AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Provocative and appealing . . . well worth your extremely limited time." —Barbara Spindel, The Wall Street Journal The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks. Nobody needs telling there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction; and we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, and “life hacks” to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks. Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern fixation on “getting everything done,” Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing how many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.
Self-help books don't seem to work. Few of the many advantages of modern life seem capable of lifting our collective mood. Wealth—even if you can get it—doesn't necessarily lead to happiness. Romance, family life, and work often bring as much stress as joy. We can't even agree on what "happiness" means. So are we engaged in a futile pursuit? Or are we just going about it the wrong way? Looking both east and west, in bulletins from the past and from far afield, Oliver Burkeman introduces us to an unusual group of people who share a single, surprising way of thinking about life. Whether experimental psychologists, terrorism experts, Buddhists, hardheaded business consultants, Greek philosophers, or modern-day gurus, they argue that in our personal lives, and in society at large, it's our constant effort to be happy that is making us miserable. And that there is an alternative path to happiness and success that involves embracing failure, pessimism, insecurity, and uncertainty—the very things we spend our lives trying to avoid. Thought-provoking, counterintuitive, and ultimately uplifting, The Antidote is the intelligent person's guide to understanding the much-misunderstood idea of happiness.
To live or to be lived... that's the question! 'It was the day that changed my life. But of course I had no clue about that when it happened. I sat that day on a bench in Stanley Park, Vancouver. And I had never felt so sad... so very sad... My life had become a bad dream, almost a horror movie... I still couldn't believe that the angry young man I was only two decades ago, had become such a misery... in poor health... substantially overweighted... income too low, debt too high... And always tired... so tired!' With these words starts Jeffrey Tamson's amazing story. Words that could have been spoken by many millions all over the globe. But then the miracle happens: an unexpected encounter triggers a series of events in which Jeffrey discovers 'the way back home', as he calls it. He discovers the astonishing results of recent brain and DNA research, that prove the tremendous opportunities we human beings have to live a great live! He learns how our mind functions and finds, in an amazingly short span of time, the major principles for living a happy, healthy and wealthy life. Jeffrey's compelling and encouraging story blends scientific facts with practical wisdom and the art of life. This book can be your encounter with a bright future... Edition: monochrome
In a rousing account of one of the critical turning points in American history, Through the Perilous Fight tells the gripping story of the burning of Washington and the improbable last stand at Baltimore that helped save the nation and inspired its National Anthem. In the summer of 1814, the United States of America teetered on the brink of disaster. The war it had declared against Great Britain two years earlier appeared headed toward inglorious American defeat. The young nation’s most implacable nemesis, the ruthless British Admiral George Cockburn, launched an invasion of Washington in a daring attempt to decapitate the government and crush the American spirit. The British succeeded spectacularly, burning down most of the city’s landmarks—including the White House and the Capitol—and driving President James Madison from the area. As looters ransacked federal buildings and panic gripped the citizens of Washington, beleaguered American forces were forced to regroup for a last-ditch defense of Baltimore. The outcome of that “perilous fight” would help change the outcome of the war—and with it, the fate of the fledgling American republic. In a fast-paced, character-driven narrative, Steve Vogel tells the story of this titanic struggle from the perspective of both sides. Like an epic novel, Through the Perilous Fight abounds with heroes, villains, and astounding feats of derring-do. The vindictive Cockburn emerges from these pages as a pioneer in the art of total warfare, ordering his men to “knock down, burn, and destroy” everything in their path. While President Madison dithers on how to protect the capital, Secretary of State James Monroe personally organizes the American defenses, with disastrous results. Meanwhile, a prominent Washington lawyer named Francis Scott Key embarks on a mission of mercy to negotiate the release of an American prisoner. His journey will place him with the British fleet during the climactic Battle for Baltimore, and culminate in the creation of one of the most enduring compositions in the annals of patriotic song: “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, the burning of Washington was a devastating national tragedy that ultimately united America and renewed its sense of purpose. Through the Perilous Fight combines bravura storytelling with brilliantly rendered character sketches to recreate the thrilling six-week period when Americans rallied from the ashes to overcome their oldest adversary—and win themselves a new birth of freedom. Praise for Through the Perilous Fight “Very fine storytelling, impeccably researched . . . brings to life the fraught events of 1814 with compelling and convincing vigor.”—Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of An Army at Dawn “Probably the best piece of military history that I have read or reviewed in the past five years. . . . This well-researched and superbly written history has all the trappings of a good novel. . . . No one who hears the national anthem at a ballgame will ever think of it the same way after reading this book.”—Gary Anderson, The Washington Times “[Steve] Vogel does a superb job. . . . [A] fast-paced narrative with lively vignettes.”—Joyce Appleby, The Washington Post “Before 9/11 was 1814, the year the enemy burned the nation’s capital. . . . A splendid account of the uncertainty, the peril, and the valor of those days.”—Richard Brookhiser, author of James Madison “A swift, vibrant account of the accidents, intricacies and insanities of war.”—Kirkus Reviews
Discover 10 Essential Ways to Make the Most of Your Time "Time is money," as the saying goes, but most of us never feel we have enough of either. In Master Your Time, Master Your Life, internationally acclaimed productivity expert and bestselling author Brian Tracy presents a brilliant new approach to time management that will help you gain control of your time and accomplish far more, faster and more easily than you ever thought possible. Drawing on the latest research in productivity science and Tracy's decades of expertise, this breakthrough program allocates time into ten categories of priority--including strategic planning/goal setting, people and family, income improvement, rest/relaxation, and even creative time--and reveals the best techniques for focusing on each effectively. By thoughtfully applying the principles in Master Your Time, Master Your Life, you'll not only achieve greater results and reach your goals more quickly and successfully, you'll also have more time to devote to what you truly love.
How do you solve the problem of human happiness? It’s a subject that has occupied some of the greatest philosophers of all time, from Aristotle to Paul McKenna – but how do we sort the good ideas from the terrible ones? Over the past few years, Oliver Burkeman has travelled to some of the strangest outposts of the ‘happiness industry’ in an attempt to find out. In Help!, the first collection of his popular Guardian columns, Burkeman presents his findings. It’s a witty and thought-provoking exploration that punctures many of self-help’s most common myths, while also offering clear-headed, practical and of ten counter-intuitive advice on a range of topics from stress, procrastination and insomnia to wealth, laughter, time management and creativity. It doesn’t claim to have solved the problem of human happiness. But it might just bring us one step closer.
The guide to shortening your execution cycle down from one year to twelve weeks Most organizations and individuals work in the context of annual goals and plans; a twelve-month execution cycle. Instead, The 12 Week Year avoids the pitfalls and low productivity of annualized thinking. This book redefines your "year" to be 12 weeks long. In 12 weeks, there just isn't enough time to get complacent, and urgency increases and intensifies. The 12 Week Year creates focus and clarity on what matters most and a sense of urgency to do it now. In the end more of the important stuff gets done and the impact on results is profound. Explains how to leverage the power of a 12 week year to drive improved results in any area of your life Offers a how-to book for both individuals and organizations seeking to improve their execution effectiveness Authors are leading experts on execution and implementation Turn your organization's idea of a year on its head, and speed your journey to success.
A memoir of one young man’s coming of age on a journey across America--told through the stories of the people of all ages, races, and inclinations he meets along the way. Life is fast, and I’ve found it’s easy to confuse the miraculous for the mundane, so I’m slowing down, way down, in order to give my full presence to the extraordinary that infuses each moment and resides in every one of us. At 23, Andrew Forsthoefel headed out the back door of his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, with a backpack, an audio recorder, his copies of Whitman and Rilke, and a sign that read "Walking to Listen." He had just graduated from Middlebury College and was ready to begin his adult life, but he didn’t know how. So he decided to take a cross-country quest for guidance, one where everyone he met would be his guide. In the year that followed, he faced an Appalachian winter and a Mojave summer. He met beasts inside: fear, loneliness, doubt. But he also encountered incredible kindness from strangers. Thousands shared their stories with him, sometimes confiding their prejudices, too. Often he didn’t know how to respond. How to find unity in diversity? How to stay connected, even as fear works to tear us apart? He listened for answers to these questions, and to the existential questions every human must face, and began to find that the answer might be in listening itself. Ultimately, it’s the stories of others living all along the roads of America that carry this journey and sing out in a hopeful, heartfelt book about how a life is made, and how our nation defines itself on the most human level.
(Guitar Educational). From the former editor of Guitar One magazine, here is a daily dose of vitamins to keep your chops fine tuned! Musical styles include rock, blues, jazz, metal, country, and funk. Techniques taught include alternate picking, arpeggios, sweep picking, string skipping, legato, string bending, and rhythm guitar. These exercises will increase speed, and improve dexterity and pick- and fret-hand accuracy. The accompanying CD includes all 365 workout licks plus play-along grooves in every style at eight different metronome settings.
