I love reading books about productivity and planning! This is the first of a couple of books that authors have reached to me about and I’m excited to share what I learned from The Productive Life: The 7 Keys to Living a Productive Life, gifted to me by Mark Tittley. There are so many big names in these areas and I am thrilled to say that Mark mentions all the ones that I knew about. I got so many recommendations from this book itself that my TBR pile is only growing. Let’s take a look at the synopsis before we dive into the details.
What if you could find a system that was actually designed to help you become productive? A system that would transform the way you make decisions, enable you to follow through on the promises you make and help you become successful not in one area of your life but in every area that matters to you: from your personal life to your work life; from your family relationships to your friendship; from your private world to your social world.
Welcome to The Productive Life: 7 Keys to Living a Productive Life, where you will learn, not just a few tricks or hacks to handle a few parts of your life, but a way of thinking and acting that will open a doorway to a whole new way of living in the moment and enable you to create the future that you have barely dared to dream about.
The Productive Life is all about being excellent and doing great things through your whole life and not just in your work life. Just image what your life would be like if you invested significant time and energy in the pursuit of productive rest, play, hobbies, spirituality, work life, family life, friendships, etc.
I have devoted my life to being productive in every area of my life and not just in my work life. I have distilled everything I have learnt and practiced into a book exploring the 7 Keys that have helped me to live a truly productive life.
The Productive Life book includes action steps along the way, plus a free printable workbook and a page resources that can be downloaded using a link found in the book.
The Short Take
Want to learn more about habits and lead a more productive life but do not have the time to read/ choose from the thousands of famous books out there? Don’t worry, Mark Tittley’s The Productive Life has you covered!
With takeaways from over 20 books and actionable ideas that you can start implementing right away, this is a quick read with a lot to offer. As an avid reader of productivity books and planner myself, this book confirmed a lot of my habits, while challenging me to incorporate new ones.
I have learned through my experiences that ultimately, we all develop our own ways of tracking and planning and the books and ideas out there act as inspiration, giving a catalyst to try something new, see if it works and then change it up. After years of experimentation, we stumble upon the core things that we want to keep in our lives, that we want to track, that we do not see as burdens. Mark shares his journey and motivation for finding these core values. He has broken them down into 7 keys, each with its set of prompts, recommended reading/listening and more. If you choose this book, you will surely find something valuable in it.
Themes for Thought
Habits, routines, productivity, planning… all the words that sent some people running and others clued to their study table. You know which one I am, right? Nowadays though, I am using my phone more and more for keeping track. In The Productive Life, Mark gives us a glimpse into the why-how-what of the systems that he has. Centering them around the 7 keys (see infographic above) and with ‘Be Productive now’ sections, this short book is to get the readers to try their hands at the strategies they are learning. Below are my main takeaways.
On Productivity and why to pursue it
I had never really thought about the meaning of productivity, until I read The Productive Life. I also wondered why I try so hard to pursue it. I generally have a lot on the go – bookblogging itself has a number of different components, from reading, writing, to book staging and connecting with authors and readers.
Productivity to me is being able to balance all parts of my life. Sometimes, some get more attention than others, but overall there is always a balance. I wrote about balance being my 2019 word and that exercise, the changes I made to my planning and scheduling this month have indeed worked wonders. I keep a bullet journal but with changing times and demands, I have not been very good about keeping it up to date. Currently, I use an app called Jira for tracking all my tasks.
Productivity is about tracking the right things in the right places. Mark mentions apps and planners that he uses and I appreciated this hybrid approach to getting things done.
I have been telling myself not to feel guilty about not using my bullet journal as much lately and his words and tips in The Productive Life helped me come to terms with the hybrid approach. I will find a place for my bullet journal again, but if I can be productive without its intensive and sole use, then that’s ok too.
On Goals setting and Roles
I have mentioned Sublime Reflections‘s Design your Destiny Program a couple times on my blog. It’s a five week email course which offers a step by step guide to look back at the year and set new goals for the next. I enjoyed doing it the past two years, meshing it together with other end-of-the-year activities that I have found.
Week 2 of the program is called the ‘Brainstorming’ week when the participants think about the Life Inventory, rating oneself on 10 areas of life and then setting goals that would improve it. Next, these are linked to six roles that one plays in life and that ultimately leads to finding a word of the year to live by.
I was surprised and happy to see how Mark integrated the importance of roles that we play in life to everyday goal setting and planning. This was my first time looking at how roles can drive what we want to do throughout the year, rather than just at the end/beginning of another one.
On Using the Mind right
This is such a fantastic reminder to use our minds for what they are best at! According to LiveScience, our brains hold the information in the short term memory for only about 30 seconds. Which means that the time we spend telling ourselves that we need to remember to do laundry tonight is going to be insufficient to remind us later. Sounds like a tongue twister, doesn’t it?
One of the strategies that I have started using is that I text myself the things I need to do, especially when I am on the way home and thinking about the blog, or things I need to wrap up. Other times, I’ll add it to my Jira master list.
The author, Mark Tittley, gifted me this book for an honest review. It was indeed quite good and I learned a lot from it, finding confirmation for many of the habits that I already have. I’ll be posting about the non-fiction books about habits and productivity at the end of the year and, you are correct, The Productive Life: The 7 Keys to Living a Productive Life will be featured on that list.
** The Productive Life: The 7 Keys to Living a Productive Life is now out in stores so get a copy and let me know what you think! Let’s have a book-discussion! **
Amazon Print
Amazon Kindle
(available on Kindle Unlimited)
Stay tuned for my Q&A with Mark Tittley – out tomorrow!
Photo of planner and coffee mug by Estée Janssens on Unsplash
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