I just finished reading The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey, and this book is absolutely fantastic. After spending a year researching, experimenting, and testing all of the prevailing productivity wisdom that's out there, Chris distilled his findings into one book for people like you and me to benefit from. I will definitely be coming back to it repeatedly in the future. For anyone interested, here are Chris's top 25 powerful productivity tactics, each tested over a year of deep study and experimentation, which each have full chapters dedicated to them in the book.
1. Identify your most important tasks.
2. At the beginning of each day write down just three things you want to get done.
3. Track your daily energy levels to determine what your typical peak productivity hours are.
4. Find the triggers that make you procrastinate, then flip them.
5. Get in touch with your future self and treat him well.
6. Disconnect and allow yourself to feel bored.
7. Budget your attention and energy, not just your time.
8. Shrink your work by budgeting less time for certain tasks.
9. Defend your peak productivity hours (#3).
10. Chunk all your weekly maintenance tasks together into one day.
11. Dedicate more time to your most rewarding and high-impact tasks.
12. Shrink or eliminate your time wasting low-impact tasks.
13. If you can delegate your low-impact tasks, do. Determine how much your hour is worth.
14. Get a notebook and perform a brain dump, get as much off your mind as you can.
15. Make a list of the 7 major areas of your life (home, work, friends, health, etc.) and review them occasionally.
16. Make room for your mind to wander.
17. Find a way to quickly record ideas and thoughts that come up wherever you are.
18. Dive into the settings on your phone and turn off your notifications.
19. Make a habit of single-tasking instead of multi-tasking.
20. Practice meditation and mindfulness.
21. Eat for health and energy.
22. Drink water, use caffeine strategically, and avoid alcohol.
23. Elevate your heart rate with regular exercise.
24. Get a full night of sleep.
25. Make sure that you enjoy your life; you won't be productive if you're unhappy.
Want to know more? For a four page, in depth, extended table of contents of this book, click here.
