These Are the Best Books to Learn How to Manage Your Time Better.
Effective time management takes time to perfect. There are a lot of hacks out there to help you plan, stay focused, and get things done, but it’s actually hard to get it all done without the right guidance and mindset. If you’re struggling with time management, it might be worth taking some time to dig into the topic and read what the experts have to say. Here are some of the best books to help you improve your time management skills.
Overhaul for the whole day:
The 5am Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life by Robin Sharma ($13.15)
If your goal is to wake up every day and get started with maximum productivity and overall focus, try Robin Sharma’s best-selling Morning Hug Manifesto. Sharma believes that success starts early in the morning, so if you can harness the power of your morning routine and get up early to welcome the new day, you can be more focused, productive, and happy. It won’t take long either: you only need one hour every morning for this. Reviewers call it a “game changer” and “extremely important”.
To maximize the least amount of time:
Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Doing More with Less ($13.99)
You may have heard the old adage that 80% of our success depends on 20% of our work, or the Pareto principle, but what do you do with this information and how do you apply it to your life? Koch’s book is about how you can identify the 20% of your efforts that are truly important to productivity and then focus on them. This is great for people who have too much going on. Reviewers say it can “add a few hours to your days” and increase your happiness.
To focus on focus:
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Diffuse World by Cal Newport ($15)
We often recommend the practice of deep work in Newport, and for good reason: learning to focus on important tasks is the key to being good at your job and getting things done. Deep work is all about becoming more efficient by eliminating distractions so you can ultimately get more done in less time. Newport is all about focusing on the really difficult tasks rather than avoiding them, which is why it’s perfect for anyone who really cares about the quality and not just the quantity of their products.
If you don’t know where to start:
Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy ($8.39)
If you want to get an idea of the myriad of productivity hacks and which one is best for your specific needs , check out this book of 21 tips now in third edition. It’s part of the Tracey series, so you can choose the student version or extra flashcards to keep handy as reminders, but the original book was a hit for a reason. Reviewers call these steps “practical” and praise Tracy for consistently helping to read over the years.
To take an old classic:
Stephen R. Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People ($11.76)
You have already heard about this book. You may have heard of the teen version or seen someone else use the extra workbook. It’s over 30 years old and a classic in the performance world. Covey recommends being proactive, starting tasks with the end result in mind, prioritizing, win/win thinking, seeking to understand before being understood, teaming up, and taking time to recharge—and if that sounds vague, it’s only because then he gets down to business. much more detail in the book itself, which reviewers say should be part of your permanent library.
To get perspective:
168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think Laura Vanderkam ($18)
If you feel like you just don’t have enough time during the day to get everything done, you may just be dealing with a perspective problem. Instead of thinking about 24 hours a day, try thinking about 168 hours a week and then figure out where the important things fit in so you make sure you get them done. Vanderkam advocates identifying what’s really important and what’s not, and then scheduling in a way that recognizes that you actually have time for it. The only problem? You can’t use “too busy” as an excuse to stop doing what you want to do.
For goal setting:
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Berkeman ($13.99)
We’ve already recommended one of Berkman’s principles —the 3-3-3 method —but his definitive New York Times best-selling book goes into much more detail about what he believes is the secret to maximizing your life’s productivity. . Hint: You will be thinking long term, because the first thing you need to do is to realize that not only is your life finite, but you only have 4,000 weeks on average. It doesn’t seem like much when you think about it, right? The goal is to figure out how to use them to the best of your ability, which reviewers say the book helps by reconciling readers to the fact that you can’t do everything , so you need to decide what matters most. made.