In this blog post, I’m going to try to cover my reading initiative. As you already know one of the difficult tasks in professional life is to find a balance to enhance or develop new skills. In today’s world, we’re lucky to reach all the information we need to get better at things we do. Several of those include learning new things, doing things more efficiently and finding the balance between work and life.

I get a lot of questions on the reading list that I had. When I started my own approach I really had no guidance. There were few recommendations but they were all related to the specific subject not broader plan that I could use. So I started my own learning program to learn how to read first.

I’ve given advice, list of books and often times examples from the books or digest of ideas from many books I’ve read. I don’t think I’ve read enough books yet but if someone tells you they’ve speed read a book in a week and they can repeat that for weeks maybe in months, please don’t take that as an example. It’s really not recommended.

In my opinion, a good book should be:

• Relevant to what you are trying to achieve in life.
• Easy to follow and understand clearly.
• Interesting and intriguing to your objectives.

Until and after you read a book, you will not know if the above is true. It’s also true that I’ve had a few disappointments myself due to different factors.

Where did I start to learn what books to read?

I can only think of one book straight out and recommend a great book by Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful . This book was not only a great beginner’s book, it was also exactly the purpose of the situation I was in. Interestingly enough, the order of the book that you will be reading will define the path you may follow. So I think this is the reason behind this blog post. I’ve had another adventure on Brain Rules. Not that it’s a wrong book or anything timing was not right. After reading several leadership books, you can easily find most information references what’s in this book. Both books are great and had me find my real journey to the rest of the grand plan.

I’ve continued with The Personal MBA. This book not only talks about what you’ve been doing wrong all along also comes with The 99 Best Business Books list. Basically, after subscribing Josh Kaufman’s email newsletter you get an email with this comprehensive list of books to read. Before moving on anything on this massive list grouped by different business subjects it’s wise to read his second book advised. The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything . . . Fast! 

Once you start with the above information, you will have a pretty good idea to pursue to focus on what you want to achieve.

Here’s a list of the top 10 books that had an impact on my business life:

1. The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less
2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
3. Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win
4. Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal
5. Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds
6. The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues
7. Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose
8. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
9. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
10. Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box

The order may vary by purpose and person. Again remember the idea is to figure out what’s out there and focus on purpose. This is not the full list of books I can recommend rather a give you guidance.

If you are a slow reader, maybe start with this 10 Days to Faster Reading: Jump-Start Your Reading Skills with Speed reading. I prefer Audible – Audiobooks & Podcasts. Audible mobile apps allow offline versions of audiobooks, which are perfect for long flights without the internet. Audible is also a space saver during travel due to baggage limits. I carry all my technical books in a cloud drive where I can pull offline if needed. So Audible solves this problem by bringing non-technical books to my iPad/iPhone. Cloud sync also allows devices to remember where you left off.

At the time of writing this blog post, I’ve been reading Business Model You: A One-Page Method For Reinventing Your Career and was pretty impressed by its content. In conclusion, reading self-development books is helpful in business and personal life but not enough. Eat healthy, exercise, and enjoy work-life balance to achieve greater success.

           The workaholism is one of the biggest problems where professionals face challenges between work and life balance. It is self-destroying inner impact to working people eventually spreading side effects to family, friends and even colleagues.

            The overwhelming pressure at work or in today’s terms ‘want to be the company’s rock star’ along with perfection instinct can bring serious consequences.Once, it leads to make one workaholic rather than a self-disciplined hard worker, the impact to person’s surroundings is irreversible.

            Experts and researchers in this area of work life balance and addictive working found out that, generally people forced to adult responsibilities in early ages ends up being a workaholic. They feel in need of doing everything themselves and become self sufficient while controlling surroundings (The Workaholics).  Moreover they will turn in to a person they aren’t meant for. Responsibilities may come from loss of family member to an individual in very early ages. The scenarios leading to taking too many responsibilities on early ages will eventually start causing physical and mental breakdowns. Furthermore some of mental side effects may turn in to anger management issue as well.

            While there’s a need for professional help on finding out whether one is a workaholic or not, it is clear if following symptoms exists;

• Excessive worries about work and deadlines.
• Intense work style, always feeling pressured.
• Being state of panic and watched at all times.
• Far away from teamwork environment.

There is a possibility leading to become workaholic if not already in process. As always one other method determining a workaholic is whether they accept being one or not.  If an individual worker showing signs of workaholism but refuses when asked, he/she is usually a workaholic.

            There are many ways to have a good work and life balance starting for limiting work hours. It is also very important to work efficiently during business hours by avoiding unnecessary distractions. Small but seriously time consuming events add up during the day and in total, consume a lot of unrecoverable time. Focusing on work with self-discipline will help getting work done in timely manner and will avoid extensive overtime. Addictive but short-lived interactions such as extensive gaming, smart-phones, tablets and Internet takes quality time away from family, friends and natural beauties surrounding us.  Healthy living is the key for success at work. It can easily be achieved with quality food, exercising and a complete good night’s sleep. 

            In conclusion to avoid becoming a workaholic follow simple steps of healthy living and question constantly what is important is in life. The answer is always be enjoying the life as much as possible with loved ones.

 References:

                        The Workaholics  (Killinger , n.d) Understanding the Dynamics of Workaholism, Retrieved from, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-workaholics/201112/understanding-the-dynamics-workaholism

                        Treatment for Workaholics (Addiction Treatment Magazine,  2009) Treatment for Workaholics, Retrieved from, http://www.addictiontreatmentmagazine.com/addiction/treatment-for-workaholics/