Uptime

A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing

By: Laura Mae Martin

Narrated by: Eleanor Caudill

Google’s Executive Productivity Advisor offers insights on how to make the “new way of work” work for you, providing actionable steps to optimize your productivity, accomplish more, prevent burnout, and cultivate a harmonious work-life balance.

Every day, tens of thousands of Google employees, from executives to interns, rely on Laura Mae Martin’s tips and best practices for how to make the most of their time. Now, with Uptime, Laura brings her unique approach to productivity and well-being to anyone who wants to be more effective and experience “calm accomplishment,” whether at work, at school, or in their own personal lives.

Laura began her Google career in sales but quickly carved out a niche for herself as a productivity expert. For more than a decade, she’s been coaching Google executives and employees on how to achieve a state of “productivity Zen”—a holistic approach to conquering everything from the avalanche of emails in their inboxes to becoming the master of their own calendars and running excellent meetings. Her strategies have been widely adopted by many, including entry-level employees looking to amplify their individual impact, middle managers, and top executives working across global teams.

As many of us have moved to a hybrid environment blending work and home, managing our time efficiently and remaining productive is more important than ever. In Uptime, Laura shows how to thrive no matter where you’re working, giving concrete steps that help you focus on your priorities and keep good systems, routines, and tactics in place.

Uptime explains how to make technology work for you and make “feeling on top of it” your new normal. It’s a blueprint for operating at the highest levels of productivity while enhancing your own personal well-being.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2024 Laura Mae Martin (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

A fresh take on what it means to be productive

I really enjoyed that. this book reframes what it means to be productive. While it certainly embraces the traditional sense, it talks about so much more than just getting more things done. I particularly appreciate the focus on how you can tailor the technique it to make it work for you. So while there are certainly elements here that you can learn about other places, the way it's all put together makes it worth the time.

Needed this book!

Working through large scale projects personally and professionally and the concepts introduced were extremely useful for all people and professions! Loved it!!

Practical and Engaging Tips for Productivity Lovers

Uptime was a great read—super engaging and easy to follow. The narration kept my attention without ever feeling boring, and there were some solid tips on productivity, a topic I can’t get enough of. Overall, it was both enjoyable and useful.

Best in Category, Don't Miss.

Uptime is brilliant, practical and entertaining to read. Laura's model is one of success for professionals, companies and families. In fact I think I will read it again. I'm an avid buyer of nonfiction and many honestly are never quite finished. Too predictable. Uptime is the best in it's category and I will pre-order her next book and hoping there is a follow-up.
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Practical and relatable

Quick hacks & tips to productivity .. actionable and from today’s worlds
3 things that stuck:
- hamper metaphor of emails
- the meetings up to PAR
- the meetings types

Great for my ADHD Brain and Habits

The list funnel and flow into daily calendar helps me to remember all of the things. My brain feels like it has relaxed now that I’m not mentally juggling the ongoing list of tasks. Because of this book, I now have the tools to work downtime into my day and know what to do in those sudden moments of free time whether it is taking a break or knocking out a 5 minute task.

As part of exercises in this book and the supplement, I made it a point to create app based reminders for daily routines and MOST IMPORTANTLY, my bedtime and wake up routine using Google Home Automations to automatically play music or wake up podcasts when my morning brain isn’t functioning yet. As a person that has struggled my whole life with waking up early or on time, these new tools and habits are a game changer!

Thank you Laura, truly and whole heartedly!

Practical, implementable tips

I’ve been struggling with my emails for a while. Following the advice in other GTD books hasn’t helped. The Laundry concept is so easy to understand and might just work. I feel more confident about tackling my emails after reading this book. The “when-then” way of “automating” and habit building is also brilliant. I just hope I have enough discipline to implement Laura’s methods. Tech-less Tuesdays are going to be tough. >.<

Some good ideas at the beginning, the rest is slop

Starts off string, then devolves into rehashing all the same old things plus plugs for invasive digital products from Google

Nothing stood out here

I didn't find any of her "secrets" revolutionary. Simply common sense things that most of us figured out a long time ago. This is probably the last time I will take a recommendation for a productivity book.

uptime

the reader was so generic it sounded like an ai, so monotone it basically turned into background noise