For years, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen studied why some companies grow while others stall out. His big finding was deceptively simple:

People don’t buy products. They hire them to do a job.

When Christensen interviewed customers, he noticed something interesting. Nobody wakes up thinking, “I want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit.” What they actually want is a quarter-inch hole. The product is just the employee.

He called this idea the Theory of Jobs to Be Done. And while it was designed to help executives build better products, I’ve found it even more useful for something far more personal: Decluttering.

When it comes to assessing what we own and if we have too much, one of the best things we can do is give our belongings a performance review of sorts.

Take a t-shirt. On paper, its job is simple: keep you covered and moderately warm in public. But most material items have a second, unspoken job too (i.e., making you feel confident, comfortable, or stylish).

So if that shirt shrank, stretched, faded, or went out of style, it’s not doing the job anymore. And when an employee stops performing, you don’t keep paying them out of nostalgia. You fire them.

You’re not being wasteful or ungrateful—you’re just being a fair manager. The item served you once. It just doesn’t anymore. And that’s OK. If something isn’t pulling its weight, it’s time to escort it to the door—politely, firmly, and without a severance package.

So next time you go through your old stuff, instead of asking, “Should I keep this?” a better question is: “Is this thing still doing the job I hired it to do?”

As a longtime fan of the Jack Reacher series, I still get excited every time a new installment drops. Reacher has earned that kind of loyalty. This one gets a small bonus point for being set in Baltimore (where I went to college), so it was fun recognizing a few familiar neighborhoods along the way.

That said… this one didn’t quite hit.

Like the recent Reacher books written since Lee Child handed the reins to his brother Andrew, Exit Strategy was entertaining but pretty underwhelming. The plot felt more convoluted than clever, and at times it bordered on rambling. There were moments where I genuinely wasn’t sure who certain characters were or why I was supposed to care about them - which is not something you want to be thinking in a Reacher novel.

Nothing here is bad, exactly. The action is still there. The pacing is fine. It’s readable and occasionally engaging. But the sharpness that used to define Reacher - the clean logic, the tight plotting, the feeling that every detail mattered - feels dulled.

If you’ve read my previous reviews of the post-handoff Reacher books, you already know the theme: I enjoy them, but they’re missing something. Reacher is still Reacher… he just doesn’t feel quite the same anymore. Worth reading if you’re a die-hard fan (like me), but not one of the series’ stronger entries. And not the book I’d recommend to someone new to Jack Reacher.

2025 was another year of learning from mistakes and cherishing the moments that felt like learning opportunities. Here are some of the best things I learned this year:

This article provides clickable links of over 400 nooks in the Western canon, separated by age group. It’s meant for all of you who want the best of your child’s education and for your own as well. I’ve only read 74 on this list so I got a lot of catching up to do…

It’s easy to get caught up in the hype and hoopla of new gadgets, gizmos, and technological revolutions. But if you’re familiar with history, it’s all the same shit. Douglas Adams summarizes it perfectly:

“I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

I streamed 27,796 minutes of podcasts this year. Here are the 10 episodes that I enjoyed most:

This podcast spoke directly to my soul, starting from Chris’s first question: “Why do so many high-functioning men self-destruct in private?” Oof.

I actually think “toxic masculinity” is a valid term. But instead of being a model for higher standards, the term has been prostituted for tearing down the patriarchy (and getting rid of a few assholes who probably deserved it). Rather than being “masculinity that is toxic,” I think toxic masculinity is just a lack of focus on the hearts and minds of men. Connor Beaton is a men’s life coach, founder of ManTalks, and an author of Men’s Work, focusing on men’s wellness and personal growth. This podcast episode is the Bible for the sensitive, hard-charging individual who is trying to balance feeling emotions with making progress. One of my favorites this year.

Keith and Kyle sit down to discuss the life of Frantz Schmidt, a sixteenth-century executioner in ⁠Nuremberg, Germany⁠. Based on Schmidt's unique journal, the book explores his public role in executing and punishing people, his private struggles with his profession and religious faith, and his attempt to gain honor and avoid the social stigma of being an executioner.  A rare, detailed look into the era's criminal justice, social customs, and even medical practices, challenging the common perception of executioners as monsters. 

📚 Books discussed in this episode:

Follow us: https://observeandrapport.com/ | IG: @observeandrapport @keithsullivan_91 | X: @observeandrapport | TikTok: @observeandrapport @keithsullivan2 | Produced by Keith Sullivan

Thanks for reading!