Extreme Productivity


Read about our pricing and services

List Price: $27.99

PriceQuantity
$22.391-24
$19.5925-99
$18.19100-499
$17.63500+

Bulk discounts are non-returnable.

Customize It

FREE US Ground Shipping


Hardcover
278 pages
ISBN 9780062188533 Published Oct. 2012
HarperBusiness
See all formats


Extreme Productivity
Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours
By Robert C Pozen 

Related Blog Posts
2012 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards Shortlist: Personal Development
Posted Dec. 13, 2012 6:23 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
In - 800 CEO Read Blog


Over the course of this week, we have posted the shortlist selections in the General Business, Leadership, Management, Innovation & Creativity, Small Business & Entrepreneurship, Marketing & Sales, Personal Development, and Finance & Economics categories. Just one last category left: Personal Development.

Stay tuned, because on Monday, December 17th, we'll announce the category winners, and, on Wednesday, December 19th, we'll celebrate the overall winner of the 2012 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards!

The selections for the Personal Development category are:

What can you do to be a better you? Maybe it's refining your strengths, or developing new skills, changing a bad habit, embracing a particular (and maybe peculiar) personality trait. Whatever your goal for yourself is, personal development books can help. And the five books on our Personal Development shortlist can help change your life. Kelly McGonigal's The Willpower Instinct reveals the science behind your impulses, your fears, and your tendency to procrastinate, and how you can use science to develop your willpower like a good workout helps develop your muscles. The benefit of that practice is an increased ability to reach the kind of Extreme Productivity that Robert Pozen details in his new book. Pozen's results-oriented premise is that most of us waste a considerable amount of time being unproductive, and we can actually work less by doing more. But personal development isn't all about "doing." Sometimes it's about "being," and Brene Brown's Daring Greatly challenges us to re-cast vulnerability as a welcome thing, to embrace the risk and the fear that comes along with it, and work through all those issues of shame, perfection, anxiety and cynicism that come up when we are courageous enough to face uncertainty. Perhaps vulnerability can prevent the kind of deceptive and defensive behavior Dan Ariely presents in his newest book, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty. Ariely's books always help us better understand human nature, and by doing so, we can bring the better angels of our nature to work and to our businesses. And it's not surprising then that when we do bring our better selves to work, we begin to love the work we do. Cal Newport's So Good They Can't Ignore You posits that the usual advice of finding work you love by following your passion is off target, and that we're better off by following a craftsman mindset, focusing on the value we're producing, the skills we've developed, pursuing what we're good at.



The Best Books of 2012, A Season of Lists
Posted Nov. 26, 2012 5:24 a.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

The season of lists is upon us. The first ornament up on the tree was Steve Coll's Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, published by The Penguin Press, which took home the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year earlier this month. And there was another large nonfiction title related to economics—Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson and published by Crown Business—on a list of The 10 best books of 2012 from the Washington Post.

CNNMoney put up a list of The 5 must-read business books of the year two weeks ago that included:

Late last month (unnoticed by us until searching for the list we know they put out every year this morning), Hudson Booksellers announced their Best Books of 2012. Being an airport bookstore, they always stock and sell a lot of business titles, and always include a Business Interest section of their yearly list. This year's included:

And, finishing up this morning's round up, we have a list from Fast Company put out today, which includes the following 12 titles:

We'll have two of the larger, more comprehensive lists—and two of our yearly favorites—up on the blog for you this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

We've also picked our own extensive shortlist here at 800-CEO-READ, and will begin announcing that on December 10th, so be sure to keep an eye out for that, as well.



Extreme Productivity
Posted Oct. 19, 2012 7:32 a.m. by michael
In - 800 CEO Read Blog

There are few things worse than the feeling that you're getting very little done with the seemingly ample time you have. There are a handful of potential contributors to this feeling (including derangement), but most often we feel unproductive because we are in fact unproductive. In this case, what would help is a guide to increasing productivity, which is exactly what Robert Pozen has created with Extreme Productivity. Not only is the title catchy, the subtitle dangles an even more tantalizing promise: reduce your hours. This implies that your productivity is not contingent only upon the time you devote to your pursuits; productivity is contingent a range of factors. This is what Pozen focuses on in Extreme Productivity. He introduces the book with this:

Success depends in large part on a proper mind-set: focusing on the results you plan to achieve, rather than the number of hours you work. The results are what matter most to your employer, clients, and colleagues.

Pozen puts what he calls 'three big ideas' out at the front of the book: set and prioritize you goals, focus on the final product, and don't sweat the small stuff. These are the broad points, and if you only read some of this book, this is the part you'd want to read. A guy like Bob Pozen wouldn't put the best stuff anywhere but the front. He highlights the importance of keeping one's priorities at the forefront of all activities. Pozen notes that it's common for executives to be extremely busy, yet they often fail to reflect upon whether or not their activities are in fact working toward their goals or advocating for their priorities. The phrase "start at the end" captures the essence of Pozen's message in this first section, and he uses these very words in explaining the benefits of working with concrete goals in mind. You have to ask yourself: "what do I need to achieve? where is this project going?", and in doing so, you're much more likely to avoid time-wasting pitfalls and unessential activities.

Extreme Productivity covers what I'd call 'essentials', and even though my favorite bits are the 'big ideas', since they have broad and lasting application, Pozen doesn't leave us without detailed suggestions for improving specific tasks. Part 3 is all about personal skills. Reading is an invaluable activity, and I recommend it to everyone I meet. But it can take a lot of time to soak up all that valuable information that's printed daily. Pozen has a solution for this, though, and it involves reading selectively and with purpose. You may have noticed, but this essentially injects the 'focus on the final product' idea into the reading process. Here's a secret: I didn't read this entire book. I read it the way Robert Pozen would have read it. Fortunately, he probably expected (or hoped) I would do that, and he made it easy to read that way.

Whatever your reason for wanting to increase your efficiency, the fact remains that you're already busy. You likely can't afford to spend your limited time slogging through a book that doesn't offer immediate application or value. In that case, Extreme Productivity will be of use to you. If you can read and think moderately well, you will gain insight from this book in literally minutes. Now considering the time you spent reading this review, you can't really afford not to read this book. For the very time-conscious (i.e. if you don't read the book), watch the video below.

 




More on this book

Lists & Bestsellers