Introduction

Hello there! For a very long time, i just read fantasy books. And i loved it and will still do in the future. But as i went more and more into self-improvement i thought about reading stuff that will actually bring some value to me. I wanted to learn more about productivity and more about software engineering. I think most of you have books at home about a specific programming language or a framework. And these books are good to have as a reference but i don't enjoy reading them at all. They don't have a flow, a story. Its actually just facts and more facts and you will try to remember all of them.

Hint: This will not happen.

I researched about good books for productivity and software engineering and so far im pretty happy with the books i read. Let me introduce you to 3 books i read in the last months and how they helped me to improve myself as a programmer.

Book 1: Atomic Habits

I actually did a full review on this in this blog post. Let me tell you about this book in 2 or 3 sentences.

Atomic Habits is one if not THE most valuable book out there when it comes to productivity. And why? Because this book is all about habits and its actually insane how much you can improve when you understand your own habits and learn how to stop with bad habits and learn new good habits that will make you better each day.

A human being is a sum of all his/her habits. And improve your habits even if its just a little one will bring you so much value because your habits define you every single day!

I heard so many positive things about this book on Twitter and every single person who read this was thrilled! Give it a try.

Book 2: So Good They Can't Ignore You

I also wrote a full review about it here.

This book is really an eye-opener. It's very hard to describe this book in a few sentences but let me try it.

The author of this book tries to destroy the thesis that you just need to follow your passion to find your dream job. It's not good advice and Cal Newport traveled around the world and met different people to understand how people actually find their dream jobs.

What i really found interesting for example is the fact the most people are always trying to find a new, better job. In times of LinkedIn and other such platforms, you get offers like every single day. Each job seems to be better than the other. You will start to compare your job with others and this will make you unhappy quite fast.

You should not do that. Instead do this: Try to improve your current situation and get really really good at your current job. Learn new things, try to improve things in your company. Strive for more control and then use it to run free!

This is also a big part of a dream job. Control.

More control means more freedom means more creativity means more happiness in your job.

I really enjoyed it and i hope you will too!

Book 3: The Pragmatic Programmer

This is a book im currently reading for the first time. And i say this because i will read this multiple times for sure.

The 2 authors talk about all the topics that are important in the world of a developer. You will learn about debugging, use the terminal, testing, code refactoring, prototyping, and much more! They will bring up very interesting anecdotes and examples from their lives. Also on every chapter are tips and challenges you can tackle to improve on the topic.

I really like that you don't have to read it from the beginning to the end. You can just pick a topic and read about it. If their any references to other topics they point it out.

If you want to improve yourself as a programmer and learn from 2 very experienced programmers this book is for you!

Conclusion

That's it! I hope you enjoyed the read and maybe you will read one or another of these fantastic books!

If you don't know with which you want to start i highly recommend Atomic Habits as this will most likely have to most impact on your life and your productivity!

Stay connected to me and my content on Twitter.

I love to improve myself every single day even if it's just a tiny bit!

Stay safe and healthy guys!

And as always: develop yourself!