I am an avid reader. I wanted to share some of the books that that have impacted me most greatly and a few of the key insights that I got from them.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (book | website) is one of the books whose principles define many of the books below. While I was a goal setter prior to reading this, I started to understand SMART goals better, becoming less scattershot.

• Beginning with the end in mind made me define my roles and create a mission statement.
• The circle of influence helped me to think about where to focus my attention.
• The Urgent vs Important quadrant made me think about my tasks within my circle of influence to know which ones I should be doing.

Getting Things Done by David Allen (book | website) is my favorite productivity book, and was my next step beyond the Franklin-Covey tools. One of the key points is the need to “empty your mind,” which means actually getting everything that you need to do in a system. By doing that, I was able to collect everything that needs done by a category or project. This reminded me of my project management training and breaking the larger projects down into smaller tasks. This even involved the routine of task review becoming more detailed, involving not just work tasks but what I wanted to do personally.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (book | website | podcast) was recommended by several leaders I read or listened to (Michael Hyatt and Seth Godin being two of them) which drove me to pick it up. I was enamored from the time I heard his story of why he wrote it. “Essentialism isn’t about doing more things, it’s about doing more of the right things.” One of my favorite podcasts right now. It has me asking questions about my goal setting, dreaming, and best yeses.

The One Thing by Gary Keller (book | website | podcast) I found out about from The Essentialism podcast. He has a key focusing question to make sure our purpose and priority are in line: “What’s the one thing I can do such that by oing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary.” Still working through a part of this as I finalize my 2021 goals, so more to come here. It is helping me to refine my mission statement and is bringing it into one solid focus.

Linchpin by Seth Godin (book | blog | podcast) is my favorite of his books. I read his blog regularly, short and to the point, and his podcast will make you think. Early in my career I would keep my head down and hope that things would pass by me. I was challenged to become critical to the organization I was in, to stand up and be noticed. This has put my career on a very different trajectory by not staying in the shadows.

Two books that I have read this year that have made an impact are Conscious Business by Fred Kofman (book | website) and Start with Why by Simon Sinek (book | website). Both books can be read from both a business perspective as well as from a leadership perspective. They encourage some of the same things in having a clear mission that is centered around values that YOU have defined for yourself.

Have any of these books struck a chord with you? What insights did you gain? Any books that you would add to this list?