A review by pocketbard
Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most by Adam Alter

5.0

I really enjoyed this one! It’s a non-fiction book about how to get “unstuck” when you’re feeling stuck in your life, especially with regards to big decisions or creative pursuits. Alter gives practical tips backed up by research – things like breaking down tasks into smaller chunks (to avoid getting stuck in the middle), alternating between exploring and exploiting (explore widely, then exploit the best ideas you encounter while exploring), asking advice from lots of other people to take advantage of diversity (when dealing with complex problems, often even an incompetent outsider is better than an in-house expert, because they bring a diversity of opinions), being constantly curious and experimenting, etc. There’s a handy 100-item “cheat sheet” as the closing chapter, so all the takeaways are in one handy place – I really love it when authors do this. The best part, for me, is that the book made me feel motivated while I was reading it – there are steps I decided to take in my own life just because I felt excited while reading about them. Perhaps that’s the highest praise I can give a non-fiction book: it moved me to action. If you’re a person in a creative field who often finds yourself getting stuck, I definitely recommend this one.