Here are 100 books that 168 Hours fans have personally recommended if you like
168 Hours.
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I’m a time management coach, author, keynote speaker, host of the top 1% ranked time management podcast It’s About Time, and founder of the It’s About Time Academy (a community of people who want to make time for what matters most). I help busy professionals and business owners struggling with overwhelm manage their time with my signature HEART Method. I’ve been devouring time management books for over a decade now—so I hope you enjoy these time management reads as much as I did!
This book changed the way I think about time. It helped me incorporate biological chronotypes into my time management methods. After reading it, I realized that when you go with your flow, you get so much more done.
I love that this book is a great mix of science, stats, and introspective questions. One of my favorite things included are the action items throughout, and the concept of a nappuccino!
Timing is everything. But we don't know much about timing itself. Timing, it's often assumed, is an art; in When, Pink shows that timing is in fact a science.
Drawing on a rich trove of research from psychology, biology and economics, Pink reveals how best to live, work and succeed. How can we use the hidden patterns of the day to build the ideal schedule? Why do certain breaks dramatically improve student test scores? How can we turn a stumbling beginning into a fresh start? When should you have your first coffee of the day? Why is singing in time…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’m Michael Cupps, author of Time Bandit and creator of a framework that helps people take back their time through prioritization, habit building, and aligning their actions with what matters most. I’ve spent decades leading sales and operations teams in high-pressure environments, and I’ve seen how time either slips away or gets owned. I’m passionate about helping people cut through the noise, focus on what really matters, and build lives filled with purpose, not just productivity.
This book drills down into the power of clarity. By continually asking, “What’s the ONE thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”, it teaches ruthless prioritization.
I’ve found this question to be one of the most powerful tools in my daily practice—and in coaching others.
YOU WANT LESS. You want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll. And what's the cost? Second-rate work, missed deadlines, smaller paychecks, fewer promotions-and lots of stress. AND YOU WANT MORE. You want more productivity from your work. More income for a better lifestyle. You want more satisfaction from life, and more time for yourself, your family, and your friends. NOW YOU CAN HAVE BOTH-LESS AND MORE. In The ONE Thing, you'll learn…
I’m a time management coach, author, keynote speaker, host of the top 1% ranked time management podcast It’s About Time, and founder of the It’s About Time Academy (a community of people who want to make time for what matters most). I help busy professionals and business owners struggling with overwhelm manage their time with my signature HEART Method. I’ve been devouring time management books for over a decade now—so I hope you enjoy these time management reads as much as I did!
This was such a fun and super interesting read for me! The number one thing I learned from this book is that I couldn’t just use a “time management hack” that worked for someone else and expect it to work for me.
I learned that time management isn’t one-size-fits-all―it’s meant to be reworked for your life. Reading this book gave me such a lightbulb moment for how I understand time management!
A fresh, personal, and entertaining exploration of a topic that concerns all of us: how to be more productive at work and in every facet of our lives.
Chris Bailey turned down lucrative job offers to pursue a lifelong dream—to spend a year performing a deep dive experiment into the pursuit of productivity, a subject he had been enamored with since he was a teenager. After obtaining his business degree, he created a blog to chronicle a year-long series of productivity experiments he conducted on himself, where he also continued his research and interviews with some of the world’s foremost…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I’m passionate about productivity that enhances life, not erodes it. After years of chasing more—more certifications, more races, more promotions—I faced a health crisis that forced me to redefine success. Now, I’m on a mission to help people and companies find real productivity without sacrificing relationships or health. My background as a speaker, trainer, and coach drives me to show others how sustainable habits can declutter not just our workspaces but also our minds and bodies. True productivity isn’t about doing more; it’s about creating space for what truly matters.
I felt like I was meeting a kindred spirit. Rubin’s insights into habits and how we’re wired to form (or break) them resonated with me personally—it was like we were sisters from another mister! Her humor, honesty, and practical strategies hit home, offering me a fresh lens on self-improvement.
I walked away with actionable ideas and a better understanding of what actually works for me. Rubin’s approach makes habit-building feel possible and even fun (even when the habit seems like a grind).
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Happiness Project and “a force for real change” (Brené Brown) examines how changing our habits can change our lives.
“If anyone can help us stop procrastinating, start exercising, or get organized, it’s Gretchen Rubin. The happiness guru takes a sledgehammer to old-fashioned notions about change.”—Parade
Most of us have a habit we’d like to change, and there’s no shortage of expert advice. But as we all know from tough experience, no magic, one-size-fits-all solution exists. It takes work to make a habit, but once that habit is set, we can harness…
I’ve been managing projects for over 20 years, and I’ve noticed that the pace of work is getting faster. I’ve certainly needed a helping hand to stay relevant and to keep up, and I’ve always been interested in how other people manage their working lives and To-do lists. I don’t always agree with the approaches in books or find that they work for me, but having a wide toolbox of strategies is great when I’m mentoring professionals. I can suggest things I’ve tried and also things that might work for them. I hope you get something out of my recommendations in the same way that I’ve grown from them!
This book has really cute graphics–what’s not to love about ninjas made out of office supplies? I loved the illustrations but I also feel confident recommending it because it’s not like the other time management or productivity books that I have read.
I’m wary of many time management books because I feel they don’t speak to the reality of being a working parent and having to juggle All The Things, and I could really relate to this book. It felt like the suggestions were reasonable and pragmatic, and I learned something. It helped me change the way I approach my workload, so I’m grateful for that.
In the age of information overload, traditional time management techniques simply don't cut it when it comes to overflowing inboxes, ever-expanding to-do lists and endless, pointless meetings. Thankfully there is a better way: The Way of the Productivity Ninja.
Using techniques including Ruthlessness, Mindfulness, Zen-like Calm and Stealth & Camouflage you will get your inbox down to zero, make the most of your attention, beat procrastination and learn to work smarter, not harder.
Written by one of the UK's foremost productivity experts, How to be a Productivity Ninja is a fun, accessible and practical guide to staying cool, calm and…
In order to earn my Ph.D. in Psychology before I turned thirty, I had to learn how to be efficient and productive. As a life coach and author of two dozen books, I’ve spent the past twenty years helping people overcome challenges, get things done, and get more out of life.
People have productivity challenges for different reasons. Sometimes, we need to learn specific skills or techniques. Sometimes we are unproductive because of external factors out of our control. More often, we have to identify, address, and overcome internal factors that are hampering our ability to get things done – which is the focus of this book.
A thoroughly updated and expanded edition of the definitive guide to managing and freeing up time
Applying the groundbreaking from-the-inside-out approach that made Organizing from the Inside Out a New York Times bestseller, Julie Morgenstern set a new standard for the time- management category. Her system has helped countless readers uncover their psychological stumbling blocks and strengths, and develop a time-management system that suits their individual needs.
By applying her proven three-step program-Analyze, Strategize, Attack-and following her effective guidelines, readers will find more time for work, family, self-improvement, or whatever is most important to them. Time management is a learnable…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Though I’ve coached endurance athletes to world championships, I’m an expert on not working out. It’s what you do when you’re not training that matters most! All the books on this list teach habits that help you relax about things that don’t matter while guiding you to define what does matter and explaining ways to most efficiently focus your energies there. This jibes with my work as a yoga teacher: we seek to find the right application of effort, and to layer in ease wherever possible. I don’t think it’s stretching too much to call each book on the list both a work of philosophy and also a deeply practical life manual.
I think about this book every day, even though it was written almost 25 years ago, and the edition I read explained how to manage your paper file folders! (One of my most-used apps, the to-do manager Things, is built on this system.)
I love how much time this book has saved me as I juggle running several businesses, staying active in my hobbies, and running a household. Allen’s approach to capturing your ideas and then deciding how to organize them so that you can keep track of what needs your attention is both simple and really profound.
For athletes who need to be as efficient as possible to reserve time and energy for training, this book is a lifesaver.
The book Lifehack calls "The Bible of business and personal productivity."
"A completely revised and updated edition of the blockbuster bestseller from 'the personal productivity guru'"-Fast Company
Since it was first published almost fifteen years ago, David Allen's Getting Things Done has become one of the most influential business books of its era, and the ultimate book on personal organization. "GTD" is now shorthand for an entire way of approaching professional and personal tasks, and has spawned an entire culture of websites, organizational tools, seminars, and offshoots.
Allen has rewritten the book from start to finish, tweaking his classic text…
We are thrilled to present this carefully curated book list. As passionate advocates for leadership, self-mastery, and health and well-being, we have handpicked these titles to inspire and empower individuals on their journey toward personal and professional growth. Each book within this collection resonates with principles that we believe are pivotal for fostering resilience, achieving self-mastery, and maintaining a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Whether you're seeking leadership insights, self-help guidance, or ways to enhance your overall well-being, these books offer a diverse range of perspectives and actionable strategies. We hope this collection becomes a valuable resource for you on your path to personal excellence. – Colleen Callander & Shannah Kennedy.
This book took me by surprise; it is an eye-opening epic read highlighting the importance of energy, not just time, as an area that is most important to focus on and master.
As a previous sufferer of burnout, it taught me that, unlike time, energy is finite and pivotal for peak performance. This book took me on a journey and framework where I could practically think about my life in terms of energy (rather than just time) and maximise this in the areas of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health; just superb.
I also loved the concept, which we are never taught, that recovery is just as important as performance and to think more like an athlete in my everyday life. Energy is everything to me, so I found this book truly transformative!
I live and work in Santa Cruz, CA (close to Silicon Valley). I’ve been extremely fortunate to be a multi-time start-up founder, executive coach and consultant, and key contributor or operational leader at world-class brands like Apple, DreamWorks, Google, and SGI. In 2015, I had an epiphany that changed the direction of my life: that prioritization was the most important verb in business, but nobody had written a book that successfully demystified how individuals, teams, and organizations should do it. My book became a pandemic project. I sincerely hope it will help improve the world and make it a better place.
This book ought to be required reading for every high school student. I didn’t read it in high school. But I’m grateful I found and read it a short few years ago. Why? Because I’m never going to win the rat race. The harder I try, the worse off I’ll become because “the rats” keep getting bigger and faster.
While it's a truism to say that time is the most precious resource, until recently, I didn’t act that way. I know that each of us has limited time, energy, and resources. So, getting more comfortable with the fact that my life is finite is key. Becoming a productivity master is a fool's errand. And the author, Oliver Burkeman, does a stunning and entertaining job of helping you get off that treadmill to live a better, fuller, and more meaningful life.
"Provocative and appealing . . . well worth your extremely limited time." ―Barbara Spindel, The Wall Street Journal
The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.
Nobody needs telling there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction; and we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, and “life hacks” to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I was recruited right out of college to work at one of the largest data firms in the US., I went from new grad to consulting director in record time. Along the way, I read each of these books, which all played a critical part in my development and ability to continually adapt. Society only gets better if we collectively become better humans, and reading books, sharing ideas, discussing, and ultimately testing plans of action is how we get there. We’re all in this together, and the more we read and share great ideas, the better we are all going to be in the long run.
I loved this book for many reasons. First, like the plot of a work of fiction, it follows the trail of a successful entrepreneur and a successful artist as they fall in love. I have read an extensive number of self-help books in my day, and this one was by far one of the most enjoyable, easy, and fun to read. It also addresses some of the common pitfalls folks fall into when trying to practice self-help.
Although I only did the actual 5am protocol for a year myself, it changed how I viewed my day, my mental resources, and how I was investing (or wasting) those same resources. I loved this book because even though I don’t practice the 5am protocol anymore, the year I did changed my life forever.
Legendary leadership and elite performance expert Robin Sharma introduced The 5am Club concept over twenty years ago, based on a revolutionary morning routine that has helped his clients maximize their productivity, activate their best health and bulletproof their serenity in this age of overwhelming complexity.
Now, in this life-changing book, handcrafted by the author over a rigorous four-year period, you will discover the early-rising habit that has helped so many accomplish epic results while upgrading their happiness, helpfulness and feelings of aliveness.
Through an enchanting—and often amusing—story about two struggling strangers who meet an eccentric tycoon who becomes their secret…
