What I read during the 2020 Pandemic

Copy Of One Year, 46 Business Books 13
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Sandra Martini

I like to send books to my clients — books I’ve read and think they’ll get something from. A client who recently received a book asked me how many books I read last year during the Pandemic of 2020. So I counted…

Last year I read/re-read 46 business books and 15 non-biz books. Not included here are all the magazines, journals and digests.

At the bottom of this post is some of the things I do to help retain/use the knowledge.

If you’re looking to up your business, marketing, finance, productivity knowledge, here’s a peek at 2020’s reading list by category (note that many of these could fall into more than one category):

Finance-Related Books

Customer Service, Customer Experience, Customer Retention-Related Books

Marketing and Sales-Related Books

Productivity Books

General Business and/or Personal Development-Related Books

And the non-biz books (some can be considered personal development while others are just for fun):

  1. The Cancer Code: A Revolutionary New Understanding of a Medical Mystery by Dr. Jason Fung
  2. Super Human: The Bulletproof Plan to Age Backward and Maybe Even Live Forever by Dave Asprey
  3. Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel
  4. The Longevity Diet: Discover the New Science Behind Stem Cell Activation and Regeneration to Slow Aging, Fight Disease, and Optimize Weight by Valter Longo
  5. How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist by Andrew Newberg MD
  6. All the Devils Are Here: A Novel (Chief Inspector Gamache Novel) by Louise Penny — I LOVED her earlier Inspector Gamache novels, the later ones are darker. This one is a return to the style I prefer.
  7. How Not to Diet: The Groundbreaking Science of Healthy, Permanent Weight Loss by Michael Greger
  8. Old Bones (Nora Kelly, 1) by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
  9. Crooked River (Agent Pendergast series) by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child — I’ve read every book in the series, one of the cleverest mystery series I’ve read.
  10. Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself by William Li, M.D.
  11. The Ice Limit by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child– great story of an amazing engineering feat combined with what makes people tick.
  12. Beyond the Ice Limit: A Gideon Crew Novel (Gideon Crew Series Book 4) by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child — a sequel (although can stand on its own) to The Ice Limit above that came out 16 years after the first.
  13. The Codex by Douglas Preston
  14. The Cafe on the Edge of the World: A Story About the Meaning of Life by John Strelecky
  15. Deep Storm by Lincoln Child

How I get the most out of what I read

It’s easy to read and forget when dealing with everything in life and business so I’ve developed a few strategies to support me in retaining and implementing the info I read:

1. Business on Kindle, Non-Biz on Paper

While I prefer to hold a book in my hands (there’s nothing like that!), when it comes to learning I’ve discovered that using my Kindle works much better. Highlighting passages I’m interested in allows me to come back and zip through much faster than a paper copy. I can also export things to my Evernote Notebooks and sort by topic.

I save the non-business books for paper copies, most of which I get from the library to ease my mind over the “dead tree books.” 🙂

2. Read with a Notepad Nearby

I typically have my Whitelines notebook nearby (Whitelines lets you digitize handwritten notes so I can upload them when done and store with highlighted notes from book.) and jot any special notes and/or action steps that aren’t covered simply by highlighting.

When done reading and before uploading, I go through my notes and take any item marked with an asterisk and either add it to my action list or delegate it to a team member. This is something to be implemented.

Each week I review my overall action list and move items to that week’s “Make It Happen” list and schedule it on a certain day. This saves me from always staring at a multi-page list which feels overwhelming.

That’s it… doing these two things have helped me make leaps in my business and share knowledge/support clients in doing the same in theirs.

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