Fast forward 2 years and half after, I achieved tremendous success with the French blog (which have now more than 20 000 RSS + emails subscribers), and with a second one, Blogueur Pro, which too have more than 20 000 RSS + emails subscribers. I succeeded in my dream of living the 4 hour workweek (which have nothing to do with just working 4 hours per week, no more, no less, as you know if you really read the book) and now I’m travelling all around the world (I just came back from an awesome 3 months trip in California).

And, I’m making a lot of money too. And when I was in Los Angeles, in San Diego and in San Francisco (especially in this city), I met a lot of awesome entrepreneurs (like Patri Friedman of Sea Steading, an incredible project to build a startup country in the ocean) and I want to connect more with them.

So, I thought, now that I have some money to invest, and some awesome (I hope) articles on my French blog, why not hire someone to translate them, so I can give birth again to this blog, and it help me to connect more easily with English speaking entrepreneurs ?

So here it is. I hired a professional translator on Elance, and I will publish her translations as soon as she send them to me. Let’s begin with Made to Stick ! It’s good to see you again !

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When I launched my project in October 2008, I launched my blog in French and English at the same time, for several reasons, but particularly because I wanted to make an impact in the  English blogging world and to make my project known to most of the participants in the Personal MBA.

Since I do have not perfect mastery of the English language, I get my summaries and articles translated by Mary of www.DeansResource.com who does remarkable work. Unfortunately, this translation service is a significant cost for an amateur blogger (a review translation can cost between $50 and $100).

After six months of existence, I have therefore assessed the situation and weighed the pros and cons of continuing the English blog in spite of the costs it incurs. Unfortunately, visits are less than half what they are on the French blog, the number of RSS subscribers is less than one third and revenues from Amazon commissions are very small, unlike the French blog.

For these reasons, I have decided to give up the English blog and dedicate myself to the French blog. This blog will remain in place and the reviews that are already done will remain on line, and I am continuing my challenge; those of you who can read French will be able to continue to follow me at Des Livres Pour Changer de Vie.

Anyway, I thank all my faithful English readers for their support and their encouragement, and I hope that this news won’t make you too sad .  Don’t hesitate to visit my French blog and contact me on the Personal MBA community forum.

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I am going to pause this week mostly to be able to offer you articles summarizing what I have learned in these 10 books. You will also get a surprise next week .

Then I will attack the 7 books that I have selected in the Psychology and Communication category, the set of which has just been delivered by Amazon.

And thanks to all you who are following and encouraging me, that is helping me enormously .

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Review

Anyway, the beginning of the year is appropriate for an initial review of the project. I began my crazy challenge on the 1^st of October 2008 (week 40) with the ambition of reading one book a week for 52 weeks. How many books did I read during those first fifteen weeks?

1. 10 Days to Faster Reading (+ a Free BONUS speed reading test)
2. Strengths Finder 2.0 : Now, discover your Strengths
3. 45 effective ways for Hiring Smart
4. Lead the Field
5. Getting Things Done – The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
6. The Creative Habit – Learn it and use it for life
7. The Unwritten Laws of Business
8. The Path of Least Resistance – Learn to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life
9. The Effective Executive
10. Cut To The Chase
11. Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload
12. The Simplicity Survival Handbook

Note for my English blog readers: I write my articles and my resumes in French, and publish them on the French blog, then I send them to Mary of DeansResource who translates them. There is usually a one week lag between the French blog and the English blog.

So, twelve. Actually thirteen if you count Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina, but that one is not part of my challenge, I read it for my personal enjoyment and because I was hired to write a column in exchange for receiving a free advanced copy.

Twelve then. In fifteen weeks, which leaves three weeks without reading a new book:

• The week in which I voluntarily paused in order to start implementing GTD. The temporary result is related in my article about GTD, Implementation – 1.
• The week in which I wrote part two of The Path of Least Resistance summary, a difficult book for which the summary took the equivalent of 19 A4 pages (8 ½x 11) which took 10 hours to write.
• The week I wrote the second part of the summary of The Simplicity Survival Handbook, a long and intense book for which the summary took the equivalent of 26 A4 pages and required 8 hours for me to write. I was also held up slightly due to the time that it took for me to prepare my first audio podcast (in French), of Lead The Field.

Difficulties and how I see my challenge

Briefly, the initial pace is rather difficult to maintain because of 1) the time needed to implement the things I am learning, which sometimes seem so important that I prefer to take a break rather than suffer the frustration of not being able to implement these new things that I am learning and 2) the time needed to draft useful summaries which bring something to you, fellow reader, which I had absolutely not anticipated at the outset – some of the books are difficult or long to summarize.

But that’s not very important because:

• The pace that I set for myself initially was deliberately very ambitious.
• 12 books in 15 weeks, that’s not at all bad, and for my part I am very satisfied with this result
• As I have mentioned, I see this project as an experience and not as an edict with strict rules, I am therefore ready to change it if I think that it suits me better and works better for me in another format.
• I also want to write articles on this blog to share with you the reflections that I draw from my reading or my experience, as I did, for example, in the articles 10 pearls of wisdom taken from my reading and my experience as a company leader or 8 Books for Giving that will Change a Life.

Should I continue at this pace or should I set myself a more reasonable pace – like one book every two weeks?

I asked myself recently about the main problem with my project, the lack of time to fully apply what I am learning, and I wondered if I shouldn’t change to a pace where “read one week, apply it the second, then start over.” All the readers who gave me their opinion told me that they think it’s an excellent solution – if not the best. I replied that I would take until the beginning of this year to think about it

I have thought about it. I am going to keep up this pace, because it’s a challenge and I want to rise to it, even if I know it will be difficult to accomplish all 52 books in one year. But I think I can do more than 40. I am doing this because:

• I find my challenge exhilarating.
• I have found my rhythm – which is definitely hectic between my company, my crazy challenge, my blogs and my personal activities I have hardly a minute left over for myself.
• I learn so much from reading all these books, and all of them, without exception, have tips or ideas which can be applied immediately without any trouble – like the fact of immediately doing anything that takes less than two minutes, taken from GTD, or like asking yourself whenever you are doing something “Why am I doing this? Is it necessary?” Taken from The Effective Executive.

But it is possible for me to assign myself some weeks without a book so that I can have more time to implement what I have learned. In particular I am thinking of taking a break after I finish each category (at the moment I am on the Productivity & Effectiveness category) to review what I have learned and breathe a little

How Is My Business Doing?

I recently did a financial review for the last six month period of 2008, and the results were excellent – about 35% more than the business figures with regard to the same period last year. I have hired a new employee. Everything is going well therefore, and I have not been affected at all by the crisis – I am also writing an article about on the topic.

How Is My Life Going?

Overall, rather well, I am certainly on a hectic schedule, I have taken in several improv theater sessions, my better half has rallied somewhat and I usually work until about 11, five days a week, but it’s not really work because:

“Do work that you love and you will never work in your life” – Confucius

I’m keeping up with the pace of it all at the moment. And my better half is very understanding and supports me, a big thank you to her

How is the blog going?

Since I launched the French blog there have been 5,814 visitors, a significant amount of whom (40%) are loyal, my thanks to you

As of a few days ago I have over 200 RSS subscribers, and it seems that my articles and critiques are generally appreciated, as my first podcast has been. I am delighted to be bringing you something modest that can help you learn by yourself and improve yourself.

What’s more my earnings on Adsense and Amazon since the launch are more than €200, which helps to offset the price of the books, thank you very much to those readers who are loyal to me by buying the books on Amazon that they are interested in

The English blog brings in a little less and costs a lot (around $1,000 for the first three months) in spite of the immense goodwill of Mary, the translator, who is struggling to keep costs as low as possible, and her great work. I therefore wonder about its future.

What about … You?

A review is also a time to question things and improve the things that can be improved, so go for it! Are there any things you would like to see, things that can be improved, do you have any ideas, comments, criticisms to make? The comment form is waiting with outstretched arms

Translated by www.DeansResource.com

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This week, as promised, I am focused on implementing GTD. The least I can say is that it’s not simple. Especially due to the number of available electronic applications, and because I want to, and must, have a system for collecting and processing that is reliable, which I can count on, and which meets my requirements. I have identified my primary requirements and needs as the following: The system must allow me to:

• Identify all my important personal and professional tasks, as well as my ideas, and categorize them by type (office, home, professional, personal, etc.), level of energy needed, importance, due date.
• Be able to take notes and enter the tasks into the system from anywhere, at any time.
• If I use an application it must allow me to access my system at the office and at home, and ideally from any computer, anywhere.
• Avoid rewrites as much as possible, which cause errors and waste time.
• Minimize paper as much as possible and opt for digital. Digital is the easiest to store and minimizes the problem of physical space, it is transferable, convertible, and easiest to safeguard. It also allows searching by key words and it is much easier to edit data already entered. What’s more it is ecological – generally. And yes, I am a geek convert and I like the latest technology .

My primary requirement is to be able to carry my system with me, so that I can enter things into it and consult it anywhere. Ideally, I don’t care to use a system of temporary notes which will force me to have to re-enter the notes into my system, and most of all force me to remember to enter them, I therefore reject Moleskine’s idea of a notepad, even though I discovered this excellent article on the art of transforming your notebook into a machine for GTD for less than € 20. So I am going to look for a digital device that includes an application. As luck would have it, I broke my PDA a few days ago and my cell phone is an old Nokia on which Smartphone functions are limited and not very useful. I have a laptop which I lug around with me every week, but I generally only it take it on my personal travels and I have no wish to open it up – and take it out of hibernate mode which takes several minutes – just to write a quick note or look something up.

Okay, I will use this as the right time to invest in a portable tool that can become my GTD companion – and must also fulfill other functions.

After some thought and looking into different articles on the web, I see two possible solutions:

• Get a new PDA with a plug-in to add GTD capability to Outlook. But okay, when the phone and PDA are combined, having a device like that in my pocket is still a burden and somewhat pitiful. But I have a GPS Fujitsu Loox N110, which is light and easy to carry, that I could perhaps tinker with and convert it into a PDA. That would at least have the advantage of being cheap, but it will take me some time. Then I will need a tool to add GTD capability to Outlook – there are plenty of those, Jello Dashboard, which is free – and especially to synchronize this new capability with a PDA – good luck with that, most plug-ins don’t support all this functionality, in the belief that most GTD users sit in front of their PCs all day! But it would be good to find, the advantage being that I use Outlook 2007 a lot at the office and at home for email and the calendar, if I could use this application for GTD it would allow me to bring everything together in a single interface. Alternatively: I could also get a Smartphone with Windows Mobile capability and then synchronize it to Outlook.
• Get an iPhone and use Remember the Milk. Remember the milk (RTM) is a free, user friendly software program that seems to be rather popular on the web for using GTD. Furthermore, RTM offers a complete tutorial on its blog about integrating GTD using RTM. Until recently the problem with RTM was that you couldn’t access it online, but it is nonetheless possible to synchronize with a PDA or a Windows Mobile Smartphone and especially with an iPhone. Why especially with an iPhone? Yes indeed, I have I always wanted this little toy, first because I have always liked Apple’s products – I have a 1^st generation iPod nano which is still working after 2 years, and I just love it -  because it’s very sexy and it has a lot of integrated capability that is very useful, which means you don’t have to mess with three different devices. What’s more the unlimited web package that is generally associated with it will let me continuously synchronize with the RTM online database, although a scheduled synchronization might even be enough.

In my heart I am leaning more towards the iPhone+RTM solution, but I need a few days to think it over. If you have any ideas about it, I’m listening . I would also like to testdrive the input system first, because I would like to be able to write notes and ideas easily on this electronic device, and I know that if the interface is not intuitive and fast, I won’t use it – I learned the hard way with PDAs, when I thought that I would enter my tasks and notes, but the difficulty in using the device made me give up on the idea.

A great little gadget isn’t it?

II – What I have already done.

• Email.

I have had a system in place for managing email for a long time and I think it’s efficient. Fortunately, in light of the number I receive every day. I use Outlook 2007 and I have primary folders labeled “clients,” “vendors,” “employees” and sub-folders underneath them, one for every important client, one for every important vendor and one for every employee, with a rule system which directs emails automatically and organizes them in the correct folder. It takes 30 seconds to create a folder and a rule once you know how to do it and then Outlook automatically files mail from your client or vendor for years without you having to do a thing. What’s more, with Outlook 2007’s automatic search feature, the need to file emails has all but disappeared: you can find mail in seconds, wherever it is!

I took the advice of Timothy Ferriss (author of The Four Hour Work Week) and I deactivated the feature for automatically downloading emails: right now it’s something I do manually, to avoid be constantly interrupted.

As for dealing with email, it’s very easy and in fact I have been using the GTD method, almost entirely, for years without knowing it. When I get mail, I read it and:

• Either I delete it immediately.
• Or I leave it alone, which means it’s automatically filed.
• Or I reply to it, if it takes less than two minutes and if I am able to.
• Or I mark it as unread so that I can come back to it later.

Ah yes, it is totally possible to change an email you have read to unread and it’s even quite simple.

In Outlook (it works the same in most email applications), right click on the email, then select “Mark as unread”

. Simple right? Then Outlook displays the number of unread emails that I have in each folder and displays the name of the folder in bold, which lets me know if I have any actions to take care of.

: Folder containing 1 unread message

: Folder containing no unread messages

The thing that I don’t do, in keeping with GTD, is to integrate the emails that I reference into a system and categorize the actions that need to be taken. Outlook can do that easily by assigning a category to the email and a due date reminder using the box and flag which are found on the left of the mail item and the date you received it .

The flag lets you assign a due date to the email and the box lets you assign a category.

But I don’t use it at the moment and I am doing very well without it. As French reader Laurent put it, you also don’t want to get caught up in micro-managing your time, which will have the opposite effect of costing more time. At most I am going to integrate actions into the system for emails that require a certain amount of time to deal with and a follow up, for one reason or another.

• Calendar

I haven’t used this sort of calendar for a long time:

so i use the Outlook calendar function, synchronized to a PDA, which let me easily edit the calendar and assign color codes to my action – which lets me see at a glance what my day and my week look like.

But anyway, it’s been a lot less useful since my PDA stopped working .

However, I will keep this electronic calendar, which will either be completely integrated with my GTD system – via the Outlook plug-in – or into which I will copy and paste the possible actions to be entered into the RTM.

• Desk

Ever since I translated this article which describes how to organize your desk using the GTD method two months ago on my blog Habitudes Zen, my desk has literally gone through a metamorphosis. Before it was often cluttered with paper and different things which had no business being there.

Now, it is empty and serene: only essential items remain. My monitor, phone, a note-pad, a pen holder, some accessories which I use all the time, like the company seal and a postal scale, and a red “to-do” folder. All the papers are in it that I get and don’t destroy, don’t file and don’t see to right away. Then, when I have a little time, I open the folder and deal with the things in the pile.

The system could be further improved upon – I don’t file papers in any particular order, for example- but it is still a big improvement over my last “system,” an improvement which cost me practically nothing in terms of effort and time to set it up.

Today, when I arrive at my company, the simple sight of my clear, tidy desk lifts me up, motivates me and calms me down, all at the same time.

My main desk. Only essentials and a “to do” folder. Oh yes, it is red.

My other desk, completely empty and reserved for meetings and for dealing with the paperwork.

My filing system, located just to the right of my desk, is barely used at the moment. It will eventually be completely incorporated into my GTD system.

Forgive the quality of the photos, I just used my old Nokia cell phone to take them .

In any case, I really appreciate the clarity of mind that comes from the sight of a clear desk, uncluttered by a ton of things that block my visual field and my brain. I really don’t understand reader French Olivier Maxime who, by way of criticizing pearl No. 7 in my previous article – rightly insisting on the importance of tidying up your desk – sent me a photo of Einstein’s desk:

Einstein’s desk. Do you think it’s a good example to follow?

As I told him, I don’t believe that taking inspiration from the defects of great men can help you find your genius .

• Filing

Similarly, I have a filing system which has worked pretty well for many years: a binder for vendor invoices – current purchases and resale purchases, with a divider to separate the two – a binder for company invoices – I keep them electronically, then print then all together at the end of the year to give the accountant – a binder for customer contracts and a binder for all documents relating to employees. I try to keep everything else electronically when I can, by scanning paper documents and converting them into PDF format.

• Two minute rule

This is the simplest thing to apply in GTD: if something that arrives in your inbox requires less than two minutes to do, do it immediately. It’s really quite nuts, but I do it as soon as I think of it ever since I read the book and it really makes a difference: I instantly get rid of all the little tasks that would otherwise build up and overwhelm me.

III – What I Have Left To Do

A lot of things . But here is the list of my next set of actions for implementing GTD.

1. Choose the best tool that really meets all of my requirements, see part 1.
2. Empty every draw in my desk and apply the GTD sort method (destroy it, put it in the “to do” folder, file it, delegate it).
3. Same goes for the filing cabinets and shelves.

The GTD method clearly takes a long time to implement, but I think that it’s a wise investment of time and will pay off for me later on . Only time will tell.

What about you? Have you tried to set it up? How did it go?

[Translated by DeansResource]

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Does this mean I have given up on the idea of reading 52 books in 52 weeks? Yes and No. In the last 7 weeks I have read 8 books, including Personal Development for Smart People. Therefore even if I skip a week I am still in the game.

Well OK, Steve Pavlina’s book is not part of my Personal MBA challenge, so I am cheating a little . The GTD method is supposed to save me time, therefore I am not giving up the idea of reading 52 books in 52 weeks. But just as important as the project or the books themselves, is what I will get out of them in my personal and professional life. Now, one of the major pitfalls of my project, which I have been conscious of from the outset, is that the pace I have imposed on myself is preventing me from fully putting into practice what I am learning. I chose to impose one book a week on myself because that seemed to have more benefits than drawbacks.

I envisaged this project also as an experience and not as a set of fixed rules, it is therefore possible that I will modify elements of it for purposes of making it more effective and efficient. For example, I have thought about the idea of switching off so that “one week I read a book and write a summary, then the next week I put it into practice and write an article about it, then continuing on.” But I hesitate to do that. What do you think? Do you think that would take something away from the spirit of the project? Or would I get more benefit from it? What would I lose in the end? I am just at the beginning, so should I keep it up for a while longer before asking myself that question? What do you think?

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Thank you Erica, I appreciate your gesture and your support very much!

What’s more, Phil of Slacker Manager wrote an article about my project which has already led to hundreds of visitors. Thank you Phil!

Recently I have had enouragement from those close to me, my friends, my colleagues, my clients and internet users and I must thank all of you from the bottom of my heart, this gives me a lot of energy to keep it up!

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"You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library."
– Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon), Good Will Hunting

First of all I want to introduce myself to those who don’t know me: I am Olivier Roland, I’m 27, I’m French and I manage an information services company that I created when I was 19 (3 people), and I am the author of two other French blogs, Techno Smart (great tools for smart people – that’s the slogan ) and Habitudes Zen (translations of the best articles from the famous blog Zen Habits).

Are you familiar with the Personal MBA? It’s a concept created by Josh Kaufman (following an idea by Seth Godin). Going off the assumption that business schools don’t have a monopoly on knowledge and wisdom, he suggests that every one of us passes a personal MBA by reading a selection of the best business books that exist, around 77 published in 2008 (93 with supplements) in 12 different categories.

1. Quick Start
2. Productivity and Efficiency
3. Psychology and Communication
4. Design and Production
5. Marketing, Sales and Negotiation
6. Entrepreneurship
7. Management and Leadership
8. Strategy and Innovation
9. Finances and Analysis
10. Personal Finance
11. Supplement : Business History
12. Supplement : Business Reference

But what is an MBA, you might ask? It stands for Master of Business Administration – a degree that is the result of some very expensive classes (about €50,000 in europe, $100,000 in the United States!) and at a high level for doing business in the global economy, strategy, marketing, finance, human resources and management. Usually it takes from 12 to 24 months and it’s often pursued by students who want to finish off their education with a prestigious degree, usually executives in mid career who wish to boost their professional potential by acquiring high level knowledge – at an outrageous cost – quite apart from the cost itself, an MBA requires that you sacrifice a whole year or two, sometimes requiring you to give up your salaried job.

That’s why Josh came up with the idea of acquiring the essential knowledge distilled in the MBA – that 20% of people accomplish 80% of the results – by reading a carefully chosen list of the best books covering the subject areas taught in the MBA – for less than $3,500, if you buy the books new, and even less than that if you buy the books used or borrow them.

Started in 2005, the personal MBA has been aired twice, and now the idea is beginning to take off: take a look at this article in Business Week or this one in Lifehacker. It seems that the idea of getting a quality education by yourself is not new. To learn more about the personal MBA, read The Personal MBA Manifesto.

My project consists of 52 books from this list. I am approaching this project seriously, and I am preparing for it in the same way I would train for a marathon: I know that the challenge will be long and difficult, especially once the initial motivation – as well the enthusiasm of getting started – wear off. Why am I doing this? Here are my reasons:

• Because I am a an autodidact and I love to learn. What’s more I love to read and I love to learn by reading . Since I built my business when I was young – 19 year old, I would be the happy owner of a degree if it weren’t for 10 or 20 missing credits, and I have learned most of what I know on the job, learning a lot from my mistakes, and also taking some classes here and there. I have also taken some night classes, but the practical application of these classes is not always apparent in my business.
• Because I feel the need to get more knowledge to better run my business, to better understand the workings of the business world in which I find myself, to be more effective in all the projects that I have taken on or will take on, and to get a better appreciation for the world in general.
• Because I have read several of the books listed in the PMBA already, and I found them all to be excellent, with a special mention for The 4-Hour Workweek. They all changed the perception that I had of certain things, sometimes radically. They have all changed my life on at least one level or have given me a new tool to work with. In light of the important changes that these 7 books induced, I can hardly imagine what 52 will do!
• Because reading 52 books in 52 weeks, and writing a review, and posting it here without ruining my professional life and my social life represents a challenge in itself, which will call into action all my abilities for organization and self motivation. If I procrastinate too long, if I don’t organize myself well enough, if my motivation sinks like a rock, I won’t get there. And you will be the first to know it. I will learn as much from the project itself as I will learn from the books. To see the tricks I will be using to keep myself motivated, read this.
• To do a real life experiment to see if it’s possible to change your life by reading the right books. That’s the point of this blog – I don’t want to create a blog that only talks about this challenge – and I will try to show that it’s possible by sharing with you what it brings to my business, to my projects and to my daily life.
• To share the results of this project with others, in particular by writing clear, concise and relevant summaries.
• To improve my English (About 80% of the books are only available in English).

How shall I undertake this task? Here are the rules of the challenge:

1. Choose 52 books from the actual list of The Personal MBA.
2. Read one a week for 52 weeks. Write a relevant summary, that includes an overall summary as well as chapter by chapter, if the book lends itself to that.
3. Sacrifice only what is useless. I don’t plan on giving up my other activities – my business, improv theater, sports, my two entrepreneur clubs, my other blogs, my leisure time, my personal life. I am going to try and organize myself better and get rid of only what is useless – casually surfing the web, video games, YouTube, everything that wastes precious time in general. I can’t cut out TV, since I hardly watch it anyway.
4. Take action. To think without doing something is just as stupid as to do something without thinking. Thought is based both on our experience – in the field – and our knowledge – acquired from books, school, in conversation with others.

The first problem is to choose the 52 books from among the 77 or the 93 of the PMBA. This wasn’t an easy task. First, there are several books that I have already read (7 in all). For the most part, I decided to add them all to the list because (1) they are worth reading again and (2) I want to write a review for them because it seems to me they are all important.

In the end, I got rid of the two Supplement sections (Business History and Business Reference), that’s 16 books, the books are only available in an audio version (being French, it’s much harder for me to understand spoken English than written English), a large part of the category Design and Production (being about services and software, this seemed less important to me), everything in the category Personal Finance (I have already read The Millionnaire Next Door, which has already opened my eyes on this subject – as well as the blogs Get Rich Slowly and The Simple Dollar and I will wait to be richer before I get deeper into this topic ) and the ones that seemed too specialized or too specific to the USA.

Here, then, is the list of the 52 books that I will read. The original PMBA obviously suggests a list that is exclusively English titles, but some of them have been translated into French. I will read them in French when possible, to save time, and I will read the rest in English.

Quick Start

1. 10 Days to Faster Reading by Abby Marks-Beale

2. StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath

3. Lead the Field by Earl Nightingale
   
   Productivity and Efficiency
   

4. The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
5. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
6. Bit Literacy by Mark Hurst
7. The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
8. The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz
9. The Simplicity Survival Handbook by Bill Jensen
10. Cut to the Chase by Stuart Levine
11. The Unwritten Laws of Business by W.J. King
12. Making Things Happen by Scott Berkun
13. Results Without Authority by Tom Kendrick

    Psychology and Communication

14. How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
15. Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler
16. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds
17. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath
18. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
19. Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions by Gary Klein
20. Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

    
    Design and Production

21. Getting Real by 37signals (free PDF ebook)

    
    Marketing, Sales and Negotiation

22. All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin
23. Indispensable by Joe Calloway
24. Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got by Jay Abraham
25. The Sales Bible by Jeffrey Gitomer
26. The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes
27. SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham
28. Bargaining For Advantage by G. Richard Shell
29. 3-D Negotiation by David A. Lax and James K. Sebenius

    Entrepreneurship

30. The New Business Road Test by John Mullins
31. Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson
32. The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
33. How to Make Millions with Your Ideas by Dan Kennedy

    Management and Leadership

34. First, Break All The Rules by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman
35. 12: The Elements of Great Managing by Rodd Wagner & James Harter
36. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
37. Growing Great Employees by Erika Andersen
38. 45 effective ways for hiring smart by Pierre Mornell
39. Judgment by Noel Tichy & Warren Bennis
40. The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig
41. The Essential Drucker by Peter F. Drucker
    

    Strategy and Innovation

42. Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies by Nikos Mourkogiannis
43. Strategy Blue Ocean by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
44. Seeing What’s Next by Clayton M. Christensen, Erik A. Roth, Scott D. Anthony
45. Learning from the Future by Liam Fahey & Robert Randall
46. Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Peter F. Drucker
47. Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun
48. Green to Gold by Daniel Esty & Andrew Winston
    
    

    Finances and Analysis

49. Turning Numbers Into Knowledge by Jonathan Koomey
50. Show Me The Numbers by Stephen Few
51. Marketing Metrics by Paul W. Farris, Neil T. Bendle, Phillip E. Pfeifer, and David J. Reibstein
52. Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik

I don’t plan on necessarily reading the books in this order, but I will try to read everything one category at a time so that it is easier to compare and connect my new knowledge.

My project kicks off officially on the October 1st. Let’s meet the 4th or 5th for the first review of the first book, 10 Days to Faster Reading.

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