Thinking Skills

These books teach general skills in creativity, self-awareness, problem solving and turning ideas into effective action. I also especially recommend the Thinking Directions courses.

• Getting Things Done, The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. How to transform mental clutter and stress into a system for objectively deciding how to be most productive. (more:
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• How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein. Practical methods to decide on priorities and live by them consciously. (more:
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• The Effective Executive, The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter Drucker. identifies the principles for effective decision-making and action. Equally applicable to a whole life as well as business specifically, an effective executive concentrates his time and energy on the most important opportunities that will have decisive consequences and makes that concentration into a conscious habit.
• Mind Over Mood, Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think by Dennis Greenberger, Christine A. Padesky. Using the approach of Cognitive Therapy, you can identify the ideas that cause your emotions and then think about them consciously. (more:
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• The Creative Habit, Learn it and Use it for Life by Twyla Tharp. Practical insights into how to be creative as a sustained lifestyle.
• Two speeches by Charlie Munger by Charlie Munger. Charlie Munger, along with Warren Buffet, manages the Berkshire Hathaway company. In Multidisciplinary Skills: Educational Implications, Munger argues for the value of "broadscale knowledge," knowledge that covers all the essential fields of human endeavor. In Practical Thought about Practical Thought, Munger discusses the value to an investor, and by implication to anyone who wants to succeed in life, of a set of problem-solving skills that transcend specific disciplines, comprising an organized approach to thinking. These essays are reprinted in Damn Right!. (out-of-print, see sources.)
• Philosophy: Who Needs It by Ayn Rand. This motivational essay explains why philosophy is necessary to human life.
• The New Rational Manager by Charles H. Kepner, Benjamin B. Tregoe. Problem-solving and decision techniques, focussing on the human side of change and improvement. (more:
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• The Thinker's Toolkit by Morgan D. Jones. Fourteen powerful Techniques for Problem Solving
• Decision Traps, The Ten Barriers to Brilliant Decision-Making by J. Edward Russo, Paul J. H. Shoemaker.
• The Power of Intuition, How to use your Gut Feelings to make Better Decisions at Work by Gary Klein. (more:
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• How to Solve It, A New Aspect of Mathematical Method by G. Polya.
• Conceptual Blockbusting, A Guide to Better Ideas by James L. Adams.
• The Logic of Failure, Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Conplex Situations by Dietrich Dorner. Explains why people make dumb mistakes, how you can recognize one blooming and how you can think your way out.
• Deep Survival, Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales. It turns out that the ability to keep thinking, even under stress, is the vital difference between life and death.

Links

• BB&T Values – Branch Bank and Trust Company impressively documents its corporate values. These apply to any individual seeking to increase the success and happiness of his life.
• Edward Tufte – Edward Tufte writes and self-publishes books on graphics and information design.
• Levenger Circa – Levenger Circa notebooks are my favorites, because they are flexible, open flat and (using the special punch) can hold any paper type.
• Philosophy – Philosophy is the Science that Studies the fundamental nature of Reality and Man's relation to it.
• Thinking Directions – Thinking Directions teaches courses on improved thinking skills, particularly methods for sustained, effective thinking on difficult or complex problems.