Sofia Lambert

How I work

Hundreds of books in means I've developed a pretty reliable filter for what's substance and what's packaging. When I write about a book I've read it fully and sat with it long enough to know whether the ideas hold up past the initial enthusiasm, because a lot of nonfiction feels more useful in the moment of reading than it turns out to be in practice. For productivity and habit content I apply the frameworks myself before writing about them, sometimes over weeks, because advice that sounds elegant in a chapter summary can fall apart the moment real life gets in the way. I'm also honest about when a book is covering familiar ground with a fresh coat of paint, because readers' time and money deserve that candor. For reading habit and focus content I draw on both personal experimentation and the cognitive science literature on learning and retention, and I try to be clear about which is which so readers know what they're working with.