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Time Management Books: My Three FavoritesLooking to cut through the maze of choices for time management books out there? For my own purposes and in my work as a professional coach with clients, I have tried many time management systems over the years. Some were excellent; some were counter-productive; and some time management solutions were simply ineffective. Through the process, however, I have found three time management systems that create a powerful foundation for time management when the principles are applied together. On this page, I will review these three theoretical time management books, discuss their pros and cons, and offer suggestions for implementation. 
Time Management Books: Recommendation #1 The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz Although I have included this on the time management books page, the main idea is that managing your energy - not your time - is the key to sustained high performance. This means that instead of planning out your entire life meticulously, it is more effective first to adopt a healthy lifestyle that enhances your energy and helps you recover after periods of stress. In short, your body always alternates between stress and renewal. Build your reserves for periods of stress, and then learn how to renew them quickly and effectively. This builds higher performance in the long run. The book offers many many practical suggestions, and these suggestions cut across four domains: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The types of suggestions include eating well, fitness, taking breaks during working, meditation, yoga, spending time with friends, and spiritual pursuits. In short, to manage your time effectively, first think of yourself as an athlete. You need to work hard and you need recovery. Pros: This book presents an unexpected yet profound approach to time management. It offers practical solutions and concrete actions you can take to increase your well-being and your performance. Cons: Like all business books, if you read the first chapter you've pretty much got most of the main ideas. The book is a little long and repetitive, although if you're interested in the ideas, it's worth a read. If you're just looking for the main ideas, I suggest you read the article version of the book called "The Corporate Athlete"; you can find it at Harvard Business Review. Also, this system is not comprehensive. Managing your energy alone will not help you plan your life or deal with 500 emails a day. For that you need the approaches in the other two recommended time management books. Suggestions: Whether you read the book, read the article, or just take the main ideas from here, TRY IT. Start small and don't try to overhaul your entire life immediately. Just take a few of the principles and start building small wins into your day - a walk at lunch, eating several small snacks throughout the day, cutting back on caffeine, taking a few deep breaths once an hour, doing "brain work" when your energy is highest, and so on. From there, move on to bigger wins like starting a regular fitness routine. Or, if you have a fitness routine, take it up a level and include interval workouts.
Time Management Books: Recommendation #2 First Things First, by Stephen Covey, Roger Merrill, and Rebecca Merrill This book builds upon the insights presented in Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and offers detailed calendar planning advice. The main idea is 1) identify what is most important to you and 2) systematically build your life around those things. To help identify what is most important and systematically build your life around it, Covey presents two main ideas:
In weekly role planning, you identify your 6-7 most important roles you play and identify the most important action in that role for the coming week. (For example: Role: Husband; Action: Date night with my wife.) Once you have identified those most important activities, you place them on your calendar in big chunks and protect them. The idea is that by placing the most important activities on the calendar first, you will spend the vast majority of your time on important things and not be swallowed up by trivial but urgent things. Pros: This book will help you translate your highest priorities into action. The examples are poignant and the exercises are extremely helpful. The methods discussed here will help you proactively direct your time and resources. Cons: Although the most profound of all three methods, this book is necessary but not sufficient for life in the modern world. It does not cover how to deal with constantly shifting schedules, 500 emails a day, and the demands of modern work. For that, you need the third system, Getting Things Done. Suggestions: Read this book and adopt the principles. Use the weekly role planning in your weekly planning and plan your major calendar events this way. Supplement this approach with the Getting Things Done approach (#3) so you don't get buried under a deluge of emails and give up on your priorities.
Getting Things Done, by David Allen David Allen's Getting Things Done approach, which was created from 20 years of insights as a performance coach, address a great challenge of the modern world: how do I deal with all of the stuff - emails, to dos, request, phone calls, etc - that arrive every day and never stop coming? The main idea is that your brain should be used to focus and execute and should not be used to store to-do items. Rather, you should build a leak-proof system to easily keep track of all your to-dos, action items, and follow up items. This system is built for work in the modern age. The book is written well and has two major parts. The first section overviews the five phases of the Getting Things Done process: Collect, Process, Organize, Review, Do. The second section takes a deep dive into each of these sections and provides lots of strategies, tips, and practical ideas for arranging your physical and digital systems. The main idea comes across very clearly in his work, and once you build the system into your life, it is very easy to implement. Pros: Addresses an enormous challenge of life in the modern world. Clear presentation of the concepts and excellent examples. Allen knows his stuff and the system works. Also, wonderful software exists to help with the process: Outlook can be configured to work on a PC (go to davidco.com.com for details), Things for Mac is excellent, and Toodledo the web app works well. Also, although it's easy to fall off the wagon and stop doing this, it's also easy to get right back on. All of your to-dos will be organized right where you left them. Cons: Although the system works beautifully for modern digital work, Allan actually does not talk about it that much. He talks a lot about folders, lists etc. You take the principles and apply them to your situation. Also, Allen is extremely detailed, as you might imagine. This book, more than other time management books, can be overwhelming and tedious for some readers. Suggestions: Unlike most business book, Allan provides new content throughout. Read the entire book. Then, set aside several hours to build the system into your life. Do the activities he suggests. Combine your weekly planning and review of ACTION items with the Covey Roles planning. This will ensure you focus on what's most important AND not let anything slip through the cracks. Weaving These Time Management Books TogetherAs discussed above, each of these methods is necessary but not sufficient for superior time management. All bring strengths, but the power comes when you combine the approaches in these time management books. Heres how:
I hope this review of my favorite three theoretical time management books has been helpful. Good luck! Leave Time Management Books and Return to Time Management Resources Main Page Leave Time Management Books and Return to BPGR Home Related Articles:
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