Optimize Your Productivity is the go-to guide for getting more done in less time, especially if other productivity systems have failed you in the past. Lisa Kardos, Ph.D., an engineer, bestselling author, speaker, and consultant, has authored another title in the spirit of applying engineering best practices as a logical approach to improve our lives. Optimize Your Productivity will not only help you get to the root of your productivity issues, but it will also provide an interesting and unique approach to the formidable subject, including a "quickstart" guide to aid you immediately. If you know you could be more productive, or need some motivation to improve your productivity, this book will not disappoint!

“A welcome antidote to our toxic hustle culture of burnout.”—Arianna Huffington “This book is so important and could truly save lives.”—Elizabeth Gilbert “A clarion call to work smarter [and] accomplish more by doing less.”—Adam Grant We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable? Despite our constant search for new ways to optimize our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. We strive for the absolute best in every aspect of our lives, ignoring what we do well naturally and reaching for a bar that keeps rising higher and higher. Why do we measure our time in terms of efficiency instead of meaning? Why can’t we just take a break? In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing. As it turns out, we’re searching for external solutions to an internal problem. We won’t find what we’re searching for in punishing diets, productivity apps, or the latest self-improvement schemes. Yet all is not lost—we just need to learn how to take time for ourselves, without agenda or profit, and redefine what is truly worthwhile. Pulling together threads from history, neuroscience, social science, and even paleontology, Headlee examines long-held assumptions about time use, idleness, hard work, and even our ultimate goals. Her research reveals that the habits we cling to are doing us harm; they developed recently in human history, which means they are habits that can, and must, be broken. It’s time to reverse the trend that’s making us all sadder, sicker, and less productive, and return to a way of life that allows us to thrive.

From one of the top HR specialists in the world comes this much-needed guide to help people maximize productivity and increase revenue. Whether it’s in corporate America or in our own living rooms, people are wasting time. From the minute we wake up and check our Facebook page or emails—before we even crawl out of bed—to late at night when we stay up longer than we should, watching our favorite show. There’s a precise moment that falls between working enough hours to be productive and working too many hours, yielding a diminishing marginal return. The difference between the person able to master this and most Americans that fail miserably at it is quality of life! If one continues to work past this moment, a negative return will ensue, and that negative return produces guilt. It lowers the amount of time for recreational activities and spending time with family. We’ve siloed productivity to our work life, however; the impact on our personal life is often loss. An alarming 39% of workers in high-tech companies believe they are depressed, as reported by PC Magazine in December 2018. 72% of people who have daily stress and anxiety say it interferes with their lives—anxiety and stress alone have reduced productivity by 56%. More than 80% of people have experienced some form of anxiety, stress, or depression in the workplace. People are spending more time at work than at home or with their loved ones; or, if they are at home, they are working. They are always “on.” As a result of this disparity, people are not fully living their lives. And the “work-life balance” marketed by some HR consulting firms and employers simply does not work. It’s all work and no life! Studies have also proven that when people are unhappy in their personal lives or careers, their productivity goes down and everything and everyone around them suffers. This causes a domino effect, which trickles into every area of their lives. Previous generations used to say, “Work harder,” but we’ve now learned we must “work smarter.” Polak has practiced and tested his methods in hundreds of opportunities and has been paid millions by the largest corporations in the world to share these tools. He feels that every individual and business should have these tools, and will share them with us here.

Brilliant Email will show you how to use email effectively to win back time and dramatically improve your personal productivity and work/life balance. Using this book, you will learn how to: - Reduce the volume of email you deal with each day; - Write your message clearly and in an appropriate sty≤ - Select when to use email and when to use an alternative; - Slim down the size of your mailbox; - Use your email software to manage the flow of email traffic; - Help your colleagues to use email more effectively. The principles in this book have been developed over the last decade as a result of the author’s work with individuals and organisations of all sizes (from micro to global FTSE top 100). By adopting some of these basic principles of email best practice, you will learn how to take control of your inbox to dramatically improve your productivity, your quality of life and never send an ineffective email ever again.

An accessible, practical, step-by-step how-to guide that supplements Getting Things Done by providing the details, the how-to's, and the practices to apply GTD more fully and easily in daily life The incredible popularity of Getting Things Done revealed people's need to take control of their own productivity with a system that reduces the stress of staying on top of it all. Around the world hundreds of certified trainers and coaches are engaged full time in teaching the process, supported by a grassroots movement of Meetup groups, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, podcasts, blogs and dozens of apps based on it. While Getting Things Done remains the definitive way to gain perspective over work and create the mental space for creativity and mindfulness, The Getting Things Done Workbook enhances the original by providing an accessible guide to the GTD methodology in workbook form. The workbook divides the process into small, manageable segments to allow for easier learning and doing. Each chapter identifies a challenge the reader may be facing--such as being overwhelmed by too many to-do lists, a messy desk, or email overload--and explains the GTD concept to address. The lessons can be learned and implemented in almost any order, and whichever is adopted will provide immediate benefits. This handy instructional manual will give both seasoned GTD users and newcomers alike clear action steps to take to reach a place of sustained efficiency.

“The 5 Choices provides the methods to get the right things done, not try to get everything done, and to feel like you made a meaningful contribution at the end of the day.” —Kevin Turner, former COO of Microsoft For fans of Deep Work, Great at Work, and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The 5 Choices is an essential guide for understanding productivity and time-management in the 21st century. Every day brings us a crushing wave of demands: a barrage of texts, emails, interruptions, meetings, phone calls, tweets, breaking news—not to mention the high-pressure demands of our jobs—which can be overwhelming and exhausting. The sheer number of distractions can threaten our ability to think clearly, make good decisions, and accomplish what matters most, leaving us worn out and frustrated. From the business experts at FranklinCovey, The 5 Choices is an exploration of modern productivity. It offers powerful insights drawn from the latest neuroscience research and decades of experience in the time-management field to help you master your attention and energy management. The 5 Choices is time management redefined: through five fundamental choices, it increases the productivity of individuals, teams, and organizations, and empowers individuals to make selective, high-impact choices about where to invest their valuable time, attention, and energy. The 5 Choices—like “Act on the Important, Don’t React to the Urgent” and “Rule Your Technology, Don’t Let It Rule You”—will not only increase your productivity, but also provide a renewed sense of engagement and accomplishment. You will quickly find yourself moving beyond thinking, “I was so busy today, what did I actually accomplish?” to confidently realizing “I did everything I needed to accomplish today—and did it meaningfully.”

Create office efficiency and business productivity with this helpful book. Eliminate the Chaos at Work increases your business productivity and peace of mind by showing you how to create streamlined information systems, processes and workflows. Laura's proven 25 techniques are easy to implement, realistic and results oriented. Using these techniques, you can take control over your time and information to create workable systems built to reflect how you think and process information. Eliminate the Chaos at Work breaks down the everyday organization and productivity challenges you face at work into four areas: time, paper and information management as well as managing all of the stuff in your office. You'll learn effective time and information management techniques including how to: Produce logical, user friendly information management systems to ensure information is organized and easily retrievable Schedule and manage meetings that aren't total time wasters Implement a system to process and follow up on e-mail Create an organized e-mail filing structure for easy retrieval De-clutter paper files, decide what can be stored, scanned, shredded or recycled Learn what paper management system will work best for you and how to create the filing structure Use the PAPERS method for maintaining efficient paper management systems Determine which task management system is right for your needs and how to manage your tasks and projects daily using the 20-minute rule Use the 10-step process to organize the stuff in your office Imagine working in an office where you feel in control and on top of things, instead of overwhelmed. Setup a comfortable workspace and make yourself and your team's office more productive, supported and in control with Eliminate the Chaos at Work.