One of the most frustrating things about having most of the books my husband and I own in the Amazon Kindle ecosystem is that they are not very searchable if you don’t first select a title, then search within that title.

This morning, I was looking for words of wisdom and practical advice about focus – focusing your time, your energy, and your emotions on the right things that can move your life forward in a positive direction.

Using generative AI in a thoughtful way, I was able to quickly get to the gems in our shared e-book library and get inspired.

I went to my Kindle Library on my web browser (https://read.amazon.com/kindle-library if you want to play along) and tried a search at the top of the page. I found 3 books with “focus” in the title. That’s a total face plant in my opinion. I spent 20 years buying all of these books, reading them and enjoying them, only to find that to continue getting wisdom from them, I need to know exactly which book to look in, and then I can search inside the book.

Owning a huge library of books can’t help you one bit if you cannot easily find the wisdom within the books.

Me

This is a job for generative AI – specifically ChatGPT (version 5.2 in Thinking mode), I thought. But how do I get ChatGPT to look at my Kindle book list? So I went back to my Kindle Library and did a CTRL-A to select all text on the page, and pasted that into a Google Doc, then uploaded it into ChatGPT, asking first for the document to be cleaned up in a few specific ways.

ChatGPT offered to make me a spreadsheet. Great, I thought. Let’s do that. I got a spreadsheet with the author in the Author column, sometimes. When I asked ChatGPT why it didn’t get that right, the answer was that the data source had some lines describing neither title nor author, and thus all the info after that was miscategorized. OK, fair enough, I thought.

I asked the AI what kind of data source would work best so that we could move forward with my Kindle Library research. ChatGPT recommended the Chrome Amazon/Kindle Book List Downloader extension to use with Kindle to download the titles and authors of my entire library.

I downloaded it but had to pay a small license fee to get my entire list of 800+ books. I got a CSV which appeared to be very clean and well-categorized.

I then returned to ChatGPT, uploaded the file, and asked my question:

I’m researching a self improvement topic and would like to re-read something inspiring from my own book library about that. I’m thinking about the power of saying no to something so that you can say yes to another thing. This concept relates to time management, focus, and work / life balance. Can you recommend some of the books from my library (attached) which may address that topic?

This time, the answer was more useful. The AI responded with a few different lists, depending on how I would want to use the information. See below.

Absolutely — based on what’s in your library, here are the strongest “say no so you can say yes” / focus / work-life balance picks, grouped by the kind of inspiration you might want.

If you want the “permission slip” to say no

• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less — Greg McKeown. This is basically the book-length argument for “no is a complete sentence,” plus a framework for choosing the right yes.
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck — Mark Manson. More values-driven and blunt, but very on-theme for prioritizing what matters and letting the rest go.
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — Stephen R. Covey. Great for the “values first” angle (especially aligning your calendar with priorities).
• First Things First — Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, Rebecca R. Merrill. Even more directly about prioritization and protecting what matters.

If you want focus + boundaries (and less burnout)

• Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World — Cal Newport. Fantastic for “stop saying yes to distraction” and building protected focus time.
• Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout — Cal Newport. Very aligned with work/life balance and sustainable pace.
• The Time Trap: The Classic Book on Time Management — Pat Nickerson & Alec Mackenzie. Practical and old-school in a good way: where time leaks happen and how to plug them.

If you want a practical “do this tomorrow” system

• Atomic Habits — James Clear. Not explicitly “say no,” but super useful for designing habits that make the right yes easier and the wrong yes harder.
• The Bullet Journal Method — Ryder Carroll. Great for clarifying commitments and intentionally choosing what stays on your plate.
• GTD With The Bullet Journal — Derek Reinhard. If you like BuJo, this is a nice bridge into a more structured “capture/clarify/commit” flow.

If you want something short + direct on focus

• Master Your Focus: A Practical Guide to Stop Chasing the Next Thing and Focus on What Matters Until It’s Done — Thibaut Meurisse. Very on-the-nose for your topic.

If you tell me what flavor you’re craving today — gentle + reassuring, tough-love, or tactical — I’ll narrow this to your best 1–3 and suggest a quick “reread path” (like which sections to skim first).

That last suggestion was pure gold – here’s how I can spend a few targeted hours re-reading specific sections of my most beloved books without wasting a ton of time finding the passages. But will it work as advertised?

Tough love sounds like the path I want to take. Please proceed.

What I got back kind of blew me away. It was three of the books in my library (one was actually in my husband’s library and I hadn’t read it), plus the parts to re-read and some “homework” to help things gel. Here’s a shortened excerpt:

Alright. Tough-love mode: you don’t need more inspiration. You need fewer commitments and sharper boundaries — and a system that makes “no” automatic.

Here are your best 3 from your library for that, plus a fast “reread path” (skim order) to get results today.

1) Deep Work — Cal Newport Amazon Kindle Library Syl and J…

Why this one: It makes distraction feel expensive again. It’ll push you to protect focus like it’s rent money.

Reread path (45–60 min):

• Skim the intro / premise until you hit the core argument: deep work = rare + valuable.
• Jump to the chapters on:
  • Work Deeply (rituals, time-blocking, rules)
  • Quit Social Media (or his equivalent section on pruning inputs)
  • Drain the Shallows (turns “busy” into something you can measure and cut)
• Action at the end: write your “Shallow Work Cap” for weekdays (ex: “I’m allowed 90 minutes/day of email + admin, total.”). Then calendar it.