Best Self-Help Books You Must Read For Productivity

Deciding to be more productive is easy. But actually getting up and being productive is a whole other thing. Productivity can mean very different things to different people and depends highly on what your goals are.

Whatever they may be, your dreams, goals, and aspirations won’t accomplish themselves, and however hard you try, you never seem to get quite there. No matter how much work you get done.

Success isn’t just about getting work done though. The quality of the work you accomplish is how you reach your goals and dreams. This is where productivity comes into play, and the following self-help books and adequate planning will allow you to accomplish more in less time.

1. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

This self-help book serves up great practices for getting more done, in less time. Incorporating these habits can improve your time management drastically as well as your personal organization and overall productivity.

The book insists on handling tasks one after the other to avoid being overwhelmed because our brains can only retain so much information at a given time.

Implementing his systems, however, is not easy. It requires great levels of self-discipline and organization just to get through the book alone. But once you do, you will reap great benefits from Allen’s book on productivity.

2.  Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport 

Cal Newport’s Deep Work focuses on eliminating clutter, distractions, and shallow work, in order to make more time for deep work. Deep work, is impertinent to putting in the work that helps in reaching our goals.

It is an actionable guide and if implemented will help you learn how to train yourself to work for long, unbroken periods at a time with focus because the brain is not designed for multitasking. This can be especially hard in a world of technology, therefore you need to declutter and block out the noise.

This will eliminate the things in the way of your deep work.

3. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

The way of Essentialism strives to show you how to do less, but better. So you can reach your maximum level o productivity. The self-help book focuses on only doing the right things with your time.

It’s about taking back control of your own choices on where you spend your time and energy, instead of giving other people the power to choose for us. In Essentialism, Greg draws from his experience and insight from working with the leaders of the most successful companies in the world to show how to achieve the disciplined pursuit of less.

Its core principle is, “The right thing, in the right way, at the right time.”.

4. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey

I’m sure you’re not surprised to see this book on this list, it is considered one of the best self-help books on productivity of its time.

In the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen R. Covey present us with one of the most inspiring and impactful books ever written. It has transformed the lives of millions of people of all ages for over 25 years now.

Covey brings forth a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach to solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, he reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, service, and human dignity. It helps you stay on track and most importantly it encourages you to define priorities and goals.

If you’re keen on becoming more productive and highly effective, this is a library staple.

5. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

Habits are at the root of almost every successful productive system. Atomic Habits offers practical strategies that will teach you how to form good habits and break bad ones. As well as master the tiny behaviors, because repeated efforts become easier and consistent actions drive results.

No matter your goals, James Clear provides a framework for improving every day. If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you, the problem is your system.

Bad habits will continue to repeat themselves, not because you don’t want change, but because you have the wrong system for change.

Simply put, routines often snowball into bigger accomplishments if you consistently put in the work. Clear has four rules for great habit-building; make it obvious, satisfying, easy, and attractive.

6. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy

If the first thing you have to do each morning is to eat a live frog, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’re done with the worst thing you’ll have to do all day long. And if you have to eat 2 frogs that day, eat the biggest one first.

Tracy shows you how to organize each day in order to zero in on these critical tasks and accomplish them effectively. The core to what is vital for effective time management is; Decision making, Discipline, and Determination (the 3 D’s).

According to Eat That Frog, the best way to beat procrastination is by first handling the task that you don’t want to do and is more demanding. Tracy offers important tips to help readers become more productive. Such as planning ahead, breaking larger tasks into smaller more manageable tasks, being aware of consequences, and using technology.

This amazing read will ensure that you get more of your important tasks done today.

7. The 4-Hour Workweek Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss

This step-by-step guide to a better lifestyle teaches;

-How Tim Ferris went from $40 000/year and an 80-hour work week to $40 000/month and a 4-hour work week.

-How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 an hour and do whatever you want.

-How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of forgotten Italian economists.

-How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent mini requirements.

So forget the old concepts of retirement and the rest of the deferred life plan because there is no need to wait anymore and all the reasons not to wait. No matter what your dreams are, the 4-hour work week is the blueprint to a better life.

8. The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right by Atul Gawande

In this book, the author explains the importance of a checklist in managing and organizing complex tasks. Breaking down your tasks into a checklist with more attainable bite-sized tasks helps avoid omitting or overlooking tasks essential to achieving your goals.

Gawande explains how checklists work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. He follows the checklist revolutions into various fields well beyond your daily tasks and has been proven to work in even medicine fields, from disaster response to investment banking.

The Checklist Manifesto concludes that most of us would benefit from creating checklists to track routine tasks where we might forget something.

9. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

The Power of Habit contains, at its core, that the key to exercising regularly, losing weight, being more productive, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.

A fascinating look into what habits are, how we form them, and how to change them.

“Habits work in three-step loops: cue, routine, reward,” Charles says. “The trick to changing a habit is to switch the routine, and leave everything else intact.”

10. The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter F. Drucker

The focus of Drucker’s book is achieving effectiveness and productivity through self-engagement. You can accomplish this by tracking where your time goes.

Ask yourself what you can contribute and focus on your strengths. Drucker reminds us that an executive “Gets the right things done.”, which usually involves doing what other people have overlooked and avoiding what is unproductive and offers no reward.

The Effective Executive identifies five practices essential to business effectiveness;

-Managing time

-Choosing what to contribute to the organization

-Knowing where and how to mobilize strengths for the best effects

-Setting the right priorities

-Knitting all of them together with effective decision-making

To sum up, this book shows you how to eliminate whatever is not helping you pursue your goals so you can streamline productivity and break bad habits that hold you back from being the best version of yourself.

You might also like, How To Be More Self-Confident and Why Reading For Mental Health Is Good For You.