5 Must-read articles this month — especially during these hard times.
And I am also spilling my reading backlog for the next month (hopefully).
I realize that reading an article or book that suits my condition at any time always gives me good insight and inspires me to write or do new things. It often helps me cope with uncertainty, even answering work or life-related problems.
Then I decided to write an article that discussed an article. Or I could call it my monthly worth-to-read list. Let’s start it this month, December.
Here we go~
During The Hard Times.
A lot of sad news came across my LinkedIn profile recently. Yes, it’s the “L” thing that stands for “layoff.” It is the most challenging time for all of us, the ones impacted, and for me, who works in a start-up company. As I feel like work-life in a start-up will never be the same. Insecurities find us all.
But during those hard times, I found several websites and these insightful articles that might help us through these challenging times.
#1 Article: Be Kind to Yourself Today
Written beautifully by Rakshitha Arni Ravishankar and Kelsey Alpaio. It is not only talked about “it’s okay not to be okay” but also how we can manage ourselves to cope with uncomfortable things happening in our lives.
One of my favorite quotes from this article:
Sometimes being kind to yourself means letting go of what others want you to be and championing what you actually believe in.
#2 Article: Preparing for layoffs as a designer
Written by Aaron Cecchini-Butler it talked about what we should prepare (as designers) in this uncertain economic atmosphere that might affect our job as employees.
Since I am also a designer, this article suits me well and gives me an actionable item for what I should prepare next to maintain my career.
#3 Article: The Looking Glass: Back on The Saddle
Written by my favorite author, Julie Zhuo. Published just at the right time when massive layoffs first happened in Meta and Amazon. I would not summarize here because I really recommend you to read this.
These are my favorite quotes (that I also believe) from this article:
Your career is NOT: your company, your level, how much money you make, your title, whether you were included in some prestigious group (a company or team, an exclusive conference, a list of N under N, an award recipient, etc.)
Dealing with decision
In short, this month is my first year in a leadership role. Of course, I need to learn fast and more about a lot of things and decision-making is my top priority topic.
#4 Article: Do You Know What You Really Want
Written by Kristi DePaul. I relate well to this article since it discusses how social media affect our decision-making in our entire life. This article also includes Jonah Berger’s discussion from his book — Invisible Influence (Oh, I also love this book!) — which talked about how others shape 99% of our decisions.
What interested me was this article not only took up the negative side of social media and how it impacts our life but also the positive side and how we can utilize that in our life.
One of the most memorable quotes I found in this article:
If you find that your social media channels are eliciting negative emotions on a regular basis, consider limiting your exposure or uninstalling some apps. Another option is to curate your feeds more deliberately, following and liking people or topics that inspire you versus those that lead down a rabbit hole of comparison.
#5 Article: 10-Decision-Making Errors that Hold Us Back at Work — The Decision Lab
Last but not least, I came across this website about a month ago and have fallen in love with what it writes. I saved so many good articles in my brain bank (what they called a reading list).
And this article just came at the right time. It talked about what kind of habits (or maybe mistakes) we’re unaware of when making a decision and how to solve it. Most of the topics also suit my role as a designer — that we should be responsible for every design decision we made.
My Reading Backlog
The Art of Judgement
My interest in how our brain works when making decisions or judgments chased me; lucky me, I found this book when I visited the famous book fair last weekend.
I have already read the first chapter of this book and found out that the English language used is quite challenging to understand. I need to read each page at least twice to get the idea. But yeah, my first impression, I would give a 3.5/5 rating for this book.
Anyway, I am still curious about this book since it’s a 3.8 rating on Amazon Book but a 2.9 rating on Goodreads. Have any of you read this too? What do you think of this book?
By the way, thanks for reaching the end of this article. Disclaimer: This is the first article I wrote in English. So much improvement is needed, but thanks to Grammarly for helping me through it all. If you have any feedback, I would be thrilled to hear that :D
