To Read 📕📘

How to Decide What to Read Next

Fun fact: The Mental Health Update started as a daily email newsletter with short posts that made mental health information accessible and practical. So I know a lot of you love to read.

But how do you decide what to read next?

Here's a tip from my own toolbox.

Bookmark a book category page on Amazon. 

Whether you love or hate Amazon, they are called The Everything Store For a Reason. They categorize the world's products.

When I was the chief operating officer of a local search engine optimization business, I bookmarked the "Business Systems and Planning Category to stay current with the top business books. Here's another example from what I'm currently focused on. The cool thing about this is that you can get as granular with it as you want.

Here's a category about Electron Microscopes and Microscopy, if that's your thing! 😯

Book Recommendations

Ok, you're tracking books, but how do you apply what you've learned?

Well, you need to be a taskmaster and get things done, of course.

The Power of Full Engagement teaches you to manage your energy and not your time. I really liked it because it's not your typical take on productivity. It's backed by tons of research and is chock full of practical examples and strategies. 10 out of 10.

My second recommendation this week is also about getting things done, but the focus is more theoretical and addresses a VERY important point: How do you even know what to do in the first place? I've learned that it's more important to first decide what the "right" things to do are before you get to work on simply doing things. The Effective Executive will help you think through that. Don't worry if you're not a business executive--anyone can learn from this great book. Peter Drucker is a business legend, and he has a great writing style.

To Use 🔧🔎

Maybe reading isn't your thing. Maybe you're more of a writer. Or maybe you've read so much that you now want to distill the lessons learned somewhere.

I've been using the minimalist online journal app, Reflection, since September 2021, and I absolutely love it. It introduced me to Holstee, which is a wonderful, intentional company that I've mentioned before.

I use Reflection because I wanted a tool that would just focus on the writing. I didn't want distractions. I didn't want fancy features. I wanted a simple experience that could allow me to journal each day in a minimalist way and tag my posts for later reference. 

The more I used this tool, the more I realized that the simple features are actually deceiving--they are actually quite powerful and a lot of thought was put into them. They also have a monthly and annual review feature that finally got me to stick with a monthly-review habit.

Taking Action with Your To-Do's

But Jordan, what do I do to get stuff done? 

Once again, I settled on something minimalist.

I love Todoist for tracking my tasks because it's so simple and I can use it where, whether I'm at my computer or on my phone. Their apps are seamless and so easy to use.

My final tool is for the visual folks out there. 

I constantly need to remind myself to share visual resources because I'm not a visual person at all. I can't see images in my mind's eye, and I think it's one of the big reasons I've never been drawn to decorating houses / rooms. I could basically live in a work in a drab jail cell of a room and be fine...

But...there is something incredible about Notion.

The tool is all the rage in the tech community, and you will see why. It makes it so easy to organize literally anything in a visual way. With simple text commands and a drag-and-drop interface, Notion could serve as a journal or as a knowledge base.

Check it out, and build something amazing.

To Listen and Think About 👂🧠

Suggestion From a Community Member that Inspired This Section Addressing Grief

A wonderful subscriber actually emailed me after the last newsletter and suggested I check out Commune, a website with an interesting take on spirituality.

She specifically suggested I consider this short audio course about grief from David Kessler. 

I think this topic is so important. The pandemic has hit so many families and individuals hard. And as a society, we don't talk about death and dying as people do in Eastern cultures.

Here's the description of Kessler's talk on grief:

If you think of grief as a river, you can better understand your experience with it. Maybe you tiptoe slowly into the river, or wade in it for a long time as a loved one is dying or your marriage is ending. Others are thrown into the river of grief with just one phone call, with the news that someone has died suddenly. No matter how you go about getting into the river, this hour-long excerpt from David's Commune course will help you understand: The river of grief will take you to your healing. It will take you where you need to go.

A Podcast I Listen to Almost Every Day Addressed Grief on Sunday

The New York Times puts out a brilliant daily podcast called The Daily (Creative...), and this week they had an episode about how complicated grief has become during the pandemic with so many people not being able to say goodbye to their loved ones in person.

They lead with the question, "What if there's no such thing as closure?" This can be a tough listen, so make sure you take care of yourself and consider where and what you're doing as you listen.