Weekly Round-Up #127: Business Books Galore, How Productive Are You & What's Your Emotional Intelligence?
Welcome to this week’s round-up, I hope it finds you feeling productive!
This week you need to grab a coffee and a pen and paper to note down some of your “must read” business books, find out whether you’re being truly productive or just acting busy and find a new Soccer team to follow!
206 Business Books: Recommended by Business Professionals – Markin Blog
I was honoured to be contacted by Marius from MarkinBlog recently asking for the 3 best business books that I’ve read and would like to recommend to others. I have to admit it was really difficult to narrow it down to just three – and pick some books that really meant something and that I thought would offer great advice and inspiration to others.
Grab yourself a cup of coffee before reading through this fantastic list of books on a wide variety of topics – there’s a PDF download available too if you want to read it at your leisure.
Test: Are You Busy Or Productive? – Luxafor
Are you being productive? No, really, are you or maybe you’re just being busy for the sake of it or through lack of organisation.
This infographic from Luxafor goes through a “checklist” of items which will show whether you’re busy or productive – take a look, it may be eye-opening!
How Emotionally Intelligent Are You? – NetCredit
You can be hugely intelligent, have a high I.Q and be the best in your field and yet struggle with social interaction and making (or keeping) friends – think Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory. The problem with this is that such a large part of our lives are based on social interactions – with friends, family and colleague – that you need to be able to act in appropriate ways in certain situations. This flowchart from NetCredit leads you through several questions and lets you know what Emotional Trait you need to work on – it’s worth going through all the different scenarios just to mentally see where you stand if nothing else.
The Ultimate Stoicism Training With Epictetus – Part 1 – Teaching Entrepreneurs
Stoicism is something that’s been creeping up on my radar more and more often recently. As an English person, as a nation we’re not usually known for expressing emotions but more for our stiff upper lip so I guess I’m kind of a “Stoic” by default! I will be following Arda’s series though as I do find the idea of stoicism interesting and I do (to a certain extent) follow a lot of the methodology thanks to my culture.
The Right Way To Be Introspective (Yes, There’s A Wrong Way) – TED
Quite often we’re told that we need to look to ourselves before we can judge others, but how do we know we’re doing it properly? Are we being too easy on ourselves? Maybe we’re being far too critical? This article looks at various studies behind self-reflection and what the benefits can be.
How to Record a Phone Call on Android – How To Geek
Sometimes you’ll need to a record a conference call, or perhaps you’re having a legal discussion with a lender or creditor – it’s okay for them to record it, so why can’t you? Well, you can (providing you let the people on the other end of the call you’re recording it of course)! This article lets you know how you can record a phone call on an Android device to keep for note-taking and reference purposes.
Three of The Easiest Ways to Manipulate People into Doing What You Want – Lifehacker
I have to admit that I find the word “Manipulation” quite nasty – it conjures up a lot of negative images of not “nice” people”. Sometimes though we have a goal to achieve and this could be mutually beneficial so we need to be able to persuade the other party to our point of view.
Sleep Deprivation Makes The Brain Go Into Overdrive And “Eat Itself” – IFL Science
Okay, so this is now my official go-to response for wanting to sleep 12 hours a day. We know that sleep helps the brain put new memories in order and sort out our “mental RAM”, but now it would appear that sleep loss could cause the brain to attack its own synapses. This may explain why I feel like a zombie after 4 hours sleep – half my brain has been eaten!
How to sleep when the weather is hot – 12 simple tips for keeping cool in bed – The Sun
We’re yet to have a “proper” summer here in the U.K – the weather’s been trying to turn warm but it then gets really cold (so cold in fact that my central heating came on!). If we do eventually get some warmer weather then there’s nothing worse than trying to get to sleep when you’re all hot and bothered so if we do get a hot spell you can be prepared with these tips from The Sun Newspaper.
9 Benefits of Soccer That Will Have You Kicking Balls All Day Long – Fit & Me
I’ve just started on a bit of a fitness kick, and one thing I’ve noticed is that if I’m exercising with others it’s a lot more effective. Whilst I do call this sport “Football” as opposed to “Soccer” there are a lot of interesting point in this article about the benefits of the sport – and sport in general.
And if you’re feeling inclined, please feel free to check out the Football club that I help run – we could do with some more “fans”!
Blow Birthday Cards
Do you need to send a birthday card in a hurry but want it to have that personalised touch? This is (currently) a U.S only service that allows you to write a note in your own handwriting and have it printed on a bespoke card, sent to an address of your choice. This will certainly save a lot of time running to the shops. If you’re in the UK try out Funky Pigeon for a similar service.
Have A Great Weekend
If you have any articles you’d like to share with my readers please contact me via the website, send me a tweet or leave a note in the comments
Until next time, Stay Productive!
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