Last updated on 16th February 2024.
We’re obsessed with productivity.
So obsessed that we’ve considered literally hundreds of different productivity blogs in compiling this top 10 list, scrolling their pages and reading their content.
The 10 that made the cut are the ones we found the most useful, insightful and actionable. They’re definitely the blogs we think you should check out if you’re looking for tips and techniques to boost your productivity!
So, let’s not dilly dally here.
You want to be more productive.
These blogs will help you do just that.
Let’s jump straight into the list…
1. Mark Manson
Let’s start as we mean to go on:
Strong!
You probably know Mark Manson as author of the widely popular The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***. And this is his online home – Life Advice That Doesn’t Suck!
It’s clear from the strapline through to the content itself that this is supposed to be different to other blogs. And it genuinely is.
Many of his articles are based on real life experiences – including writing that book.
Productivity is one of the main categories of the blog, alongside decision making, life purpose, personal values, and even dating advice.
Manson writes in an engaging, highly readable way – not averse to the occasional curse word, which imbues his writing with a sense of personality and fun.
The trade-off is regularity. The blog isn’t updated all that often – but, really, is that a problem? Should we publish for the sake of it?
And as you can see, scrolling through past articles, the titles are so clickable, so magnetic, that you could spend hours reading.
These posts aren’t vanilla. They offer real expertise and insight and they’re based in solid, well-researched foundations.
2. Zen Habits
Written by the author Leo Babauta, Zen Habits is a blog designed to promote a certain type of lifestyle and mindset. ‘Mindfulness and simplicity’ amidst the chaos of daily life – which is easy to see as soon as you land on the home page -that will surely be incredibly powerful and helpful to some people.
After all, you could argue that ‘poor productivity’ is more of a symptom than a disease. A simplified mindset could lead, among other things, to huge productivity gains, but there are other benefits too – better decision-making, better habits and improved mental and physical health.
The blog is regularly updated and presented in a slick, minimalistic chronological view.
This isn’t a ‘collated’ blog site that brings together woolly best practices and spam.
Posts are personalised, deeply-considered and presented with first-person perspective and deep insight. The author simply shares value with every post.
Zen Life is a great blog with genuinely useful insights, and it’s well worth bookmarking to check weekly. (You might even want to subscribe to the mailing list to get articles straight into your inbox.)
3. Tool Finder
Tool Finder is the brainchild of productivity expert and host of the very successful YouTube channel Keep Productive, Francesco D’Alessio.
As someone who reviews productivity software for a living, D’Alessio knows what he’s talking about – and that is, of course, reflected in the articles on his site.
Articles are in-depth, well-written, and always supported by rich media that adds even more value. On top that, the navigation is just SO smooth and clean.
And, we know this list is supposed to be all about blogs, but we’d be remiss to not at least touch upon the nifty tool that this site takes its name from.
Tool Finder allows you to find the best productivity app for literally any use case, whether you want to take notes, create to-do lists, or supercharge your team’s communication.
All you need to do is select what you’re looking for from the dropdown:
And you’ll be taken to a comprehensive list of tools that match your requirements, all complete with detailed reviews so you know exactly what you’re getting in to.
There’s also a randomiser that takes you to a random tool on the list – for those hardcore productivity nerds among us!
4. Work Life by Atlassian
Work Life is a great collection of articles that covers productivity and more, published fortnightly by software company Atlassian.
The topics are well-thought out, the titles are clickable and engaging, and the artwork is just beautiful.
This online hub of articles has been designed with a broader purpose than ‘just’ productivity. To quote Atlassian:
“Work Life is Atlassian’s flagship publication dedicated to unleashing the potential of every team through real-life advice, inspiring stories, and thoughtful perspectives from leaders around the world.”
It’s a great-looking blog, with time invested into uniform hero images for each post, and a clean, attractive page design.
Productivity is one of 6 central content topics – the others being teamwork, leadership, strategy, communication and distributed work, meaning you can get straight to the productivity stuff if you want to.
Posts are engaging, well-written and include lots of good info.
For the super productive among us, each post has a 5-second summary at the top. This can help you decide whether to invest time into reading the full thing or simply take the lessons away without reading further – although you’ll often be missing out on some good stuff in the body of the post itself!
And there’s a good variety of content here. Articles, guest posts, interviews and more.
One slight potential drawback – as you can gather from the blog’s mission statement, there IS an unashamed angle towards unleashing the potential of ‘teams’ which means, if you’re a freelancer or solopreneur looking to boost your own productivity, then you might prefer some of the other blogs on this list.
5. Steve Pavlina
Okay, elephant in the room, this blog by personal growth and development expert Steve Pavlina is not as pretty as some others on the list.
BUT, who cares about pretty when you want to get into the nitty gritty of productivity?
To put that slightly differently, what this blog lacks in style it MORE than makes up for in substance.
As you can probably tell from the above image, this is a really personal blog – with work and productivity playing a key part because of who Steve Pavlina is.
It’s quite a nice experience to get advice from someone whose whole focus is growth and development – especially knowing you’re getting it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak – although some readers will find many of the concepts a little theoretical and framework based.
Content is published semi-regularly – 1-2 articles per month.
And it’s clear that Steve’s writing because he has something to say about productivity and growth, rather than to just hit a publishing quota. He writes thought-provoking opinion pieces that aren’t just aiming to bring traffic and visibility – but really challenging how people think.
6. Productivity501
Seeking to offer ‘pieces of the productivity puzzle,’ Productivity501 does pretty much what it says on the tin.
‘Productivity’ is one of the content topics, with others including technology, development, organisation, money and time, offering a broad spectrum of topic focuses.
Much, if not all of the content on Productivity501 is written by Mark Shead who has a background in software engineering. This gives his outlook on productivity a helpful scientific angle, and it’s rooted in real-world experience.
7. James Clear
James Clear is perhaps best known as the author of Atomic Habits, a book that’s well worth reading.
But he also gives away a bunch of free expertise on his blog, in a variety of different categories: creativity, decision making, focus, habits, life lessons, motivation, self-improvement, and – of course – productivity.
The productivity section of the blog is different to what you might find on other sites, in that it’s almost a ‘mega blog’ piecing together a number of different articles into a sort of online guide.
This isn’t the type of blog that you need to be checking out every day or every week – as it doesn’t seem like new content is constantly being added.
But what Clear does offer is a content hub that is great to bookmark and read – it links out to a host of fundamental info about productivity, including many of the author’s own favourite techniques, strategies and ideas – and also those of famous people including President Eisenhower, Warren Buffet and Anthony Trollope.
You’ll find yourself opening 3 or 4 new articles in new tabs, or bookmarking them for later, which can become overwhelming – but there’s just so much value to go at here that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks!
8. Institute of Productivity
Sometimes you find diamonds hidden in the rough – and the Institute of Productivity feels like one of them.
With a somewhat outdated design and a weird URL structure, you’d be forgiven for assuming the content mightn’t be up to much.
But look past aesthetics and what you actually find is a stream of very good – regularly-updated – content that’s unerringly topical and insightful.
Posts do tend to be on the short-side, which can be a good or bad thing depending on your reading preferences. But personally we respect the brevity and conciseness, and the fact that posts tend to offer opinion and/or actionable insight.
As a before-his-time productivity genius once said: Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?
(We so hope you get that reference!)
9. Lifehacker
Lifehacker is more than a productivity blog – its bold strapline promises to help readers ‘do everything better!’ and it features a wide array of categories – more than any other we’ve included in our top 10 – including stuff like food and drink, money, home and parenting.
This means that the actual focus of the site is quite diffuse.
But the ‘Work’ section of the blog definitely carries enough value to warrant inclusion here. It features contributions from some eminent thinkers and leaders, sharing their own productivity tips.
It’s also easy to just type ‘productivity’ into the search bar to find a long list of valuable articles:
This large network of contributors is a double-edged sword because it means content is regularly updated and comes with a wide array of perspectives – but, critically, it means that you can never be quite sure who you’re taking advice from and how much weight to place on their opinions.
10. Chris Bailey
Chris Bailey‘s blog is a real go-to resource for productivity tips.
From breaking down procrastination to mastering time management, Chris offers an eclectic mix of advice and insight that’s sure to help you get more done in less time.
What makes this blog great is the fact that it offers practical advice on how to become more productive without sacrificing your sanity – or your social life.
Chris’ blog is scattered with tips, tricks and tools to help you become a more productive person, while also stressing the importance of taking time for yourself.
Whether you’re a busy entrepreneur looking to get more done in less time, or just someone looking to find balance between productivity and leisure, Chris Bailey’s blog is a great resource to make the most of your time.
Final thoughts
Productivity has become something of an industry in recent years.
There are productivity blogs like these, but also productivity podcasts, productivity apps, hacks, methods – the list goes on. It seems like we’re all trying to squeeze a little more juice out of the lemons, oranges or [insert your favourite fruit here] life hands us.
And why not?!
Time is limited and valuable, so good for you for prioritising productivity!
And, if you’re REALLY serious about productivity – like dead serious – check out Project.co: our modular project management software. It’s free to get started. It’s customisable. And it’s so easy to get up and running. Just create a project and choose the tools you need to get any job done!
