Rokas Mickevicius Reading List:
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+9 recommended books for founders inside
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Notion Book Tracker helps you organize what you read, save key insights, and build your personal founder library. It also includes carefully selected books recommended for founders.
The 4 Disciplines of Execution
Achieving Your Wildly Important
Book by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, Jim Huling
A step-by-step approach to transforming objectives into actual results by identifying what is most important, tracking vital activities, and integrating accountability into day-to-day tasks. It enables teams to execute a strategy with precision and insight as well as self-discipline.
1 recommender:
Rokas Mickevicius
Never Split the Difference
Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It – Unlock Your Persuasion Potential in Professional and Personal Life
Book by Chris Voss, Tahl Raz
A concise, practical guide to negotiation that emphasizes empathy, active listening, and psychological insight to achieve better outcomes without compromise.
1 recommender:
Rokas Mickevicius
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Book by Dale Carnegie
Timeless advice on building strong relationships, winning trust, and influencing others through genuine interest, empathy, and effective communication.
1 recommender:
Rokas Mickevicius
Atomic Habits
An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
Book by James Clear
A clear, actionable framework for building good habits and breaking bad ones by focusing on small, consistent changes that lead to remarkable results over time.
1 recommender:
Rokas Mickevicius
The Art of Laziness
Overcome Procrastination & Improve Your Productivity
Book by Library Mindset
A motivational guide that reframes laziness as a signal to reassess priorities, encouraging readers to overcome procrastination by focusing on meaningful goals and taking consistent, purposeful action.
1 recommender:
Rokas Mickevicius
Deep Work
Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Book by Cal Newport
A practical guide to mastering focused, distraction-free work in a world full of interruptions. It offers strategies to enhance productivity and achieve meaningful results by cultivating deep concentration.
1 recommender:
Rokas Mickevicius
The Power of Habit
Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Book by Charles Duhigg
A compelling exploration of how habits shape our lives, offering insights into the science behind habit formation and practical strategies for change.
1 recommender:
Rokas Mickevicius
Rework
Change The Way You Work Forever
Book by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson
A concise, no-nonsense guide that challenges traditional business norms, advocating for simplicity, agility, and self-reliance. It encourages starting small, focusing on meaningful work, and embracing constraints as a catalyst for creativity.
1 recommender:
Rokas Mickevicius
Why Rokas Recomended Books Matter?
Not every book deserves a spot on a founder’s shelf. There are thousands of business and self-development titles out there, but most of them recycle the same ideas in different packaging. The books Rokas recommends are different. Each one earned its place because it delivers something concrete, something that actually changes the way you think and operate on a daily basis. These aren’t books you read once and forget. They’re the kind you find yourself referencing months or even years later.
The Themes That Keep Coming Back
Look closely at this list and a few clear patterns emerge. Habits, focus, execution, influence and negotiation. These aren’t random topics. They’re the core challenges every founder faces, regardless of what industry they’re in or what stage their business is at.
Books like Atomic Habits and The Power of Habit tackle the same fundamental truth from different angles: your daily routines are the foundation everything else is built on. Get those right, and progress becomes almost automatic. Get them wrong, and no amount of strategy or ambition will save you.
Deep Work and The Art of Laziness approach productivity from opposite directions, but land in the same place. Protecting your attention and being ruthlessly selective about where you put your energy is one of the most valuable skills you can develop as a leader.
On Influence, Negotiation and People
Two books on this list deal directly with human dynamics: Never Split the Difference and How to Win Friends and Influence People. It might seem surprising to see a classic from 1936 sitting alongside a modern negotiation guide written by a former FBI hostage negotiator, but both books make the same core argument. Understanding what people want, and communicating with genuine empathy, is a skill that pays off in every single area of business and life.
As a founder, you are always negotiating. With investors, with customers, with partners, with your team. The ability to navigate those conversations well is not a soft skill. It is one of the hardest and most important capabilities you can build.
On Building Systems That Actually Work
The 4 Disciplines of Execution and Rework represent two very different philosophies, but both are worth your time. The 4 Disciplines gives you a structured framework for turning big goals into consistent daily action, which is something most teams genuinely struggle with. Rework, on the other hand, challenges almost every assumption you have about how a business should be run. It is deliberately provocative, and that is exactly why it is useful.
Reading both together gives you a healthy tension to work with. Structure versus simplicity. Process versus instinct. There is no single right answer, but being exposed to both ways of thinking makes you a sharper, more adaptable operator.
A Note on How to Use This List
The temptation with a reading list like this is to treat it as a checklist, to work through every book as quickly as possible and move on. Resist that urge. One book read slowly, applied deliberately, and revisited regularly will do more for you than ten books skimmed and forgotten.
Pick the title that speaks most directly to the challenge you are facing right now. Read it with a specific problem in mind. Take notes. Try things. Then come back to the list when you are ready for the next one.
Rokas put this list together because these books made a real difference to him. The hope is that at least one of them does the same for you.
