How do you manage your time?

By Janet Forest

How do you manage your time? Well? Poorly? Not at all? Some professional development experts say you can’t manage time. It trucks along with or without you. So, a better question is, “How do you use your time?”

There can be a lot of a social pressure to do more and faster and more efficiently. But is it making us more productive? Are we getting where we want to be?

Carl Honore observes in his Ted Talk that we are racing to go faster and faster in every aspect of our lives. “We used to dial; now we speed dial. We used to read; now we speed read. We used to walk; now we speed walk. And of course, we used to date and now we speed date.” Honore makes the argument that we will actually be happier and more fulfilled if we learn to slow down.

But how do we slow down? Where do we start? In her book, Overwhelmed, Brigid Shulte talks about the pressure adults (and working moms in particular) are under to do everything and have it all. But what does that mean? And is it possible to have it all?

 One place to start, as Arianna Huffington and Dr. Matthew Walker suggest, is to get more sleep. In our effort to more and be more productive, sleep has become associated with laziness. People wear their sleep deprivation like a badge of honor. Yet Dr. Walker explains in his book Why We Sleep that trying to skip sleep during the week and catch up on the weekends is like deciding not to breathe for a day and breathing really deeply the day after. There are all sorts of physiologic activity that only happens during sleep and we need to do it every day.

 Another avenue to explore is finding ways to reduce our distractions. Cal Newport, a computer scientist and author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, believes that by giving in to constant interruptions and distractions, we are denying ourselves the fulfillment of deep focused work.

 For those feeling underwater and at the mercy of their maxed out schedules, the first step is to take a first step. Start somewhere. You didn’t get here in a day, and it won’t be solved in a day. But what can you do this month to make things a tiny bit easier for yourself?

Here’s one suggestion, sign up for our FREE 3-week Time Management Toolkit workshop and learn some new tools and strategies.

Janet Forest is a programs department associate at the Nantucket Atheneum.

It’s good to be a Boston sports fan. First, there were the Patriot’s Day Weekend playoff wins for both the Celtics and the Bruins. Then, on Monday, fans finally got to go outside after a long winter to cheer on Boston Marathon runners and queue up for Red Sox opening day at Fenway Park.

And in the middle of this confluence of winter and spring sports comes new books to help us celebrate the best of team efforts, offer reflections, and examine the cost of choosing a career in sports.

Sportscaster and baseball player Ron Darling’s book 108 Stitches: Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the Game (April 2, St. Martin’s Press) is a collection of wild, wise, and wistful stories reflecting the full arc of a life in and around our national pastime. Through relationships with baseball legends on and off the field, like Yale coach Smoky Joe Wood, Willie Mays, Bart Giamatti, Tom Seaver and Mickey Mantle, Darling’s reminiscences reach all the way back to Babe Ruth and other turn-of-the-century greats.

New York Times baseball columnist Tyler Kepner breaks the history of the sport down into 10 pitches in K: A History of Baseball (April 2, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group). He traces the colorful stories and fascinating folklore behind the 10 major pitches with each chapter highlighting a different pitch. Kepner shares insights from many of the best pitchers in baseball history including 22 Hall of Famers.

George Howe Colt delves into the history of an epic Harvard-Yale Football match in The Game: Harvard, Yale, And America in 1968 (October 2018, Scribner). The two teams played their final game of the season on November 23, 1968, which ended with a score of 29-29. This is the story of an iconic American year as seen through the young men who lived it and were changed by it.

Brian Windhorst tells the story of LeBron James’s incredible transformation from basketball star to sports and business mogul in LEBRON, INC., The Making Of A Billion Dollar Athlete (April 9, Grand Central Publishing).

With eight straight trips to the NBA Finals, James has proven himself one of the greatest basketball players of all time and also become a global brand and businessman.  LEBRON, INC tells the story of James’s journey to becoming a billionaire sports icon and shows how he changed the way most elite athletes manage their careers.

Often called America’s best sports writer, Wright Thompson investigates what it takes to pursue a career in sports in his book The Cost of Dreams: Sports Stories And Other Serious Business (April 2, Penguin Publishing Group). A gifted writer, Wright’s profiles of some of the biggest names in sports, both past and present — Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Ted Williams, and Bear Bryant – with style and smart storytelling and “cuts through the mythology with a scalpel,” said The National Book Review.

Four time Olympic runner Meb Keflezighi offers his insights on his sport in 26 Marathons: What I learned About Faith, Identity, Running and Life From My Marathon Career (March 19, Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale). Keflezighi is the first person in history to win both the Boston and New York City marathons as well as an Olympic marathon medal. He shows runners of all levels how to apply the lessons he’s learned to their own running and lives.

And, in case you missed it, Tiger Woods had a great Patriot’s Day weekend too – he won his fifth Masters competition. Earlier this month, Simon & Schuster issued the paperback version of Tiger Woods, a comprehensive biography by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian. A new work by David Sowell offers a history of the venerable golf tournament in The Masters: A Hole-by-Hole History of America’s Golf Classic (March 1, UNP Nebraska).

The degree to which we try new things and attempt to teach our kids about expanding their food choices is the degree to which we make acceptance the norm. When we learn that food comes in many forms, we learn a bit more about each other as people.  New foods and new flavors, just like learning new words in a language or new traditions in a culture, can be fun.

For that reason, the Nantucket Atheneum is pleased to announce that it has recently added AtoZ World Food to its online reference offerings. This new library resource contains more than 7,000 traditional recipes from 174 countries. It describes thousands of ingredients, and contains many articles about food culture.

International cookbooks are very popular at the library. In the past, we’ve never been able to offer a cookbook that was so broad in scope.  So, we’re very excited to offer this database to our patrons.  AtoZ World Food can be viewed the library’s computers or from anywhere in the world from the library’s eMagazine portal with their library card. “World Food” also enables users to forward recipes to friends by email, print the recipes, or even create their own personal cookbook of favorite recipes.

AtoZ World Food was designed for students, world travelers, and anyone who wants to learn about world cuisine without having to purchase individual country cookbooks. Our hope is that, our patrons will find the intersection of food and culture intriguing, and that they will appreciate how it can expand our world, one taste at a time.

By Elizabeth Kelly

The Secret Token: myth, obsession, and the search for the lost colony of Roanoke (Andrew Lawler)

In 1587, a ship of 115 English men, women, and children landed in modern-day North Carolina to establish the first successful British colony. John White, leader of the voyage, returned to England to acquire new members and supplies. His trip was intended to be brief but war with Spain made it impossible to sail back to the colony until 1590, a full three years later.

Upon his arrival the remaining Roanoke inhabitants were nowhere to be found, including White’s wife and daughter. There was no evidence of foul play and the only clue was the word “Croatoan” carved into a fence post, the name of a local Native American tribe. No one knows what happened to the Roanoke colony but author Andrew Lawler attempts to deconstruct the mystery in his new book. His work focuses on the social and archeological history of the Roanoke colony as well as the cult obsession it has inspired.

Chopin’s Piano: in search of the Instrument that transformed music  (Paul Kildea)

Polish virtuoso Frédéric Chopin and his partner traveled from France to a monastery in Majorca during the winter of 1938. When the piano he planned to use during their vacation did not arrive quickly enough the famed composer resorted to practicing on a small pianette built by a local craftsman. Author Paul Kildea writes in his newest book about how this one instrument would become an integral part of musical history.

Not only was the small piano used to complete Chopin’s Preludes, arguably his most famous work, but it was later stolen by the Nazis during the infamous art plunder of World War II. Kildea shares the intertwined stories of Chopin’s legacy and fellow Polish pianist, Wanda Landowska, who inadvertently spared Chopin’s famed instrument from obscurity. The book is an inspiring look at one of the world’s most beloved musical talents.

A Deal with the Devil: the dark and twisted true story of one of the biggest cons in history  (Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken)

While investigating financial crimes for CNN, reporters Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken happened upon a story about a French psychic named Maria Duval. The team began to connect the dots between multiple reports of elderly and vulnerable people being scammed into sending large sums of money to Duval with the promise of good health and fortune in return. Some of the victims sent their life savings and cashed out entire retirement funds.

This type of financial crime is not uncommon but the amount of money that had been swindled, over $200 million dollars, was astounding. At least 1.4 Americans were victims of the scam over the course of 20 years including the sick and disabled who trusted Duval’s promises of curing their ailments or winning the lottery. Ellis and Hicken’s book delves into the dark reality of the Duval con in attempt to uncover the truth and seek justice for the victims. It reveals a much larger and more sinister fraud than anyone could have imagined.

Elizabeth Kelly is a reference librarian at he Nantucket Atheneum.