12 Best Books on Time Management and Productivity

If you are keen on reading books that can help you with time management and becoming successful, you’re in the right place. We have listed 12 popular books on time management and productivity in this blog.

These books will give you an insight into the new ways and methods of time management and productivity. 

Best Books on Time Management and Productivity 

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity 

Author: David Allen

Getting Things Done is a modern classic book on productivity. David Allen, the author of this productivity book, argues that people’s ability to relax directly affects their productivity.

Organizing one’s thoughts and being productive and creative is possible to clear one’s mind.

With the help of this book, readers will be capable of revisiting their goals, delegating tasks to others, planning projects, and overcoming anxiety.

The book provides fundamental principles and proven tricks for transforming people’s work to become more efficient and successful.

Despite some people finding this book a little lengthy, it has helped them pinpoint the problems with their methods of accomplishing tasks.

This book is especially good for those struggling to be productive in today’s chaotic world; this book is written and clear.

The Happiness Project

Author: Gretchen Rubin

Becoming happy is the key to performing best. Thus, we have taken “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin as one of the best books for improving mood and boosting productivity.

The New York Times best-seller of 2009, The Happiness Project, revolutionized personal development.

With her books, blog, podcast, online courses, and weekly newsletter, she shows readers and listeners the ways to live happily, become more productive, and more creative life.

Rubin’s book is refreshingly peppermint-scented for those who dislike self-help books. Her well-researched, sharply written book takes a systematic, orderly approach to forging her path to a happier state of mind.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Author: Stephen R. Covey

First published in 1989, this book is a guide to personal development. A great read to boost your productivity both at work and at home, this book continues to be one of the most recommended.

In contrast to eliminating bad habits, the program encourages creating new habits to keep you focused. Establishing goals and priorities is crucial.

A few pebbles, rocks, and sand placed in a jar is an analogy Covey uses to define what is important. If you start with the smaller items, such as pebbles or sand, you’ll find that the rocks won’t fit.

There’s plenty of room in the jar if you start with the rock and then add the tinier items around it. A more important goal is to schedule your priorities rather than prioritize your scheduling app.

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Author: Cal Newport

The book Deep Work, written by American author Cal Newport, is a good choice for anyone looking to reduce time spent on social media or email.

The author has discussed concepts like noncognitive demanding tasks and logistical style tasks in the book.

As soon as an email arrives, do you begin scrolling through Twitter? Time and mental energy need to be freed up to do deep work, which requires attention and concentration.

Putting down your phone, turning off your notifications, and focusing on the work you need to do can hugely impact your productivity.

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Author: Steven Pressfield

For creativity and self-discipline, The war of art is a wonderful book. When attempting something new, it is easy to become overwhelmed by fears, apprehensions, and doubts.

When you do art, write, build a business, or make music, you’ll always experience fear and doubt. The book brilliantly leads you out of doubting headspaces and leads you forward to building, making, or creating. 

‘The War of Art’ outlines the obstacles that artists, entrepreneurs, athletes, and others have to overcome when following their creativity. 

How to Stop Procrastinating: A Simple Guide to Mastering Difficult Tasks

Author: SJ Scott

It is important to reduce or eliminate procrastination to become more productive. Procrastination is the only thing that can hold you back if you act on things immediately and use a system for completing tasks that work.  

How to Stop Procrastinating is an excellent guide; beyond explaining “why” we procrastinate, it focuses on the best ways we can stop procrastinating.

With the help of stories from the author’s life and scientific research conclusions, the book provides practical lessons and guidelines.

The book does not simply preach the sins of procrastination but provides steps to stop it and specific training to support its lessons.

The 4-Hour Workweek

Author: Tim Ferriss

A winner can give up on things that don’t work. Retirement and your deferred-life plan are outdated concepts.

Especially in uncertain economic times, there is no reason to wait and many reasons not to. Whatever your dreams are, The 4-Hour Workweek provides a blueprint to help you achieve them.

Tim offers original ideas and valuable insights into productivity-boosting in the 4-hour workweek that anyone can apply.

The author has suggested various strategies for boosting productivity that can instantly work for you in the book. He suggests some ‘must do’ for people who want to become successful and productive at work. 

168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think

Author: Laura Vanderkam

One hundred sixty-eight hours a week are the same for everyone. Some supposedly overworked people are underworked, and many working methods are inefficient. A task is not necessarily a work merely because it has that title.

Laura Vanderkam draws inspiration from real-life accounts of successful and happy people to write this book.

Vanderkam found that successful individuals create time for important things in creative ways. They utilize every hour of their time to nourish their uniqueness and talents. 

With real-life examples, Vanderkam suggests to the readers that they have enough time to achieve their goals in life. Successful people do not have some extra hours, but instead, they utilize every second of time to become successful. 

The Power of Habit

Author: Charles Duhigg

The best-selling book “The Power of Habit” is mainly about Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.

Our habits govern everything we do, and the habits we unknowingly form can make or break our success, from our morning routine to our afternoon activities.

It is a good book because of its research-based explanation of habits and how they are formed and changed.

Someone we all know has changed their life almost overnight, after being out of shape or a smoker. What made this possible? The change inhabits.

If you do it enough, anything good or bad becomes a habit. There is research in the book on memory loss that explains this.

In the research, patients with memory loss could not show someone where the kitchen is when asked, but once hungry, they automatically went to the kitchen.

By creating cues, routines, and rewards, habits are achievable. Having anticipation of a reward helps the brain discover the routine.

In addition to individuals, this logic extends to large groups such as organizations and communities. Changing one habit will trigger a cascade of other habits.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Author: Greg McKeown

Knowledge of what’s essential and what’s not is the key to productivity. You can assess your priorities, eliminate the extraneous stuff, and focus only on the most important tasks with essentialism.

McKeown makes the subject fresh and the solutions easy to apply in this likable book about the art of doing less to get more done.

The reader can find ‘the way of the essentialist’ by following his lucid and practical directions.

Essentialism isn’t about how to accomplish more; it’s about accomplishing the right things. Essentialists don’t advocate doing less for the sake of doing less.

To operate at our highest contribution level, we must wisely invest our time and energy by doing only the essentials.

As a result, you’ll achieve richer, sweeter results and enjoy a greater sense of control, allowing you to pursue what truly matters.

The Idiot Brain

Author: Dean Burnett

The idiot’s brain is a popular science book where Dean Burnett, a Neuroscientist, explains what your head is really up to. 

Human brains are messy, fallible, and disorganized for supposedly gifted and evolved. You may not know this, but your memory is egotistical.

Does a healthy brain naturally lead to conspiracy theories and superstitions? Is alcohol a good memory-booster?

Burnett explores our mysterious matter in his book. He describes all the imperfections present in the human brain, plus how they influence the way we think, behave, and experience everything.

It is a highly researched and entertaining book for anyone who has ever wondered what their brain is doing and why it appears to be sabotaging their lives.

We should be forever grateful for the brain, the pinnacle of evolutionary development and the foundation of our lives.

The problem is, it is common for us to fall into superstitions, forget to name people, overlook things right in front of us, and awaken at night, repeating our worst fears endlessly in our minds.

Idiot Brain is a book for anyone who has ever wondered what their brain is up to – really – why they can’t seem to get their life together.

The One Minute To-Do List: Quickly Get Your Chaos Completely Under Control 

Author: Michael Linenberger

This one-minute to-do list book addresses the needs of overburdened people in both work and life.

We’ve all made to-do lists at some point in our lives, but many people ignore the lists they make for themselves.

You can create an effective to-do list by avoiding common to-do list mistakes and focusing on the right things.  

This book on task management has proven to be a useful resource for organizing their tasks. The book is a quick read which will be worth your time if your list of to-dos is getting out of hand.

Conclusion

The above-listed 12 books are the best books on time management and productivity that help you manage and give you ideas on boosting productivity. Also, these are all motivational books on becoming successful. 

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