Books Archives - from Gnome to Goliath

How to Improve Book Retention

Stop reading non-fiction books only to forget them after you close the last page. Increase your retention by following three simple steps.

Today I am going to teach you how to improve your retention when reading non-fiction books. After all this is the only reason why we read such kinds of books, right?

I have gone over several methods that do not work. From passive reading (i.e., I just read the book and then I take the next one), to highlighting quotes and important passages, and all the way to extracting my highlights and creating a mind map organized by chapter. But when I read a great book like Adam Grant’s Think Again, I will find myself unable to generate a thoughtful review about it or remember even one important idea from the book.

Here, I will show you my latest method for improving retention. It is based on the book How to Take Smart Notes (link to Goodreads).

Tin’s List of Best Books 2021

This is a list of the best books which I have read in 2021 divided into six genres.

Here we are at the end of 2021 and here I am compiling my traditional list of the best books which I read in 2021. This year was … interesting … again. We all hoped that the global pandemic crisis will be over by the end of the year, but it is not. Still, I am ending the year on a hopeful note and I hope that all of you will be able to do so as well.

My reading focus this year was what I called financial education. I finally decided to take my personal finances, budgeting, and investing into my own hands and read a bunch of books on this topic. I also concentrated on my and my family’s health, spirituality, and well-being. And I have some book recommendations in that direction. Finally, I continued exploring the topic philosophy and I continued reading a wide variety of books on the movements that speak to me.

Just like last year, I have broken down my recommendations into genres. And just like every time, if I only inspire one of you to pick up one extra book, this will mean success!

This is the fifth list in a row. These are my previous articles on this topic: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017. You can go to my Goodreads profile to take a look at all the books that I’ve read.

How to Improve Your Financial Education

Books contain the answers to most of our problems. This article contains the financial education books that will help you get wealthy.

As a reader, I dedicated my 2021 to financial education. I selected over 50 books and I read about half of them (among other things). If you have been following my articles, you have noticed that this is my approach to everything. If I want to improve my tennis game, I would read a bunch of books and I will go out and play tennis. Or, if I want to improve my running, I would read some books and I will go out running (in the rain, in the ice, and sometimes when it is sunny).

Ever since I read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” in my twenties, I have been fascinated how people do not understand money, finances, and the simple (but not easy) steps to become rich (or to be more precise wealthy). This article is a collection of the best books about money, budgeting, saving, investing, which I have uncovered so far in my quest to attain financial education. I was tempted to post affiliate links to the books that I will quote, but then I remembered that I am determined to keep my blog free and ad free. So, if you feel the urge to support me – go and buy my book in the Books section above.

Tin’s List of Best Books 2020

A list of the best books I’ve read in 2020 which are relevant to the topics in my blog – personal and professional growth, optimization and productivity.

Below is the list of the best books that I read in 2020. What a year has 2020 been! I mean did anybody see this coming back in January? I must admit, just like most of the people in the world, I had read the news about COVID-19 coming from Asia in Dec 2019. And, just like anybody else, I dismissed them easily. What a good lesson! But anyway, if there was anything positive out of 2020 it was that I got to spent a lot of time with my family. I hope that a lot of people could say the same.

And … I spent a lot of time reading. I broke my previous record of 30 books and I read 35 books in 2020 (woot!) I also read more than 10.000 pages for a second year in a row. I read early in the morning before the working-from-home madness would start. I read on the weekend during the quiet time.

In this article, I listed the best books that I read in 2020. This time I’ve broken the list down into genres. Not always the genre that the authors picked when they published their book, but the genre that I would assign to it.

This is my forth year in a row. These are my previous articles on this topic: Best books 2019, Best books 2018, Best Books 2017.

Self-organize Your Personal Life

The real-life journey of an Eastern European gnome to self-organize and become a Big Tech goliath. The lessons that everybody can use on their own journey.

Dear Goliaths on the path to self-organize,
In the past 18 months I have been connecting the dots of my first book in English – Self-organize Your Personal Life (working title). Most of the topics covered in the book will already be familiar to my blog readers. I am writing this post now, mostly to set a deadline for myself to actually publish. Many writers say that writing the text is actually the easiest step of the process. I tend to believe that.
In the following lines I will share with you my journey so far and I will create the structure that I will send to publishers pitching my book. As always, I welcome any feedback, comments, suggestions.
Big thanks to those of you that already read the very early draft. Thank you for your feedback and the tons of useful suggestions!
Best regards,
Tin Mayer

Pitch

The real-life journey of an Eastern European gnome to become a Big Tech goliath and the lessons that everybody can use on their own journey.