4 Books That Can Help You Boost Your Time Management Skills

Time is the most precious resource in an entrepreneur’s life. Once lost, it can never be retrieved.

Managing time is one of the most critical elements of productivity, work-life balance and eventually, success. Experts believe that once you’ve mastered your time, you’ve mastered your life. Time management not only allows you to deliver top-quality results, it also lets you to achieve them quickly. Therefore, in order to be successful, it’s important to take the reins of your time. Because if you allow your time and energy to be wasted on things of little importance, you will end up holding yourself back and wasting valuable hours that could be spent on more productive pursuits.

Entrepreneurs are often pressed for time, and one of the best ways to improve time management and productivity skills is by reading tips from others. Here are four helpful books on time management and productivity that can help you learn how to maximize and take control of time.

Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy

The famous Mark Twain quote “Eat a live frog the first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day” forms the basis of this book by Brian Tracy. The author uses the metaphor of the frog as your most important and most challenging task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate doing. Get it done the first thing in the morning and the rest of your day will go smoothly. And if you have to eat two frogs, go for the uglier one first, which is another way of saying that if you have two important tasks to finish, start with the hardest and most important one first.

At its core, Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time focuses on the importance of prioritizing daily tasks the right way so that you can get better results in limited time. Tracy highlights the fact that the ability to choose between the important and the unimportant tasks could be the fundamental determining factor of success in life and work. In the book, he details 21 time-management techniques including how to set goals, practice the Law of Three, apply the 80/20 rule and use the ABCDE method.

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Time management and productivity guru David Allen believes that our productivity is directly proportional to our ability to relax. Only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve effective productivity and unleash our creative potential. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity centers around actionable, pragmatic time management methods to improve your day-to-day efficiency. In the book, Allen outlines three simple steps to his productivity system: using a collection bucket to keep important information so you can stay focused on essential tasks, having a “next actions” list for all upcoming projects and reviewing your work weekly.

Allen has tweaked the book several times over the years to add perspectives catered toward the new workplace and the younger generations; however, the basic concept remains the same — when you have a clear mind, you can organize your thoughts, spark creativity and boost your productivity.

15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management by Kevin Kruse

Bestselling author and entrepreneur Kevin Kruse met with more than 200 super-productive people including billionaires Mark Cuban, Kevin Harrington and John Lee Dumas; Olympic athletes; successful entrepreneurs, and honor students, and asked them about their time management secrets. After analyzing the results, he found that they all shared 15 secrets about time management.

15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management: The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, 13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A Students, and 239 Entrepreneurs outlines a set of tools that he has extracted from his interviews, such as focusing only on one thing, never using to-do lists, processing emails only a few times a day and following the 80/20 rule.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

Any time management and productivity list is incomplete without the mention of this bestseller by Stephen R. Covey. First published in 1989, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change is considered one of the best books to read if you are looking to improve your time-management, productivity and effectiveness skills, both professionally and personally. The book focuses on building good habits in order to stay on track as opposed to getting rid of bad habits. In particular, he focuses on defining your goals and priorities.

This book discusses seven major habits that the most effective people use to influence their lives, including being proactive, planning ahead and so on. But before you can adopt these seven habits, you'll need to accomplish a paradigm shift, which is a change in perception and interpretation of how the world works. Covey writes, “Paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world ... If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm.”

Covey uses the analogy of placing sand, pebbles and rocks into a jar to help you define what’s really important. He believes that if you put the little things such as sand or the pebbles first, the rocks won’t fit. But if you start with the rocks, there will be enough room in the jar to fit the smaller items around them.

We'd love to hear your recommendations of books or podcasts about time management — feel free to share them in the comments!