The Circadian Code talks about how the our body’s circadian clock affects our health. One big argument in the book was in favor of restricted time eating, or in order words, intermittent fasting. Here are some of my takeaways:

• You can start with eating within a 12 hour window for 2 weeks, and then reduce it by 1 hour each week, with the goal of eventually restricting all of your eating within an 8 hour window.
• He suggests having a protein & fiber heavy breakfast. Oatmeal, cottage cheese, almonds and dried cranberries
• Don’t eat carbs at dinner
• Your brain works best between 10 AM - 3 PM
• Light elevates mood. You need to be exposed to a light source that is at least 10,000 lux for 15-30 minutes every day
• Best time to take melatonin is 2 hours before bedtime. Wait 1-2 hours after eating before you take melatonin

I find it amusing that I’ve been applying some principles from computer science and my job to my everyday life. Here are some principles that I’ve been using to optimize my everyday workflows recently:

Redundancy:

• I try to store an extra for everything (toilet paper, toothpaste, laundry detergent etc.) so that I don’t run out completely and have enough time to restock as items run out.

Batching:

• I was visiting the local library several times a week, to drop off or pick up books. I’ve been batching these visits together: when a book arrives, waiting if there are other books in transit, or not dropping off a book immediately if there’s still time left or renewal is possible.
• I was constantly restocking my fridge during the week. Now, I try to plan what I’ll cook, buy most of my groceries online, and only go out once a week for markets that don’t have delivery. For instance, I go to a Turkish market that is far away once a month, and buy items in bulk.

Staging area:

When I came back from my solo trip to Japan, I had a growing interest in Zen Buddhism. One of the books I picked up was Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. I found it difficult to follow as an introductory book. “What is Zen?” gives a more direct introduction to Zen Buddhism in question and answer format. Some of the thought-provoking parts for me were:

Most Western people who come to Buddhism are looking for something. That’s good. Yet looking for something stands in the way of getting what you are looking for…And what you get may not be exactly what you thought you were looking for in the beginning…_ _When you desperately press for some goal or aspiration, your very pressing becomes an obstacle. You are tense, you try too hard, you are impatient, you get discouraged easily, and this hampers you.

Make Time is a book on productivity, it talks about how to make effective use of your time. It suggest a method that involves picking a highlight for the day, one high-priority goal. There can be different frameworks on how too choose, for instance:

• What’s the most pressing thing I have to do today?
• At the end of the day, which one will bring me the most satisfaction?
• When I reflect on today, what will bring me the most joy?

There’s a lot of emphasis on being able to focus:

Ikigai talks about world’s blue zones, where people live longer and have fewer diseases than anywhere else in the world. Places like Okinawa, Japan or Sardinia, Italy. Scientists interview centurians that live in these regions and try to find insights about longevity. Some of the recommendations are:

• Fill your belly to 80%, stop eating before you’re full
• Eat a wide variey of vegatables every day
• Grains are the foundation of their diet, they rarely eat sugar.
• Drink green tea, rich in antioxidants
• Stay active, do lightweight exercise

Overall, the book isn’t very coherent, and talks about many different subjects and doesn’t have a single hypothesis.

In Lost and Founder, Rand Fishkin, the founder of search engine optimization company Moz, shares his experience on starting a consulting business and turning it into a product company.

It’s very common to start a services business, and he shows some counter-intituive scenarios on how a consulting business could be a better financial deal as a founder. It was also eye opening to see the sort of multipliers VC firms expect during a sale, and how incentives can be misaligned between founders and VCs.

We Are The Nerds tells the story of the famous Reddit website. It revolves around the lives of Steve Huffman, Alexis Ohanian, Aaron Swartz, and some of the early employees. The book details events around Reddit history between 2005 and 2017 and talks about Reddit’s early days at YCombinator, its sale to Conde Nast, competition with Digg, as well as CEO transitions between Yishan Wang, Ellen Pao and back to Steve Huffman.

I had no idea who Ryan Serhant was until coming across his talk at Google. He’s a real estate broker in New York that was featured on TV. In the book, he tells his story of coming to New York and his journey in the last 10 years building his real estate business and lessons learned on how to be a good salesman.

I found the book intrigueging because sales is a subject I’m not very familiar with. Some ideas he talks about are:

Michael Lewis is known for his books Liar’s Poker, Moneyball and The Big Short. Flash Boys is one of his more recent books, and it’s about high-frequency trading. Even though it reads like a novel, it’s actually non-fiction, with real characters and real events.

The book tells the story of how electronic trading replaced trading floor of brokers and the race for reduced latency with the introduction of electronic trading. The story revolves around a few characters. The main character is Brad Katsuyama, a former Royal Bank of Canada trader, discovering that he can no longer buy shares at the prices he sees, and his journey to understand what’s happening in the market that leads him to starting a new, fair exchange called Investors’  Exchange.

Murakami’s new book “Men Without Women” is a collection of seven short stories. A common theme is relationships between men and women, whether it’s a love story or an affair. I enjoyed the first few stories more than the later ones. Despite having different translators for different stories, Murakami’s language is very consistent and easy to read. I like his mastery of storytelling, and grew accustomed to his literary style. This book isn’t his greatest work, but it’s worth reading if you’re interested in reading short stories about men and women.