Top Productivity books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Productivity books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Productivity

Understanding the concepts of Productivity starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

The 80/20 Principle

The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. In other words, a small percentage of causes have an outsized effect. This concept is important to understand because it can help you identify which initiatives to prioritize so you can make the most impact.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Smarter Faster Better

Smarter Faster Better is a story-filled exploration of the science of productivity, one that can help us learn to succeed with less stress and struggle—and become smarter, faster, and better at everything we do.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

The One Thing (book)

The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan is a productivity book that argues that by prioritizing and focusing on one important task at a time, we can achieve extraordinary results and build momentum towards our ultimate goals.

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The 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Work Week is all about how to change the way readers look at how they live and work and why they should challenge old assumptions. The author writes from a unique vantage point. He created a life and a career he chose out of consistently questioning the traditional assumptions about life and work.

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Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours

With Extreme Productivity, Pozen explains how individuals can maximize their time and energy by determining and focusing on their highest priorities. He also provides a toolkit of practical tips and techniques to help professionals at all stages of their careers maximize their time at work.

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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey provides a transformative guide for personal and professional success. It emphasizes proactive thinking, prioritization, effective communication, collaboration, and personal growth.

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Additional Productivity Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Productivity, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

This latest book by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky is not your normal bag of productivity tips and tricks to help you get more done in the office. It’s about “making time” for things that truly matter to you — like being fully present around your children, or writing that book you’ve always wanted to. It’s about distilling focus across all your activities so that you can live a fuller life.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Feel-Good Productivity

Feel-Good Productivity (2021) by Ali Abdaal is a book that explores how to maximize productivity without sacrificing happiness and well-being.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy

Chris Bailey turned down lucrative job offers to pursue a lifelong dream—to spend a year performing a deep dive experiment into the pursuit of productivity, a subject he had been enamored with since he was a teenager. After obtaining his business degree, he created a blog to chronicle a year-long series of productivity experiments he conducted on himself, where he also continued his research a…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

The Checklist Manifesto

What is The Checklist Manifesto about? Drawing from his experience as a general surgeon, Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto (2009) reveals startling evidence on how using a simple checklist can significantly reduce human error in complex professions such as aviation, engineering and medicine.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

23 Anti-Procrastination Habits: How to Stop Being Lazy and Get Results in Your Life S. J. Scott

In the book "23 Anti-Procrastination Habits", you will discover a catalog of ideas to help you overcome procrastination on a daily basis. Whereas many books provide a simple list of tips, you'll learn why a specific strategy works, what limiting belief it eliminates and how it can be immediately applied to your life.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time

Jeff Sutherland discloses to the non-tech world the elegantly simple process that programmers and web developers have been using since he invented Scrum, showing how a small, empowered, and dedicated team can deliver significantly higher quality work at a faster pace through introspection, iteration, and adaptation.”

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

This list is curated by MentorCruise and can include Amazon affiliate links. Have any other suggestions? Add here.

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