A short personal review of 2022
Favorites #
Favorite Non-Fiction Book Read #
Not an insider tip, but of all the non-fiction books I've read this year I found "Getting Things Done" by David Allen the most valuable. I've considered reading the book for over 10 years, but our company-internal book club finally forced me to do so. As you'll find many reviews of the book online, I won't get into depth here, but as a manager, I feel implementing a GTD-like system is indispensable. I have to admit that I didn't particularly appreciate Mr. Allen's writing style, but the book's content outweighs this shortcoming by far.
Runners up: #
- Humankind by Rutger Bregman: I particularly liked that Mr. Bregman took the trouble to question popular "facts" about the human nature. Spoiler alert: he is able to refute them by researching the data in depth.
- No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer: How to prevent a company from getting increasingly bureaucratic when it's growing? How to keep the innovativeness of the start-up days? How to foster candid feedback? These questions are some of the topics in the excellent book by Netflix founder Reed Hastings. The only question I had after reading this book was how Netflix ended up with so much low-quality content 🤔
Favorite Fiction Book Read #
I've read only three fiction books this year: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell, and The Forty Days of Musa Dagh by Franz Werfel. I liked all of them, but the novel by Franz Werfel impressed me the most. I was largely ignorant about the Armenian genocide during World War I. The book is about the heroic fight of the Armenians against a striking superiority of Ottoman troops on top of the Musa Dagh mountain. It reminded me a bit of For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway, but I found Werfel's book better. The realistic description of the characters, the attention to detail, and the skillful weaving in of observations on human psychology make this book a masterpiece. Note that I read the book in German.
Things Learned #
Certainly, I improved regarding keeping track of things and handling/closing open loops (thanks to partly implementing GTD). But I think I have not considerably improved on any hard skill (todo 2023❗) Personally, I finally came to the conclusion that I'm not the person for investing in stocks. I started to invest in the ETFs using a saving plan which requires less time on my side. If you're German-speaking and interested in ETFs, I found ETF Handbuch by finanzfluss really helpful!
Happy New Year to all of you! 🍾🥳
- Previous: Don't end up as a code maintainer!