Take Control Of Your Work-Life Balance With This Reading List
Around the New Year, many of us set goals around achieving more. But what if the secret to a happy life wasn’t always striving for more? What if it’s striving for balance? When it comes to our work lives, though, balance is hard to find.
Whether you work from your kitchen table and never switch off, say yes to every opportunity until you’re frazzled, or spend your non-work time thinking through work problems, work-life balance can feel almost impossible, especially for the workaholics among us.
This doesn’t bode well for other areas of your life, though. A survey by Grand Canyon University found almost half of respondents said their relationships with friends and family have suffered because of poor work-life balance, almost 39% said their self-care habits have taken a hit, and almost 38% said their mental and emotional health has been impacted.
You may know you need to make a change, but how exactly do you make that happen? This is where Blinkist can help. The app can give you all the tools you need to make changes and regain control of your work life.
Blinkist has a curated collection of books called The Workaholic Cure. It features 18 books all packed with advice to help find work-life balance in the New Year — and keep that balance throughout 2024. Advice ranges from how to take effective breaks to how to focus on only the essentials to how the four-day workweek can help improve both your work and personal life.
What’s Blinkist exactly? It’s an app that gathers key insights from nonfiction books and shares them as bite-sized explainers you can read or listen to in just 15 minutes. The app has more than 6,500 titles across 27 categories including productivity, psychology, and personal development.
Here’s a look into four books in Blinkist’s collection for workaholics:
It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work
- 21 min reading time
- audio version available
Ever used the project management tool Basecamp? The founders of the software, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, know a thing or two about unhealthy work habits and how they aren’t helping us get more done.
In their book, It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy At Work, the pair dive into the workplace habits we should break, and how they do things differently in their companies to give employees that much-needed work-life balance.
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
How to Do Nothing
- 19 min reading time
- audio version available
Many of us feel like we have to be constantly doing something productive: whether that’s tackling our growing inbox or crunching numbers for next week’s presentation. Even when we’re not working, we feel like we should be cleaning the house, learning a language, or starting a side hustle.
Jenny Odell argues there’s another way to live, and that way involves spending more time doing nothing at all. How To Do Nothing teaches you the value of pausing, stepping back, and finding more happiness in taking a break.
“Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new, whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.”
Do Pause by Robert Poynton
Do Pause
- 18 min reading time
- audio version available
Need more motivation to take a break? Do Pause by Robert Poynton covers how breaks can improve everything from our creativity to our relationships.
Poynton explains how you can build the habit of taking short pauses into your day, and how you can plan longer, restorative breaks, into your year, too.
Designing Your Work Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
Designing Your Work Life
- 23 min reading time
- audio version available
In order to have a better work life in 2024, you need to know what you’d like this better life to look like. Bill Burnett and Dave Evans combine their expertise in design — they worked for Apple and Stanford University — to help you figure that out.
Their book, Designing Your Work Life, walks you through the principles of good design to help you take the job you already have and mold it into the one you want.
Change Your Mindset About Work in Just 15 Minutes
Want actionable hacks to get more done in less time, tips from business owners on how they prioritize, or stories of how top companies promote work-life balance? It can all be found in leading nonfiction books on the topics. But reading those books takes time — time you simply don’t have with your crazy workload.
–Karen Trepte, HuffPost
The founders of Blinkist get it. They designed the app to help busy people read and learn. Blinkist shares the most important messages from nonfiction books in bite-sized explainers that only take 15 minutes to go through.
Battle Burnout with Blinkist
Beyond The Workaholic Cure collection, Blinkist has explainers on books to help you be more productive, combat burnout, and shape your work culture. Plus, the team adds 70 new books each month.
It also features Guides, short courses narrated by experts. Workaholics can check out the Guides on “Identify & Avoid Burnout” by bestselling author Amelia Nagoski and “Build Healthy Workplaces for Success” with Kim Scott and Ernest Adams.
You’ll get all the inspiration and knowledge you need to move towards a healthier work-life in 2024.
Fit Learning into Pockets of Time Throughout the Day
You’re working towards a better work-life balance, but you’re not there yet. Don’t worry, you can read Blinkist’s explainers or listen to them on the go while commuting, working out, or doing chores around the house.
Don’t Just Learn About Work-Life Balance, Make it Happen
One of the best things about Blinkist? Users don’t just turn to the app to read more, they apply what they learn to their everyday lives to make them better — 87% have made positive changes and 91% have created better habits since downloading the app.
28 Million Users Are Already Making Big Life Changes
Blinkist is loved by 28 million users around the world who use the app to improve their work and personal lives. They’re not shy about sharing the love, either — they’ve given Blinkist 104,000 5-star ratings on app stores.
–5-star review
–5-star review
One of the World’s Best Apps for Self-Development
Beyond Blinkist’s loyal fanbase, the app is loved by the likes of The New York Times, TechCrunch, and Forbes. It’s won awards from Google and the United Nations, and Apple named it one of the top 20 apps for lifelong learning.
Want to learn from the rest of the books in The Workaholic Cure collection and work towards true work-life balance in 2024? Download Blinkist to get started.
