Review: To End All Wars: The graphic anthology of the First World War

This collection of 20+ stories about the first world war leans more towards the melancholic, the satirical, the weird and even the accusatory rather than the heroic.

The quality of the storytelling and artworks varies enormously. Where one story might be confusingly told without enough context and using art where it's not always possible to easily distinguish between the characters - another will be perfectly judged on all counts.

Overall, despite its faults, this is a worthwhile collection because of variety of stories it attempts to tell. There are stories of heroic elephants, of cats bringing peace, of the other side, of media barons, of disease, of pioneering women, of the colonial experience and welsh poets.

Verdict: Absorbing and moving.

Review: 168 hours: You have more time than you think

Vanderkam's chatty and case study driven book has the central thesis that we all have 168 hours in a week, but we are allowing those hours to bleed away on the unimportant. For example, even those who claim to work 60, 80 or even 90 hour weeks - are actually wasting many of those hours - even if we are accounting for them correctly.  And that's even before we consider time wasted in our home lives.

In short, we tend to overestimate how much time we spend on the "bad stuff" and underestimate how we spend on the "good stuff".

She has a point.

But this is more than another work/live productivity hacks book as she asks the reader to start from first principles so figure out:

• What you are best at?
• What are your dreams?
• Where your time is currently going?

She then offers a few areas to target eg meal preparation, laundry, unnecessary meetings.  To be fair many of her solutions (outsourcing/setting different standards/focussing on what makes a difference/blocking out time),  aren't particularly new - but I suspect her target audience (affluent businesswomen/professionals) probably do need to be permissioned to let go of some of these tasks.

"You should do what you love, you should love what you do".

Teresa Amabile

"This obsession is the only way to stay on top, because you can trust that your competitors are thinking about their jobs in the shower. "

Laura Vanderkam, 168 hours: You have more time than you think

Why would you outsource the creation of your children's clothes, but not your own meals if you don't enjoy it and can afford it? she asks. Tellingly, traditionally male tasks like mowing the lawn are more likely to be outsourced. Hmm...

I probably enjoyed the earlier first principles chapters of this book more than the later tactical advice (the spreadsheet of 100 dreams and time log are simple but effective).   Interestingly, Vanderkam is rather critical of Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Work Week - but I think they are closer in philosophy than she imagines.

I also enjoyed the idea of multitasking through alignment ie meeting a friend for a meal (which allows you to catch up with a friend while eating). OK that example is an obvious one - but it's easy to think of others that let you maintain personal and professional relationships while ticking off other boxes like the need to exercise, pursue a hobby, etc.

Lastly, l loved the focus on doing projects that help you answer questions you are interested in.

"There are literally millions of stories a documentary filmmaker could tell; by choosing ones that gave her a great personal answer to the question of why she cared about the topic, Mazzio increased the odds that her films would stand out in a crowded market."

Laura Vanderkam, 168 hours: You have more time than you think

Verdict: Highly motivational, and also practical for the right audience.

Review: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

Pink's When is a concise review of the difference timing can make to outcomes - whether they be life or work related ones.  Although some ideas will be familiar to many readers eg circadian rhythm - what might be new is how to get best out them.

Unfortunately for you, reader of this blog, my review will be rather longer as I really got a lot out of this book.

Pink fondly imagines that this might be the beginning of a new genre - "when to" rather than "how to" and I think he may be onto something there.

Most chapters helpfully finish with a set of tools and tips quirkily labelled the Time Hacker's Handbook. Most of the tips were new to me, a few not so much.

To start with I skimmed the contents page - making notes on questions I wanted answered like:

Does everyone have the same circadian rhythm of a peak, a trough and a rebound?

It seems they do, but your chronotype affects when they occur and even which way around they occur. For example, most people who are larks or third birds then to rise to a peak of performance during the morning, hit a trough early afternoon and then rebound from late afternoon. Night owls are different as they spend the morning in recovery, have a trough in the afternoon and reach their peak late evening.

Our moods and happiness tracks these same rhythms. Apparently, the difference in performance between a peak and trough can be the equivalent of drinking up the legal limit of alcohol.

Can you control the length of them?

I may have missed it, but I couldn't see anything that suggested you could. Breaks and optimising the types of task you do may help maximise what you get from them though.

Can you optimise the tasks you do in each period?

For non-night owls, it may be better to do more analytical tasks in the morning and those requiring more insight (and less inhibitions) during our troughs. In short, innovation and creativity happens when we are not at our best.

Avoid important decisions in the afternoon. Negotiations and other critical decisions should probably happen earlier in the day.

How long should a break be for maximum return on investment?

A sleep break should be 10-20 minutes to avoid groggyness and can be enhanced with a strong dose of caffeine beforehand - a nappuccino. The theory is that it takes around 20 minutes for the caffeine to kick in and so you should awake feeling ready to go.

What does starting right look like?

We are all familiar with the idea of the new year's day resolution, but it turns out that lots of days of the year can act in a similar way - as a spur to starting afresh. Here are some of them (Pink identifies 86 of them):

• First day of each week
• First day of each month
• First day of each new quarter
• Birthdays

But you can also engineer them by choosing other milestones eg if you work at a company, the anniversary of a new product launch.

Other suggestions that Pink makes including the idea of a pre-mortem ie picture the project being a complete disaster in 18 months time. You now ask yourself (and your team if you have one) - What went wrong? and try to anticipate how you can avoid those mistakes.

When you should go first?

It turns out that anytime you are not the default choice, in a situation with few competitors or in an election, and in job interviews with strong candidates - you should go first.

In more uncertain situations eg when you or the person making the decision doesn't know what they want/expect - you should go later.

When we reach a midpoint, how can we activate the mental siren to motivate us earlier?

From experience, I know the mid-point of a project is often where there's a lull in motivation - and sometimes a rush of blind panic as you figure out have the time has been wasted and now it's time to buckle down and do this thing!

Midlife: When the universe grabs you by the shoulders and says, "I'm not fucking around, use the gifts you were given."

Brene Brown

Some of this seems to do with framing. For work in a motivated team, it can be helpful to describe progress as slightly behind where they need to be. For a less motivated team, then focussing on progress made to date can be more helpful.

I particularly liked the tips on how to get out of midpoint slump and re-energise yourself:

• Set interim goals - and make a public commitment to them. 
• Find a way of pausing an activity mid-way through eg in the middle of a sentence if you are writing. 
• Create a way of recording a chain eg x on a calendar
• Imagine one person who will be helped by what you are doing (love this!)
• Mentally subtracting positive events from your life, It's a Wonderful Life style, and then being thankful for what did happen. 
• Find a mid-career mentor

What does a good ending well look like?

Endings come in lots of different forms - an end of a project, an end of a job or an end of a life.

A sense of an ending tends to result in a focus on what's really important - meaning - and that can result in some ruthless pruning of relationships, tasks etc - as well as one last big push.

Often meaning comes with a tinge of sadness or poignancy.  As Pink says, "The best endings don't leave us happy. Instead they produce something richer - a rush of unexpected insight, a fleeting moment of transcendence".

“Every Pixar movie has its protagonist achieving the goal he wants only to realize it is not what the protagonist needs. Typically, this leads the protagonist to let go of what he wants (a house, the Piston Cup, Andy) to get what he needs (a true yet unlikely companion; real friends; a lifetime together with friends)” 

John August, Endings for Beginners

What can activate team synchronisation?

Pink gives some useful, but likely familiar guidance on team formation (some of the activities are definitely worth checking out). He very much subscribes to Tuckman's model of Forming, Storming, Norming & Performing.

He also suggests that the following elements can help:

• Chat & gossip
• Touch
• Shared language
• Visible markers that set them apart eg clothing

Why does tense matter in language?

This was odd and fascinating but it turns out that how language deals with tense makes a difference to the behavioural habits of speakers.  Speakers of languages, like English, which make strong distinctions between past, present and future tend to be less likely to save, exercise more regularly than speakers of languages which are weaker like Mandarin.  It wasn't clear what the reason for this was.

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

Groucho Marx (maybe)

What I'm doing as a result of this book

As something of a lark, I've been trying to shift my more insightful work and reading to the mornings - and staying off social media/email. Meetings, creative stuff and brainstormings I try to do in the afternoon.

I drink very little caffeine anyhow, but have shifted my daily green tea to the early afternoon and I won't feel guilty if I have a 10 minute nap around that time or bum around in email/admin tasks either.

I'm also trying to build a late work day habit around:

• Typing up what I've achieved (2 mins)
• Planning next day (2 mins)
• Sending someone a thank you (1 min)

I've been trying this for around a week so far and it feels pretty good.  

Verdict: A strong candidate for my non-fiction book of the year.

Review: Gotham by Gaslight

Like the recent animation, this graphic novel pits an alternative universe Victorian era Batman against Jack the Ripper. It's a lot more satisfying than the movie as it doesn't Scooby Doo the ending or go quite so heavy on the steam punk.

Instead the back story feels well rounded and Bruce Wayne is front and centre throughout. As reading it will become clear, the stakes are both higher, but the interventions more mundane.  Overall, it feels like it's eschewed showiness for a bit more character development.

Verdict: Quick enjoyable read.

Review: Ready Player One

Having recently read the book in a couple of sittings, I thought I'd give the film a go.

The film is a not entirely successful riot of blink and you'll miss 'em cameos from the last 30-40 years of pop culture. Key elements of the books have been changed and given the Hollywood gloss over.  For example, the Stacks - a grimly dystopian Bladerunneresque community in the book feels too brightly lit and tidy in the translation to the screen and various characters are just a bit too good looking compared to their book counterparts.

The central game elements have been changed near completely as have most of the pop culture elements around them. War Games has been ditched for The Shining, for example.  The actors do their best - but facial expressions and motivations are usually covered by VR headsets or in game avatars. A few things have been successfully tidied up and made more Spielberg. For example, the lone gamers of the book quickly become an informal clan without too much heart searching.

I don't know that I'd revisit this vision of the OASIS. The book would have certainly benefited from a tighter edit in places, but this version lost some of the magic for me.

Verdict: Not top tier Spielberg, but good enough.

Review: The Perfect Day Formula

Ballantyne's stoic inspired guide to winning each day is my latest read in what sometimes feels like a long line of slightly meta self-development books. Essentially, the authors write books and launch businesses by writing guides on how to do the same. Often the books are long form advertising brochures for other services like consultancy or courses.  But cynical though that sounds, it doesn't make them worthless.

The Perfect Day Formula follows the familiar pattern. Ballantyne has developed a formula that works well for him - as something of an extreme lark - and he thinks it will work for you too:

• Control your mornings -
   ie reserve them for high quality creative work
• Conquer your afternoons - run good meetings, plan your next day, express gratitude
• Concentrate on what really matters in the evenings
  - put down your work tools and focus on family and friends

On mornings, it turns out that plenty of creative historical figures were in a similar mind to Ballantyne:

"Revived and strengthened by sleep and not yet harassed by the absurd trivialities of everyday life"

Goethe on mornings

But I suspect even Warren Buffet's famously regular routine looks indulgent next to Ballantyne's:

4 a.m. – Writing Session #1
6:30 a.m. – Meditation, Dog Walk, and Breakfast
8 a.m. – Writing Session #2
10:30 a.m. – Early to Rise Team Meeting
11 a.m. – Exercise (four days per week)
12 p.m. – Reading and Lunch
2 p.m. – Phone Calls and Email
4 p.m. – Dog Walk, Big Thinking, and Gratitude Journaling
5 p.m. – Reading, Dinner, and Family/Social Time
8 p.m. – Bedtime

All of this sounds like I wasn't that impressed by The Perfect Day Formula. That's not true as I did like how certain truisms common to these guides were framed in this book and I learned a few new things.

Slowly introducing new habits
He first created a habit of not checking email before 9am, and then slowly increased it to 10am, 10.30 am etc.   He suggests delaying checking your inbox by an extra five minutes each day.

Writing in your gratitude journal in the late afternoon
This period of reflection, and listing of accomplishments can add to your sense of achievement and so increase motivation. As an occasional gratitude diary keeper - I will be giving this one a go.

Using triggers to overcome bad habits
I've been unconsciously using this minimum effective use of willpower for some time - but was good to see it crystallised in this book. Ballantyne's example uses it to "summon up the smallest amount of discipline to open up the Microsoft Word program on my computer. That was the trigger that snapped me out of my procrastination".  This inception like observational trigger is one that I will definitely be making more use of.

The Goodnight formula
Ballantyne's day is a highly scripted one and did like his rules of thumb to help ensure a good sleep:

• Caffeine - no later than 10 hours before bedtime
• Food or alcohol - no later than 3 hours before bedtime
• Work - no later than 2 hours before sleep
• Screen time - no more than 1 hour before sleep

Again I do some of these, but others are worth testing.

Doing brain dumps at the end of each work day
This self explanatory technique seems like a good one for clearing your head and preparing for the next day.

Getting up
I tend to use the 5, 4, 3, 2 1 Go approach I learned from Mel Robbins - but Ballantyne recommends repeating something like this mantra:

“Remember why you are doing this. It’s your one and only life, one that is not rewarded for staying in bed, one that does not move forward because you stole an extra five minutes of sleep. If you want more sleep, you need to get to bed earlier, not wake up later. You cannot miss out on your magical fifteen minutes in the morning”

Craig Ballantyne, The Perfect Day Formula

That's kind of hard core, but I might try it...

Preach what you know
I've logged this based on something known to improve happiness - giving.  Ballantyne it turns out is big on giving knowledge away - and also rather eloquent:

“When you teach others what you know, when you share your knowledge, when you add value, this can help you in so many ways. It can deliver you from (mild) depression and anxiety, from a scarcity mindset, and from a lack of clarity. Teaching will give you a natural high”

 Craig Ballantyne, The Perfect Day Formula

Finding fellow travellers

Most of us who want to try something new will have encountered sceptism, perhaps even outright hostility or sabotage from others. The Perfect Day Formula suggests using small tests initially to find people who are on a similar path.  OK, it's fairly obvious but I hadn't seen it written down before so a hat tip to Craig for it. 

Verdict: Succinct guide to having a great day - if you are a lark!

Review: To be a machine: Adventures among cyborgs, utopians, hackers, and futurists solving the modest problem of death

O'Connell's Wellcome prize-winning book is disjointed meander through the various groups, philosophies and scientific approaches to transhumanism.

Eloquently written though it is (and it really does have an expansive vocabulary), there are few answers here beyond a few existential musings by the author and that makes it a strangely dissatisfying read if you are looking for something more than an introduction to the key concepts and personalities.

Part of the problem is that the author has simply told the story of his various research trips, rather than synthesise into a more profound analysis of this emerging field. It also tends to skim the science in favour of the more cultish elements.   I also felt it lacked access in places - for example,  it would have benefited from interviews with some of key players like Kurzweil, Diamandis, Musk etc rather than those who are generally on the fringe and relying on secondary sources.  Even when he does get access to people like Aubrey De Grey, he tends to concentrate on their personal appearance and seems to get nothing new from them science or approach wise.  I've listened to podcast interviews with De Grey that have more depth.

Verdict: Very human guide to this most human of concerns.

Review: Ready Player One

Ready Player One is a 1980s geek's paradise of a book. Barely a sentence whizzes past without some pop culture reference - well known and obscure - surfacing.  Cline's knowledge of the era must be truly encyclopaedic.  If we're keeping score, I recognised most of the computer ones, but maybe only around half of the music, film and tv ones.

But it's the compelling universes that he's conjured into life, snippets of social commentary and identifiable  characters - particularly if you've ever felt socially isolated, pined for lost loves or even simply been a socially awkward teenager - that make it worth staying. 

Verdict: Heart-felt luxury bath in 80s geekdom.