Productivity
Courses on personal systems: planning, note-taking, focus and the tooling around knowledge work.
Verified courses first, then the rest of the category
A fifteen-minute orientation to the AI features available in Asana, for people who already use the tool. Free with a free account.
Not independently verified
The shortest entry point into Asana Academy, a fifteen-minute orientation covering projects, tasks and the basic vocabulary the rest of the catalog assumes. Free with a free Academy account.
Not independently verified
W3Schools’ Git tutorial, covering version control in short written lessons with worked command sequences. Free to read without an account, with an optional paid certificate.
Not independently verified
The follow-on to Google’s IT support certificate, teaching Python for automating operational work rather than for software engineering.
Not independently verified
Google’s project management certificate, covering both traditional and agile approaches and aimed at people entering the discipline.
Not independently verified
GitLab on managing a remote team, published by a company that has operated entirely remotely from the start. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Communicating and collaborating through tools rather than in a room, treated as a skill that has to be learned deliberately. Free from The Open University, startable without signing up, with a free statement of participation on completion.
Not independently verified
The digital skills side of hybrid working, covering the transformation an organisation needs rather than the tools themselves. Free from The Open University, startable without signing up, with a free statement of participation on completion.
Not independently verified
IBM’s project management certificate, an alternative to the Google programme from a company with a long delivery history. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
An hour of administrator training for organisations deploying Canva across a team, covering account configuration, permissions and rollout rather than any design work itself. Product training from Canva Design School.
Not independently verified
Two and a half hours on applying AI in a working context rather than on building models, aimed at people who want to use the tools competently. Requires a paid plan, with no price stated on the catalog listing.
Not independently verified
A learning path for the administrator responsible for an Asana deployment, covering configuration rather than day to day use. Free with a free account.
Not independently verified
Taught by Barbara Oakley and Terrence Sejnowski across four modules on how learning works, chunking, procrastination and memory. One of the most taken online courses ever published, and the one most other study-skills material draws on.
Not independently verified
Three hours of administrator training for HubSpot accounts, covering the configuration work that sits behind everyone else’s day to day use. Free on HubSpot Academy.
Not independently verified
A twenty-minute course on applying Asana’s AI features at team rather than individual level, covering the shift from personal shortcuts to shared practice. Free with a free Academy account.
Not independently verified
Microsoft’s own fundamentals programme for the tools most office work still runs on. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
The follow-on to Learning How to Learn, from McMaster University, aimed at career change and reinvention rather than at study technique alone.
Not independently verified
The OKR certification from the organisation that popularised the method, which makes it a primary source for it. Delivered through Coursera; the browse listing publishes no price.
Not independently verified
Formal critical thinking and logic, which underpins the evaluation skills that every other subject in this catalog quietly assumes. Free from Saylor, readable as a guest without an account, with a free certificate on completion.
Not independently verified
A sixteen minute course on presentation design drawn from expert contributors, covering how slides are structured and styled to hold an audience rather than how the software works. From Canva Design School.
Not independently verified
A badge path on resource management, covering how work is allocated across people rather than how a single project is run. Free with a free account.
Not independently verified
An Asana Academy learning path for people running a team in the tool, covering the setup and habits that shape how everyone else uses it. Product training, free with a free account.
Not independently verified
The counterpart path for people working inside a team someone else configured, rather than for whoever set it up. Free from Asana Academy with a free account.
Not independently verified
An hour on using AI features to speed up creative work, taught through Canva’s own tooling rather than as a general introduction to the technology. From Canva Design School, and product-focused by design.
Not independently verified
About this subject
Courses on getting work done: personal systems and time management, communication and writing at work, project management, collaboration and the tools that hold it together. This is the subject where the gap between knowing and doing is widest, because almost nothing here is intellectually difficult and almost all of it is difficult to sustain.
Guidance
Verification tells you that a course delivers the material it advertises. It cannot tell you whether a system will fit how you work. These are the things worth checking yourself.
A course on a task manager teaches an application. A course on planning, prioritising and finishing teaches a habit that outlives whichever application you use next. Tool courses are quicker to finish and easier to abandon, because a new tool without a method usually becomes a tidier version of the same backlog.
This field mixes genuine research on attention, habit and teams with a great deal of confident personal method. Both can help. What separates them is whether the material says where its claims come from and under what conditions they hold. Be wary of anything presenting a single routine as universally correct.
Personal productivity material assumes you control your own time. Project management, delegation and communication courses assume you are coordinating with others and often that you have some authority. Choosing the wrong one is the usual reason a course feels correct and changes nothing.
Some project management training leads towards a recognised certification, and some simply teaches the practice. These cost very different amounts and take very different time. Where a course is preparation for an exam that is bought separately, the listing says so rather than describing it as the certification itself.
Unlike most subjects in this directory, a good productivity course can be an hour long, because the content is a handful of ideas and the work is applying them. Length is a poor proxy for value in this category. What matters more is whether the course asks you to change something while you are taking it.
Standards
The published standard applies unchanged. These are the checks that tend to matter most in this subject.
A verification says nothing about whether a method will work for you. Personal systems depend on temperament, workload and how much control you have over your own time, none of which we assess.
Questions
Usually not. Many prepare you for an exam that is bought and sat separately. Where that is the case the listing says so rather than describing the course as the credential.
In this subject, often yes. The material is rarely complex and the work is in applying it. We record duration where a provider publishes it so you can judge before starting.
We do not answer that, and we publish no rankings. Different systems suit different amounts of control over your own schedule, which is why the guide above suggests deciding that first.
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