Personal Productivity Books

wonderful,very accurate,reliable,practical.

A recipe for life success (I first heard it 8 years ago). Covey's style is compelling in audio - for me much better than reading the book.
Listen to it twice (at least) to let it sink in.

I know a lot of people who have done great things after reading this book. Obviously, not right after finishing, but I think it helps your frame of mind if you are driven, and success and accomplishment is important to you. It speaks to some fundamental truths about human nature that allow the book to stand the test of time.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

this is a great book. I have to read it for one of my classes, but
I am really glad I got assigned to read it.

It is a great resource of knowledge that could help one throughout
their whole life.

I strongly recommend it!

Habits! Yes, consistent, belief-based, and optimized habits are the only way to be your best self. Thoughts are the parents of our experience and performance. This guy will guide you to it. You will also learn how to optimize these habits with Rosalene Glickman's book, Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self (endorsed by Covey). These books will bring that optimal consistency into every aspect of your life.

While I read through this wonderful book, I came to a striking realisation: There exist ways to deal with any situation in life effectively. Stephen Covey has put these into writing.
The challenge remains to live by these universal principles - which Covey did not create but so prudently recognises - but realising they exist is the first step.
How one person, through years of research even, put this vital gem so rich in content together escapes me. It's as if the book was written from the creator of these concepts themselves - a higher force.

"The 4-Hour Workweek" offers interesting ideas and new perspectives, however they will not be practical for most readers. The book is worth reading anyway for the thought provoking perspective on your job and lifestyle; and ways you can change them.

Timothy Ferriss urges we abandoned the "deferred-life", 9 to 5 employee lifestyle we now live and join the "New Rich". He defines "New Rich" as those who are free to travel as they please, work from were they want when they want and live a luxury lifestyle.

"The 4-Hour Workweek" has a system called "DEAL" to help us achieve that lifestyle. That is an acronym for Definition, Elimination, Automation and Liberation. These topics go on to form the four main sections of the book.

Ferriss is very enthusiastic about the ideas he presents. However his plan is mostly relevant to aggressive business savvy young singles like him. There are a few mentions of one family, but there was no real information about how to address the challenges that families would face. This gives the books a very self-centered and self-indulgent feel.

Never the less the discussion of the role of work in a persons life is important. Many people work for works sake, without ever considering what they would rather be doing and how to achieve it. He does address many of the fears that would hold you back from making that kind of change.

"The 4-Hour Workweek" includes extensive discussion of starting the kind of business that would be suited to the this "New Rich" lifestyle. This is also limited by a very narrow range. The only kinds of businesses discussed involve web advertising, outsource manufacturing and contract fulfillment. Clearly this can work for many people, but is the really the only way, or is it just the only thing the author has done?

There is a lot to be gained by thinking about the subjects raised in "The 4-Hour Workweek", and the Ferriss's recommendations will be useful to some readers. However the plan is only suitable to a small subset of people. The book is strongly based on the authors experience. It be honorable that he is only recommending things that he has done himself, but it limits the value of the book to people in his demographic. The occasionally preachy tone is a only a mild annoyance.

I started reading this book last October and was inspired by the mini-retirement aspect. Ironically, I was let go from my job during the time I was reading this. I discussed taking a mini retirement with my husband and convinced him we could go away for the summer and he could work while we were on the go.
We actually did it! My husband and I took our three kids (ages 8, 5, and turning one) to France for a month. We stayed in Nice, Normandy, Bordeaux, Orleans, and Paris. My husband was able to continue working, although somewhat reduced hours with Skype and the internet. We met others on our travels doing similar things. Although the euro/$ was 1.65/1 we managed okay.
Next summer we are going to South America, maybe Mexico. We learned from our first trip what works and what does not, especially with the kids.

I enjoyed this book very much. The first portion of the book has many helpful hints regarding managing one's life and work. Tim Ferris has a unique outlook on how one should arrange their life and, I suspect, that most of us can benefit, in some way, from his example.

The last portion of this book will be of particular interest to those who wish to make their money from selling a great product online. If your personal "get rich quick" plan focuses on real estate, stocks, or "brick and mortar" businesses, then this portion of his book may be of little use to you.

Overall, this book is a great buy and well worth your time!

I LOVE YOU TIM FERRIS. Thank you for being so ON HIT! You can have a date with me any time...

Who ever thought a book on organizing your lifestyle could be so damn sexy?

Hilarious, inspirational, easy to read, non-stop revelations and hard-core usable data and resources. This is the ultimate entrepreneurial textbook.

Here's the story in a nutshell....find/develope/market a product that sells. Now have other people do all your work for you so you can travel the world. What a piece of crap.

This book was helpful when I read it with a few organizational items in my life. It's been a while since I've read it, and I can't exactly remember what I learned so I've given it a 3/5.

Management begins with self! Start managing yourself and you would be able to manage everyone and everything around you. But there are times when you have lots of things to do and you are left with no choice but to get more and more confused.

The best ways I thought to manage everything starting from my desktop to the projects I was working in was (after I analyzed a lot and Googled around) to more and more equip myself with sophisticated gadgets, this is what they are meant for, isn't it?. Well after I installed good software, mindmaping applications, get good PDAs, I was, once more, to my surprise managing additional stuffs that what I already was previously. At least for few days I was feeling a little satisfied that my investment in one of the most updated software or a hand-held device is going to bring me peace. But after few weeks everything was back to square one.

I even saw this occasionally with other people, the more unorganized you feel the more devices, gadgets, etc you tend to buy, but no one was happy, eventually the more STUFF you get the more unorganized you become. Which ultimately leads to stress. That is NOT the solution. Basically, after getting myself acquainted with GTD I understood that the devices were actually built around GTD. So, once I know what the basis principles of personal productivity are I can accordingly arrange myself, my mailbox, gadgets etc.

The solution is to know and understand the CORE the basic principles that are essential to generate productivity and efficiency. You must be a person with great ideas and already very successful, however, if you are someone who is under stress of not being able to manage a lot of stuff then you need this book.

Know exactly what stress is? How your internal commintment, even when you think that you are not committing, to various things around you build more and more stress? How can you arrange, discard, delegate stuff.

This truly is, as coined by David, an Advanced Common Sense.

There is a lot of stuff about GTD over the internet including the 43 folders website. I suggest you surely visit the YouTube videos for Davids lectures at Google (authors@Google). Look at him when he is explaining things on video and then read the book.

Other than the Bible, this is probably the most impactful book I have ever read. I stumbled upon this book in a bookstore years ago and bought it on a lark. The ideas are so simple but also can change the game of how you interract with your work and life to get more important things done. While seeing David Allen in person (which I later did) is even better in the book, this is a great way to spend $10 and I often buy it for people who work for me.

"Getting Things Done" is a great motivator, as it speaks volumes for the simplicity of how we individually require a set way of organization to really make it flow for our daily interruptions.
This book was a recommendation, and I would also recommend it for both people "on task" and those that are flailing to keep the paper tiger in order. I will use this book over and over to recalibrate both home, work, and electronic devices whenever I am once again needing to regroup and set new goals.

There are some really good ideas on how to get more organized and less stressed out due to disorganization in this book.

However, I have to say that this book isn't going to really help you deal as effectively with time management or procrastination. It's more a book on how to get organized and stay that way.

For dealing with procrastination and perfectionism, I would highly recommend "The Now Habit" by Neil Fiore (rev. 2007 edition). It ultimately ended up being a much more useful book for me than GTD - although the systems described in both books can easily work together.

I've been trying to get organized for a while and this book has helped me more than others. It really focuses on the planning before diving in to attack. That was the part I have been skipping. Now I know what I've been doing wrong and how to correct it in the future.

Organizing From the Inside Out not only teaches the reader how to get organized but helps the reader identify the reasons for his/her lack of organization. Morgenstern also demonstrates how organizing can help increase productivity, reduce stress, and help one feel better about one's self. Organizing From the Inside Out says the key to staying organized is to recognize the behavior patterns that lead to disorganization and the psychological reasons for staying unorganized. Recognizing these patterns and the psychology behind them is worth the read even if it makes the reader squirm a bit. Organizing From the Inside Out is a valuable resource for anyone wishing to get or stay organized.

I bought this hoping to help find out why my organizing fizzles. So far it has provided the much needed insight into why, now I just need to get to the how to overcome & move forward. This is helping me find out why I am always frustrated with trying to organize and turning around to an even bigger mess! I still have to finish the book and I think it may help me figure out how to move beyond the initial steps of organizing.

This book addressed issues that I have alway had with organizing. I thought organized meant neat clean and out of sight and putting things in a "logical" spot according to world standards. I was pleased to find that organized is being able to find what you want or need when you want or need it. And that it's not done in a day.

Julie Morgenstern's "Organizing from the Inside Out" is such a fantastic and valuable book. Her approach to organizing, as the title suggests, is whatever you are organizing -- your work/family schedule, your office, your kitchen, or your basement -- needs to reflect you: what's important to you, who you are and your value and logic system. I found it so refreshing and exciting how the focus in the book is about getting interested in who you are and how you operate and then creating a system of organization based on that. This is a more organic, natural, effective and lasting approach than the one most of us have where we impose an outside system that will "fix" our disorder. Often, those outside systems do the opposite. Reading this book demystified and made accessible the topic of organizing, one that I often found daunting and overwhelming. Julie applies conventional wisdom to organizing in a way that makes it easy, logical and even fun. Her mottos are: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it"....and "You can't fix it till you know what's broken". Applying these ideas and without even thinking, I organized in 10 minutes, a whole section of my closet that had bothered me for about 10 months!

This approach of investigating and discovering who you are and how you operate is in line with two other authors who have made a huge impact in my life: Ariel and Shya Kane. Their books, Working on Yourself Doesn't Work: A Book About Instantaneous Transformation, How to Create a Magical Relationship and Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment, are all based on a similar idea that you don't need to do anything to change or fix yourself in order for your life to be satisfying, less stressful, fun and enjoyable. If you are interested in getting the most out of all aspects of your life, I highly recommend all of these books!

I have purchased ten copies of this book, and I imagine I will be ordering more, to give to all of my artist friends. This is a powerful book that inspires the reader to take bold leaps in their creative journeys...it has become my artistic manifesto!

Steven Pressfield hit the nail on the head in his first non-fiction work. He let's everyone who creates anything know that it's not always easy but it is always worth the effort.

I'd recommend The War of Art to anyone who is in a small business for themselves or thinking of starting their own business. Writers, entrepreneurs, artists, photographers and CEO's will get a LOT out of the wisdom Pressfield shares.

If you are already a motivated person, there is no reason to read this book. If you have trouble dealing with procrastination, this book will definitely help you out! The author pinpoints exactly what keeps creative people from being creative and inspires you to tackle any obstacle in your way. Artists who only work when inspired, or who have trouble committing to a schedule will find this book useful. People who are already hard at work will not find any new ideas that they didn't already know.

I cannot rate this book highly enough. It is one to read over and over again. I stumbled upon a copy years ago and each time I pick it up, I learn something new. Many thanks to Steven Pressfield for writing this very valuable, uplifting, "meaning of life" book.

This was a great book that a friend recommended to me and I'm glad she did. Sometimes artists get stuck or stagnant and more than once I have found myself "warring" with myself as we sometimes do. This book opened my eyes to some of my creative blocks. Great reading.

A summary of simple and easy steps to boost your productivity in a slim, easily read book that's suitable for even the most time pressured of people. With plenty of tips and ideas that you can dip in and out of when you need it, to help deal with the habit of putting things off. It's on my recommended reading list for clients and is a great addition to any busy person's bookshelf.

You can't even make the excuse that you don't have time to read it, each chapter is only a few pages long with a handy summary/action section after each one.

I wanted very much to like this book.
Normally I will read an excellent book cover to cover only taking time off to eat, sleep, and go to work.
A good book I will typically read a chapter a day, every day.
Although this book has some decent advice, it is a very dry read.
I have had for over a month now and am only a third through it.

Don't look at the title - but the author! This is an excellent book with tips on how to be more productive and stop procrastinating!

I purchased the audio version of this book and listen to it over and over. Brian has a very positive and soothing voice and gets right to the point. No fluff. If you want fluff and lots of complicated language, check out Getting Things Done by David Allen. I started in on Allen's book and put it down after a few pages because Eat That Frog is so much simpler and concise. I like to play Eat that Frog and The Ultimate Goals Program over and over again in my car.

I couldn't think of a more apt title for this book. We all know that procrastination is what holds us back from being successful. Sadly it's often the hardest most disagreeable tasks that get the best results. This book is not reinventing the wheel but a quick read that teaches you simple principles that make all the difference. The main idea being if you tackle your worst job first the rest of the day should be relatively painless.

Sure the print is large and the book is thin but how much do you need to read to realize you've got to get out there and do your work? It's common sense.

I liked the book it was just what I needed when my motivation was flagging. I figure the cost is worth what you get back and it wouldn't hurt anyone to read it once a year to stay on track. I actually also have the audio book and it fills a long drive nicely.

As a small business owner looking for strategies to point my employees towards less distraction, I was eager to read this book and then disappointed with the pep-talk obviousness of it. This book isn't geared towards the newbie emailer and it isn't geared towards veterans either. Not sure who that leaves to benefit from the zero-mail doctrine.

Some interesting and helpful pointers on managing your information and your time. Too much time spent on explaining shareware that most of us in the corporate networked world cannot access.

This book was on my must-read list for many many months and I'm very happy I finally got around to it. I was also someone that kept thousands of emails in my inbox - and was overwhelmed. I'm now down to zero for the second week in a row - and it's great! This approach, combined with the to do list tool (gootodo.com), has helped me be more productive, responsive, and effective in managing all communications. I've read tons of "productivity" books and this is hands-down the most useful and actionable and has made the biggest positive impact on how I work.

I love this book! I have given half a dozen or so as gifts to friends and clients. While there are good practices taught in all chapters of the book the e-mail chapter is the one that has made a revolutionary impact on my life. And today was a good example of the practices preached put to work.

Following Mark's advice, each message received and sent is filed as a text file in the correspondence folder in the project folder. E-mail is, after all, correspondence. And when I need to do some decision trail reconstruction, as I did today, I could use my trusty BBEdit text editor to search the text files and find exactly what I needed. It was all in the one place where it should be: in the project folder, and not in an e-mail program.

The media diet chapter has also been very helpful. I've eliminated A LOT of stuff because I don't really need it. Why clog my life with so many bits.

Other chapter subjects, such as to dos, are still a work in progress. But having read this book I feel as though I'm armed with knowledge to take a fresh look at all my digital practices and I'm better for it.

Mark Hurst [Disclaimer: I think he's a genius] is the best writer I know of who is dealing with the problems PC users, meaning everyone, face every day. "Bit Literacy" contains advice that I use many times a day. While it is a bit of a Jeremiad, he can't be blamed since most people complain bitterly about email, especially spam, and to-do lists and don't ever do anything about it. Mark Hurst shows that the solution lies in prioritization and habit, more than in reliance on technology. Your daily stress level will approach the vanishing point if you merely follow his advice concerning the order in which you should process your email. His goal is nothing less than freeing all of us from tedious nonsense so that we can concentrate on productive, fulfilling work.

I also highly recommend his newsletter [...]written from the perspective of a highly experienced "every-user". Here's a sample:

"Amazon.com, which I generally like, recently lost the ninety-or-so customer reviews of my book 'Bit Literacy.'... As the vast majority of the reviews were very positive, their departure has certainly affected sales."

Mark Hurst does not point out the absurdities and inconsistencies of technologies and companies to appear clever or ahead of the curve. His point is always that "This could happen to you too." He is a true populist and is therefore the ideal guide to point out the ways to make our online existence more satisfying and less vexing.

Just finished my first read and am about to try to put it into practice. I have a good feeling that it will have positive effects.

The techniques work. I've been a hard-core procrastinator for all my five decades -- heck, I was even late being born -- but this book has changed my life in less than a month. When you're ready to change, this is the book to buy -- read it, and follow its wisdom.

This book is by far the best book I've ever read on balancing your work and home life, especially if you struggle with procrastination and/or perfectionism.

That's a strong statement, but I've read lots of book on personal self-management and how to organize your time effectively (including "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey and "Getting Things Done" by David Allen) -- and I can honestly say that, for me at least, "The Now Habit" is - by far - the best out of all of them.

If you struggle with having more balance and control over your home and work life, if you allow perfectionism or fear of failure (or success) to hinder your work productivity, or if you just want to start enjoying the good things that life has to offer - while at the same time improving your work efficiency and productivity ... then I highly urge you to get this book. You'll learn how to use time-proven tools (such as the Unschedule) and guidelines on how to make the most out of your life, and starting living life to its fullest extent.

I can't overestimate the value of the principles outlined in this book. Too often people who procrastinate feel angry and ashamed of their behavior - without doing anything to FIX the underlying problem. Neil Fiore not only explains why people tend to procrastinate, but he also provides valuable tools that you can use to overcome your bad habits, and replace them with positive and productive habits.

It's not an expensive or overly long book -- and the best part is that the tools mentioned in this book are quite flexible and can easily be melded with other techniques, such as those outlined in "Getting Things Done" by David Allen.

If you struggle with stress from overwork or procrastination, do yourself a favor and buy or borrow this book. You may have been soured on other books that claimed to help with your problems, but told you nothing more than what you already knew. But The Now Habit really identifies WHY we procrastinate, and gives you the means to overcome it - if you commit yourself to doing them.

Also, if you know someone who struggles with these problem, there's a chapter in the end that gives advice on how to deal with the procrastinators in your life. (Although I think this book would make a pretty good gift for them as well.)

This book is the single most effective book I have found to deal with the problem of procrastination. It approaches the problem from a new perspective that really hits home for a life-long procrastinator. Thank you, Dr. Fiore, for the real help instead of just another book telling you to do it now!

Please stop beating yourself up long enough to read this book. I have gotten more done on languishing projects in less time and had much more fun in my life since applying the "Unschedule" instead of my former process that began with an impossible to-do list followed by a day of procrastination and an evening of regret and guilt (sound like fun?). This is a new way of thinking about planning your time that not only works but makes you enjoy your time more. If you have any guilt over things you haven't done (calling all writers!) read this book and take a sigh of relief.

The system covered in this book works well, in my experience, for handling large volumes of e-mail. One of the central premises of this system involves transforming e-mails into tasks. This approach is action-oriented and keeps one focused on execution and deliverables.

A number of Chapters in this book may not be applicable for all users (e.g. the Chapter on "Topic-Based E-Mail Filing"), but the book is worth reading.

I have found the system covered in this book to work only if one puts the time and effort into implementing it as advised by the author.

I'd been tinkering with Outlook for a while trying to use it to manage my email and scheduling, but it just seemed too complicated. Mr. Linenberger presents a well thought out, efficient and effective method for using Outlook that I easily adapted to my own needs.
The day I first started reading the book I set about cleaning out the 2000+ emails in my inbox, and after a day and a half my inbox was empty. More importantly, I have been able to maintain an empty inbox each day for the past three weeks so I am sold.
Although I bought the book thinking it would help me to tame Outlook, as Mr. Linenberger alludes to in his book the benefits of having an empy inbox and control over my schedule are much, much larger than that. I was having serious stress issues with the number of projects that I handle simultaneously, and using this system I have eliminated about 75% of this stress.
This book has allowed me, more and more, to leave my work behind at the end of the day (which is still well into the evening but not quite as late as before). I can actually be "present" at home now instead of thinking about what I MAY have forgotten or missed.
Mr. Linenberger has done me an invaluable service by writing this book and it is worth every penny.

I found this update version easier to used than the original. I use the ClearContext plug-in for Outlook.

I bought both Total Workday Control by Michael Linenberger and Take Back Your Life by Sally McGhee. They are both excellent. I prefer Total Workday Control. Like many people, I have too many top priority emails and tasks to ever complete. Michael's book provides a simple framework for quickly processing email and prioritizing the resulting tasks. He then describes his system for handling a high volume of tasks, so regardless of how many you complete, you always know what needs attention so you can avoid surprises!

I also recommend Outlook users get very familiar with using the Activities tab in Contacts to track tasks. It's very effective for tracking all current tasks by contact. And a great program to extend Outlook functionality for Treo and Palm users is Keysuites software, www.chapura.com.

It took me about 3 hours of reading the philosphy behind the system (this is important - don't skip it) and another 2 hours of setting up and tweaking Outlook. The first day or two afterwards were strange as I tried to get accustomed to the system, but now, after a few weeks, I couldn't live without it. It's not all about email management (that's a minor concern for me, although having a perfectly empty inbox is wonderful for your stress level) - it's really a great tool for managing the dozens of tasks that pop in and out of your head all day long along with the medium and long-term projects that have been staring at you from your task list for the last year or so.

Before this book, I really, really, really tried to like and use GTD, but I could never internalize the methodolgy and use it effectively. In contrast, TWC/Manage-your-NOW just makes sense to me.

Bottom line - it's a good book with a good system - definitely worth your time to try it.