Achieving productivity without a robust plan is not easy but books can help you manage your time. With the numerous productivity books available today, choosing the right one for your specific needs can be a daunting task. Use this list of the best time management books 2021 to ease your search and become more efficient.
1. Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day
John Zeratsky and Jake Knapp’s time management book focuses on creating time to tackle things that really matter to you. The authors classify productivity into small lifestyle hacks and shifts. They list down solutions to help you tackle your busy schedule while focusing on the important tasks. The book is available on Amazon.
2. How to Stop Procrastinating: A Simple Guide to Mastering Difficult Tasks and Breaking the Procrastination Habit
Eradicating or reducing procrastination is critical when it comes to enhancing productivity. Many people can benefit from this book that offers a powerful guide on stopping procrastination.
The author combines distinct guidelines and lessons with his real-life stories or research-based opinions. How to Stop Procrastinating comprises actionable and practical advice without preaching about the badness of procrastination. The book provides steps to end procrastination while supporting the lessons with clear-cut training.
3. The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload
Numerous time management books discuss work, schedules, lifestyle, and lists. However, Daniel J. Levitin, neurologist, and bestselling author, examines what happens to the human brain when we encounter limitless details. This book tackles both physical and mental fatigue and introduces mind management research from a neuroscientific aspect.
4. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
After working with directors of some of the most innovative organizations across the globe, Greg McKeown wrote this book. He banks on the insight and experience he gathered to demonstrate how to accomplish the disciplined pursuit of less.
By employing a selective principle for critical things, this book allows readers to recoup control of their choices. As a result, they can invest their effort, energy, and time into focusing on the things that matter.
Essentialism is a different strategy for executing everything. It is a practice that readers apply effortlessly and continually. Essentialism is a mentality, an idea, and a lifestyle that time management enthusiasts should adopt.
5. The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller
The One Thing is a productivity book that analyzes the success behaviors that readers should adopt to conquer lies that bar success. It also focuses on eliminating activities that steal time and influence their productivity, priorities, and purpose. This book encourages readers to live purposefully instead of being reactive. The author trains readers to develop a vision and focus on one activity individually to boost productivity.
6. Master Your Workday Now: Proven Strategies to Control Chaos, Create Outcomes, & Connect Your Work to Who You Really Are
This book gives the reader profound and new strategies for succeeding in their personal life and career. According to Michael Linenberger, the author, work is a mental activity that readers can control. What they should do is adopt a practical mental concept of work which he calls Workday Now. By adopting these strategies, readers are guaranteed a successful well-organized workday.
Master Your Workday Now features essential ideas which you can leverage to understand how to enhance focus and accomplish more within a short time. These strategies are easy to incorporate into your day-to-day life, and they offer excellent results.
7. 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think
Many people look forward to spending more time with their loved ones, traveling more, and achieving their goals, but time always runs out fast. In the 168 Hours time management book, the author, Laura Vanderkam, incorporates her interviews with numerous happy and successful individuals. Through these interviews, she learned that allocating your time can impact your general wellbeing.
Instead of allowing daily roles to disrupt important tasks, readers should focus on having enough time to execute those tasks. Doing so means you will only have the small priorities remaining on your to-do list, even when time runs out.
Through this book, readers learn that they can exercise well, engage in their hobbies, and sleep better by prioritizing. Laura gives excellent advice with real-life and clear examples of people using time efficiently.
8. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
Getting Things Done is a classic publication in the productivity world and a must-have for people willing to make good use of their time. It offers proven concepts and workplace outlooks for productivity. Readers will learn how to apply the drop it, defer it, delegate it, and do it rule to empty their in-tray.
At the end of this book, readers will re-evaluate goals and remain focused amid uncertain situations. Getting Things Done includes proven tricks and principles that can change the way readers work. You will also learn how to maintain the pace without growing weary.
9. The Time Chunking Method: A 10-Step Action Plan for Increasing Your Productivity
In this productivity-enhancing book, Damon Zahariades concentrates on one method that anybody can enforce. Readers do not have to struggle with strategy lists. You will learn about the Time Chunking Method that compliments your work-life efforts instead of attempting philosophical choice-making views or new habits.
10. The Joy of Missing Out: Live More by Doing Less
The Joy of Missing Out responds to the Millennials’ anxiety-based mantra, fear of missing out (FOMO). Tony Dalton, CEO and renowned author focuses on the idea of getting overwhelmed and the freedom you get from missing out. This book offers a strategy to people seeking to renounce pressure without feeling guilty.
11. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Many best time management books 2021 focus on eliminating distractions and bad habits. However, Deep Work by Cal Newport adopts a holistic approach by making time for work amid distractions.
This book tackles the possibility of focusing on complex tasks that require your attention while figuring out the importance of distraction. According to the writer, if you apply to connect with roles beyond scheduling and prioritizing, you enhance your deep thinking and problem-solving skills. As a result, you will have a fulfilling life.
12. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
The Power of Habit is a Prescriptive book, but Charles Duhigg explains the reasons behind successes and failures. The author, an award-winning journalist, reveals the concept behind our productivity and choices. This book allows you to comprehensively understand the forces navigating through your mind, a critical approach in helping you change your life.
13. The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Steven Pressfield integrates creativity and self-discipline to take readers through a Sun-Tzu concept to the battleground of ambition, self-doubt, art, and fear. Readers will appreciate the diligence of adopting combining productivity and discipline to conquer fear and creativity to flow. The War of Art is a guide for coordinating some of the most complex internal fights and is ideal for everybody.
14. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin was the inventor and founder of bifocals, scientist, talented negotiator, philosopher, entrepreneur, and a prolific founder. Not only was he a productivity expert, but many great things have been written about him. However, many readers can acquire lots of wisdom from his autobiography, which also features humor and guidance about work and life.
15. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey focuses on improving professional and personal productivity. Readers will learn how to define their priorities and goals. According to Stephen, readers should focus on developing new habits instead of eradicating poor habits.
The idea is to outline and control your priorities instead of listing them and allowing them to control you. This book features key insights and a sharp focus, making it a must-read for everyone willing to boost their time management skills.
16. The One-Minute Manager
The One-Minute Manager is an ideal book for anybody seeking simple and easy-to-understand administrative time management, efficiency, and productivity techniques. It tackles practical leadership and goal-setting, reprimands, and praise.
Ken Blanchard, the author, published a revised edition to discuss the struggles that modern-day managers face in today’s overly competitive business environment. The new edition focuses on evolving consumerism, the multi-generational labor force, and the digital revolution.
17. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
While this book is short, it features an advice-packed four-hour workweek to help you increase your earnings, work fewer hours, and eradicate 50% of your workload. Tim Ferriss, the author, bases his advice on Vilfredo Pareto’s work. Vilfredo is the Italian economist who invented the 80/20 rule.
Tim released a revised edition that includes more than 50 real-life case studies and illustrations. In these examples, readers explain how they increased their investment by eliminating numerous hurdles. The 4-Hour Workweek is a must-have for entrepreneurs and managers.
18. Organize Yourself by Kate Kelly
Changing your mindset and paradigm is critical, which is why many productivity books focus on transforming your entrepreneurship and time perspective. Organize Yourself by Kate Kelly tackles the idea of changing your outlook on implementation. Before implementation, you should be organized and have a plan.
This book offers you essential rules for enhanced space, money, paper, and time management. It uncovers an expert organizer’s proven strategies for day-to-day planning life. Organize Yourself offers fast and effective ways of de-cluttering while beating organizational faults like procrastination.
19. Free to Focus: A Total Productivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less
Michael Hyatt combines time management and productivity in this book to develop a system that you can leverage to execute the right things. Free to Focus features strategies to eliminate time wasters and distractions allowing you to use your time to achieve effective productivity. Through this book, you will learn the author’s three-step system to get more done in less time.
20. The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy by Chris Bailey
The Productivity Project is an entertaining book that focuses on making people more productive in their daily lives at home and work. In this book, Chris Bailey talks about the journey of conducting productivity experiments for an entire year. This project taught him how to enhance the quantity and quality of his work.
After completing this book, readers will master the art of slowing down to work more intentionally, quit attempting to be perfect, and eliminate less critical tasks. You will also learn how to adjourn tasks productively and stay away from distractions. The Productivity Project is an engaging and eye-opening book that will help complete more tasks in less time.
21. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
Atul Gawande’s bestseller illustrates what the checklist discloses about human life’s intricacy and how to manage it. Today, humans have great understanding thanks to the modern world. Still, we continue to struggle with avoidable errors in the government, health care, financial industry, and the law.
Such happens due to the complexity and volume of knowledge available today, which has surpassed human ability to deliver it to people adequately. Humans specialize more and train longer, use advanced technologies, and still are unable to evade failure. According to Atul Gawande, humans can do and achieve better with a simple method; the checklist.
Atul demonstrates the potential of checklists, what they cannot do, and how they trigger improvements in various sectors. The insights from this book are already making a difference across the world. A basic surgical checklist was designed based on ideas in this book. Over twenty countries use the book as a guideline for care.
22. 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management- The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, 13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A Students, and 239 Entrepreneurs by Kevin Kruse
This time management book is ideal for you if you seek to master the art of maximizing your time, enhancing your productivity, and having some free time for yourself. The author demonstrates findings from a study he conducted regarding highly productive people. From his interviews and research with successful people, Kevin Kruse discloses the secrets of being extremely effective.
At the end of this book, you will stop procrastinating, complete your to-do list, eliminate your to-do list, reduce emails, beat social media distractions, and manage meetings effectively. By reading the experiences of successful people, you will learn how to utilize your time adequately. Remember, time is valuable, and once you lose it, you can never regain it. This book features excellent resources for the reader.
23. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time
Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog is a classic publication that skilled managers often introduce to new managers. It is one of the leading books about time management. This book comes with valuable tips, and the author is a prolific writer with various books under the best self-help publication category.
Eat That Frog addresses the idea of tackling the most complex task first in the morning to get done with it. Identify the role you are highly likely to adjourn but ensure it is the most valuable and do it. Completing the most challenging task first thing in the morning gives you a feeling of satisfaction. You will also have the zeal to face the rest of your day.
The author includes Mark Twain’s quote where he mentions that once you eat a frog early in the morning, you get the reassurance that you are done with the worst activity for the day. It is worth mentioning that the frog, in this case, is a substitute for your complex and dreaded tasks. Once you get those out of the way, then navigating the rest of the day becomes more manageable.
Best Time Management Podcasts 2021
Podcasts are fast becoming popular in the time management, software, and entrepreneurship industry. Apart from productivity books, you may want to listen to some podcasts to become a better manager and enhance your listening skills. Here are some podcasts that will help you navigate your work-life obstacles.
· Happier With Gretchen Rubin
Gretchen Rubin launched her podcast to help listeners focus on achieving happiness. Today, her renowned show has evolved to become a self-help necessity for people seeking a meaningful and productive life.
· The Tim Ferriss Show
Tim Ferris, the author of the 4-hour Workweek, runs a successful podcast where he talks about different topics to improve productivity. These topics include life and entrepreneurship.
Finally
Mastering the art of time management is critical for increasing your productivity. Are you struggling to find the ideal productivity and time management book for your needs? Use this list of best time management books 2021 as a guide to picking a book that best meets your needs. Visit our website to learn more about time management.