I was asked recently about my favourite productivity books. Here’s an essentials list/starter pack with some honourable mentions thrown in.
7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
Absolutely iconic. I put this at the top because of its legendary status and focus on principles and not practices. Practices flow from principles and will be different for everybody. So while GTD is great and adaptable to your life once you understand the system (i.e. the principles to have a good one that works), you still have to do a bit of work in order to adapt the system. That’s why I’m just as likely to recommend Do More Better since it’s a much simpler, principle-driven book than GTD.
But 7 Habits is about more than getting things done. It’s about living an effective, principle-driven life. And along the way, you’ll pick up plenty of practical to-do’s that help you keep on top of things.
Do yourself a favour and grab this one!
Getting Things Done by David Allen
GTD, while less principle focused than 7 Habits, still speaks to natural and intuitive realities that you probably understand as soon as you read them but just didn’t know how to put into words. What do you need to do so that you aren’t stressed out about remembering all you have to do? Well… you write it down somewhere. You clarify whatever the next steps are. You make sure to review your lists daily or weekly or however often a particular list should be checked.
Allen’s expert system is tried and true, and the book goes into extensive detail so that you can pick up or leave whatever pro-tips and strategies you like, all structured within the main process.
You might find you leave a lot in the book. Some chapters just won’t be relevant for you now, or maybe you’re just getting started and will begin with the basics.
Do More Better by Tim Challies
Fair warning: this is an openly Christian take on GTD. But aside from the first chapter, only a few references are made to the driving force of productivity: a love for God and others.
In a nutshell, Challies simply walks you through his own basic system and appropriate tools using the basic GTD principles. He doesn’t really explain the principles or structure of GTD, but he does give you specific tools to use (which GTD does not).
Thus, this book is a Christian GTD-Lite, but it’s incredibly effective at what it does. If the spiritual stuff turns you off, it’s really only the first chapter, so I can still recommend it. It simplifies the power of GTD while still getting all the essentials.
However, it is second to GTD because a proper reading of GTD is going to give you a more extensive system and its principles and, therefore, has greater potential to be properly applied and adapted to your own situation.
That said, I still to this day use Challies’ own approach more or less. Again, it has all the GTD power without fleshing everything out. The extra flesh is great if you want to go deeper, but as an introduction, I can’t recommend Challies’ book enough, especially if you have a Christian worldview.
Atomic Habits by James Clear
James Clear started as a blogger and it shows in this book. Everything is bite-sized and concise, making it an easy read. It’s also highly practical, and almost every chapter gives you something you can apply immediately. Moreover, these atomic habits build on each other and are categorized around researched habit-building principles.
Make it easy. Make it obvious.
Or, by contrast: Make it difficult; make it hidden, if you’re trying to break a bad habit.
These might sound obvious, and sometimes they are. But Clear’s approach makes them meaningful, gives you some practical examples and, again, helps you build habits on each other (what he calls habit stacking).
If 7 Habits and GTD/DMB grant us principles and a system for productivity, Atomic Habits helps us normalize those principles and systems in our daily routines so we don’t even think about them (and make them easier to keep doing).
I’ll put some honourable mentions below, but this set of four books is incredibly powerful.
What’s on your list? Comment below or tweet me @rexCo27!
Honourable Mentions:
Deep Work by Cal Newport
The Power of Habit and Smarter, Better, Faster by Charles Duhigg
Other useful content:
The Art of Manliness blog deserves some credit here, since I’ve read/listened to plenty of Brett & Kayla Mckay’s productivity content and applied it to my life. There’s no single post that stands out above the rest for me, so google whatever specific productivity categories you’re interested in and I’m sure you’ll find something useful!
Thomas Frank’s YouTube channel – lots of great stuff on the latest apps and tools and on productivity concepts more generally
While you’re here, check out a few of my own productivity posts:
