Reading List 2008: Making Time to Read

Have you ever experienced a “doomdart”? A doomdart is when a responsibility or obligation you’ve forgotten suddenly and unexpectedly pops into your brain. Immediately after you remember this important but neglected task and you feel a wave of stress and nausea wash over you. If you’re like most people, overloaded and stressed out, you’ve experienced a doomdart, without having a name for it. Dr. Edward Hallowell’s award winning book CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! (256 pages) not only names common problems like doomdarts, but offers tangible solutions to living overloaded lives.

Dr. Hallowell explains that as culture, we have undergone a dramatic shift in our intellectual energy, with the integration of communication technology (like internet, cell phones, and PDAs) and the expansion of the traditional 40-hour work week. As an expert on Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), he demonstrates that most of us adopt ADD-like traits in order to function at a breakneck speed. However, most people don’t function at full capacity because their attention is simply stretched too thin.

Dr. Hallowell provides solutions for not only surviving but thriving in a world where we have so many responsibilities and gadgets competing for our attention. Most importantly, he encourages us to be selective in how we choose to spend our time. Are we matching our output with our intention? If we are spending too much time on activities we don’t enjoy, or that don’t give us rewarding experiences in return, we should minimize these activities as much as possible.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who feels stretched too thin, which would be all of us. It's an excellent description of our modern lives and offers interesting solutions to our dilemma.

Total For 2008: 1079 pages
Genres: Memoir (1), Essay (1), Graphic Novel (1)