The Productivity Project

Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy

By: Chris Bailey

Narrated by: Chris Bailey

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 experts, from Charles Duhigg to David Allen. Among the experiments that he tackled: Bailey went several weeks with getting by on little to no sleep; he cut out caffeine and sugar; he lived in total isolation for 10 days; he used his smartphone for just an hour a day for three months; he gained ten pounds of muscle mass; he stretched his work week to 90 hours; a late riser, he got up at 5:30 every morning for three months—all the while monitoring the impact of his experiments on the quality and quantity of his work.

The Productivity Project—and the lessons Chris learned—are the result of that year-long journey. Among the counterintuitive insights Chris Bailey will teach you:
· slowing down to work more deliberately;
· shrinking or eliminating the unimportant;
· the rule of three;
· striving for imperfection;
· scheduling less time for important tasks;
· the 20 second rule to distract yourself from the inevitable distractions;
· and the concept of productive procrastination.
In an eye-opening and thoroughly engaging read, Bailey offers a treasure trove of insights and over 25 best practices that will help you accomplish more.

Critic reviews

"Chris Bailey has tackled the daunting task of personally experimenting with any and every technique you can imagine that could positively affect your productivity. His dedication to the project and his intelligent conclusions, combined with his candor and articulateness, make this a fun, interesting, and useful read!"
— David Allen, author of Getting Things Done

"Chris Bailey might be the most productive man you’d ever hope to meet."
— TED Blog

"Here's a book that promises, in the title, to pay for itself. And, the truth is, it will, in just a few days. And you'll even enjoy the journey."
— Seth Godin, Author of Linchpin

"Chris has written the ultimate guidebook for setting your life on fire. Read it, and you’ll not only get more done, you’ll feel better about it too."
— Laura Vanderkam, author of I Know How She Does It

"So often we get stuck just doing what we have always done, even if it's not really working. This book helps you cut through all the productivity advice out there to find and test what really works for you."
— Shawn Achor, positive psychology researcher and New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage

"The Productivity Project is well-written, fun, practical and useful all at the same time. I loved this book. It's practical Buddhism at its best!"
— Marshall Goldsmith, bestselling author of Triggers, MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

"Chris doesn't just want you to be more productive. He wants you to live a better life. This book is a two-hour ticket to not only becoming more productive, but becoming genuinely happier."
—Neil Pasricha, author of The Book of Awesome and The Happiness Equation

The most useful productivity book I read

I have read a lot of books about productivity. Many of them were quite inspirational (flow, GTD, etc.), but focused one one single area of your work/life, one idea.
Chris managed to cover productivity as a whole. While he re-use many ideas from other books (like GTD, etc.) he managed to process them through his own experience and combine together in a very simple and structured way (with own perspective on what's working/whats not).

This book is the best practical productivity guide you may find. While I still recommend to read GTD, Flow, Eat that Frog, etc. - if you want to make real use of all those ideas and start to be more productive in real life - this book is what you need.

Extremely useful!

This book gave me a strong foundation for improving my productivity. I am glad that I was able to come across it and apply many of its suggestions. I also plan on using it as the basis for my own book on the science of productivity.

Worth it!

Absolutely loved this book! Not only has it given me some great tips to take time back for ME, Chris's way of wording things made me think about things *other* than productivity and put them in a different perspective. I haven't even begun working through all his challenges to the reader/listener, but I can tell you already this book has changed my life! Listened to the full book in one day including several chapters two or three times. Also ordered my hard copy and got overnighted - it arrived today!!

The best thing I’ve ever read

This is the most useful, practical, and enjoyable book on productivity. I felt like I was on the same wavelength as the author from the beginning. Every single chapter was important and intriguing. The book is organized so the listener or reader is given concise information. Even the narrator was exceptional. If you didn’t tell me, I would have guessed the author was narrating this audio book.

Poor Naration

The author self narrates and it's grinding at times. He did not set up his equipment correctly and some chapters are word*gasp*word*gasp. Incredibly hard to listen to and digest the content. Second book I have ever returned. Both by authors who didn't hire a professional.