Throughout 2024 and even a little beyond, I worked on my first book. At the very end of the year, it was finally published. Now it’s time to talk about what the book is about, what makes it better than others, who it’s for, and to describe the entire journey I went through while writing it.
What is the book about?
The book discusses various factors that influence our productivity, efficiency, and planning. One of the first chapters is devoted to time. It compares a person’s life to the age of the universe, the age of the Earth, life on Earth, and the existence of intelligent humans. I attempt to rigorously categorize a person’s time and describe where their time goes and where they can save it.
Next, after the reader has reached the conclusion (that life is too short, that time is their most valuable resource, and that they are most likely allocating their time incorrectly), the book moves on to positive factors that influence our effectiveness and planning. This section includes about 30 factors. These include both obvious positive factors—such as the right environment or setting, or SMART goals—and less obvious ones, such as the Pyramid of Goals and the importance of habits. I also included factors that I personally identified as very important, such as backups, backlogs, and, of course, circles of interest.
Following the positive factors are about two dozen negative ones. And here, for the vast majority of people, it will come as a real surprise to see among the factors that slow progress, for example, pseudoscience, religion, the radio, goal maps, perfectionism, childhood goals, and much more.
I also focus on important concepts such as routine, motivation, luck, talent, mindset, and other aspects. Although the book is primarily aimed at humanities students, it includes chapters on cognitive biases, probabilistic thinking, and the Bayesian approach.
What makes this book better than others?
First, before writing this book, I read over 100 other books and incorporated the best parts of them into my own. Second, I’ve tested many of these methods on myself and developed many interesting techniques on my own. Third, I’ve been passionate about productivity and planning for the past 5–7 years and already have considerable experience in this area. Fourth, I actually live by all these rules myself, and very soon my “2024” project will be available to the public (in the form of a second book—this time practical rather than theoretical)—in which I achieved 31 or 33 of the goals I set for the year.
Who is this book for?
Although the book’s title mentions humanities majors (people far removed from the exact sciences), it will also be useful for tech-savvy people. It’s suitable for both young people who have just graduated from high school or college and members of older generations.
The Journey to Writing the Book
It all began in late fall 2023 when I wrote the first chapters. Although the idea to write such a book had probably come to me half a year to a year earlier. Throughout the winter, spring, and half of fall 2024, I worked actively on the book. That said, there were weeks when I didn’t write a single line. Toward the end of fall, I began actively working on generating images, reviewing them, and making edits—a process that lasted until the last days of December.
The book features quite a few images. Virtually all of them were generated by neural networks, for which I am immensely grateful. The same cannot be said for the cover. The neural networks refused to draw it (though that’s mostly my fault for not coming up with a good prompt), so I had to draw it myself in Photoshop.
