The HBR Guide to Getting the Right Work Done brings together more than two dozen articles on personal productivity, including many excerpts from the pages of the Harvard Business Review. The Harvard Business School Publishing collection provides advice on prioritizing work, avoiding distractions and procrastination, managing mental and emotional energy, and developing good work habits. It teaches how to delegate effectively and secure a pay raise by aligning work with corporate objectives. Readers can choose from a number of simple tools, such as to-do lists and e-mail automation, to reduce stress.
In The Snowball Effect, Andy Bounds describes how important it is to create successful communications that lead to significant time savings, increased productivity, and strengthened relationships. In business, effective communications lead to individuals enjoying work more, writing winning proposals, getting job interviews, persuading others to say “yes” when it matters most, initiating meetings that generate actions, and saving significant time by eliminating or limiting lengthy meetings and decluttering email inboxes. For people to improve communications and make the changes permanent, they need to first build a foundation, like that of a snowball’s core, then add techniques one at a time, as if making a snowball.
