…or how to become slightly happier and get a bit more done!
Burkeman writes the the excellent “This Column will Change Your Life..” articles for the Guardian. This book is an extension of that column, presenting his take on self-help, happiness studies, lifehacking and other such ideas presented in so-called self-development books by a succession of gurus. You name them and their ideas are here: Dale Carnegie, Anthony Robbins, Steven Covey, Napoleon Hill, Lawrence Peter (Peter Principle) etc. He also picks up on modern self-development bloggers such as Steve Pavlina and Tim Ferriss.
Burkeman’s take is a pseudo-scientific approach to: “what does the research tell us about this..”; laced with a healthy dose of cynicism and dry wit about most of the claims made. He covers the whole gamut of opinions expressed on self-development areas from the biggest cliches like “finding your passion” through how to be happier, how to win friends and influence people, ruling the office, how to use your brain, how to keep functioning, follow me (Gurus, God-men and other questionable characters), and roads less traveled . In most cases he examines the claims of the authors and grounds these in common sense and the findings of relevant scientific research. This generally serves to question most of the claims made.
For example he is critical of many ideas proposed such as: the culture of meetings in organisations and why so much time is spent in what is self-indulgent and worthless activity: ” ..meetings move at the pace of the slowest mind in the room…”. He also examines organisations attempts to induce happiness and good feelings. He concludes that top-down efforts to induce this are self-defeating. Happiness can’t be enforced when: “..you are required to do something that will be acceptable only if you do it voluntarily”. He also answers questions such as: “why do your friends always have more friends than you? and how smiling can help prevent bank robberies!
There are some nuggets to be had here when Burkeman takes the distillation of what he has discovered and presents his own view on topics such as how to deal with procrastination, how to keep your email inbox clear, and how to deal with to-do lists (he is a real fan of lists and timetables!)
All in all if you are tired of self-serving self-development gurus and their theories, have a read at this book. It will help you to put all of this into perspective and provide you with an informative and witty read. It is highly recommended.
You can get further details of the book on Amazon here:
Help!: How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done
It costs £7.19 in paperback and £6.83 in e-book form.
Leave a Reply