How to Manage Your Time: A Book List

This story is part of a series on how we make time—from productivity hacks to long walks to altering the function of our own circadian clocks. Portfolio Free to Focus synthesizes a medley of author-tested tips into a three-part “total productivity system.” Geared toward entrepreneurs and professionals who have the ability to control their schedules and outsource, the system involves goal-setting, self-care, dumping or delegating nonessential tasks, and focusing on what’s left. BEST FOR: Bosses Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky Authored by two former Google Ventures partners and cocreators of Google’s “design sprint,” a weeklong productivity binge devoted to a single project, Make Time Buy on Amazon. BEST FOR: The purpose-driven Counterproductive by Melissa Gregg Counterproductive trains its lens on the productivity self-help genre itself, posing the question “How does this insatiable industry for productivity continue trading on essentially unchanging insights?” Buy on Amazon. The three-part book traces the genre’s origins to the “domestic science” advice of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, analyzes the two main sources of productivity advice, and explores corporate culture’s recent obsession with mindfulness.