The Project Management Lab
The Project Management Lab is my place to write about things related to my life as a scientist and children’s author. This writing experiment will not be limited to managing projects on science and writing. But that’s where I will start because I’m overflowing with thoughts about the process of science and creativity. A few years ago, I helped develop a course to teach scientists about project management. The Project Management Lab (for now) is a place to jot down creative conversations that happened after class or over lunch with scientists that were curious to learn more—or offer a source they found useful.
Many of those conversations were centered around books. The books that take productivity or creativity a step further, by nudging me (and hopefully you) in a different direction. So, here I provide my top five books related to productivity and getting projects to the finish line. None of the books I’ve listed are on project management, per se, but as soon as I find a project management book I can’t put down, I’ll write about it. For now, here’s my list:
1. First Things First
by Stephen Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill. First Things First isn’t just a way of starting The Project Management Lab, but also one of my first and favorite books on time management. It’s about keeping the main thing the Main Thing, goals, synergy, and passion—a key for many scientists and writers.
2. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
by Stephen Covey. A classic time and life management book, really. About changing your perception, about paradigms and principles, about public and private victories. I can relate these concepts to science—a field filled with breakthroughs that happened because of new ways of thinking. The seven habits are critical to the way I taught project management.
3. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
by Greg McKeown. This book is about editing your life so you can do more of the things you really want to do. Essentialism helps you pare life down to the essentials. The follow up book, Effortless, gives advice for making essential tasks easy.
4. The 4-Hour Work Week
by Tim Ferris. Although I did not end up working 4 hours per week after reading this, I did gain some inside into how to work more efficiently. The 4-Hour Work Week can help you re-invent your work life with a step-by-step process: definition, elimination, automation, and liberation (DEAL). In terms of project management, task elimination or automation were key for me.
5. Process! How Discipline and Consistency Will Set You and Your Business Free
by Mike Paton and Lisa González. I really debated about this one. It is not geared toward scientists and creatives, but I felt there was a need for a book on…well…process. Contrary to popular belief, following a strict process for your day-to-day actions will not limit creativity. It will free up more time for imagination and innovation.
And there you have it—five books that have been essential to my thinking as a project manager, scientist, and creative person. Numerous books have struck a chord, so I limited this to books that I found useful enough to read more than once. Besides, “My Top 100 Books on Productivity” would not be as useful to you.