5 Books to Help You Be More Productive
I have read a TON of productivity books over the years and I’m gonna be honest…most of them have been very meh. Here’s the thing about the productivity space – I feel like it’s not very inclusive. Most books are geared toward a masculine view of productivity that caters to entrepreneurs.
That doesn’t work for everyone and it’s exactly why I created Hustle Sanely…our frameworks and strategies meet you right where you’re at, no matter what season you’re in!
That being said, there have been a handful of books that I’ve read over the years that have provided me with some solid productivity-related wisdom and have helped shaped my perception of productivity so I wanna share those ones with you today!
Before I get into the books, I want to remind you of what my definition of productivity is:
It’s doing the right things at the right time – not doing all the things all the time. So keep that in mind as I share these books with you! Oh and real quick – these aren’t in any particular order.
Book #1
Title: At Your Best
Author: Carey Nieuwhof
Blurb: How to Get Time, Energy, & Priorities Working in Your Favor
Thoughts & Major Takeaways: I read this book earlier this year because it was one of our Hustle Sanely BFF reads and WOW WOW WOW – I know I said these aren’t in any particular order however this one might just take the cake, lol. If you haven’t listened to podcast Episode 141: Work Smarter Not Harder By Managing Your Energy, you need to go listen because it was heavily inspired by this book!
Y’all know that I stay preaching that productivity isn’t just about time management. Energy management also plays a massive role in living a peacefully productive life. And this book does an incredible job of breaking down and explaining energy management in a way that isn’t overwhelming and just makes sense. Carey uses what he refers to as “red, yellow, and green zones” to describe energy management, and having that tangible image when learning how to categorize your tasks by how much energy they require is so helpful! There are a handful of really helpful visual aids weaved throughout this book that help drive the points home, too, which I appreciate as a visual learner.
Here is one of my favorite parts:
“While you have 24 equal hours in a day, not all hours feel equal or produce equally. Leveraging your energy is where the exponential returns begin. Doing your best work while you have your best energy significantly boosts the quality of your work, the quantity of your work (you’ll likely be able to tackle more), and even your mood.”
Book #2
Title: Essentialism
Author: Greg McKeown
Blurb: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Thoughts & Major Takeaways: I read this one a few years back and I’m gonna be honest with you – this one was a tad bit on the dry side. Like, I wouldn’t classify it as a fun read by any means but I did glean a lot of wisdom in regards to learning how to eliminate extras from my life. It’s actually wild how many extras we misidentify as essential and this book helped me with that.
Here is one of my favorite parts:
“Only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make the highest contribution towards the things that really matter…Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
Reading that reminds me of a podcast episode where I taught you how I use Enough Lists in my life to help me get stuff done when I have low energy. Because our enough lists should only have things that are essential to life on them.
Book #3
Title: Atomic Habits
Author: James Clear
Blurb: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones
Thoughts & Major Takeaways: I read Atomic Habits back in 2018 when it first came out and it’s really stuck with me over the years. I’ve talked about it on the show before, but it’s worth mentioning again because it really does give us such a solid reminder that small, consistent steps matter a whole lot. A lot of us often feel the need to go big or go home (can relate) but that is not a sustainable way to live.
I feel like this book really gained traction during 2020. I saw it EVERYWHERE and I think a big part of that is because 2020 really forced us all to pump the brakes and assess our lives and the pace at which we are living them, ya know?
Here is one of my favorite parts:
“People often think it’s weird to get hyped about reading one page or meditating for one minute or making one sales call. But the point is not to do one thing. The point is to master the habit of showing up. The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved. If you can’t learn the basic skill of showing up, then you have little hope of mastering the finer details. Instead of trying to engineer a perfect habit from the start, do the easy thing on a more consistent basis. You have to standardize before you can optimize.”
So good, right? I appreciate that the author doesn’t try too hard to sound overly scientific or intelligent. The book reads like you’re listening to an actual person talk which I feel isn’t always the case with personal and professional development books.
And something else I really love about this book is the author’s use of charts and diagrams. I’m a big time visual learner so being able to read about things and see them helped me to process the information so much better.
Book #4
Title: On Purpose
Author: Tanya Dalton
Blurb: The Busy Woman’s Guide to an Extraordinary Life of Meaning and Success
Thoughts & Major takeaways: Okay, I HAD to include this one because it’s written by a woman. I swear almost all of the books in the productivity space are written by men and I just feel like men and women have such different perceptions of productivity, you know? Challenge accepted to throw my hat in the ring and get a productivity book published one day! I did enjoy reading about productivity from a more feminine lens because like I just said, that’s hard to come by. One thing I really appreciated was at the end of each chapter, there is a little block with 3 sections: Lies that hold us back (aka limiting beliefs), truths that move us forward (aka affirmations), and springboard (which is an action step). Y’all know I’m big on affirmations and action steps so this was right up my alley! Something I struggled with was how random some of the examples were. For one of the goal-setting examples, she used a VERY in-depth Harry Potter example and as I was reading I was like, “Ummm what is happening right now?” I’m a Harry Potter fan myself but the example felt really out of place and kind of overdone so just be warned about that, lol.
Here is one of my favorite parts:
“We get caught up in the nitpicky details of life and lose sight of the big picture. We spend an excessive amount of time on the things that don’t really require it: the worrying, the stress, the tweaking and reworking of tasks and projects that don’t really need it. We lose time struggling to make life perfect. It’s no wonder we are overwhelmed and feel there’s not enough time in the day. We are spending a disproportionate amount of time thinking about the minuita - the unimportant.”
Book #5
Title: Effortless
Author: Greg McKeown
Blurb: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most
Thoughts & Major Takeaways: Okay is it annoying that I already named a book by this author on the list? I hope not but this one is a follow-up to his book Essentialism and it’s such a solid one when it comes to becoming more productive. I actually think I prefer this one but I think you need to read Essentialism before this one to get the most out of it. Like Essentialism, this one is a bit dry – don’t go into this expecting it to be a light and fun read. But I really enjoyed this book’s approach to creating awareness around letting things be easy or…effortless. We tend to complicate things without even realizing that we’re making life harder on ourselves because of how things have always been done.
Here is one of my favorite parts:
“When we try to make too much progress on a goal or project right out of the gate, we can get trapped in a vicious cycle: we get tired, so we then take a break, but then we think we have to make up for the time lost, so we sprint again.”
My biggest takeaway from this book was from page 140 when he teaches about upper and lower bounds. Let me read what he has to say about those so you can get a better idea:
“Even when we want to make consistent, steady progress on a priority project, life often intervenes. We may have planned to spend the morning at our desk and instead, we find ourselves stuck in meetings. We may have blocked off hours on our calendar for important work and instead find ourselves dealing with a toddler meltdown. Then to compensate for our perceived lack of productivity, we work all the way through the weekend, in a mad rush for progress. We know this comes at a cost: low-quality work, increased guilt, and reduced confidence. There’s an easier alternative. We can establish upper and lower bounds. Simply use the following rule: Never less than X, never more than Y.”
And then he shares a chart with specific examples of this in action, which I won’t share because I want you to read the book!
If you found this blog post helpful and you would like to listen to the full podcast episode, tune in below!
