Your success as a Manager or Leader depends on what you do day to day.
You have aspirations, dreams, and goals to realize them.
You have a to-do list, a calendar, and other fancy apps to help you become more productive.
But somehow, there is a nagging feeling that you aren’t getting enough done. Right?
It is not important to get things done to be successful .
You must have a clear understanding of why you are doing what you are doing and if what you are doing is necessary.
To master your Productivity you must know your energy levels, natural work cycle, willpower, habits, and the challenges that obstruct your way to managing your time effectively.
Productivity and Time Management are interrelated. If you can manage your time wisely, your productivity will automatically boost.
Everyone wants to get more done in less time and waste less time and be more effective with their time and efforts.
But in reality, it is hard to do.
It is because Productivity is a relative term, and has a different meaning for every person, depending on what they ultimately want to accomplish.
What helps one person stay on track might not be helpful to the other person.
Self-help books are one of the best ways for Managers and Leaders to improve themselves and their productivity because they are less expensive than costly training and easily available in many different formats like -Kindle books, audiobooks, Hardcovers, and paperbacks.
Investing a few minutes in reading a good book on Productivity will help you learn new strategies, skills, and techniques for Unlocking and maximizing your potential to get the desired results.
And to help you master the best Productivity skills I’ve compiled a list of books from all over the web and come up with these 25 best books on productivity from some of the best authors in the world.
Please Note: I independently select all products and services. If you click through the links I provide, I may earn a commission from Amazon.
Get these 23 Productivity Hacks to Work Smarter, Get more done and find Fulfilment and Balance Here !
1 .THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Stephen Covey
This is one of the most inspiring and Impactful books that has transformed the lives of Presidents ,CEO’s ,Parents and millions of people of all ages and professions.
Stephen R. Covey shares a step-by-step roadmap for living with fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity — principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.
The book is full of insights and practical examples to help you solve professional and personal problems .
The 7 habits presented int he book are relevant for all ages .Here are the 7 habits outlined in the book :
Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
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2.DEEP WORK: RULES FOR FOCUSED SUCCESS IN A DISTRACTED WORLD
Cal Newport
In any profession cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits.Mastering this skill, will help you achieve extraordinary results in almost any profession.
DEEP WORK is an essential guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.
Doing Deep work requires to focus without distraction on a mentally demanding task.
This skill allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. It will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfilment that comes from craftsmanship.
In short, it is a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. Where most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of email and social media, not even realising there’s a better way.
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3FOCUS THE HIDDEN DRIVER OF EXCELLENCE
Daniel Goleman
Focus delves into the science of attention in all its forms.
In this age of unstoppable distractions, Goleman persuasively argues that now more than ever we must learn to sharpen focus if we are to survive in a complex world. He presents a long discussion on this little noticed and underrated mental asset .
The book is full of case studies from fields as diverse as competitive sports, education, the arts, and business.
Goleman shows that high-achievers need all three kinds of focus-inner, other, and outer To be focused in all the 3 areas one need Smart Practices like —mindfulness meditation, focused preparation and recovery, positive emotions and connections, and mental “prosthetics” that help them improve habits, add new skills, and sustain greatness—excel while others do not.
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4THE 80/20 PRINCIPLE
Richard Koch
The 80/20 principle is one of the great secrets of highly effective people and organisations.
The 80/20 Principle shows how we can achieve much more with much less effort, time, and resources, simply by identifying and focusing our efforts on the 20 percent that really counts.
Richard Koch reveals how the principle works and shows how we can use it in a systematic and practical way to vastly increase our effectiveness, and improve our careers and our companies.
20 percent of customers account for 80 percent of revenues.
That 20 percent of our time accounts for 80 percent of the work we accomplish.
The essence of 80/20 principle is that little of what we spend our time on actually counts. But by concentrating on those things that do, we can unlock the enormous potential of the magic 20 percent, and transform our effectiveness in our jobs, our careers, our businesses, and our lives.
Be more effective with less effort by learning how to identify and leverage the 80/20 principle: that 80 percent of all our results in business and in life stem from a mere 20 percent of our efforts.
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5. GETTING THINGS DONE : THE ART OF STRESS FREE PRODUCTIVITY
David Allen
“GTD” is a shorthand for an entire way of approaching professional and personal tasks, and has spawned an entire culture of websites, organizational tools, seminars, and offshoots.
Here are some Popular highlights from the book.
Getting things done requires two basic components: defining
1) what “done” means (outcome) and
2) what “doing” looks like (action).
We
1) capture what has our attention;
2) clarify what each item means and what to do about it;
3) organize the results, which presents the options we
4) reflect on, which we then choose to
5) engage with.
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6. ZEN TO DONE : THE ULTIMATE SIMPLE PRODUCTIVITY SYSTEM
Leo Babauta
Zen To Done is a simple system to help you get organized and productive–keeping your life less stressed–with a set of simple habits.
Leo Babauta has integrated some of the best aspects of popular productivity systems (GTD, Stephen Covey, and others), combined and simplified them, giving you just what you need–and no more.
Here are the key principles , ZTD teaches you:
1) The key habits needed to be organized and productive.
2) How to implement these habits.
3) How to organize the habits into a simple system that will keep everything in your life in its place.
4) How to simplify what you need to do.
5) How to implement an even simpler version called Minimal ZTD.
ZTD helps you do things in a simple, easy, yet effective way to accomplish your goals.
Tired of doing things the Hard way ?
Zen To Done is just what you need.
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7. FREE TO FOCUS
Michael Hyatt
For Many professionals work takes up as much as 70 hours a week, leaving little time for rest, exercise, family, and friends.
Work is invading their personal life.
It is a widely held belief that productivity is just about getting more done at a faster speed.
But it’s not.
Productivity is about getting the right things done.
In his latest book, Free to Focus,Michael Hyatt, has created a total productivity system that’s much more than endless box checking.
Proven by over 25,000 professionals, this system helps overwhelmed leaders achieve what matters most so they can succeed at both work and life.
In the book you’ll learn the 3-step system to achieve more while doing less and
discover how to …
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Redefine your work so it works for you
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Filter your tasks and commitments
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Cut out the nonessentials
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Eliminate interruptions and distractions
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Set boundaries that protect your focus and drive results
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Leverage your time and energy for maximum productivity
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Build momentum for a lifetime of success
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8. HOW TO BE A PRODUCTIVITY NINJA: WORRY LESS,ACHIEVE MORE AND LOVE WHAT YOU DO
Graham Allcott
How to be a Productivity Ninja is a fun, accessible and practical guide to staying cool, calm and collected, getting more done, and learning to love your work again.
In the age of information overload, traditional time management techniques simply don’t cut it when it comes to overflowing inboxes, ever-expanding to-do lists and endless, pointless meetings.
How to be a Productivity Ninja shares techniques including Ruthlessness, Mindfulness, Zen-like Calm and Stealth & Camouflage that will help you will get your inbox down to zero, make the most of your attention, beat procrastination and learn to work smarter, not harder.
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9.THE ONE THING : THE SURPRISINGLY SIMPLE TRUTH BEHIND EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS
Gary Keller & Jay Papasan
The daily barrage of emails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll.
And what’s the cost?
Second-rate work, missed deadlines, smaller paychecks, fewer promotions–and lots of stress.
YOU WANT LESS. You want fewer distractions and less on your plate
AND YOU WANT MORE.
You want more productivity from your work.
More income for a better lifestyle.
You want more satisfaction from life, and more time for yourself, your family, and your friends.
AND YOU CAN HAVE BOTH ― LESS AND MORE.
In The ONE Thing, you’ll learn to:
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cut through the clutter
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achieve better results in less time
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build momentum toward your goal
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dial down the stress
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overcome that overwhelmed feeling
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revive your energy
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stay on track
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master what matters to you
The ONE Thing delivers extraordinary results in every area of your life–work, personal, family, and spiritual.
By focusing your energy on one thing at a time you can live a more rewarding life by building your career, strengthening your finances, losing weight and getting in shape, deepening your faith, and nurturing stronger marriages and personal relationships.
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10. SCRUM: THE ART OF DOING TWICE THE WORK IN HALF THE TIME
Jeff Sutherland
For those who believe that there must be a more agile and efficient way for people to get things done, here is a brilliantly discursive, thought-provoking book about the leadership and management process that is changing the way we live.
If you’ve ever been startled by how fast the world is changing, Scrum is one of the reasons why. Productivity gains of as much as 1200% have been recorded, and there’s no more lucid – or compelling – explainer of Scrum and its bright promise than Jeff Sutherland, the man who put together the first Scrum team more than twenty years ago.
The most important reason to read this book is that it may just help you achieve what others consider unachievable – whether it be inventing a trailblazing technology, devising a new system of education, pioneering a way to feed the hungry, or, closer to home, a building a foundation for your family to thrive and prosper.
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11. ESSESNTIALISM : THE DISCIPLINED PURSUIT OF LESS
Greg McKeown
“A timely, essential read for anyone who feels overcommitted, overloaded, or overworked.”—Adam Grant
If you answer YES to any one of these :
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found yourself stretched too thin?
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simultaneously felt overworked and underutilised?
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felt busy but not productive?
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felt like your time is constantly being hijacked by other people’s agendas?
Then the way out is the Way of the Essentialist.
Essentialism is not one more thing—it’s a whole new way of doing everything. It’s about doing less, but better, in every area of our lives
It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution toward the things that really matter.
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12. ORGANIZE TOMORROW TODAY: 8 WAYS TO RETRAIN YOUR MIND TO OPTIMIZE PERFORMANCE AT WORK AND IN LIFE
Dr. Jason Selk and Tom Bartow
OTT will show you the performance gains that athletes, executives, and salespeople spend tens of thousands of dollars to achieve
There is a huge difference between knowing something and understanding.
There is an even wider gap between understanding and doing.
Highly successful people never get it all finished in any given day; however, they always get the most important things completed.
Selk and Bartow offer the 8 fundamentals of doing what is most important.
Together, Selk and Bartow reveal the secrets of how both elite athletes and business leaders climb to the top.
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13. REST: WHY YOU GET MORE DONE WHEN OYU WORK LESS
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
“Deliberate rest,” as Pang calls it, is the true key to productivity, and will give us more energy, sharper ideas, and a better life.
Rest offers a roadmap to rediscovering the importance of rest in our lives, and a convincing argument that we need to relax more if we actually want to get more done.
Overwork is the new normal. Rest is something to do when the important things are done—but they are never done.
Looking at different forms of rest, from sleep to vacation, Silicon Valley futurist and business consultant Alex Soojung-Kim Pang dispels the myth that the harder we work the better the outcome.
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14. THE EFFECTIVE EXECUTIVE : THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO GETTING THE RIGHT THINGS DONE
Peter F. Drucker
What makes an effective executive?
The measure of the executive, Drucker reminds us, is the ability to “get the right things done.”
This usually involves doing what other people have overlooked as well as avoiding what is unproductive. Intelligence,
imagination, and knowledge may all be wasted in an executive job without the acquired habits of mind that mould them into results.
In this book ,Drucker identifies five practices essential to business effectiveness that can—and must—be mastered:
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Managing time;
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Choosing what to contribute to the organization;
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Knowing where and how to mobilize strength for best effect;
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Setting the right priorities;
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Knitting all of them together with effective decision-making.
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15.15 SECRETS SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT TIME MANAGEMENT – THE PRODUCTIVITY HABITS OF 7 BILLIONAIRES, 16 OLYMPIC ATHELETES, 29 STRAIGHT-A STUDENTS,AND 239 ENTREPRENEURS
Kevin Kruse
What if a few new habits could dramatically increase your productivity, and even 5x or 10x it in key areas? What if you could get an hour a day to read, exercise, or to spend with your family.
Kevin Kruse answers the question: what are the secrets to extreme productivity?
In this book, you’ll learn:
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Why millionaires don’t use to-do lists (and what they DO use)
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How to cure procrastination with the “Time Travel” trick
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How the Harvard “DDR Questions” save 8 hours a week
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How to identify your REAL priorities
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How to get to zero emails in your inbox using 321Zero
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How the simple E-3C system will double your productivity
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How to reduce stress with the Richard Branson Tool
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How to leave work at 5:00 without feeling guilty
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How to run meetings like Apple, Google & Virgin
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How to conquer social media distractions
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BONUS: QUIZ – Discover Your Time Personality
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BONUS: 100+ Time Management Quotes
If You want to increase your productivity and stop feeling so overworked and overwhelmed, Buy this book NOW!
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16. FIRST THINGS FIRST
Stephen Covey
First Things First is one of the greatest time management books.
The principle-centred approach for prioritizing as shared by COvey in this book gives you time management tips that enable you to make changes and sacrifices needed in order to obtain happiness, and retain a feeling of security.and more
The time-saving version of First Things First: The Interactive Edition of First Things First is the efficient way to apply Dr. Covey’s tested and validated time management tips, while retaining his core message. First Things First: The Interactive Edition will help you:
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Get more done in less time
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Develop and retain rich relationships
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Attain inner peace
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Create balance in your life
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and, put first things first
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17. THE PRODUCTIVTY PROJECT : ACCOMPLISHING MORE BY MANAGING YOUR TIME , ATTENTION AND ENERGY
Chris Bailey
The Productivity Project—and the lessons Chris learned—are the result of thet year-long journey taken by Chris Bailey
He turned down lucrative job offers to pursue a lifelong dream—to spend a year performing a deep dive experiment into the pursuit of productivity, a subject he had been enamoured with since he was a teenager.
Among the counterintuitive insights Chris Bailey will teach you:
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· slowing down to work more deliberately;
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· shrinking or eliminating the unimportant;
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· the rule of three;
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· striving for imperfection;
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· scheduling less time for important tasks;
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· the 20 second rule to distract yourself from the inevitable distractions;
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· and the concept of productive procrastination.
In an eye-opening and thoroughly engaging book, Bailey offers a treasure trove of insights and over 25 best practices that will help you accomplish more.
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18. THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO : HOW TO GET THINGS RIGHT
Atul Gawande
.We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies―neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist.
Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third.
He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from disaster response to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds.
An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.
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19. 18 MINUTES: FIND YOUR FOCUS, MASTER DISTRACTION, AND GET THE RIGHT THINGS DONE
Peter Bregman
18 Minutes clearly shows how busy people can cut through all the daily clutter and distractions and find a way to focus on those key items which are truly the top priorities in our lives.
Bregman works from the premise that the best way to combat constant and distracting interruptions is to create productive distractions of one’s own.
Based upon a series of short bite-sized chapters, his approach allows us to safely navigate through the constant chatter of emails, text messages, phone calls, and endless meetings that prevent us from focusing our time on those things that are truly important to us.
Mixing first-person insights along with unique case studies, Bregman sprinkles his charming book with pathways which help guide us –pathways that can get us on the right trail in 18 minutes or less.
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20. TO-DO LIST MAKEOVER: A SIMPLE GUIDE TO GETTIG THE IMPORTANT THINGS DONE
S.J. Scott
We all write lists with the hope that they will turn us into productivity machines. Sadly, to-do lists often have the opposite effect. The wrong type of list can be de-motivating, causing you to slack off and procrastinate.
Create To-Do Lists That are Both Actionable and Doable
The truth is anyone can write a list. The hard part is creating a list that’s actionable and also fits into your busy life.
Rethink the way you manage your daily life.
“To-Do List Makeover” provides a step-by-step blueprint for writing effective, actionable lists. You will learn:
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7 Common To-Do List Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)
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The #1 Tool for Capturing Ideas
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How to Use a Project List to Identify Critical Tasks
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When to Work on Routine, Daily Activities
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Why the Weekly Review Helps You Get Things Done
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THE App for Managing To-Do Lists
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How to Complete Your THREE Important Tasks Every Day
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8 Steps for Achieving Peak Results
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How to Take Action (Even If You’re not Motivated)
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A Step-by-Step Process for Getting Results with Your Lists
It’s not hard to take action on a consistent basis. All you need to learn is how to manage four types of lists on a daily basis.
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21. READY FOR ANYTHING : 52 PRODUCTIVITY PRINCIPLES FOR GETTING THINGS DONE
David Allen
In Getting Things Done, veteran coach and management consultant David Allen presented his breakthrough methods to increase efficiency.
He shows readers how to increase their ability to work better, not harder—every day.
Ready for Anything offers readers 52 ways to immediately clear your head for creativity, focus your attention, create structures that work, and take action to get things moving.
With wit, inspiration, and know-how, Allen shows readers how to make things happen—with less effort and stress, and lots more energy, creativity, and effectiveness.
Ready for Anything is the perfect book for anyone wanting to work and live at his or her very best.
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22. THE POWER OF FULL ENGAGEMENT : MANAGING ENERGY ,NOT TIME ,IS THE KEY TO HIHG PERFORMANCE AND PERSONAL RENEWAL
Jim Loehr, Tony Schwartz
Authors Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz demonstrate in this groundbreaking book, managing energy, not time, is the key to enduring high performance as well as to health, happiness, and life balance.
The number of hours in a day is fixed, but the quantity and quality of energy available to us is not.
This fundamental insight has the power to revolutionize the way you live your life. The Power of Full Engagement is a highly practical, scientifically based approach to managing your energy more skillfully both on and off the job.
The Power of Full Engagement lays out the key training principles and provides a powerful, step-by-step program that will help you to:
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Mobilize four key sources of energy
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Balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal
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Expand capacity in the same systematic way that elite athletes do
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Create highly specific, positive energy management rituals
Above all, this book provides a life-changing road map to becoming more fully engaged on and off the job, meaning physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned.
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23. FLOW: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OPTIMAL EXPEREINCE
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
It is the bestselling classic that holds the key to unlocking meaning, creativity, peak performance, and true happiness.
Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s famous investigations of “optimal experience” have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow.
During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life.
Csikszentmihalyi (“the leading researcher into ‘flow states’” —Newsweek) demonstrates the ways this positive state can be controlled, not just left to chance. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness, unlock our potential, and greatly improve the quality of our lives.
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24. THE POWER OF LESS
Leo Babauta
With the countless distractions that come from every corner of a modern life, it’s amazing that we’re ever able to accomplish anything.
The Power of Less demonstrates how to streamline your life by identifying the essential and eliminating the unnecessary , freeing you from everyday clutter and allowing you to focus on accomplishing the goals that can change your life for the better.
The Power of Less will show you how to:
– Break any goal down into manageable tasks
– Focus on only a few tasks at a time
– Create new and productive habits
– Hone your focus
– Increase your efficiency
By setting limits for yourself and making the most of the resources you already have, you?ll finally be able to work less, work smarter, and focus on living the life that you deserve.
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25. THE OBSTACLE IS THE WAY: THE TIMELESS ART OF TURNING TRIALS INTO TRIUMPHS
Ryan Holiday
As Marcus Aurelius put it nearly 2000 years ago: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
he book draws its inspiration from stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy of enduring pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience.
Stoics focus on the things they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every new obstacle into an opportunity to get better, stronger, tougher.
Ryan Holiday shows us how some of the most successful people in history—from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart to Ulysses S. Grant to Steve Jobs—have applied stoicism to overcome difficult or even impossible situations. Their embrace of these principles ultimately mattered more than their natural intelligence, talents, or luck.
If you’re feeling frustrated, demoralized, or stuck in a rut, this book can help you turn your problems into your biggest advantages. And along the way it will inspire you with dozens of true stories of the greats from every age and era.
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If you are an Aspiring Manager, New Manager, or Mid-level Manager, I invite you to Check out “The How Can I Focus Better?’’ Productivity and Time Management toolkit ” – a holistic toolkit with all the tools and assessments you need to be more effective, efficient, and focused -without having to spend a lot of hours curating and understanding them.
Check out the toolkit HERE.
