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.

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.

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Deep Work

“Deep work” was coined by Cal Newport in his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. It refers to the capacity for concentrated, high-quality cognitive activities demanding deep focus, creativity, and problem-solving.

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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.

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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.

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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…

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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.

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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.

High output management

A topic covered in High Output Management is for managers to choose Key Performance Indicators to help their team achieve results. Managers are responsible for ensuring their teams have KPIs linked to the company OKRs. Managers can also create both team and individual KPIs to measure what gets done.

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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Getting Things Done

Getting Things Done (GTD) is a personal productivity system developed by David Allen and published in a book of the same name. GTD is described as a time management system. Allen states "there is an inverse relationship between things on your mind and those things getting done".

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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.”

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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.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Zen to Done: The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

Zen To Done is a simple system to get you more organized and productive, and keep your life saner and less stressed, with a set of habits. ZTD teaches you: * The key habits needed to be productive, organized, and simplified... and no more than that. * How to implement these key habits... tips on forming a habit. * How to organize these habits into a simple system that will keep everything in y…

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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