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What is the #1 must read book to breakthrough in Time Management?

Nice_home

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How do successful people manage their time? They have the same 24 hours, do they just not sleep?

Side question: Are there any goals you have for time management that have compelled you forward and that would be helpful to share with all of us?
 
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MHP368

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Ooh thats a good one , my picks wouldn't actually be time management focused , seems like all the "time wasting" is a habit right? Cell phone habit , tv habit , gaming habit etc

Or what about mindset? "I deserve a break" , "its not that important"

But if I had to pick a book just on time management it would be brian traceys "time management"
 

Rawseed

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Most of the experts on time management say that it's not about managing time.

It's more about figuring out your priority and eliminating all the other crap.

It really comes down to using the 80/20 rule or, even better, the 64/4 rule.

I'd start with:

Essentialism by McKeown
The One Thing by Keller
 

Tourmaline

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Stephen Covey - The 4 Disciplines of Execution
Peter Drucker - The Effective Executive
 
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Dan_Cardone

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Time management in one sentence:

Is what I'm doing right now getting me closer to my goal and is there something better I should be doing instead?

Some helpful tips:
  • Figure out what your high value work is, the things that really move you closer towards your goals, and block time in your calendar to work on those task. Actually schedule that time with yourself.
  • Eliminate distractions and turn your phone off doing this time block. I actually have a sign that goes on my door when I'm not to be distracted.
  • Prioritize your to-do list so that your not wasting time on dumb shit.
  • Figure out what you can Delay to later, Delegate to someone else, or simply Delete it.
  • Eat while you work!
  • Over the course of a week do a time audit. When I did one I found that I was spending way more time than I ever thought making food. I now use a food delivery service and save hours every week.
  • Stop task switching by using the Touch it Once principal.
  • Stop letting "Time Vampires" waste all your time.
  • Attach aggressive deadlines to task and projects.
  • Use "downtime" wisely. How much time do you waste waiting on the doctor? What could you work on while sitting there?
  • Get a full eight hours of sleep. Lack of sleep will make you less effective during your day resulting in less work getting done.
 

Bertram

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How do successful people manage their time? They have the same 24 hours, do they just not sleep?

Side question: Are there any goals you have for time management that have compelled you forward and that would be helpful to share with all of us?
Time management is about applying your values to what you spend time doing. If you have traction, you're using time to get the life you want and making sure you're in a sitatioan where it can happen. If you have"dis"traction, then internal/external triggers and being away from the right situation prevent you from doing what you value.
Putting your values into practice is actually painful much of the time. So we seek less painful "dis"tractions.

Learning Time Management is actually learning pain management.

By far the best book on this subject is by Nir Eyal. The title is "Indistractible."
Eyal is the author of "Hooked."
 

Primeperiwinkle

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ZF Lee

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I feel this ongoing thread should be a good study close to life:


I'm thinking I should jump onto this thread, as I'm not too happy with my current schedule.
 

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Track your activities. Learn the habit of collecting data about where your time goes.

When you know where your time goes, you can make adjustments.

If you want to read a book about time management but you don't know where your time is going, then you're really looking for a magic trick that doesn't exist.

The only book you need is an empty book and a pen. Start tracking.
 
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Nice_home

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I reserved all of the books on this post from the local library for pickup soon. Then, I thought I would share my most helpful book on time management, too - and only then did I realize, I’ve never read any book on time management! I guess the closest thing was, “Getting Things Done,” which was a painful, painful read for me. Exceedingly dry.

With the time blocks concept from one of the articles above, and the comments from others, I basically realized that time is getting sucked away with priorities that are less urgent to me. So today I just went gung ho and have only been focused on catching up on all of my main priorities - after doing that, I can try to think about other people’s priorities and other “distractions” from my core areas of focus.

I'm definitely interested (and others may be, too) in any further suggested books or articles on the topic people may have!
 

Nice_home

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But if I had to pick a book just on time management it would be brian traceys "time management"

Just finished reading, "Master Your Time, Master Your Life," by Brian Tracy (this was the closest I could get to his "Time Management," title from the library). Finally got my first time management book under my belt! I would say reading this was a good kick in the butt and one of the core messages I got was to be super intense about important priorities. Like basically cut off every lesser priority relentlessly....

Still in queue I have several others mentioned on this chain.
 

srodrigo

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Essentialism by McKeown
+1 to this one.

Also, the best time management tool is to subtract and focus on the important things. This beats any book (most of them are focus on this rule anyway).
 

Primeperiwinkle

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Track your activities. Learn the habit of collecting data about where your time goes.

When you know where your time goes, you can make adjustments.

If you want to read a book about time management but you don't know where your time is going, then you're really looking for a magic trick that doesn't exist.

The only book you need is an empty book and a pen. Start tracking.

THIS. Somebody freaking pay attention to this.
 

amp0193

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  • Eliminate distractions and turn your phone off doing this time block. I actually have a sign that goes on my door when I'm not to be distracted.

Good tip. I'm putting up a sign on my door now. I do my important tasks first thing in the morning. I've used locking the door... but I really just want to prevent them from knocking.

Get a full eight hours of sleep. Lack of sleep will make you less effective during your day resulting in less work getting done.

I know this, and it's been proven time and time again for me... yet it's always so tempting to try and wake up earlier, or stay up later, and cut into that time. Whatever time I gain is more than wasted the next day in ineffectiveness.
 
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Nice_home

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One big issue I was just able to pinpoint by reflecting on my goals and strategies: handling the encroachment of other people's priorities upon my own - important people, not just people I can easily cutoff or shut down with a "do not disturb" sign.

For example, on the weekend, wife and child priorities kick into high gear. On Mondays and Fridays, "team meetings," takeover, pretty much tanking progress on personal priorities. Which leaves Tues-Thurs (a minority, 3 of 7, days in the week) to work in all my progress on personal priorities. Anyone figured out some good ways to balance other people's priorities with one's own?
 

Andy Bell

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I really like the deep work book. But also be careful sometimes you procrastinate by reading too much. I have fallen victim a few times to nonstop learning with little implementing.
 

snowbank

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Some of the greatest advice I can give you on this subject:

Stop doing almost everything.

If you're not great at something and/or you don't like it a lot, you shouldn't be doing it.

-

I know that's harder if first starting out, but it's a much easier path than what most people end up doing.

So many people in the 'time management' space are focused on packing lots of non-important stuff into their hours and being proud of how much they got done.

I'd rather get almost nothing done but get very high value or enjoyment activities done.

Looking at most 'successful' people's calendars makes me stressed out FOR them. They're often winning at getting the most things done, but losing at life.
 

LightHouse

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Well.... do you even have time to read a book? :rofl:

Someone mentioned already it's not about managing time, time ticks either way. Its about prioritizing and becoming efficient. Efficiency can mean a variety of things.

How do you start immediately, do exactly what you do week over week this week, except record everything you do in your calendar. When the week is done, color mark the things that are similar.

You will then know exactly where your time is spent, you can prioritize the right things, drop the time wasters, delegate if necessary, figure out why you are wasting more time then you know on BS, and ultimately have a great look at what your life looks like.

Most people don't have a time problem TBH, they just waste a lot of it by leaving it to chance day in and day out.
 

Nice_home

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But also be careful sometimes you procrastinate by reading too much. I have fallen victim a few times to nonstop learning with little implementing.

This is a huge issue for me. I feel like I could read all day and never get tired. One real issue for me is, I am constantly having new "ideas" so it's very hard for me to focus on pure execution. Have you found a way to tackle this?
 

Andy Bell

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This is a huge issue for me. I feel like I could read all day and never get tired. One real issue for me is, I am constantly having new "ideas" so it's very hard for me to focus on pure execution. Have you found a way to tackle this?

Alot of my slow implementing was somewhat fear aswell of failing. Basically starve your fear by taking away its biggest fuel which is time, whenever you are afraid of something thats validation that its something that others dont do because of fear and your on the right track, do it right away or it will keep growing and fueling itself.

"Assume in the case of action that more is better and less is nothing. Whatever you think you need to do to get the job done, increase the amount far more than you think is necessary, and you’ll get results beyond your wildest expectations.
The amount of success you have is limited by the amount of action you take. Stay away from the people who tell you to stop working so hard and suggest that you should relax and take it easy."

Finally goals and day planning keep my on the right track writing down what you accomplished at the end of the day is huge and keeps you motivated not to skip a day.
 

Andy Black

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The most important step:

Stop saying you don’t have time. Be honest and say it wasn’t important enough and you did <something else> instead.

Tip: Don’t use this on your wife. If you didn’t do that chore then do NOT say it wasn't important enough and you did something else instead.
 
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