Extreme Productivity Book Summary - Extreme Productivity Book explained in key points
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Extreme Productivity summary

Robert C. Pozen

Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours

4 (284 ratings)
14 mins

Brief summary

'Extreme Productivity' by Robert C. Pozen is a guide to increased productivity, emphasizing focus, efficiency, and time management. It offers practical tips for accomplishing more in less time and achieving greater work-life balance.

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    Extreme Productivity
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    Prioritize your tasks and invest your time accordingly.

    Planning ahead, whether it’s for next year, next month or even next week, can be a daunting task when you’re drowning in work. But looking down the line will pay off big time in the long run.

    To get yourself thinking more long-term, begin organizing your work. Split up tasks into aims, objectives and targets so that you can begin to prioritize. A good strategy is to divide tasks according to how long they take to accomplish.

    For instance, career aims take five years or more. These are things like expanding your business network or landing an executive-level promotion.

    Objectives take between three and 24 months. For example, if you work for a shoe company, an objective might be to re-brand a sneaker line.

    And finally, targets are anything that will take three months or less, such as writing progress reports or finishing part of a major project. Objectives and targets are both essential. After all, if you don’t focus on these baseline endeavors, you’ll never reach your larger career aims.

    But it’s also important to prioritize aims, objectives and targets that both you and your employer are on board with. You should first focus on the things that both you and your boss want to achieve; once that’s done, you can address the tasks that concern only you.

    For example, say you want to meet more people in your industry and also want to re-brand your firm’s sneaker line to boost profits. Since your employer also wants the second thing to happen, you would do best to focus on the re-branding first.

    Then, once you’ve parsed out your tasks, it’s time to set some top priorities, that is, the projects on which you’ll spend the majority of your time. To ensure you’re doing this effectively, you should track your work days, monitoring how you allocate your time.

    You might discover that you spend lots of time on activities that don’t have much to do with your objectives or targets. Maybe you’re going to too many internal meetings and failing to prioritize the important ones.

    How you allocate your time is crucial to your productivity, which leads us to another issue: procrastination.

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    What is Extreme Productivity about?

    Extreme Productivity (2012) is a guide to boosting your productivity through time management and expert control over the scope and requirements of your work. These blinks will teach you how to prioritize important tasks, end procrastination and generally become more efficient.

    Extreme Productivity Review

    Extreme Productivity (2012) by Robert C. Pozen offers a comprehensive guide on how to maximize time and achieve outstanding results. Here's why this book is worth reading:

    • Packed with practical strategies, it provides actionable advice for managing time, setting priorities, and staying focused.
    • Combining real-life examples and insightful anecdotes, it offers valuable insights on balancing work and personal life, enhancing productivity in all areas.
    • The book's engaging narrative and concrete tips make it far from boring, ensuring readers remain captivated by its wisdom and motivation.

    Who should read Extreme Productivity?

    • People who want to meet their full potential
    • Goal setters
    • Victims of burnout

    About the Author

    Robert C. Pozen, in addition to being a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, is the author of six books and a number of articles. Previously, he served as the chairman and vice chairman of various large financial companies and worked on the Bush administration’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security.

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    Extreme Productivity FAQs 

    What is the main message of Extreme Productivity?

    In Extreme Productivity, the main message is achieving more in less time by prioritizing and focusing on what truly matters.

    How long does it take to read Extreme Productivity?

    The estimated reading time for Extreme Productivity is several hours. The Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.

    Is Extreme Productivity a good book? Is it worth reading?

    Extreme Productivity is worth reading as it provides practical tips and strategies to boost productivity and accomplish more in less time.

    Who is the author of Extreme Productivity?

    The author of Extreme Productivity is Robert C. Pozen.

    What to read after Extreme Productivity?

    If you're wondering what to read next after Extreme Productivity, here are some recommendations we suggest:
    • The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
    • Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt
    • Your Best Year Ever by Michael Hyatt
    • Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy
    • Get It Done by Ayelet Fishbach
    • The Free-Time Formula by Jeff Sanders
    • How to Lead When You're Not in Charge by Clay Scroggins
    • The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
    • How to Be a Productivity Ninja by Graham Allcott
    • Liars by Cass R. Sunstein