Deal of the Week
Hey hey, Nik here!
For more than 24 hours now, I have been stuck at the Heathrow airport in London. My flight was canceled, my luggage is heavy, and the free hotel food does little to make up for so much lost time. But is that time actually lost?
According to Robert Greene, that depends entirely on me. "There are two types of time," he once told his apprentice Ryan Holiday. "Alive time and dead time. One is when you sit around, when you wait until things happen to you. The other is when you are in control, when you make every second count, when you are learning and improving and growing."
A canceled flight is a perfect example of time we would quickly consider "dead" — but just because life didn't go as we planned does not mean we can't do anything productive!
In my case, while I'm waiting for my new flight, I can read in-depth summaries of Robert Greene's books on Shortform*, for example — and so can you! Reading (or listening to) book summaries is the perfect way to turn dead time into alive time while you're taking the bus, waiting for a haircut, or lounging around at the airport, and this app is a great tool to do it.
Shortform* offers over 1,000 guides to some of the world's best non-fiction books, and they don't hold anything back. Each of their guides contains all of a book's key takeaways — in detail and with useful exercises to implement what you learn.
After reading a guide on Shortform*, you'll know exactly...
- Which parts of the book are the most useful and why.
- How to ensure you actually implement the ideas in your life.
Instead of just reading a summary, you'll also read an analysis and how-to guide of each book! Look at this table of contents for Deep Work by Cal Newport, for example:
Do you see it? Why Deep Work matters. Best practices. How to figure out your Deep Work. That's true, in-depth learning from books!
Shortform* also offers all the usual features you'd expect:
- You can listen to audio recordings for each book. The one for Deep Work, for example, takes about 30 minutes — but it'll teach you literally everything you need to know!
- You can use it on the go. Mobile apps, offline listening, they have everything you need to make sure you can learn whenever, wherever.
- Get custom book recommendations thanks to Shortform's* smart algorithm.
- Download beautifully formatted PDFs of each summary to save, print, and use forever.
- Discover the best ideas from important publications like The New York Times, The Economist, and The Wall Street Journal. That's right. Shortform* summarizes more than just books!
- Highlight your favorite passages, take notes, and discuss each book with other community members. These interactive features will help you remember what you learn.
Best of all, after you sign up and tell Shortform* what you want to learn with a few simple clicks, you can test-drive the full experience for 5 days, free of charge! Thoroughly dive into the books that most interest you right now, then make up your mind.
If you want my personal take, I think that if you're the type of person who wants to get the absolute most out of any book you read, you will love Shortform.*
Also, as a Four Minute Books reader, you get a free 5-day trial and an exclusive 20% off* should you keep your subscription.
May you arrive safely at your next destination, and here's hoping your next plane takes off on time — but even if it does, I hope you'll give Shortform* a try.
Happy reading,
-Nik
PS: If you want to read our in-depth review of Shortform* to learn more before you sign up, you can do that here.
Posts
0 Comments