20 Time Management Books To Be More Productive
Varun Sundar
Updated on July 18, 2021
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When it comes to being more efficient, time management is one crucial skill we all need to keep working on. It is a skill that needs to be tended to and deliberately honed in order to become better. Time Management can make you better at running errands at home and a better employee/entrepreneur as well. Even if you think you have achieved a certain level of proficiency in managing your time, learning more about it, and gaining new perspectives would only help you become better at this critical skill. Let’s look at some time management books that can make you more productive and procrastinate less.
Time Management Books: Quick Look
1. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
One of the reasons we seek to manage our time better is because of the sheer number of tasks we have to do. Inevitably, there would be tasks that are not important and take up a lot of time. This is where Essentialism comes in. The book goes about laying the foundation so that you can think of where to focus your time and attention instead of trying to do everything. This ideology helps you focus on the essentials, eliminate waste, and contribute to what truly matters.
2. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Cal Newport is a fantastic author when it comes to productivity and time management. Deep Work addresses a core issue that everyone faces: distractions. The book lays out ideologies to manage your time and attention in four parts. Following the approach laid down by this book can help you focus better and learn much more efficiently than before, even if you are studying at home. Managing your time requires a solid foundation of good systems and this book can help you create a system that works for you.
3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
This is a classic productivity book that lays out an approach that can make you a better person at home and work. The principles in the book help you create a structure of how to approach decision-making and time management. It can also help you in understanding how to make the most of opportunities and how to adapt to a changing environment.
4. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity
This is another renowned productivity classic by David Allen. The book contains principles that can help you utilize your time better and maximize your output. If you are looking to manage your time better and are feeling overwhelmed with things, this book can give you some ideas to better manage your time and make better decisions. It is particularly useful to use the principles from this book when you are studying at home. Time management requires good underlying systems and this book does a great job of enumerating some of the systems you would need.
5. Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day
The authors, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky contributed to creating Gmail and YouTube as Google employees. They realize the potential these apps have in distracting you from what really should matter to you. Unlike other time management books, this book has a more pick-and-choose approach as opposed to a prescriptive one. Once you understand the system and environment that would help you manage your time better, you can go through the list of tactics to choose the ones that fit your lifestyle.
6. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time
“Eat a Frog” is a metaphor for dealing with the most challenging task in a day. The book looks at how you can deal with the most challenging task that also contributes most positively to your life. It helps you organize each day so that you can focus on the most critical tasks and accomplish them efficiently.
7. How to Become A Straight-A Student
This book is targeted towards students but it lays out techniques that can help anybody learn better in life and manage time better. The book compiles information from Straight-A students to see how they utilize their time throughout the semester and get good grades while also having fun in college. It has great tips on how you can organize your day and how to block your time for the day every morning. Additionally, the book also deals with how Straight-A students handle procrastination.
Read a summary of How to Become A Straight-A Student here.
8. The Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique is a simple yet effective way to make the best use of your time. It also helps you get over procrastination by helping you start something which, often, is the biggest hindrance. The technique is pretty simple at its core:
- Set a timer for 25 minutes
- Work during this time while noting down your distractions
- Take a five-minute break
- Repeat
You will find this technique quite useful if you are studying at home and need to focus better. To get a better idea of how you can use The Pomodoro Technique to manage your time better and deal with procrastination, read this post.
9. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Power of Habit is another productivity classic that can help you create systems to complete your tasks in time. Understanding how habits work is not thoroughly covered in many time management books. This book can give you an insight into how you function and contribute positively to your overall productivity.
10. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
This is probably one of the best sources of information you can read to boost your productivity through better systems and manage your time better. James Clear talks about how making tiny changes and starting small can help you develop a habit. One of the goals in managing your time is creating the right systems that enable you to complete your tasks on time.
11. How to Stop Procrastinating: A Simple Guide to Mastering Difficult Tasks and Breaking the Procrastination Habit
Procrastination is an insidious creature that gives you the false hope of achieving something…in the future, not now. It can really derail you and affect your time management. This book talks about why people procrastinate and how you can create plans to stay on schedule. If you have a history of completing tasks at the last minute, this is a must-read.
12. 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think
In this book, Laura Vanderkam highlights how some people prioritize the important stuff and the stuff they are good at. Every person has 168 hours in a week and it is on us to decide which tasks are truly important to be done in these 168 hours. Laura Vanderkam also talks about this idea in her TED Talk.
13. Master Your Time, Master Your Life
If you tend to think you don’t have enough time to finish all your tasks, this book can provide some structure. The book breaks down activities into ten categories of priorities and how to focus on them. The approach laid out in the book can help you gain more control of your time.
14. 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management
This book is the result of surveys and interviews with billionaires, Olympic athletes, straight-A students, and over 200 entrepreneurs – including Mark Cuban, Kevin Harrington, James Altucher, John Lee Dumas, Pat Flynn, Grant Cardone, and Lewis Howes. The book deep dives into their systems and how they stay productive.
15. Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time
Scrum is a concept adopted by many industries including some of the biggest companies in the world. Using Scrum has resulted in huge productivity gains. This book can provide a varied perspective on how Scrum has been applied to different applications to achieve more in less time.
16. The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future
The Bullet Journal Method can help you manage your time better and focus on what truly matters. By tracking your past and organizing your daily tasks, you can add some structure to how to manage your day. You can also use this method to set goals for the future.
17. The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload
With so many information outlets in the world, it is not surprising that our time and attention get siphoned away. This book shows organization can help you be in charge of your life and how you spend your time. The book also talks about why multitasking is not a good approach.
18. The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
The Effective Executive is another classic that lays out, in simple terms, how you can make better decisions and be more productive. According to Peter Drucker, an effective executive gets the right things done. This involves learning and pursuing mastery in time management, building on strengths, setting the right priorities, etc.
19. The 4-Hour Work Week
Although this is not a time management book or about productivity, it does make you realize how to get the most amount of work done in less time. The book talks about how you can free up a lot of your time to focus on what you truly want to do in life.
Read a summary of the 4-Hour Work Week here.
20. Your Money or Your Life
This is another book that is one does not typically associate with time management books but it makes you realize the value of your time. Your Money or Your Life is a personal finance book that basically says how you are trading your working energy for money throughout your working life. It makes you think of ways of being more efficient by maximizing the returns you get for the energy you expend and retire early to pursue what you truly want to do.
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