To Do: 41 Tools to Start, Stick With, and Finish Things

by Mikael Krogerus, Roman Tschäppeler

The techniques you need to stop procrastinating and start getting things done, from the authors of the international bestseller The Decision Book.

• Want to stop procrastinating? Ask yourself four easy questions to help you reframe your mindset.

• Overwhelmed by competing priorities? Use kanban to visualize your tasks, structure them, and complete them in stages.

• Unsure how to assess a project’s success? Start by considering the hallowed trio of fun, money, and impact.

Every day we begin new projects and try to find pleasure in our work, all while chipping away at our long-term goals. To Do is a powerful asset for productivity that’s perfect for creative thinkers. This book brings together forty-one of the best models that can help build confidence and help propel you toward the life you want to live.

In minutes, you can
The Pomodoro Technique – Compartmentalization – Rapid Prototyping – Inbox Management – The Delphi Method – Deep Work – Radical Transparency – Sandwich Feedback – The 5/25 Rule – Kotter’s 8-Step Model of Change – The Transactional Model

41 black-and-white pictures

Genres: Productivity

176 pages, Hardcover

Published August 20, 2024

About the author

Mikael Krogerus is a freelance writer for German and Swiss newspapers and magazines. He was a staff writer with NZZ FOLIO, the supplement magazine of Switzerlands leading newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, for five years. Prior to that he worked as a copywriter for various advertising agencies. He’s a graduate of the Kaospilot School. He’s a Finnish citizen and was brought up in Sweden and Germany.

Reviews

[Nilendu Misra]

Yet another useful, concise hit from Krogerus and co. How communicating for work from home is like listening to music with noise-cancelling headphones vs that in office is like talking in a lounge - bursty vs normal; how prototypes must be rapid, rough and right, to explaining Pomodoro technique in under 5 minutes, and difference between pigeon-holing and compartmentalizing - a short hour with this book is better than a semester long course on productivity. Gem!

[Jack Trump]

Unlike many self-help books I’ve read, this was short and to the point, with tons of helpful ideas that you can easily test or explore further.

I appreciated the authors’ style of collecting different (and often conflicting) ideas in one short volume, rather than having one method beat over my head for 10+ chapters in what instead could have been a magazine article. I’d recommend reading this book before picking up anything with ‘To-do’, ‘Checklist’, ‘Productivity’, or even ‘Work’ in the title.

[Andy]

Short, to the point, applicable. Summary of many strategies.

[Stephen]

READ NOV 2024

Another good resource from these authors. These are concise descriptions of useful tools with helpful resources to reference if someone wants to dig deeper.

[Riley T]

Unfortunately must give them the credit since they did in fact write a book

[funnyguygus]

Quick, easy read, kind of all other the place but I think that’s okay. A good thing to reference

[Jrene]

As I am interested in the topic I already knew quite a lot of the tools. But it’s a great little book, well written and entertaining. The visuals are super helpful to understand the models.