Productivity

Ready to get some great things done? Fantastic. Step 1: Identify the great thing. Step 2. Say YES to your wildly important goal! Step 3. Say “No!” to basically everything else. Then know that it starts with energy management then goes to time management, focus, 4.5-hour workdays, the four disciplines of execution, the science of progress and relentless forward motion.

Deep Work. It’s the key to how you get So Good They Can’t Ignore You—which, of course, is the title of another one of Cal’s great books. Big Ideas include Deep Work vs. Shallow Work, how to give your neurons a workout, cleaning up attention residue, the four rules of deep work, finding the routine that works for you and learning how to shut down completely.

The ONE Thing. What's yours? Gary Keller (his Keller-Williams real estate is THE largest real estate company in the world--I bet that was a ONE Thing goal at some point!) shares his wisdom in this BRILLIANT book. We'll have fun exploring a few of my favorite Big Ideas: dominoes + extreme Pareto and other goodness.

Loehr and Schwartz tell us we've gotta manage ENERGY not time if we wanna really optimize our lives. Their book is pure goodness. In this Note, we'll explore the four principles of full engagement, why we want to be more like sprinters rather than marathon runners, that there's a pulse of life and we need to honor it, and the power of positive rituals. And some other really Big Ideas on getting our Full Engagement on.

Ready to 10X your thinking and your action? Fantastic. Grant Cardone is your man. In this high intensity, LET'S DO THIS! book you'll get fired up to go out and crush it. Big Ideas we explore include how to create goals, why MASSIVE ACTION is so important, how to starve fear, why obsession is a gift not a disease and how Smokey would smoke the tortoise and the hare.

Peter Drucker is considered the father of modern management. This book was originally published in 1967. It’s *remarkably* well written and lucid. And, of course, packed with Big Ideas on how to optimize our effectiveness. We cover the 5 key practices/habits of the effective executive: time (first things first; second things never!), contribution (what can you contribute?), strengths (make yours productive; make weaknesses irrelevant), concentration (the secret to effectiveness), decisions (boundary conditions help).

Flow. It's all about the science of optimal human experience. In this Note, we'll explore what the flow state is (hint: get fully engaged in an activity that matches your skills with your challenge) and we’ll look at some other Big Ideas on controlling the contents of our consciousness to get out of anxiety and boredom as we create more flow experiences in our lives. (Plus, you'll even learn how to pronounce "Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.")

Getting Things Done. This is like the Bible of personal productivity. And David Allen is our wise sage, walking us thru the powerful systems to help us master the art of stress-free productivity. In the Note, we'll explore how to clear our heads (mind like water!), play the 2-minute game, get our inbox to zero and envision + plan for wil success.

I planned to read this book since Cal Newport referenced it in Deep Work. I finally did so in preparation to teach Productivity 101. It’s fantastic. If you’re a business leader or entrepreneur I think you’ll particularly enjoy it. Big Ideas we cover include the 4DX, the whirlwind, your Wildly Important Goals, Lag vs. Lead measures, the power of keeping score, and avoiding the blackhole of the magnificently trivial.

Did you know 20% of beer drinkers drink 80% of the beer? And that 20% of streets account for 80% of the traffic? And that most peeps wear 20% of their clothes 80% of the time? And that 20% of customers/products usually account for about 80% of profits? Yepperz. In this Note, we’ll explore the 80/20 principle and how we can apply its power to every aspect of our lives to "achieve more with less."

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning NY Times journalist (and Harvard MBA) who wrote the best-selling book The Power of Habit in which he walked us through the science of building better habits. In this book, he walks us through the science of being productive so we can be smarter, faster and better at everything we do. It’s a great book packed with fascinating stories and practical applications. Big Ideas we explore include the 2 keys to motivation, how to build your focus, the best way to set goals (think: Stretch + SMART), why disfluency helps learning and how productivity is all about choices.

This classic has sold 15 million copies and was the first self-development book I read back in the day (1995 to be precise). In this Note, we'll take a quick look at all 7 Habits—from being proactive (huge!) to beginning with the end in mind, putting first things first, thinking win/win, seeking first to understand, synergizing and sharpening the saw. Lots of goodness here to help us develop our character to create our ideal lives as we most fully give ourselves to the world.

Jason Selk is one of the world’s leading peak performance/mental training experts. Tom Bartow is one of the world’s leading financial advisor trainers. Together they provide a manual on how to “start every day with more focus, confidence, and energy—by learning how to set the right priorities." Great stuff. Big Ideas we cover: Your 2 top questions for tomorrow, the Zeigarnik Effect, the importance of Nailing it, why fight-thrus are the key to creating habits, your new mental toughness workout, and repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition...

This is a quick-reading, smart, practical guide on how to, as the sub-title suggests, “Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done. My kind of book. I *highly* recommend it. Big Ideas we explore include rats + rewards (real vs. random), progress hacks to conquer the progress paradox, saying “YES!!!” en route to saying “No” plus the physics of emails and 21st century superpowers.

This is our sixth note on one of Steven Pressfield's books. Steven Pressfield is one of my favorite writers and human beings. His books, including this one, are both inspiring and beautifully pithy. If you’re a fan of his work, you’ll love this book. I’m excited to share a handful of my favorite Big Ideas, so let’s jump straight in!

Kevin Kruse is a Forbes Leadership columnist and successful entrepreneur. He’s built and sold several multimillion dollar technology companies, winning both Inc 500 and Best Place to Work awards along the way. He’s also written a number of bestselling books. I got this book after a long-time student and Heroic Coach connected me with Kevin. Apparently my new friend was being interviewed by Kevin about his new book on creativity for a Forbes article. At the end of their chat, my new friend told Kevin that he should check out Heroic. And, apparently, he had JUST signed up for Heroic the day before. (Awesome.) This book, as per the sub-title and intro quote, is all about the top productivity habits of some of the world’s most productive and successful people. It’s written in a straight-forward, conversational style. There’s a reason it has over 1,400 reviews—it’s fantastic. It’s packed with Big Ideas. I’m excited to share some of my favorites so let’s jump straight in!

Rick Rubin is an iconic music producer. He’s worked with some of the most successful musicians in the world—from Adele, Tom Petty, and Johnny Cash to the Beastie Boys, Jay-Z, and LL Cool J. He’s also the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings and former co-President of Columbia Records. And, he’s a Transcendental Meditation practitioner who writes with the same lucidity as Yuval Noah Harari whose preferred flavor of meditation happens to be Vipassana. This book is the distillation of the wisdom he’s gained working on himself and his craft over the last forty years. It’s PHENOMENAL. I highly recommend it. From the minimalist cover to the short, pithy micro chapters (both of which inspired my book Areté), the book itself is a work of art. It’s packed with profound wisdom on how to create great art and how to make your life your ultimate masterpiece. I’m excited to share some of my favorite Big Ideas so let’s jump straight in.

He's the creator of DIlbert. (Over 10,000 of them by now, actually.) He also wrote a great book called How to Fail at Almost Everything and

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that, if we could figure out how to take 30 EXPONENTIAL steps, we’d be able to hop in a rocket

Brian Tracy is one of the classic modern self-development teachers and he's literally a Big Idea machine. In this Note, we'll have fun learning about the importance of taking responsibility in our lives and staying flexible (and, of course, some Ideas on how to do so!). We'll also check in on the importance of managing our time well by "one-touching" stuff and maintaining our optimism in the face of challenges.

Dave Asprey is a fascinating guy. He’s a professional bio-hacking machine whose publicly-stated goal is to live to 180. We covered his last book called The Bulletproof Diet and our kitchen’s pantry is filled with a bunch of his Bulletproof products. In this book, he unveils his best bio-hacks for, as the sub-title suggests, “activating untapped brain energy to work smarter and think faster.” Big Ideas we explore: Your brain on energy, kryptonite dust (what’re yours?), mitochondria (one QUADRILLION!), EZ water (how to drop into that spot between a gas and a liquid), and junk light.

When you appraoch a set of stairs and an escalator what do you do? If you're like 95% of the world, you hop on the escalator but Rory Vaden tells us if we want true success in our lives we need to quit looking for shortcuts and Take the Stairs! In the Note we'll look at how to quit being a Should-head, embrace the Pain Paradox and get our Visioneering on.

Orison Swett Marden is a brilliant old-school writer who mixed a passionate optimism in our potential with an equally passionate commitment to integrity, grit, perseverance and all things good. I like him. In this book he shows us how to make our life a masterpiece by becoming the captain of our own ships, doing first-class work, and finding an hour a day to optimize as we achieving true success.