This was a great question and I thought about it briefly and came up with the following list – mainly around topics that don’t seem to get taught anywhere yet are so essential to a successful career.

Time Management and Goal Setting

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey – if you have to read one book on becoming a more organised and effective person, this is it.
Getting Things Done by David Allen – this books takes becoming organised to the next level – it requires a bit more discipline but will raise your game that much more again.
Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy – this is a very easy read but has a powerful message.. if you want a “first step” book towards personal development, then perhaps this is it.

Success

Maximum Achievement by Brian Tracy – this is the best “getting your head straight” books that you can ever read.  It is more or less an amalgam of many other books bringing the main concepts behind success together in one place.  It will stick with you.
Awaken the Giant within by Anthony Robbins – this is a classic and has the power to transform your life.  Read it once, then get the audio books and listen to them over and over.
The Psychology of Winning by Denis Waitley – an old book that you may need to get second hand these days – but no less relevant.
Seeds Of Greatness by Denis Waitley – perhaps this book should be required reading in UK schools?  We need a moral compass and reset values.  This book will deliver in a simple and straightforward message.

Finances

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki – one of the best books for understanding personal finance that have found – at least in a simple, overview point of view.  One of the points that still sticks with me is understanding that your house is not an “asset” (not while you have a mortgage at least).
The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey – this is a very relevant and topical book centred on becoming debt free.  It is very US-centric – but like Rich Dad, Poor Dad the lessons are still valid to overseas readers.
The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko – in a world where celebrity and bling, this books discusses the “true” millionaires.  Those that live quietly, frugally, and unbeknownst to many – even there own neighbours.

Related posts:

1. My top 5 list of business books for small business owners
2. Listen to Audiobooks
3. I need a Kindle to go with my iPad

Did you know that you can get the equivalent of a university education in terms of classroom time during your commute to work in just a few years?  Most university students spend 10 hours or so per week in class and about 250 hours per year; the average commute is one hour (30 minutes each way) per day or 240 hours per year.   So leveraging this time by listening to informative (i.e. non-fiction) audiobooks is incredibly productive and can make a real impact on your life.

I used to have a huge carry-case full of audiobooks and lectures on cassette tape (wikipedia reference for cassette tape for those of you who do not remember them).  I then created an equally large library on CD when cassette’s went the way of the dodo.  Not too long ago, I converted both libraries to MP3 and always had them available in my iPod.

But although I would occasionally listen to something from my library, I didn’t purchase a new audio book for the past five years or so.  The reason?  It became too complicated.  Either you purchased a CD version of a book and either lugged that around with you in your car or you had to take the time to convert it to an mp3 and then transfer to your iPod or other mp3 player.   You could have used Audible.com, but they had their own proprietary player at the time and when they did convert to mp3 it all had to be done on your PC and, well it was too much of a pain.

I guess I stopped looking for new “books on tape” as I used to call them and just recycle from my existing library.  That is until a few weeks ago, when I rediscovered Audible.com.  And finally, it is simple again!

Amazon purchased Audible.com in 2008 and it seems they have really improved the service.   They now have an iPhone app (iTunes link) which allows you to purchase books directly within it and listen to them wherever you take your phone.  You can also visit the Audible.com web site and when you purchase a book, you can have it sent to your Kindle!  I didn’t know that Kindle’s played audiobooks – how cool is that?

I feel like I am rediscovering audio books all over again.. its pretty awesome.

My commute to work is short – 10 mins each way.  But I walk my dog three times a day.  During the past two weeks, I read Rework by Jason Fried – all during my very short commute and my lunch-time dog walk.  And am now listening to Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh.

Don’t be put off by book snobs either.  If you get the unabridged version, then having the book read to you while you do something else (like driving with your eyes on the road) is the same as reading it.  Naturally, some books are better when you have the text in front of you for something called “deep reading”, but you just have to experiment and find what works best for you.

If you have an iPhone – download the Audible.com app and buy a book.  Try it.  Get more out of your commute.  Read when you are doing other things.  If you think you don’t have time to read anymore, then perhaps you should think again.

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I have been using the same system for fifteen or more years and it can be summarised into three simple rules. These rules will change your life.. they will help you become more productive, less stressed and contribute towards a more harmonious work/life balance.

This is not some crazy self-development seminar, this works and works in the real, every day world that we all live in.

Rule #1: Write Everything Down.

One of the main contributors to stress is the effort that you have to make in trying to remember everything you need to do. It wastes “spare cycles”. It prevents you from relaxing. This is the main contributor to stress in your life. Don’t remember it. Write it down.

The type of device you write it in doesn’t matter providing that it is ALWAYS in the same place and that you have complete faith in its reliability. Pen and paper? OK – providing that the same pad never leaves your side. Electronically? Absolutely (and it is my preference) but you need a platform that is reliable and a device that is always accessible.

My recommendation – is a website called Toodledo.com. This is an excellent online task management system that has become a platform for other tools as much as a web interface for todo list management. You can get versions for your phone, integration with Outlook – so that your todo list can be made available to you anywhere, any time, any place. Perfect.

So write everything down. Every idea, every thing you need to do.. at any point in the future. Completely outsource the storing of “things I need to do” to Toodledo or whichever platform you choose.

When you write it down, it is useful also to categorise the task into work related tasks ( e.g. marketing, sales, project X, etc) if appropriate and personal related tasks. Remember this is about changing your life – not just your work life – and so personal tasks should also be recorded in this system. Also be sure to assign a due date – for me, this is when you should be doing the task and not necessarily when it is “due”.

Rule #2: Review Every Morning.

At the beginning of your day, you need to review your todo list. The purpose of this review is to re-assess the tasks assigned for that day and decide what can and will be done that day.

There is absolutely no point in having a to-do list that is unachievable. You should sort your task list so that it ONLY shows you tasks that are due today (and perhaps overdue tasks, but if you follow my three rules you will never have any). Most, if not all, todo list systems like Toodledo support views / filters like this.

There may be tasks in your list for today, that you scheduled a few weeks back – hoping that you will get to them today. You may have tasks in your list for today that are scheduled reminders. You may have several tasks that are simply low priority tasks and moving them will have no impact on your productivity. So move them.

At the beginning of every day, review your task list and ANYTHING that you will not realistically accomplish that day, reschedule – to tomorrow, later in the week, next week, next month, whenever.

Your goal is to arm yourself with the most important tasks that need be – and can be – accomplished on that day. Anything else is a distraction.

Do this every morning. Without fail.

Rule #3: Clear It at the End of Every Day.

At the end of your working day – just before you go home. Clear out your to-do list completely of any and ALL work-related tasks. You are not to go home until this has been done.

You thought you could accomplish what you had on your list, but you didn’t. There is no point in keeping them on today’s to-do list if you are not going to get them done. Reschedule everything that is left – either to tomorrow or another day that will be more appropriate. When you leave work – you don’t need to think about what is on your to-do list.. it is now empty.

If you are keeping personal tasks on your to-do list, then leave these for now. But before you go to bed – at the true end of the day, once again – clear out your to-do list. Before you go to sleep, make sure that your to-do list is empty. You should NEVER have over-due tasks.

Nothing in your todo list, not stress. You should not underestimate the relief of having an empty to-do list – even if you had not accomplished everything you had hoped (that happened anyway). You can be at home without dwelling on work-related tasks which will lead to an enhanced work/life balance.

So – there you have it. Three very simple rules for increasing your productivity, reducing stress, and improving your work life balance.

1. Write everything down.
2. Review and reassign your daily task list first thing, every morning.
3. Clear out and reassign your task list at the end of each day (work day and full day).

Follow these and I promise that it will change your life – immediately.

Related posts:

1. The simple secret to job satisfaction

I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. Taking a bath: one unit, watching countdown: one unit, web-based research: two units, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully dishevelled: four units. It’s amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I’d ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in?

WeightWatchers does something similar in the way that they assign “points” to food to simplify the process of calories, fat content etc.

In the book “How Full is Your Bucket“, Tom Rath creates a metaphor for creating positive relationships and our own productivity.  The basic concept is that each of us has an invisible bucket that is being filled and emptied based on what other people say to/about you.  When your bucket is full – you feel better about life, yourself, others, etc.

Personally, I think we all have an internal battery. The capacity of this battery is different for each of us.  I know some people who are like Energizer Bunnies.. and others who are solar powered.

Like Hugh Grant’s character, activities consume your battery power in varying levels (not all activities are equal); and like the “Bucket Book”, some people charge your battery and some people drain it.

The important thing is to realise that you need to manage it.  Everyone is “green” these days with a lot of talk in the world about renewable energy, power “vampires”, and such.  But these same concepts can apply to your own internal energy source.. your battery.  With awareness comes responsibility….the responsibility to act.

• Try to limit your exposure to vampires – people who drain your battery. Associate with positively charged people – your battery will not run low around these people.
• Exercise – the paradox of exercise is that you always get more charge back than you expend.
• Build “down time” into your day to ensure that you recharge batteries – watch tv, read, video game – whatever does it for you.
• Do things you love – your battery is more energy efficient when you are doing something that you are positively motivated to do.. similar to excercise, it can sometimes return more energy than is spent.
• Rest

Find an “energy management” plan that works for you.

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In 1994, I got my first PDA – a Palm Pilot.  It was awesome.. and I kept with variations of the Palm all the way until late last year.  Originally, I preferred using the Palm Desktop software to access my information on my laptop and synchronised religiously but eventually moved to Outlook.

Windows Mobile killed the Palm Pilot for me I think in terms of organisation.  It was slow and clunky – I had to start taking hand written notes sometimes as it was faster than switching on my phone and loading the task management software.  Although I did love the ActiveSync and the link with Outlook – that was a godsend for sure.

Its a brand new world.  I now have an iPhone (best gadget ever!) which created some challenges in terms of time management.  The primary issue is that the iPhone does not have a task database and therefore does not support Exchange Server synchronization for tasks – only email, contacts, and calendar.  The only choice therefore is to use a third party task manager/organiser.

If you wanted to continue using MS Outlook for your tasks, then you would also need to find some software to sync Outlook with the third party or use an intermediary app with your exchange server.. anyway, the basic message is that it starts to get complicated.

I decided to throw everything up in the air, look at the current market and start again.. rather than try to bolt on to my existing systems.  When I looked at the current Web 2.0 services that are available – I was amazed, impressed and could not believe that I had been so blinkered by Microsoft technology for so long.

For me, personal organisation (especially from a PDA) requires the following set of functionality: tasks/to-dos, calendar, email, contacts and notes.  As you can see – all of these elements are currently in MS Outlook in one form or another.  They were also all available in the original Palm Pilot.

As my email, calendar and contacts are still managed via Exchange Server and Outlook – my primary requirement was for a new task list manager and note organiser.   I tried a number of products/services, but settled on the following and am extremely pleased with both:

Toodledo. Task Management.  www.toodledo.com.   This is a web-based task management system that has everything you could possibly need.  The web interface is easy to use and extremely powerful.  There are plenty of tools available to import or synchronise your tasks with other devices too including an excellent iPhone App.  I started off using it alongside Outlook – but have more or less stopped using Outlook for task management now and relying completely on the web and iPhone app.  Works very well.

Evernote. Note/List Management.  www.evernote.com.    I think that note taking and list management is an underutilised function with PDAs.  I used to use it a lot with the Palm Pilot – lists of goals, shopping lists, notes on gift ideas, topics for meetings (regular and future) etc.  Evernote is very useful and has revitalised my list making.. it has a superb web interface and an iPhone app.. so very easy to use.   I tried Google Docs for this previously – but you cannot edit these documents on the iPhone and so it quickly became less useful.  Evernote also allows you to share a list (or group of lists) with other people.  For example, I share a folder with my wife and we have a grocery shopping list that we can both update during the week.. easier than paper.

I think that I am slowly weaning myself away from an Outlook-centric model;  if I can find a replacement for public folders in Exchange server, I can see it being replaced pretty quickly.

So if you have been using the same mechanism for managing your time / tasks for more than five years, I would strongly recommend that you take a fresh look at the tools and web services that are now on the market.. you will be pleasantly surprised.

Related posts:

1. The simple secret to job satisfaction
2. Three Rules for a More Productive Life

In my opinion, the amount of control you have over your working day is directly proportional to your level of job satisfaction.  If you feel in control and “on top of things”, you are likely to have higher levels of job satisfaction; but when you feel out of control (e.g. reacting to events) you will experience low levels of job satisfaction.

Let’s look at a couple of typical scenarios:

1. Nothing but problems.  Customers are calling with problems and you are having to spend most of your time “firefighting”.

This is a classic situation in many companies.  Sometimes it is possible to solve the cause of the problem in the first place – e.g. quality issues with a product or service.  But many times, this is simply an inherent part of your job.

When you are having to react like this – every day – your day becomes hijacked and you are unable to choose how you work.  Your job satisfaction (i.e. happiness) decreases and stress levels rise.

The trick here is to impose some level of control over the situation.  This can be done in any number of ways:

1. Use a system for dealing with the customers…  even if it is your own system based on “empathize and listen” – the act of applying an approach is an act of control.
2. Have control over the resolution of the problem.  Perhaps you are able to offer refunds, discounts or instruct engineers to resolve a problem.  If the varying levels of discretion are up to you.. job satisfaction typically increases.
3. Choose when to respond to the client.  Take back your day.  You can still deliver exceptional customer service without being a punching bag.

The problem here is that you are constantly having to react to events.  In order to improve your levels of job satisfaction, you have to look for areas in your day that you can control.. and cease them.

2. Overworked. Is your to-do list growing, but you don’t seem to be making a dent?   If so, you need to implement some basic time/task management techniques.

Write down every task you need to do – everything.  Ideally place it in a task management system like Outlook or use a web site like RememberTheMilk.com.

The real trick here is to review your task list every day – first thing.  Set anything that you cannot do that day to have a due date of tomorrow – or next week, or whenever you think you will be able to do it.   Then create a “view” in Outlook or a similar feature in the system that you are using – so that you can only see the tasks that are either due today or are overdue (e.g. they were due yesterday).

This one simple act will change your working life and significantly boost your personal productivity.. I promise.

Whenever something new comes up – e.g. a request from your boss – first, write it down.  After you have it in your list – make a simple decision.. does it need to be done today and can I do it today (is there enough time)?  If not schedule it for tomorrow or another day.

At the end of your day, reschedule any unfinished tasks until tomorrow or another day so that you go home with an empty to-do list and a clear mind.

You see the problem in this scenario is that you really are getting things done – but because you can see all the other things that are left “to-do”, it causes stress and diminishes the sense of accomplishment that you should be getting.  Taking control of your task list helps you get in control of your job.

These were a couple of over-simplified examples but I hope you can see my point.  If you are not in control of the events of your day, then you risk becoming unhappy at work.  This fact is also true in your personal life.  (a topic for another post perhaps).

Here’s my advice – find something in your working day that you can control right now – perhaps even if you just start with the time and place you take lunch.  Make it your decision… and revel in the moment that you begin to get your life back.   I have no doubt that higher levels of job satisfaction will follow.

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