could get a lot of useful advice from… if I knew what to ask.

    Thing is, I didn’t know what to ask. So I had this vague idea that eventually I would stop by Seattle again, grab coffee and hopefully pick up a bunch of insight.

    But thankfully he wrote a book! And sent me a preview copy! So now I don’t need to go to Seattle. Because it contained all the wisdom and answers to questions that I didn’t know to ask.

    So the book is Hot Seat (Amazon). And it’s about being a startup CEO, although I think it’s useful for anyone who wants to understand what goes on in the startup world, or who works at a startup.

    It’s really good. So good that I read it in a 6 point font (PDFs on Kindle – ai!) in about a week. It’s full of information – like what is a cap table? Where should you incorporate? (DELAWARE) What is convertable debt? What does a CEO actually do? Most of all it is full of stories, some of them Dan’s, some about other people. And, I love this, many of these stories are about women.

    I loved the Hard Thing About Hard Things (Amazon) [my review], and noticed the effort that was gone to to use “she” throughout, but also noticed that almost no women featured in the book, and then not in a professional context (e.g. he writes a bit about his wife). Dan included some wisdom from his mom about communicating (and it’s really good) but also a ton of stories of female founders, and co-founders, and CTOs, doing their thing and being awesome.

    Finally, masterful use of footnotes. I was so inspired by this that I have actually started using them.

    The best book I have read in quite some time, I totally recommend it, and you should absolutely buy it and read it. Unless you’re on the long list of people I have made a note to buy it for…

     

  • Book: Confessions of a Public Speaker

    Book: Confessions of a Public Speaker

    Confessions of a Public Speaker I kept meaning  to buy Confessions of a Public Speaker (Amazon) because I read his blog, and I finally got around to it.

    Part of the reason I was slow to buy it was because I think I ingest all the speaking advice I can already.

    Turns out, this book is mostly not advice – it’s a collection of stories about his own experiences. I really liked it for that, it was an insight into that kind of life. In the end the main piece of advice is to practice, with some blunt honesty on why people don’t. My favourite part were the stories of disaster, which were hilarious, (in the appendix).

    Main thing that bothered me was constant use of he, including in what to wear. This happened pretty often – every chapter – and each time I felt like this wasn’t really a book for me? Most of it still applies… But not all.

    On the whole whether I recommend it depends on how much that would bother you. Sometimes that really winds me up and sometimes I can deal with it, and fortunately I read it when I was in the second kind of mood.

  • Book: The Eloquent Woman’s Guide to Moderating Panels

    Book: The Eloquent Woman’s Guide to Moderating Panels

    The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels

    As a long time reader of The Eloquent Woman blog, of course I bought Denise’s book, The Eloquent Woman’s Guide to Moderating Panels (Amazon) almost as soon as it came out, and only waited a couple of weeks to read it!

    I’m not a fan of panels because so often they are bad, so it’s great to have a resource on how to do them better.

    The parts I found most useful were:

    • The step by step guide to preparing as a moderator – I read it contemplating my first moderator gig and having no idea what to do! (It fell through, so now I’ll have to look for another opportunity to use what I learned.)
    • The set of exercises and questions to make the panel less generic.
    • Ways to interrupt! Which let’s be honest is useful for women in meetings, too.

    The book is targeted at the moderator, but could also be useful for being a good panelist because it’s packed full of tips. I highly recommend reading it if you are involved in any kind of panel.