Best Time Management Books
Looking for the best time management books? Here are my favorites:
Best time management books
Mind Management, Not Time Management: Productivity When Creativity Matters: I’ve gotta include my own book my list, because this is honestly one of my favorite time management books – which is why I wrote it! While it presents “mind management,” which goes beyond time management, there is a lot in here about how to align your mental state with your schedule to have better ideas, learn faster, and get way more done. I live this system and it serves me well.
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Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity: To manage your time in the information age, you need to keep the right things in (and out of) your mind, according to your schedule. The “GTD” system is air-tight and rock-solid for identifying the “next action” and putting it in a place where you can take care of it when you have the time and are in the right context. Read my Getting Things Done book summary or listen to my David Allen interview on my podcast.
The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich: After reading this book, you’ll never think about time the same way again. It doesn’t take a lot of time to have a lot of impact and even make an income. Thanks to this book, I built passive income streams, traveled the world, and moved to South America. My life and career are basically designed around this book.
The 7 Habits of Highly-Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change: You can’t just fill your time with activity, you need to identify the not-urgent-but-important over the urgent-but-important. The so-called “Eisenhower Method” is the most memorable and valuable idea from this book.
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World: Cal Newport’s concept of “deep work” was a breakthrough for thinking about time management. My Mind Management divides deep work time according to stages of creativity and mental states.
Procrastinate on Purpose: Admittedly, I haven’t read this one (yet), but I heard Rory Vaden on a podcast, on which he talked about “time multiplying,” and it was the most impactful time-management tactic I had heard in a very long time. It basically helps you think of how much time you save in the long run when you simplify, automate, or delegate processes.
How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life: I read this one so long ago I unfortunately don’t remember just what was in it that I found valuable – I will have to revisit and report back. But this is the O.G. time management book, published in 1973. Definitely remember it being out-of-date culturally, but it presents for the first time many things you now take for granted as obvious, such as that you choose how to spend your life, you should prioritize, and procrastination is emotional.
Time management and productivity, while overlapping, are not exactly the same thing, so keep in mind I also have a list of best productivity books. Also, the line between creativity and productivity continues to blur, so I also have a list of best creativity books.