Genre: Self-Help

This is first book I read after being part of office’s book club. So, unlike overall review I might talk a bit more about the contents of the book in this post. Feel free to skip reading the entire post but subheadings, if you want to enjoy reading the book.

In this book, author chooses the approach of pragmatism and relates it to human thinking. Particularly, the challenges of thinking clear at all times.

The basic idea behind the book is “You will become what you think”. This resonates more with the idea of another book “As a man thinketh by James Allen”.

And why do we think? Because we all want inner calm. My notes about key concepts in the book:

1. Train your Brain – Education does not end at college. Learn new things, feed your brain. You will have knowledge abundance so that you can make facts based decisions. Why you need it? To avoid cognitive biases and to connect dots in future. Because life is not linear.
2. Useful vs useless thoughts – You don’t have to attend all thoughts that come to your mind. Not all opportunities are for you. How to differentiate? Self-knowledge (Self-awareness). Filtering thoughts is important. To reduce cognitive load, we use heuristics. Eg: Trial and Error, Social proof, familiarity. Familiarity is good for certainty but for breakthrough, you need something different. Ask this question to yourself “Will the outcome of a decision change the way I live?” this can automatically filter useless information and only make decision that have an actual impact on the outcome of your life.
3. Think slow: Smart is not equals to fast. First thought is always based on beliefs. So take time thinking through. Draw your thoughts. Visually represent them. Journal them. This will also help in reflecting about the past and learn.
4. Stop thinking. Stop thinking about things beyond your control. When things become overwhelmed, release your mind by taking breaks, vacation and don’t strain your mind too much.

While the concepts are not that new, I feel, execution in daily life is difficult. We can atleast try few methods such as journaling, learning new things and be able to think based on available facts, that is thinking straight.

It is a small book of 80 pages that we can finish in one sitting. But more importantly, we may have to read book multiple times to internalize the concepts and use them in our daily lives. Like any other self-help books. I liked the idea of filtering thoughts the most. I found it similar to Meditation, don’t you?