Best Time Management Books
Words like productivity and drive are often banded about as the be all and end all of achieving goals. Though there’s some truth to this, there is an often forgotten secret ingredient: time management. Managing your time effectively is essential to organizing not only your professional life, but your personal life as well. If you fail to manage your time effectively you’ll be pulled from pillar to post without being to finish any of your daily tasks.
Reading up on time management tips and tricks is a great way to boost your overall work rate and productivity. Whilst managing your time can seem intuitive, in a busy working environment this is far from the case and if you don’t have a clear plan, you’ll struggle to keep your output high. Below we look at some of the best time management books on the market to help you to improve your overall productivity and achieve your goals.
1. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
Ever since David Allen published Getting Things Done 15 years ago, the GTD system has become famous for its barebones approach to time management. Whether you’re looking to improve your personal or professional organization, Allen’s book cuts to the heart of how to manage your time to increase your productivity
The book argues that before we make any headway with our goals, we need to write up a to-do list and schedule when tasks will be completed. By committing our thoughts down on to paper we clear our minds of “stuff” and are able to enter what Allen calls the “mind like water” state, of clarity and thinking on our feet. The core principles explored in Allen’s book are brilliant due to their simplicity and rigidity, which act as the antithesis of procrastination.
2. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
No less impressive, is Atul Gawande’s bestseller The Checklist Manifesto which helps to show how checklists can help improve not only our time management, but our quality of life. Gawande suggests that the modern world is full of organizations struggling to deliver services effectively and consistently. Even the largest companies are ripe with inefficiency and bumbling mistakes. Gawande suggests that the solution to this problem lies in producing checklists.
The book explores and examines the potential of checklists, and how they can help to improve our overall organization as a society. He suggests that checklists could not only help our individual time management but also aid large businesses and international medicine as well. Such is the effectiveness Gawande’s work that the World Health Organization has developed a surgical checklist in line with his guidance.
3. Master Evernote: The Unofficial Guide to Organizing Your life with Evernote (Plus 75 ideas for getting started) By S.J. Scott
When it comes to practical time management guides, Master Evernote is exceptional at giving you the physical tools to manage your own time effectively. You’ll not only learn how to use Evernote, but you’ll also be shown how to use the platform to organize your day-to-day life as well. With 75 basic ideas to choose from, there’s plenty of material to help you to hit the ground running. If you’re looking for a paperless way to organize your lifestyle and working habits, Scott’s book is peerless in terms of practicality.
4. Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy
Brian Tracy’s provocatively titled Eat That Frog is one of the most famous time management books of all time. Tracy departs from other authors who emphasize list based approaches and instead emphasizes the virtues of “Eating the frog” and attacking the biggest task on your to-do list first. The rationale is that there’s only so much time in the day to get things done, and by prioritizing your biggest jobs, you’ll ensure your day is productive.
The book provides you with 21 actionable steps to help to address and break down important tasks to get them done. Eat That Frog is an excellent companion to any list based time management book, as it acts a specialist guide in addressing and breaking down the biggest jobs on your to-do list. If you’d like to take the bite the bullet approach to time management, this books for you.