Time management allows you to improve your work performance, say goodbye to the eternal rush of work, and even smoothly get back into the working rhythm after a period of remote work. All this is achieved through clear planning and prioritization of tasks.
It sounds simple, but often the very need to concentrate on solving several problems at once causes stupor and then procrastination, i.e., constant postponement of solving all tasks until later, even if they should have been solved yesterday. This is a dead end for the average employee, and especially for the manager.
Special manuals written by coaches, psychologists, managers and even established millionaires will help you to put your head in order and further implement it in the work process. There are hundreds of them on the market, but we have chosen the best. Below, you will find our top 8 books in which authors teach readers the secrets of time management.
David Allen “Getting things done”
A worldwide bestseller in which the author teaches the art of freeing up resources and increasing productivity without stress. The methodology he suggests using is called Getting Things Done (GTD). It’s all about planning ahead and not keeping things in your head that can be written down somewhere.
In those years, when the first edition of the book was published, it was diaries, calendars and paper organizers. Today, the list of tools that can save the manager from having to memorize a lot of important information has been significantly expanded by electronic applications, for example, cloud-based solutions for case and project management, such as Projecto.
David Allen recommends starting with a list of tasks, data for each of them is collected, processed and structured. The task is then prioritized and put into the plan. Now you can forget about the task until X hour, freeing up resources for another higher-priority tasks. The method works equally well in any environment: personal or professional.
Gleb Arhangelsky “Time-Drive. How to Have Time to Live and to Work”
This book, which teaches you how to have time to live and work, has survived several dozen editions, and for good reason. In fact, it is a step-by-step instruction on how to have time for everything. And it is suitable for everyone: from managers to housewives who want to organize their time and have time to live a full life.
The author advises removing chronophages from your life, using anchors to solve unpleasant but unavoidable tasks, resorting to rituals and determining a ‘time budget’ for each plan.
Brian Tracy “Get out of your comfort zone. Change your life. 21 Ways to Increase Personal Effectiveness”
The author of the book is a millionaire who once had not a penny to his name. And by the time he was 40, he had his first million. And it happened thanks to the fact that Tracy learnt to discard secondary tasks, focusing only on the primary ones. The book is based on 21 practical methods of how to get there. Each of them was tried and tested by the author himself.
It is unlikely that everyone who reads the book will be able to make their own million. But you will definitely be able to increase your efficiency.
Proper planning is at the top of the agenda: «every minute spent on planning a task saves 10 minutes on its execution». It is suggested that 20 percent of the tasks should be prioritized out of the whole pool of tasks, discarding the other 80 percent, and focus on solving them. The author recommends planning in calendars, diaries or special programs. Minor tasks should be discarded, and the essential ones should be given all your time — this will be the key to your success.
Kerry Gleeson “The Personal Efficiency Program: How to Get Organized to Do More Work in Less Time”
Gleenson promises that by using his proposed technology, the reader will be able to free up more time for life outside the office (up to 1 month per year). The key principle is to do everything right away. Need to make a phone call? Make the call! Need to hold a meeting? Do it! And so it is in everything, from personal matters to work. If you stick to this simple system, you will have at least one hour a day free from any business. But only if you make it a habit to do everything at once.
The author, incidentally, has developed a program to improve the efficiency of middle and senior managers. For a start, he advises completing all unfinished affairs, put your papers in order, and then take on tasks one at a time, without getting distracted by all the others. It means, having taken up one task, one should not be distracted by other tasks until it is done. It is logical.
Donald Roos “Don’t Read this Book: Time Management for Creative People”
A guide for creative people — for those who find it hardest to concentrate on solving a particular problem. When different ideas arise in your head at the same time, trying to realize all of them is doomed to failure. This leads to chaos in life and work. Fantastic tasks are usually impossible to realize, and they are abandoned, having expended enormous power and energy without getting anything in return.
The author teaches how to separate major tasks from minor ones and concentrate on solving the first. To do this, you will have to say ‘no’ to certain ideas and plans, and then you will be able to channel your energy in the right direction.
Francesco Cirillo “The Pomodoro Technique”
The book describes the basic principles of a technique that the author developed as a college student. The idea is to separate periods of hard work and rest by adding a mandatory 5-minute break for every 25 minutes of hard work. This approach allows you to tackle complex tasks more efficiently.
Cirillo also explains how to isolate major tasks from routine tasks, systematize workflows and meet deadlines without stress.
Julia Morgenstern “Time Management from the Inside Out”
The author, as she herself admits, was once a very disorganized person, and on the whole she was happy with that. The turning point came with the birth of her daughter, Julia realized that without a bit of order in her life, she would simply go mad. Being organized is not a gift, it is a skill that can and should be developed. As a result, a person is able to take control of the situation and be ready for any surprises.
The author advises starting the journey from chaos to order by organizing the surrounding space, because knowing where things are can save up to two hours of searching every day. The next step is to prioritize goals, develop an optimal plan, sort tasks by importance and delegate authority. Becoming organized and punctual makes one’s life calm and predictable, removing stressors from it.
Dominica DeGrandis “Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Work & Flow”
The book is written by one of the world’s leading Kanban experts. The author believes that productivity can be increased by using visualization techniques and explains how to use them in IT companies.
Unscheduled work slows down scheduled work, and trying to do many tasks at once is a sure way to complete fewer tasks than needed. Dominika suggests that we should identify the ‘time wasters’ and give the green light only to those tasks that are most important at the moment. And don’t forget to visualize them all.
Well, our top 8 best time management books are over. All that remains now is to find the time to read at least one of these books….
