My Best Of 2020

Books and other reading

"Getting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations" by William Ury

The book is incredibly useful for both professional and private life. It is highly recommended regardless of your job title and daily tasks. We negotiate on a daily basis. Understanding your negotiation partner and maximize the win-win for both sides is an incredibly useful skill. I grabbed this book from the recommendation list of Tim Ferriss and do not regret a single page. https://www.amazon.de/-/en/William-Ury/dp/0553371312/

Books - "Extreme Ownership: How US Navy Seals Lead and Win" by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

If you don't know Jocko Willink, watch his TEDx Talk on Extreme Ownership (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljqra3BcqWM) - these 15min are really worth it. He has successfully applied extreme ownership concepts to coach leaders in all types of organizations and industries after retiring from the Navy. This book has changed my life in the way how I look at who is responsible for my challenges, how to feel about them, and, more importantly, how to address them. Highly recommended for both private and professional life. Note: If you don't like the army-stuff, he only uses it for illustrating principles. The application of them to non-army life comes after that for each of the principles and is the bible of leadership. https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Jocko-Willink/dp/1250183863/

A short but crispy read - "17 questions that changed my life" by Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss is a legend and this document is legendary as well. It is a great demonstration of how to think outside of the box. 17 questios which you can use as a trigger to rethink and to challenge anything on your path! https://tim.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/17-Questions-That-Changed-My-Life.pdf

Lifehack of the year

My morning Routine v2.0: Last year I started with a morning routine (breathing according to the Wim Hof method followed by a set of exercises, done at home in the morning). This year, my wife and I did a November challenge (watch a video about the start and the finish if you are interested). After that, my morning routine has changed to getting up directly into the jogging shoes and doing 30min workout outside of the home. I replaced breathing at home with 30min of the fresh area outside. I also went up to a max of 160 pushups (three sets: 60, 50, 50) and continued to do this routine every day after the challenge was over. All in all, I have never been so productive in a long run as with this morning fresh-air-workout.

Productivity hacks of the year

• Work from your calendar, not from your to-do list. Todo-list is a graveyard of important but not urgent - 41% of all items put on the to-do list are never done at all. Put the time in your calendar if it is important to you. Otherwise, the chances are very high, that it will not get done or will get done too late.
• Active recall in combination with Notion. It totally changed the way how I study and read books and articles.
  Steps:
  • "So what?" part: When reading a studying material or a book, write down questions that you would like to answer using this material. Also, write down a short answer. For questions and answers, I use Togglelist in Notion - one Notion page per studying topic or a book. Note: It is not a dummy summary - you are already deriving your takeaways by coming up with questions and answers!
  • Active recall part: Using spaced repetition (repeat with increasing breaks between the repetition slots), pass through the questions and try to answer. If do not remember, open the toggle and repeat the answer. Mark questions where you failed with a color or a "!" in the beginning to repeat only those in the next session.
  Sample:
  

Gadget of the year

OneWheel. A board with a motor - not easy to balance when you start but gives an awesome feeling of surfing on the road once you can do it. Totally in love with it! https://onewheel.com/

For those leaving in CH - Collector for paper recycling. In Switzerland, we recycle paper. And you need to bundle it. This thing gives you the ultimate excitement while bundling! Before I bought it, I was angry every time fighting with a paper bundle. Now I am looking forward to it! It is a bit pricy, but you support the organization of handicapped people which is a huge bonus. https://www.b-vertrieb-shop.com/Altpapierbuendler.htm

Quotes

• You can't build a character sitting on the sofa. David Goggins
• Go bold or go home. Many "authors".

My tools of the year

• Notion - by far better than EverNote and OneNote (heavy used both in the past; switched to Notion completely).
• Superhuman - shortcut-based email client. My productivity increased at least by 20-30% with emails. Didn't believe that it is possible. It is invite - only. Reach out to me, if you need an invitation.