I was inspired by Steve's habit of reading at least one useful book per week, and I've decided to set the same goal for myself. In an effort to both give back to the community and provide some accountability for myself, I've decided to start the Book of the Week club.

The idea is that we have a schedule of books. Those who wish can read the book for that week, and then we can discuss it. I doubt many of you will want to read every book every week, but you are welcome to if you want. If you have previously read one of the books and want to discuss it, that's great also. I'm interested in personal improvement, marketing, and workflow. I'll probably stay away from things like food for the time being.

The basic idea is to aggressivly move to higher and higher circles, as Steve talks about in this post (http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1652).

Here is my reading list, which will get me almost to the end of the year. I'm also open to suggestions. Most of these are available at the library if you're short on cash (but buy David Michael's book). Again, participate at whatever level you're comfortable with. If you're not a very fast reader, start a week or two ahead on a particular book so you can discuss it with us.

Getting Things Done - David Allen
Organizing From The Inside Out - Julie Morgenstern
Purple Cow - Seth Godin
Indie Survival Guide - David Michael
Millionaire Course - Marc Allen
The Time Trap - Alec Mackenzie
Getting Everything You Can... - Jay Abraham

If anyone has some suggestions for a book that will help a left-brained, logic-oriented guy like me to think creativity and artistically, I'd be grateful.

EDIT - oops. Forgot to mention that I'll wait a day or three for people who are interested to locate David Allen's book and then get started. So next Wednesday will be the start of the discussion thread.

I like this idea. Just read Getting Things Done myselft last month. Why don't you give us a short snippet about the other books so people can make a decision about which books they'd be interested in? A couple from my reading pile:

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
-- supposedly a "classic" about human interactions and basic psychology

Unlimited Power - Tony Robbins
-- haha... why not!? For those of you unfamiliar with him, Mr. Robbins is a motivational speaker, you may have seen him on an informacial or two. :) He advocates the idea of NLP, or neuro-lingquistic programming. I'd tell you what that means, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

wish i could, but an amazon delivery to israel takes 3 weeks (unless i want to pay 30$ for an express delivery). :(

Unlimited Power - Tony Robbins


I thought about adding that one to the list, but I don't think it can be read in a week. :)

-- Pyabo --
Why don't you give us a short snippet about the other books so people can make a decision about which books they'd be interested in?


Good idea! My explanations might be a bit sketchy, so I've included an Amazon link for each book so you can see what the pros have to say.

Getting Things Done - David Allen (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0142000280/qid=1067905524/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-6322739-2313756?v=glance&n=507846)
- Workflow organization. How to organize everything you need to do to make sure that it all gets done. This book has been discussed a little on the forums already.

Organizing From The Inside Out - Julie Morgenstern (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805056491/qid=1067905696/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-6322739-2313756)
- Everything else organization. Steve talks about this book in his article Clean up that mess! (http://www.dexterity.com/articles/clean-up.htm)

Purple Cow - Seth Godin (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/159184021X/qid=1067905816/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-6322739-2313756)
- Be better by being remarkable. Or more accurately, have a better business by having a remarkable business.

Indie Survival Guide - David Michael (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1584502142/qid=1067905938/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-6322739-2313756?v=glance&s=books)
- The practical side of indie game development from our own DavidRM. Covers team building, design documents, life cycles, and much more.

Millionaire Course - Marc Allen (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1577312325/qid=1067906051/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-6322739-2313756)
- How to get everything you want out of life without killing yourself in the process.

The Time Trap - Alec Mackenzie (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/081447926X/qid=1067906162/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-6322739-2313756)
- A practical guide for time management. Identifies specific time wasting activities and how to combat them. Goes along nicely with Getting Things Done.

Getting Everything You Can... - Jay Abraham (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312284543/qid=1067906235/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-6322739-2313756)
- From Amazon: "Abraham believes that anyone can advance in life by tapping into hidden assets and developing the right mindset."

I know, replying to one's own post is kind of lame.

But this has really got me thinking. The average college semester is what, 16 weeks? If you made a commitment to read 16 books in 16 weeks, where would that put you with respect to college in terms of real knowledge? Information that is specifically targeted at what you want to learn about and not what some curriculum says you should learn.

I'm not so sure now about some recent comments (http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13671#post13671) that I've made. I'll give it 16 weeks and see how that compares to the semester I'm in now. A sort of long range A-B test. :)

Book of the WEEK club!?!?!?!? Oh yeah! Sure! Make your own little exclusive club that us slow readers can't participate in :) That's alright. I predicted you were going to do this, so I started reading Organizing From The Inside Out 4 or 5 days ago (good book so far). I'll be ready for you! And after that, I've already got "Getting Everything You Can" on my desk, next in line.

Awesome idea. Not sure if I'll have a chance to participate in all of them but I'll definitely try. 16 books in 16 weeks sounds pretty life altering. :)

@Siebharinn: how about changing that to Biweekly? (in favour of those who have studies/work/weekend-loggers/slowreaders)

I don't have THAT much time to read, but I started DavidRM's book a couple weeks ago so I'll be ready for that one. Also I would like to add Pour Your Heart Into It, by Howard Schultz (starbucks).

-Bruno

Hmmmm... "Book of the fortnight" doesn't quite have the same ring to it, but it's probably a good idea. Gives us more time to acquire the books as wel.

Originally posted by Pyabo
Hmmmm... "Book of the fortnight" doesn't quite have the same ring to it, but it's probably a good idea. Gives us more time to acquire the books as wel.

That's actually an awesome title :)

I've always wanted a website where people could post a summary of all the chapters of a book. Most of the non-technical books IMO can be condensed quite well without loss of subject matter.

It would be nice if that happens.

I really don't like the idea of slowing down, because part of the benefit of this exercise is the discipline gained from actually doing it. If you don't want to go at that pace, that's ok with me, read every other book (or every third one). That will also give you more time to aquire the books.

Originally posted by Siebharinn
I really don't like the idea of slowing down, because part of the benefit of this exercise is the discipline gained from actually doing it.
There is no discipline in following a particular time schedule (1 week versus 1 month). The discipline is in following a set time schedule, whichever schedule you choose. As I imagine most of us do indie work + full time job + other responsibilities, I suspect a book per week is a bit much for most. Doesn't matter to me either way though, since I'll probably only be reading a handful of those....probably only 1 every 2-4 weeks (I'm not doing it for the discipline, I'm doing it for the knowledge). Just make sure you keep at least a months worth of books lined up at all times. That way, everyone should have more than enough time to order the books.

I'm personnally going towards the Game of the week ;) ( make one game a week :rolleyes: )
</joke>

pat.

This sounds like a nifty idea, but I also wonder if the weekly pace is too much... not just for acquiring the books and reading them, but could it affect the discussion too? Does a week give enough time to discuss the ideas that come from reading the book? Just a thought, I'd probably only participate occasionally anyway.

Some other books you might like to consider adding:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671708635)
The E-Myth Revisited - Michael E Gerber (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0887307280)

I also like Soloing by Harriet Rubin (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0066620147) but it's more a book to read while you're still considering whether to work for yourself, not so much for after you've started working solo.

- LordKronos -
There is no discipline in following a particular time schedule (1 week versus 1 month). The discipline is in following a set time schedule, whichever schedule you choose. As I imagine most of us do indie work + full time job + other responsibilities, I suspect a book per week is a bit much for most. Doesn't matter to me either way though, since I'll probably only be reading a handful of those....probably only 1 every 2-4 weeks (I'm not doing it for the discipline, I'm doing it for the knowledge).

I'm doing it for the knowledge as well. The discipline comes from setting an aggressive goal and following through on it. Anyone can read a book in a month. It takes some resolve to read one in a week.



- SyneRyder -
Does a week give enough time to discuss the ideas that come from reading the book?

The discussions aren't limited to a week, those can go on indefinately. I imagine that most of the information gained will take some amount of time before you see any real benefit. If we read a book on organizing our work environment, it will still take some time to get that environment organized, it doesn't happen immediately. Same thing with marketing, it will take some time after the book to see improvements. I believe that discussions can be worthwhile during that time.

I hadn't heard of E-Myth, but the Covey book is one that I've wanted.

Originally posted by Pyabo
[ How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
-- supposedly a "classic" about human interactions and basic psychology

Unlimited [/B]

I'm In and ive already read this book, its almost been a year and i'm going to re-read it soon!

totally changed the way i deal with people!

Well Siebharinn, your are certainly free to set the pace... just keep in mind that no one else is going to be able to keep up with you, so there may be very little actual "discussion." Why don't we plan on biweekly for the discussions and then you can read ahead or read something else off your list for the off weeks?

Well...I don't like the thought of losing the potentially huge benefit of community discussion any more than I like slowing down.

How about this? Let's take the list of books at the beginning of the thread and read/discuss them on a fortnight basis. There are a lot of books in the world, and I'll just find other books to read during the off weeks. I'll periodically post that list as well, so if there is a book on there that people want to read and discuss, I'll make sure to fit it in on the on weeks.

Does that seem reasonable?

EDIT - Jeez Pyabo, I just realized that my "idea" was exactly the same as yours, just worded a little differently. So..uh...yeah! Let's do it your way! :)

The revised discussion schedule is as follows:
11/21 - Getting Things Done
12/05 - Organizing From The Inside Out
12/19 - Purple Cow
01/02 - Indie Survival Guide
01/16 - Millionaire Course
01/30 - The Time Trap
02/13 - Getting Everything You Can...

That gives you two and a half weeks to find and read "Getting Things Done", with a new discussion every two weeks after that.

Sometime in early January we can extend the list based on recommendations (which have been good so far) and go from there.

Excellent! Now be sure to put "start the Getting Things Done" discussion on a particular day of your calendar. But I'm getting ahead of things... :)

I'll make sure to make the thread stickey.

When will the discussion start? im on the last chapter right now.

what a great book! i cant believe how much this will make a difference, I feel like ive been thrashing latley and this book already described so many situations that have happened to me.

Great book, thanks for putting this on the list I needed it badly!:)

- SpikeSpiegel -
When will the discussion start?

This Friday.

EDIT - Woohoo!! My 300th post! I have no life! :)

Just ordered the first book...looking forward to seeing how this book club works out.

Originally posted by simonh
Just ordered the first book...looking forward to seeing how this book club works out.

I'm really glad I read this first book, I thought I had a system for making notes on what I need to do, but this book totally looks at WHY you would do such a thing then gives you advice on doing it more effectively so its helps you, plus he puts it in computer terms;)

I'm really hyped up about this book thing!

So what does everyone think of "getting things done"? I'm very happy I read this book, Im playing around with what my system is going to be.

I've download the demo for ActionOutline (Steve made a post on this), and I'm going to try to store my nextAction list in there, I will collect and process all of my open-loops in paper format but I think my offical list will be stored on my PC.

I cranked through my inbox last night and I got soooo much stuff done, how energizing:D

Don't answer here, I'm starting a new thread. I figured that we'd keep one thread per book, for ease of reference in the future.

How long will these discussions last? I have GTD and Purple Cow on the way, but Amazon.ca predicts arrival 3rd week of January :mad:

There's no reason why the discussions ever have to stop. The content of many of the books will take a while to implement and perfect, so I imagine that people will want to revisit the discussions from time to time.

Glad to hear that! I was worried I would miss out on all the books.

Originally posted by Lizardsoft
How long will these discussions last? I have GTD and Purple Cow on the way, but Amazon.ca predicts arrival 3rd week of January :mad:

they have 3 copies of purple cow and one copy of gtd in the chapters in northern london, heh its a small book i just grabbed a coffee and read it in two sittings

I've never been able to adjust to the concept of reading in a book store (also not a fan of Starbucks). I wasn't able to find Purple Cow at Chapters though and Amazon generally only takes a week or so. Anyway the January estimate must have been a mistake because I got a wonderful package today!

And for those of us in the US who have a library card...

www.netlibrary.com

Since our city libraries are pretty backwater, and right now you freeze your nubs off when you go outside, this is a great thing for me!

Although it doesn't have all the latest books I'd like, I've found quite a few good ones there.

Anthony

[edit]
I guess it's *not* just for the Ami's...

Hey wheres the discussion for the Indie Survival guide??