Reddit reviews 59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute

A few books on personal relations don't hurt either. My younger self needed to stand up for herself more, and in better ways.

Edit: Several people are asking for recommendations. These are some I have found extremely helpful:

I have a few I really recommend:

Thanks for the Feedback is one of the best I have read that incorporates info I have heard from other books all in one place with practical examples. If I could give a copy of this book to every person on earth I would. (The same people wrote a book called Difficult Conversations, but I have yet to read that.)

Edit to add Consious Business. This is the one I meant to add as the second recommendation; it is mostly about working with others in business but really applies to working with anyone in all relationships.

Emotional Intelligence is another I recommend, giving guidance on how to understand emotions. (Read this, then go re-watch Inside Out.)

10% Happier is an exploration into meditation as a non-spiritual thing. See Dan's video.

59 Seconds is about little things we can do to make our lives better (all science study based).

And Stumbling on Happiness is about understanding our own motivations better (also research study based).

Some of these books are clearly about "self help" but understanding ourselves is a key to understanding our interactions with others. And I try to only recommend books that are based in science and research.

I also like Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, Incognito by David Eagleman, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, How Children Succeed by Paul Tough, The Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam, Nudge by Richard Thaler, and Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnerman. Oh, and anything by Malcom Gladwell; I may not always agree with him, but he is thought provoking and well researched. (I have an Audible account and have found that a good way to get through books while doing other things like exercise, long car trips, or cleaning the house.)

More Adds; Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz, Nurture Shock by Po Bronson, My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel, Far From The Tree by Andrew Solomon, The Charisma Myth by Olivia Cabane, How We Learn by Benedict Carey, and I generally like anything by the Freakanomics guys.

Edit: And thank you kind stranger for the gold!

If anyone would like to make recommendations to me based on the above list, please do so! I always have a growing reading queue :-)

59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman is along a similar line of self-help through peer-reviewed research.

I have a couple (although I have read most of your books, and my favorite is "The man who mistook his wife for a hat is my favorite!)

59 seconds to change your life (Dr. .Richard Wiseman) -
https://www.amazon.com/59-Seconds-Change-Under-Minute/dp/0307474860

In this book wiseman pulls together many interesting studies and turns them into a kind of science-based self help book, showing how you can do simple things to make yourself happy, and how the science backs up what you are doing. Its kind of a "science does life hacks" type of book and I found it fascinating


The conscious universe - (Dr. Dean Radin)
https://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Universe-Scientific-Psychic-Phenomena/dp/0061778990/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474111002&sr=1-1&keywords=dean+radin+conscious

I think this one has to rate as controversial - but I personally found it a compelling read and it shifted my world view off kilter for a long time. Basically the author pulls together all of the experiments on telepathy, clairvoyance, etc. He is an experimental statistician and is able to make a strong case for there being some sort of physchic effect that science cannot explain. I have followed the topic through the years since, but I have not found a particularly strong rebuttal to this books contents

Another one I recently read

Peak - The new science of expertise (Anders Ericson and Robert Pool)
https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise/dp/0544456238/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474111419&sr=1-3&keywords=peak
This book is by the guy who coined the 10,000 hours rule (the one which Gladwell uses in Outliers) - It goes into a lot of scientific studies which have been run investigating how experts become experts - By now we know the soundbyte - 10000 hours - but I thought it was very interesting to see how this applies for different types of expertise, and for the neat experiments which have been run

Highly recommended:

http://www.amazon.com/59-Seconds-Change-Under-Minute/dp/0307474860

Richard Wiseman is both a psychologist and a skeptic, and his book contains a healthy mix of real-world advice about pursuing a happy life and also a lot of myth-busting that discredits a lot of what keeps getting regurgitated into different self-help books.

1. Create a fake account in her name - I'm sure the mods won't notice if you use a fake IP address - and then you can send messages to her. You'll probably need to append additional characters to the name string because duplicate names are frowned upon - but not illegal.
   
   
2. Conjure a familiar of compatible sex - will make it easier to cope without your guardian PC - usually costs a lot of Gold Pieces but worth it because will also help you level up faster
   
   
3. Contact other members of her guild and try to re-create a facsimile of her character sheet on a regular basis. This will not resurrect her character (no magic in this MMORPG!) but it will remind you of her stats and key strengths and weaknesses - some of which you will also share.
   
   
4. Unf. there is no undo in this (or any) MMORPG - but you should note down any mistakes you have made and use them to build a game map to use in the future.
   
   In addition, the user generated manuals section of the wiki has a helpful guides in this area - for example, http://www.amazon.com/59-Seconds-Change-Under-Minute/dp/0307474860/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381236321&sr=8-1&keywords=59+seconds

What about a book like 59-seconds? It's more about understanding ourselves, but there is a section on relationships and from how you describe him, he might enjoy it being that it's an advice book based in scientific research. I really wish I knew a book more specifically about relationships for couples that was similar to this.

Here's a good one that covers a range of things like happiness, motivation, stress, and decision making. All of its advice is derived from scientific studies so it has a good chance of actually working.

Have I got a prescription for you!

Actually I have a lot of prescriptions for you and you will have to try them out and see what works for you.

First take a look at these videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFJPtVRlI64

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axrywDP9Ii0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WwAQqWUkpI

Go to Meetup.com and search your area for atheist groups, humanist groups, Unitarian groups, skeptic groups, Sunday Assembly and then drop by and say hello.

Here is a smorgasbord of methods for getting over religion.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Recovering+from+religion

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=how%20to%20get%20over%20religion

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Tested+ways+to+overcome+a+habit

59 seconds

https://www.amazon.com/59-Seconds-Change-Under-Minute/dp/0307474860

WOOP

https://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Positive-Thinking-Science-Motivation/dp/1617230235/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469587465&sr=1-1&keywords=WOOP

If all this fails, find an atheist boy or girl and fall in love.

This should get you started. Pick and choose what you like. If you still are having trouble, feel free to get in touch.

+1 on the http://usefulscience.org facts ;)

w.r.t. a book, this might fit the bill: Richard Wiseman - 59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute

"A psychologist and best-selling author gives us a myth-busting response to the self-help movement, with tips and tricks to improve your life that come straight from the scientific community." (http://www.amazon.com/59-Seconds-Change-Under-Minute/dp/0307474860)

If your restaurant gives mints or candy or something along with the bill, give the correct number with the bill, then just as you leave the table, reach into your pocket and quickly hand everyone a second piece. In a study, this increased tips by 20% compared to those who only got one piece (and 23% compared to those who got no candy).

I read about this and other interesting bits of psychology in this interesting book: 59 Seconds

There's a book on quick life-changing activities based on solid scientific research.

> What's wrong with these tools? Are they outdated?

Yes. I think the traditional time-management is largely wrong. First of all, it is based on assertions that have no scientific basis (Richard Wiseman debunked many of the time-management dogmas in his book 59 Seconds). Most time-management gurus are not psychologists or neuroscientists, they are simply good marketers. I consider people like Tony Robbins charlatans.

GTD suffers from the same problem. There is a good summary-review of GTD, where its author easily proves, that 95% of the book is filler - you could place the whole system on 10 pages and wouldn't lose any value. But even the system itself isn't good enough, otherwise Leo Babauta wouldn't have to create his own Zen to Done. Babauta lists 5 problems with GTD:

1. GTD is a series of habit changes - it forces you to change your life altogether
   
2. GTD doesn’t focus enough on doing - it says nothing about how to actually perform the tasks
   
3. GTD is too unstructured for many people - it doesn't provide systems for planning
   
4. GTD tries to do too much, which ends up stressing you out - it doesn't discriminate among what you actually need to do
   
5. GTD doesn’t focus enough on your goals - it is very low-level and bottom-up
   
   Practices like "to-do" lists or prioritizing by importance are also no use for a person seeking productivity boost. What is a "to-do" list after all? An open list, where you indiscriminately add everything that you need to do, and that stresses you out, as you never do everything on the list. That's why Mark Forster in his book "Do It Tomorrow" proposes to use closed lists (see Overwhelmed by Your To-Do List? Go With a ‘Will-Do’ List Instead). And prioritizing by importance is also an unneeded complexity, as there are some things that you should do, and some things that you shouldn't (see Methods I don't recommend).
   
   Most productivity apps are bullshit. Even the most busy person needs only 3 things: calendar, a list of tasks, and a pomodoro timer. I think time-management should simplify our life, instead it adds complexity. And all it stems from the fact there is no rigorous approach in time-management, instead there are only dogmas, unjustified enthusiasm and self-promotion.

59 seconds has this and more information about benefits of writing vs. talking etc. It's a great book.

Try some tactics from 59 Seconds. Imagine yourself in the 3rd person being who you want to be, doing what you should be doing. Write down a few good thoughts each day.