The Movement
What an Old Watchmaker Taught Me About Habits, Focus, Pressure and Beating Burnout
by Shiva Sharma
Buy on Kindle or in paperback
- Published
- Length
- 207 pages
- Formats
- Kindle, Paperback
- ISBN-13
- 979-8177579078
“The watch is not the thing that stopped. You stopped. The watch only noticed first.”
He was twenty-six, newly arrived in Chennai, and running performance marketing for a fast-growing company on the city's IT corridor. He worked twelve-hour days, checked his phone 143 times in a single shift, and finished almost nothing. Then his new automatic watch stopped, and he didn't notice for four days.
The man who noticed was Nilan, a seventy-two-year-old watchmaker in a shop barely wider than a wardrobe, next to the juice stall outside his gym. Nilan fixed the watch for free, and then, over eighteen months of Saturday mornings on a green roadside bench, he showed him how to fix the rest. Those months took in a boss's collapse, a pandemic lockdown, a new job and a move home. Each lesson came from a different part of a watch.
A story you will want to finish and a system you can use tonight.
Inside, you will learn
- The Caseback: a five-minute ritual that closes your workday, so work stops following you home
- The Crown: a screen-free morning start that puts your priorities before your inbox
- Power Reserve: three quick questions that help you plan for the energy you actually have
- The Escapement: focused work beats, and breaks that genuinely restore you
- The Tourbillon: a one-minute method for staying steady when pressure hits
- The Perpetual Calendar: how to balance work, health, family and yourself across the year, not every single day
- Never Overwind, Rewind and Automatic: how to build habits that last, restart after a lapse without guilt, and make them run on their own
- Keeping Time Together: how to bring the movement to your team, your family and your partner
A complete field guide follows the story: an eight-week plan, copy-ready templates, troubleshooting by symptom, sample days, answers to common questions and thirty days of journal prompts.
Every practice takes between thirty seconds and twenty minutes. None needs an app. Each one is grounded in published research on habit formation, attention and stress.
Who it is for
This book is for anyone who is capable, hard-working and quietly exhausted: the professional in the glass tower, the student, the parent, the founder, the manager whose team is burning out. If you're busy all day and still can't name what you finished, you'll recognise yourself on the first page.
Start with one small part tonight. Wind your own.
Get The Movement
Questions about the book
What is The Movement by Shiva Sharma about?
The Movement is a story-led self-help book about habits, focus, pressure and burnout. A young performance marketer in Chennai learns, over eighteen months of Saturday mornings with a seventy-two-year-old watchmaker, a set of practices each named after a part of a watch. A complete field guide with an eight-week plan, templates and journal prompts follows the story.
Who should read The Movement?
Anyone who is capable, hard-working and quietly exhausted: professionals, students, parents, founders and managers whose teams are burning out.
How long is The Movement?
The paperback is 207 pages. Every practice in the book takes between thirty seconds and twenty minutes, and none needs an app.
When was The Movement published?
The Movement was published on 30 September 2026 in Kindle and paperback editions (ISBN-13 979-8177579078).
Where can I buy The Movement?
On Amazon in India, the United States and the United Kingdom, in Kindle and paperback formats.
About the author
Shiva Sharma is a global growth marketing leader and author with more than a decade of experience building and owning digital revenue across India, the US, the UK, Europe and the GCC. He leads global D2C growth for a multi-market Ayurveda and wellness business, writes Operator's Notes, a monthly newsletter for people who run growth, and is the author of The Movement and Nobody Is Thinking About You. More about Shiva
