Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less-And Achieve More Than You Ever Imagined: A Non-Fiction Review

Have you ever needed one thing and had to make do with something else? Maybe you’ve had to use a shoe when you really needed a hammer. Maybe you’ve baked a loaf cake in a sheet pan. Or did you wait and tell yourself you can’t move forward until you find the exact right tool for the situation?

Depending on your answers you might be a chaser who is always searching for newer and better resources. Or, if you’ve adapted when you had to and made do, you might be a stretcher.

People, it turns out, are really bad at gauging what we need (spoiler: the answer isn’t always “more”) and we’re even worse at estimating our ability to make more out of what we have–something most people routinely underestimate.

Stretching can’t solve every problem. But it can solve a few–especially when the biggest challenge is getting started in Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less -And Achieve More Than You Ever Imagined (2017) by Scott Sonenshein.

Find it on Bookshop.

Sonenshein is an organizational psychologist. In this book he outlines his theory of stretching (making do with what you have rather than growing for the sake of having more) and shares research–both anecdotal and from scientific data–detailing why this approach can be so helpful for so many people and organizations.

Much like in Joy at Work (his collaboration with Marie Kondo). the research and strategies here are approachable and easy to implement. While not every working professional will have the latitude to put these practices into play, the strategies are sound and do help provide options for a mindset shift in approaching problems. As with every new work strategy, there is the risk of leaning in too hard which, in this case could lead to falling into a privation mindset. Sonenshein outlines some of these pitfalls at the end of the book both for individuals and companies.

This slim volume offers chapter-by-chapter strategies guiding readers through how to work with what you’ve got, the causes and consequences of a chasing mindset, the basic benefits of a stretching mindset and the value of knowing a little about a lot as Sonenshein outlines the stretching strategy. In the second half of the book chapters explore why we sometimes perform better without a script (and without all the time and money in the world), how beliefs make us and the people we care about better (or worse), the power of unlikely combinations, and how to get the right stretch.

The book closes with practical strategies and steps to begin stretching in your own life including but not limited to shopping your closet (figuratively or literally), surrounding yourself with new people (and ideas), appreciating what you have, turning trash into treasure, and remembering that when you’re already lost any map will do to get your started.

While not everyone can stretch all the time, Stretch offers practical research and advice for how to embrace flexibility and change–two things that many of us have had to learn often as work situations continue to change in light of current events.

Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life: A Non-Fiction Review

How many times have you left a meeting that could have been an email? How many handouts and papers accumulate on your desk over the course of a week? How often have you been taken away from work you want to do to focus on tedious but seemingly endless tasks at work?

If you’re like most people (particularly those who work in offices or computer-heavy jobs), the answer is probably a lot.

What if there was a better way? In Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life (2020) organization expert Marie Kondo works with organizational psychologist Scott Sonenshein to translate Kondo’s by now ubiquitous KonMari method to office and work life.

Find it on Bookshop.

If you are familiar with the KonMari method from Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (or her show on Netflix), a lot of the ideas here will be familiar or even common sense. What different and makes this book so valuable is the specificity used to apply this advice to a work setting ranging from office work, digital life, to interpersonal relations.

Co-author Sonenshein, an organization psychologist who researches how to make work and careers more rewarding, brings in scientific data to support findings and helps shift focus from the home to the office.

Chapters and sub-headings help break down all the information provided starting with Why Tidy? and what to do If You Keep Falling Back to Clutter.

From their the chapters have granular focus to tidy: Your Workspace, Digital Work, Time,  Decisions, Your Network, Meetings, and Teams. The book ends with ways to Share the Magic of Tidying and Spark Even More Joy at Work.

It’s important to note that every idea here won’t be applicable to every work scenario–partly because of the focus on office work and partly because not every employee will be in a position to say “I don’t want to go to this meeting.” That said, as with the KonMari method in general, readers are able to take as much or as little as they choose to apply to their work life. The tips here are invaluable when working in a shared office space but, for me, have been equally helpful in the past few months as I work from home.

In general the crux of the book is the focus on quality over quantity and to seek meaningful work and connections rather than saying yes to everything and every one. Joy at Work also centers the idea of work as accumulated experience (even if it isn’t “fun” work or work that feels like a learning experience) and also on choice as you ask yourself to choose what you want to keep to build your ideal workspace and, eventually, your ideal work situation.

You might be asking yourself how Joy at Work is any different from Kondo’s first book (or Sonenshein’s first book for that matter). The key thing here is the way Joy at Work drills down on both digital tidying and also interpersonal relations. Intuitively it makes sense and is a next step from the original KonMari method but it’s nice having it spelled out here.

I finished this book feeling inspired and energized to get back to what I love about my job. It also helped me visualize what I needed to make my work from home space make sense during quarantine. Changing up work habits and tidying work things hasn’t been easy, especially while working remotely, but the progress I made largely came from internalizing the advice given in Joy at Work.