The Low Down : Jim Kwik

OK, it ended much better than it started. There was too much of cut-the-k-give-us-the-stuff for me for about 50% of it. I did enjoy the conversations with Mia Lux - especially her Ozzie accent pronouncing reflecting as re-flake-ting - lovely (but her R's are American. what gives?) - beautifully paced.

There's just not enough tangible evidence of real people overcoming real obstacles and accomplishing mountains for me. He mentions JFK could do 1200-1600 wpm (really? Maybe that's coz he only had to read CIA telegrams from Moscow which are deliberately dumbed down. You get my point - if you're trying to read about device physics or math, you need something more than JUST-DO-IT. And Jim doesn't really deliver much)

Good	Your smartphone and other gadgets can be your enemy. Focus is a resource, and they drain you of it.
Good	Eat healthy - avocado, blueberries, walnuts, greens, etc
Bad	Not enough on what kind of exercise works. If he has access to high-performers like Larry and Sergey or Dustin Mosk, or Zuck, why not tell us what they do to perform at that rate? Magnus Carlsen does get on the treadmill everyday - just see the BBC documentary.
Bad	Anticipate peoples' questions - you get where I'm going - if you *have* to do all of this to perform at a high level, then are you sure Einstein and Feynman and Heisenberg *did* all these things? I'll tell you, they didn't - which means what? Focus (distractions) and peer-group and temples of learning count for 100x more than we give them credit for. The problem today is too much distraction - we allow the media into our bodies because it's so easy
Bad	A bit too much fluff for me - more in the first half of the book. Gets much better after he gets to speed reading. Still, not enough stuff targeted at people who are really building the world - coders and engineers. Not one thing about how a mediocre engineer used his hacks to get to the next level. Sorry mate
FASTER	Forget (limitations) Act (do stuff, don't just dream) State (access empowering states - Joy - do a HALT - Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired check) Teach (you learn more when you try to teach - one of Feynman's hacks) Enter (the allotted time into your calendar) Revise (spaced repetition is the key to long-term memory)
Speed Reading	Measure your WPM before you start Use finger pointing to focus on what you're reading. On screen, it may be worth investing in some browser extension that helps Eliminate sub-vocalization (reading aloud in your mind) - this is a big bottleneck Build up your speed using the 4,3,2,1 method - give yourself less and less time. One thing that happens when you go faster is that you are forced to focus more.
Trivia	Naveen Jain - to create a billion dollars in value, take on a $10b problem.
6 Thinking Hats	Since a problem cannot be solved at the level of consciousness in which it was created, use different mental approaches - positive, data-driven, judgemental, etc.

The end : He ain't no Jason Fried or DHH. But he is raking it in, so there is *something* you can learn from him. And I guess he means well..