I end up suffering from information paralysis. I’ve got too many newsletters, too many books, and in the end, too many to-do lists.

This section of Emma by Jane Austen reminded me so much of myself:

“Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old. I have seen a great many lists of her drawing up at various times of books that she meant to read regularly through – and very good lists they were – very well chosen, and very neatly arranged – sometimes alphabetically, sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew up when only fourteen – I remember thinking it did her judgement so very much credit, that I preserved it some time; and I and I dare say she may have made out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting any course of steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to anything requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding.”

I’ve spent even more time lately making lists, as recommended by the good man David Allen, author of Getting Things Done and Ready for Anything. Perhaps one of the most striking things I’ve read by him is regarding getting things off your mind and onto paper.

“Stress comes from unkept agreements with yourself. You can relieve that stress only by canceling the agreement, keeping the agreement, or renegotiating it. But you can’t renegotiate agreements with yourself that you forgot you made. Because psychic RAM has no sense of past or future, things filed there push on you to be done all the time. They must be made conscious and kept so, to alleviate the pressure.”

Now that I’ve seen the list, I’m going to start letting a few things go. I’ve got a horrible habit of being a horder, so even letting information go is difficult. Starting today I will reduce the number of email newsletters I get and never read, and set aside assigned time to do things that are important to me.

I’ve never been reading “nothing!” in my life.

Help please! Recommend a book – quick!

No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.

Rice farmers worked throughout the course of the year – unlike European farmers who would rest, and essentially hibernate while the fields lay fallow. The rice farmers worked at side tasks during the off-season, making baskets and taking care of the fields so that they were prepared for the next growing season. During that season, they were in the fields starting before dawn, weeding and working.

The rice farmers not only worked hard, they had meaningful work that defined their lives. They figured out how to do things on their own, and perservered against the odds. They worked three thousand hours a year, and taught their children to do the same.

I’m not sure if I am striving to be like a rice farmer because I admire their 3000 hours of work (That’s 8.2 hours a day, 365 days a year), or their perserverence. Either way, I do love me some rice.

Sure, I’ve thought about what it does to the publisher, and the local retailer. But I also know that there’s rarely a day that I can find a space in the parking lot at my local Barnes & Noble that doesn’t require a bit of a walk. And often the books I order online are ones that either aren’t carried by the local store, or that I’m willing to wait for. When I want a book, and I want it right now, Barnes & Noble is still my first choice.

Thinking about it, I almost feel more guilty when I use the library. Granted, I pay my taxes to support the library, and will browse through the books at the giant “Friends of the Library” sales. But overall, copies of books in the library are read dozens if not hundreds of times, and the author only gets royalties for one sale. I’m not critizicing the library, and I certainly don’t want the library to start charging for books (which I’ve heard rumors about), but I can’t feel bad about buying a book for a few dollars cheaper when it saves it from the landfill. And maybe I’ll donate some of those used books to the library for more people to read. Rather than complaining about the economics of how people are getting books, I think we should be grateful that they’re still reading at all.

Well, after reading this, I honestly felt like it was OK to take some of those projects or activities and say “I’m not willing to put the time into doing that enough for me to be amazing at it. So its best for me to just not do it at all.”

I normally am not the type to gush about a book, and suggest that everyone I know read it, but this one I do.

Buy. Read. Change.

The Dip by Seth Godin

• A corporate lawyer (yes, even at 9 I wanted to be a corporate lawyer, not just a lawyer)
• President of the United States (at 10, I was securing votes from my mom’s college professors)
• A librarian (seriously, I thought that librarians got to read all the books in the library when there weren’t people who wanted to check out the books).

Now that I’m a bit older, and a bit wiser, I don’t want to be a laywer. I don’t want to go to law school. And after this debacle with the election, I’m 99.8% sure that I don’t want to be the President. That leaves being a librarian. And unfortunately, I’ve learned that librarians don’t get to read all the books. So, how in the world can I read all the books that I want? Well, easy. I’m going to start my own book review site. Everything I read, I’ll write a review. Maybe I’ll start reaching out to book publishers – if they send me copies of the books, I can guarantee I’ll write an honest review. And I’ll build a network of people who trust my reviewing abilities.

And maybe, someday, my job will be reading. In the meantime, I’m quite content in continuing at my day job, and spending my nights reading and writing.

Read it Forward

• The Ayn Rand Collection (mostly just the author in general)
• Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
• The Stranger
• George Orwell – 1984 and Animal Farm, most notably

And, of course the list goes on. There are quite a few that I haven’t read – which makes me wonder… why am I sitting here writing about the books I haven’t read instead of reading them?

The books from Lifehacker

Enjoy!

Eggs, Milk & Vodka

When I was younger and got CDs, I loved to read through the lyrics to songs. I mean, how else was I going to know the words to the Barenaked Ladies songs?

These liner notes have the lyrics as well, but I keep finding lyrics like “Your pedestal is falling down da da da da da da da da da da.” I’m sure that the “da da”s are actually in the song, but do they need to be in the liner notes? Do they really add to the poetic quality that songs should have? Or are they simply to be a melodious enhancement to the composition?

Either way, now I remember why I don’t read the liner notes very often.