Time For Time Management: Ten Books To
Supercharge Your Productivity
It often feels like we’re more pressed for time than ever. As digital tools blur the line of personal and professional lives and to-do lists grow by the day, the weight of these tasks grows and even the smallest jobs can seem insurmountable.
The good news is that everyone can access greater productivity. By making the right conceptual shifts in your approach to productivity combines with good time management habits you can become a more effective person. Read on for the best books about productivity and time management – these books should be at the top of your to-do list.
Related: 15 Simple And Super Productive Steps How To Master ‘Deep Work’ For Team Leaders And Executives
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1. The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller
Gary Keller’s book will revolutionize your productivity by encouraging you to make a few simple changes to your mindset. For Keller, productivity is about an outlook rather than behaviour. As the title emphasized, the key to productivity is focus, honing your energy on one thing as Keller puts it. By recognizing the power of focus, you’ll be able to reach success through an emphasis on what really matters.
2. The One Minute To-Do List: Quickly Get Your Chaos Completely Under Control by Michael Linenberger
If you’ve ever felt the pressure of tasks budding up until it seems impossible to start, Linenberger presents a book for you. Productivity collapses when we’re overwhelmed and good time-management starts with tackling the little things. In The One Minute To-Do List, Linenberger reveals how to write the ultimate to-do list. Subtle changes in the way you formulate your tasks and jobs can have a far-reaching impact on your productivity.
3. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy
The premise behind Tracy’s book is simple – get it over with (or, as he puts it, eat that frog)! For Tracy, procrastination and doubt are inherently linked, so he advises tackling the most challenging tasks first. By waking up and immediately directing your energy towards these tasks, the day will snowball into productivity. Tract is an articulate writer with an eye for humor, making this book an easy read with tons of practical tips.
4. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen Covey
Covey explores how our habits shape us as an individual and can make or break the success of our intentions. “This readable book lays it out step- by-step, taking you from the first insight all the way through to transformation,” says Kelly Carron, a blogger at Paper Fellows and OXEssays. “Covey is an inspirational writer and manages to find a positive spin on every aspect of the journey to success – this book will light a fire under you with that spark.”
5. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
By linking stress with productivity, David Allen makes an astute connection about what’s holding us back. Allen links productivity with a capacity for relaxation, wisely stipulating that you can’t go at 100% all the time. By framing productivity in this way, Allen creates space for a healthy discussion about time management, well being and success. This book will help you lay down the groundwork for a life that’s more productive and better balanced.
6. How to Stop Procrastinating: A Simple Guide to Mastering Difficult Tasks and Breaking the Procrastination Habit by SJ Scott
That inescapable zone of procrastination is an enormous barrier to productivity and once you understand the mechanisms for its energy-sapping appearance you’ll be on a road to greater success. Scott identifies procrastination as a cluster of habits and makes these explicit to help you escape them. The book is a fantastic blend of cutting-edge research and personal, relatable anecdotes. The combination is an actionable recipe for success.
7. 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done by Peter Bregman
“In this crazy, hectic world it often feels like an insurmountable challenge to focus on one thing. Yet, by brushing distraction aside we can take productivity to a new level. Bregman explores how creating a hierarchy of priority can enable us to hone in on the tasks that matter,” says Donald Ramirez, a productivity writer at Boomessays and State Of Writing. “Bregman can change your life 288 pages, you can change your life in 18 minutes.”
8. Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip and Dan Heath
Chip and Dan Heath utilize the latest psychology and behavioural science in this book which explores how your choices might be holding you back. As humans, we’re all led by implicit biases and cultural assumptions, and this invisible hand can guide us through life unless we apply critical tools to overcome it. This book is about ridding yourself of these biases and making choices that are right for you.
9. Zen To Done: The Ultimate Simple Productivity System by Leo Babauta
Babauta is an outspoken proponent of leading a minimalist life and has created a unique system for finding productivity by limiting distractions. By shedding everything unnecessary in our lives we’ll discover which attachments were holding us back – Babauta offers simple steps for clarifying what’s important in life, and pursuing it.
10. Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity by Charles Duhigg
In Smarter Faster Better, Charles Duhigg takes on the daunting task of making efficiency more efficient. By exploring the science behind productivity, Duhigg offers actionable steps towards overcoming procrastination. Led by a psychological approach, the author demonstrates that the road to productivity requires conceptual shifts and that changes to habit will naturally follow from this step. If you want to understand how the way you think impacts what you achieve, this book reveals all.
Wrapping Up
Time management is a skill just like any other. By making a few conceptual shifts in your approach to tasks you can see your productivity soar. These books introduce you to the most effective ways to get things done. Stop procrastinating and pick up a book today!
Do you want to build and maintain new habits? Get your free PDF version of the Don't Break The Chain calendar and start today!
Do you want to build and maintain new habits? Get your free PDF version of the Don't Break The Chain calendar and start today!
Author's Bio
Katherine Rundell is a productivity writer at Academic Writing Services and Ukwritings.com. She is a productivity consultant for a number of businesses and has personally witnessed the revolutionary effect of transformed time management, both in her professional life and personal life as a mother of three teen-aged kids. She is also a proofreader at Essayroo.com.
