The List to Beat All Lists: Top 20 Productivity Lists to Rock Your Tasks

The productivity list is a common animal these days (goodness knows I’ve done my share), but how do you sort among them all?

You’d need a list of the best lists, that’s how.

Never fear — I’ve done all the homework for you, and compiled the best of the best productivity lists, in my humble opinion. Some of them are a bit old, but that’s because they’re good stuff, and many of you might have missed them anyway.

Don’t read these all at once. It would ruin your productivity. But I’m hoping this will be a resource you come back to every now and then when you feel you need it. Bookmark it for later!

1. Lifehacker: Top 10 Email Productivity Boosters. A must-read from the best productivity blog in the biz about the tech tool we all use, all day long — email.
2. Lifehack.org: Top 10 Firefox Extensions to Improve Your Productivity. If you use Firefox exclusively, as I do, you’ll want to take a look at these extensions.
3. 43 Folders: Merlin’s top 5 super-obvious, “no-duh” ways to immediately improve your life. These might be super-obvious, but they work.
4. Dumb Little Man: Productivity Ninja: 101 Ways to Rock the Keyboard. Get super quick with the keyboard and fly through your tasks.
5. LifeDev.net: 10 Ways History’s Finest Kept Their Focus at Work. How some of the smartest people solved a problem we all face daily.
6. FreelanceSwitch: 46 Must-Read Productivity Tips for Freelancers. Freelancers are notorious procrastinators (I was one for many years, so I know), but they also need to get the job done or they don’t get paid.
7. Life Clever: 5 simple steps to greater productivity. This is another list of super-obvious tips that really do work.
8. Wise Bread: 5 Efficient Ways To Boost Productivity. More simple tips, but a little different than your usual list.
9. Scott H. Young: Twenty Unique Ways to Use the 80/20 Rule Today. Like me, Scott is a fan of doing the most with as little as possible, and here he shows you how to do that.
10. Cranking Widgets: 6 Ways to Limit Interruptions at Work (That You Can Use Right Now). The title speaks for itself.
11. Pick the Brain: 7 Ways to Grow the Action Habit. If you have the Action Habit, you’ll be productive. So this might be the place to start your productivity rampage.
12. Zen Habits: Top 10 Productivity Hacks. OK, it’s cheating to include myself on my own list. So sue me! :) This is an oldie but a goodie.
13. Life Optimizer: Top 10 Ways NOT to Become a Productivity Ninja. These are the obstacles to productivity — an interesting angle for looking at the topic.
14. HD BizBlog: 3 Essential Tools for Productivity. All you need to rock your tasks.
15. Matthew Cornell: 10 GTD “holes” (and how to plug them). One of the earlier and better GTD bloggers, Cornell is now a GTD consultant and has worked with the system in the trenches.
16. Ian’s Messy Desk: 10 Resources to Help Overcome Procrastination. Don’t put off reading this. Har!
17. Instigator Blog: Over 100 Great Productivity Tips. OK, 100 tips is overkill, but to be fair these were tips collected from many different blogs.
18. Stephen Aitchison: 8 Ways to get out of the rut. It’s hard to be productive when you’re in a rut. Here’s how to get out of it.
19. Organize IT: The Top 10 GTD & Productivity Sites/Blogs. Where to go when you need your productivity fix.
20. Dumb Little Man: The 20 Biggest Online Time Wasters, and 6 Strategies for Beating Them. You know you use some of these. Here’s how to cut back.

Check out this post: 15 Widespread Creativity Myths.