Any good books on productivity?

[Buck Edwards]

Any new books that you must have recently read that are more practical, short and pragmatic. And informal in their approach. Something that is not too abstract or Philosophical. 

[Ayham]

GTD - getting things done 
It is considered the productivity bible

as well as deep work by cal newport

[Ramanujan]

7 habit of highly effective people

First things first

 

Both by stephen r covey

[UnbornTao]

A principle: if you can do it in a short amount of time, say 5 minutes or so depending on the task, do it now. Or do it now, period.

Apply it intelligently of course.

Edited November 8 by UnbornTao

[mud]

I recommend Atomic Habits by James Clear if you haven't read it yet. Easy and fun to read, yet comprehensive and super useful for daily life.

[Optimal_Prime]

The One Thing
The Power Of Habit
Cal Newport's Books... Deep work and if that interested you immensely after reading, Digital Minimalism
Chris Bailey has a good book on Hyperfocus 

I feel like those are good books for modern productivity demands in the scattered digital age. If you want productivity and have a schedule and pursuit that allows you to spend long chunks of uninterrupted time to dedicate towards mastery, and just need to develop the focus/willpower/inspiration to do so, then I'd recommend... 

The Talent Code
And just generally look for books dedicated to Mastery. This isn't exactly my situation. 

You could also look at "productivity" from the "recover from dopamine burnout/adhd/procrastination" lens, in which case ... 

The Procrastination Equation
Attention Span - Gloria Mark 
The Anxious Generation

Finally, if you'd like to enhance your brainpower via meditation, a guide on focus meditation as direct to the literal buddhist instructions of 2500 years ago leading to Jhanas (peak states), but modernized in writing and delivery, would be... 

Focused and Fearless by Shaila Catherine,
or just use this resource for a more esoteric but much more direct instruction.... A manual on Respiration
 

[Buck Edwards]

4 minutes ago, Optimal_Prime said:

The One Thing
The Power Of Habit
Cal Newport's Books... Deep work and if that interested you immensely after reading, Digital Minimalism
Chris Bailey has a good book on Hyperfocus 

I feel like those are good books for modern productivity demands in the scattered digital age. If you want productivity and have a schedule and pursuit that allows you to spend long chunks of uninterrupted time to dedicate towards mastery, and just need to develop the focus/willpower/inspiration to do so, then I'd recommend... 

The Talent Code
And just generally look for books dedicated to Mastery. This isn't exactly my situation. 

You could also look at "productivity" from the "recover from dopamine burnout/adhd/procrastination" lens, in which case ... 

The Procrastination Equation
Attention Span - Gloria Mark 
The Anxious Generation

Finally, if you'd like to enhance your brainpower via meditation, a guide on focus meditation as direct to the literal buddhist instructions of 2500 years ago leading to Jhanas (peak states), but modernized in writing and delivery, would be... 

Focused and Fearless by Shaila Catherine,
or just use this resource for a more esoteric but much more direct instruction.... A manual on Respiration
 

Thank you so much. 

[Ajax]

On 10/15/2024 at 11:28 PM, Buck Edwards said:

Any new books that you must have recently read that are more practical, short and pragmatic. And informal in their approach. Something that is not too abstract or Philosophical. 

Looking for a book?

Why?

For reasons to justify your non-productivity?

You don’t need a book for that… you do great with that all on your own. People have a natural talent at dreaming up reasons why they can’t do something.  And they are right… because it is as they say it is.

The secret is doing the opposite. Dream up reasons for why you can do it for no reason at all. It doesn’t have to be grounded in reality. It’s just a dream… just dream up why you can for no reason at all.

There are steps that you can do be productive.

1.       Decide you can do something about it.

2.       Do at least 1 thing that you can do.

3.       Keep doing it until you get a result. (a win)

4.       Congratulate yourself on getting a win an improvement.

5.       Know that the definition of success is the total amount of validated improvement.

6.       Make it your mission to make improvements by doing what you can do and acknowledge and validate them. Those are your results.  Consider those results to be “wins”.

7.       When you create many more “wins” and overwhelm the losses by wins… you get to the point where you are being more productive and being able to win and lose with a level of enthusiasm… being able to have a viewpoint that it is just a game and a loss is something you can easily counter with an overwhelming amount of wins (doing a lot of things that you can do.)

 

It’s important to know that doing what you can do is a win… even if you are not feeling great... do what you can do and call it a win. Even if it is to get up, make breakfast and put away the dishes. Just shift your viewpoint and see it as a win. The more you can create such “wins” the more productive you can be.  

Why does it work? Because you are creating a more causative mentality. The idea is to create a causative viewpoint which creates positive and causative thoughts.

[Optimal_Prime]

9 hours ago, Ajax said:

Looking for a book?

Why?

For reasons to justify your non-productivity?

Right.... because whenever I post about resources that I can study or learn from, it's because I want to justify my existing state instead of striving for my ideal state. 

I only meditate to justify my distraction. I only exercise to justify my flabby body. I go to university to justify being a N.E.E.T., I only ask girls out on dates to justify that I'm not in a relationship. I only hang out with my friends to justify how lonely I am. No interest in change. None whatsoever. And DEFINITELY no interest in a proven or reputable approach to accomplish any of those goals. 

Nope, just "dreaming it." 

I think I'll take your advice and just "dream up" that I'm no longer depressed and suicidal and stop seeing my therapist. Also, I'll just "dream" that women love me and want to go out on dates with me in lieu of the harder work of talking to them. Your way sounds much more pleasant. 

 

9 hours ago, Ajax said:

You don’t need a book for that… you do great with that all on your own.

This was the icing on the cake that made me really think your response was full of narcissistic snide misrepresenting itself as value.... well... that and the grammar. 

[Ajax]

41 minutes ago, Optimal_Prime said:

Right.... because whenever I post about resources that I can study or learn from, it's because I want to justify my existing state instead of striving for my ideal state. 

I only meditate to justify my distraction. I only exercise to justify my flabby body. I go to university to justify being a N.E.E.T., I only ask girls out on dates to justify that I'm not in a relationship. I only hang out with my friends to justify how lonely I am. No interest in change. None whatsoever. And DEFINITELY no interest in a proven or reputable approach to accomplish any of those goals. 

Nope, just "dreaming it." 

I think I'll take your advice and just "dream up" that I'm no longer depressed and suicidal and stop seeing my therapist. Also, I'll just "dream" that women love me and want to go out on dates with me in lieu of the harder work of talking to them. Your way sounds much more pleasant. 

AWESOME! Glad to hear it. Just keep doing what you know is best!

 

42 minutes ago, Optimal_Prime said:

This was the icing on the cake that made me really think your response was full of narcissistic snide misrepresenting itself as value.... well... that and the grammar. 

Good! How clever of you!  You must really know a lot... nice to meet you!