Fourth Week of Reading - Reflections

It is amazing how much reading one can do when (a) they are home sick and (b) waiting (literally) for the paint to dry. (Since I painted my bedroom and the master bath - and was adventurous enough for making a pattern with tape to paint - it took several coats of primer and paint. 2hrs between coats meant quality reading time!)

A quick review of the books I've read in my first month:

1. Ho'oponopono - Dupree
2. The Inheritance of Loss - Desai
3. Practical Demonkeeping - Moore
4. Existence - Brinn
5. The Terrans - Johnson
6. Snow Crash - Stephenson
7. The Four Noble Truths - Dalai Lama XIV
8. Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time - Sutherland (not on my reading list)
9. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself - Dispenza (not on my reading list)
10. Everything I Never Told You - Ng
11. Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story - Moore

What I've realized is that I'm retaining the stories and principles of the books far better by focusing and finishing on one at a time. Ironically, this is the premise of the Scrum book - monotasking essentially makes us better, and more productive. I've begun an experiment at work and engaged with the people above me to help. The Scrum book really helped remind me of the productivity lost by stopping and starting without all of the necessary building blocks to complete tasks in a sitting. I know this from a project perspective, but did not apply those lessons to my management style. So, i'm flipping things around. Each day of the week I'm designating for specific things, and organizing my calendar in such a way to help me multitask less. That is right - the energizer bunny here is going to focus on doing fewer things at once in order to get more done overall.

This aligns well to Dispenza's book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. In Breaking, Dispenza walks through in plain English the neurochemical responses that take place in the brain and different hormone centers of the body. Guess what? There are seven hormone centers (glands) and they align to the seven chakra locations. Not a coincidence - as I continue to increase in my meditation practices and self-healing, it is amazing to align the scientific realities to the spiritual experiences I am having.

Both Breaking and Ng's Everything I Never Told You were read ahead of when I had intended to read them - thank you auto-checkout system through Sno-Isle libraries. I don't like being a bottleneck, and when I saw that others (41, in fact) were behind me on Ng's book, i chose to just read it now versus trying to read it later in the year. What a powerful story that touched me in so many ways. It is crazy to think of how recently some of the legal events took place, and how impactful those attitudes still are in our society.

Out of my original list of 52 books, I've read 9 (that's 17% if you care, and all 11 books reflect 19.6% of the 56 books on docket for the year). And - thank you library - I have 4 that auto-checked out this week:

• Tell the Wolves I'm Home
• Outlander
• The Mark of the Assassin
• Lamb: The gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Friend

 No promises those are the 4 I will read this week - but I do have a flight to Chicago Saturday morning, and the return flight, so odds are good that i'll get plenty of reading done in the air and while on vacation. Since I'm packing light and the others I'm reading are physical books, it's highly likely I'll make a dent in these.

Happy Reading!
--Jennifer