I never have time to look at self-help books, and I'm wondering if there's a book that can help me with my too-busy-for-self-help problem. It would be some kind of self-help digest with a particular focus on helping people who either are too busy to care about helping themselves or are saddled with insufficient quantities of self-loathing to be able to follow through on an improvement binge.

Ideally it would be a short book, or a pamphlet, even. Or maybe a credit-card sized cheat sheet that can fit in my wallet or on my key chain. I want to be able to whip it out in crunch time, scan a list of headings, and see, right there, a helpful tip, like: "Nod your head and pretend you're interested."

What I really need is for someone to read all the self-help books for me, and then, every day, call me and tell me what I should do. Or better yet, someone who would be in charge of hiring the staffers that would do all the personal-improvement things that I am unfortunately too busy to accomplish directly.

My ideal form of self-help wouldn't involve a lot of the "self" stuff. Ideally I wouldn't even be in the loop at all.

I did a search under "self-help" on Amazon and see that there are 154,318 entries.

A few books that sound kind of intriguing to me:

"Politics of Life: 25 Rules for Survival in a Brutal and Manipulative World"

"Affluenza: the All-Consuming Epidemic "

"Cats on the Counter: Therapy and Training for your Cat"

"Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda: Overcoming Regrets, Mistakes, and Missed Opportunities"

"The Last Self Help Book You'll Ever Need: Repress Your Anger, Think Negatively, Be a Good Blamer, & Throttle Your Inner Child"

"Your Power Within! Self Confidence through Hypnosis" [no I'm not staring at a blank screen I'm tapping into my inner turbocharger]

"Prisoners' Self-Help Litigation Manual" [could come in handy...]

"Loving the Self-Absorbed: How to Create a More Satisfying Relationship with a Narcissistic Partner" [ideal gift!!!]

By Joel Achenbach  |  June 17, 2008; 2:13 PM ET
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