This is the best book I've read on Productivity
A system to help plan a day, the week, the month and the year
There are many books about Productivity. By productivity, I mean planning your day, week, month, and life.
I've read most of them.
But the best book on Productivity I've found is Getting Results the Agile Way by J. D Meier.
The author has worked at Microsoft for 25 years and has adapted the “Agile Project Management” approach used by engineering to bring it into your personal life.
I have practiced his method for 10+ years, and it is the only method that is simple, flexible, and powerful enough to stand the test of time for me.
Other approaches have fallen by the wayside for me.
The reasons why I find this system useful are:
Reason #1: It’s a very simple system to implement. J. D Meier asks you to plan your day by listing the top 3 things you need to do. You then focus on getting these three things knocked out of the way.
Reason #2: It focuses you on the important (and not the urgent). The framework automatically prioritizes, so there is no bumbling through the day or yak-shaving. Systems like GTD turn you into a task rabbit with an endless list of tasks—you burn out quickly in those systems.
Reason #3: It’s satisfying! Three things are a lot to accomplish in a day. I find that even getting 1-2 items or making reasonable progress on these fronts is very pleasing because you know that you are doing the right things.
Reason #4: It scales very well. You ask yourself the same question for the week, quarter, and the year. It helps you focus on the big picture and the minutiae equally well.
Reason #5: It has built-in retrospectives to help you stay on track. You do a quick one at the end of the day, the end of the week, and the end of the year. I use Obsidian (my preferred editor) templates to run through them quickly most days.
If you are interested in Productivity, I can't recommend this book enough.
He also has a website where a number of his ideas are published. You can read them to try the approach out.