Libraries of books have been written on the subject of productivity. They all promise to help you get more done in less time, and they all promise to help you keep up in the fast-paced modern world. The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey could have been just another one of these books of mostly-empty promises. It could have been, but it’s not—it’s something altogether better.
Bailey sets himself apart from the productivity pack in many ways. Most importantly, this book feels personal. It distills the principles Bailey gleaned from a year-long productivity experiment in which he himself was the test subject. He did crazy stuff to himself: cutting out caffeine, spending a whole week just watching Ted Talks, putting in 90-hour work weeks, using his smartphone for only an hour a day for three months, binge-watching Netflix for a month, living in seclusion for 10 days, and more. Basically he went to extremes and then documented it on his blog, “A Year of Productivity.” What makes the resulting book great is that it isn’t a re-hash of old blog posts, instead Bailey uses the experiments as illustrations of timeless productivity experiments. Timeless, timely, personal, and practical are all words I could use to describe The Productivity Project. The “project” of the title is not an objective venture, but a person: first Bailey as the pioneering “project,” and now the reader as the beneficiary “project.”
Also, the book presents a fresh perspective on productivity, even as it harkens back to classics like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Like Covey, Bailey is a believer in values-focused productivity, and he reminds the reader than efficiency is not the goal, but rather focusing time, energy, and attention on accomplishing things that matter. This isn’t new, but the way Bailey makes his case is fresh and inspiring.
Finally, the comprehensiveness of this book is staggering. Bailey covers all the bases: procrastination, task-management, diet, sleep, exercise, meditation, simplification, technology, workflow, focus, dealing with distractions, and more. At first, I found some of the content repetitive, but then I realized what Bailey’s endgame. He isn’t being repetitive as much as self-referential, showing how all these concepts are interlinked, and creating a reference work of sorts on productivity. In the end, there exists a satisfying whole, a big picture that inspires me to get to work on myself, not just on my tasks.
Bailey is an idiosyncratic guy, and it comes through in the writing style. He is funny, warm, and self-depreciating. Each chapter beings with an “estimated reading time” (i.e. “Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes, 52 seconds”), which is something he also does on his blog posts. By the end of the book, especially with all Bailey’s Buddhist musings about being more deliberate and mindful, the “estimated reading times” begin to take on an ironic ring. Was this intentional, or is Bailey really just trying to respect our busy schedules? I find this uncertainty charming.
If you are a student of productivity best-practices, you will find this book invaluable. You will also find it disturbing, in a good way. Instead of hacking work tasks, you end up hacking yourself—which makes all the difference.
Please Note: This book was gifted as a part of the Blogging for Books Reviewers Program in exchange for my unbiased review of this work. This has in no way influenced my opinion or review of this work.