I started the year off by starting to read this famous book, which is not scientific but has a few things worth reading.

The first 150 pages or so, or 3 chapters, can be summarized in my view as:

1. We don't control all the things that happen to us but we do control how we react to and feel about them, and that can be more impactful than the original event itself.

2. Anything you do, start by explicitly thinking about and visualizing the end you want.

3. Always do the important things first. I think this is very important, particularly in a start-up where there is more to be done than fits in a week. Covey proposes a weekly worksheet for this purpose of what he goes to pains not to call time management. The corresponding chapter is at http://ww2.ramapo.edu/libfiles/FRC/Effective%20habits.pdf .

Covey has some examples that make the points better than I do above. He also has some less laudable examples: for example, he explains how his son once tried to ditch a girlfriend he had been dating for a long time in a ten-minute phone call, grouped with other errands such as, and I quote, washing his car. I do not recommend the latter --as his boy found out.