In a world brimming with distractions and constant demands on our time, mastering productivity has become more crucial than ever. Whether you’re striving to enhance your efficiency at work, balance personal projects, or simply make the most of each day, the right resources can make all the difference.

Here are some reads (in book, ebook and audiobook format) available with your Livingston Library card that offer insights into time management, focus, and effective habits. From groundbreaking theories to practical strategies, these books will equip you with the tools and motivation needed to elevate your productivity and achieve your goals with clarity and purpose.

Attention Management : How to Create Success and Gain Productivity–Every Day by Maura Nevel Thomas

Discusses how old approaches to productivity just don’t work in today’s fast-paced, tech-driven workplaces.  Attention management, not time management, is the solution that works. It’s a collection of behaviors –including focus, mindfulness, control, presence, and flow–that will support your success.

Attention Span : A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity by Gloria Mark

We spend an average of just 47 seconds on any screen before shifting our attention. It takes 25 minutes to bring our attention back to a task after an interruption. And we interrupt ourselves more than we’re interrupted by others. Psychologist Mark reveals these and more surprising results from her decades of research into how technology affects our attention. She shows how much of what we think we know is wrong, including insights such as: why multitasking hurts rather than helps productivity; how social media and modern entertainment amplify our short attention spans; what drains our mental resources and how to refuel them; the four types of attention that we experience every day and how to recognize them.

The Energy of Success : Power Up Your Productivity, Transform Your Habits, and Maximize Workplace Motivation by Rebecca Ahmed

Ahmed illustrates how individuals can shift their energy to increase their joy and enthusiasm about their work; how they can transform their own experience no matter what’s going on with their colleagues; and how they are the only ones who can decide if today is going to be a good day at work. She introduces five energetic success principles and provides practical and easy steps anyone can take to quickly shift their energy.

Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You by Ali Abdaal

Drawing on decades of psychological research, Abdaal has found that the secret to productivity and success isn’t grind – it’s feeling good. If you can make your work feel good, then productivity takes care of itself.   He introduces the three hidden “energizers” that underpin enjoyable productivity, the three “blockers” we must overcome to beat procrastination, and the three “sustainers” that prevent burnout and help us achieve lasting fulfillment. 

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Rejecting the futile modern fixation on “getting everything done,” Burkeman introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing how many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.

Free to Focus : A Total Productivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less by Michael S. Hyatt

Hyatt has created a total productivity system that’s much more than endless box checking. Proven by over 25,000 professionals, this system helps overwhelmed leaders achieve what matters most so they can succeed at both work and life.

From To-Do To Done : How To Go From Busy to Productive by Mastering Your To-Do List by Maura Nevel Thomas

To start, productivity expert Thomas takes us through an exercise called “brain dumping,” which will clear your mind of all the things you’re trying to remember you have to do-all the things that are distracting you or keeping you up at night. She then shows us the right way to use a calendar, the tools you’ll need to succeed, and a better way of categorizing your tasks in order to identify the best use of your time and inspire you to take action.

Get it Done: Surprising Lessons From the Science of Motivation by Ayelet Fishbach

With fascinating research from the field of motivation science, this book provides strategies for pulling yourself where you want to go, so you can achieve your goals while staying healthy and happy.

Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus On What Matters Most by Cassie Holmes

With clear, actionable advice from how to be confident in choosing how to spend your time, to how to sidestep distractions and be present, this book gives you all the tools you need to feel time rich and confidently design your schedule as a beautiful and colorful mosaic with you as the artist.

Not Today : Take Control of Your Time, Achieve Your Goals, Become Unstoppable: the 9 Habits of Extreme Productivity by Erica Schultz

When their five-year-old son fought for his life, business leaders Erica and Mike Schultz learned a new way to live, work, and succeed-discovering how to achieve extreme productivity with heart and purpose. They discovered what extremely productive people do differently than everyone else, and went on to create The Productivity Code-a new approach to productivity that has helped tens of thousands of people manage their time for greatest effectiveness, fulfillment, and happiness.

Slow Productivity; The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Cal Newport

Long before the arrival of pinging inboxes and clogged schedules, history’s most creative and impactful philosophers, scientists, artists, and writers mastered the art of producing valuable work with staying power. Newport harnesses the wisdom of these traditional knowledge workers to radically transform our modern jobs. Drawing from deep research on the habits and mindsets of a varied cast of storied thinkers – from Galileo and Isaac Newton, to Jane Austen and Georgia O’Keefe – Newport lays out the key principles of “slow productivity,” a more sustainable alternative to the aimless overwhelm that defines our current moment.

Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity by Charles Duhigg

At the core of this book are eight key concepts—from motivation and goal setting to focus and decision making—that explain why some people and companies get so much done. Drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics—as well as the experiences of CEOs, educational reformers, four-star generals, FBI agents, airplane pilots, and Broadway songwriters—this book reveals that the most productive people, companies, and organizations don’t merely act differently. They view the world, and their choices, in profoundly different ways.

Timeboxing : The Power of Doing One Thing At a Time by Marc Zao-Sanders

Every day, a billion knowledge workers wake up, gravitate towards a pixelated screen and process information for eight hours or more, facing an endless and bewildering array of work and life choices. We’re confronted with countless always-on options; untimely, unsolicited notifications; and a constant competition for our attention. This depletes our faculty for choosing the right things to do, leading millions to become perplexed, frazzled, anxious, or depressed. This is a comprehensive guide to carefully and intentionally selecting what to do, specifying start and finish times, focusing solely on that single activity, and getting it done to an acceptable standard within that timeframe. This is the fundamental, transcendent time-management practice; countless luminaries, from Carl Jung and Albert Einstein to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, have employed some form of it in their daily lives.

Uptime : A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing by Laura Mae Martin

Google’s Executive Productivity Advisor offers insights on how to make the new way of work work for you, providing actionable steps to optimize your productivity, accomplish more, prevent burnout, and cultivate a harmonious work-life balance.

—Archana Chiplunkar, Adult Services & Acquisitions Librarian