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Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity Paperback – 24 Jan. 2002
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- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPiatkus
- Publication date24 Jan. 2002
- Dimensions13.7 x 2.1 x 21.4 cm
- ISBN-100749922648
- ISBN-13978-0749922641
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Review
With first-chapter allusions to martial arts, "flow", "mind like water", and other concepts borrowed from the East (and usually mangled), you'd almost think this self-helper from David Allen should have been called Zen and the Art of Schedule Maintenance (As whole-life-organising systems go, Allen's is pretty good, even fun and therapeutic. It starts with the exhortation to take every unaccounted-for scrap of paper in your workstation that you can't junk. The next step is to write down every unaccounted-fo)
That's where the processing and prioritising begin; in Allen's system, it get a little convoluted at times, rife as it is with fancy terms, subterms, and sub-subterms for even the simplest concepts. Thank goodness the spine of his system is captured on a straightforward, one-page flowchart that you can pin over your desk and repeatedly consult without having to refer back to the book. That alone is worth the purchase price. Also of value is Allen's ingenious Two-Minute Rule: if there's anything you absolutely must do that you can do right now in two minutes or less, then do it now, thus freeing up your time and mind tenfold over the long term. It's common sense advice so obvious that most of us completely overlook it, much to our detriment. Allen excels at dispensing such wisdom in this useful, if somewhat belaboured, self-improver aimed at everyone from CEOs to football mums (who, we all know, are more organised than most CEOs to start with). (Timothy Murphy , AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW)
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Product details
- Publisher : Piatkus (24 Jan. 2002)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0749922648
- ISBN-13 : 978-0749922641
- Dimensions : 13.7 x 2.1 x 21.4 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 359,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 300 in Philosophical Logic
- 661 in Business Time Management Skills
- 749 in Self Help Time Management
- Customer reviews:
About the author

David Allen is widely recognized as the world’s leading expert on personal and organizational productivity. His thirty-year pioneering research and coaching to corporate managers and CEOs of some of America’s most prestigious corporations and institutions has earned him Forbes’ recognition as one of the top five executive coaches in the U.S. and Business 2.0 magazine's inclusion in their 2006 list of the "50 Who Matter Now." Time Magazine called his flagship book, "Getting Things Done", “the definitive business self-help book of the decade.” Fast Company Magazine called David “one of the world’s most influential thinkers” in the arena of personal productivity, for his outstanding programs and writing on time and stress management, the power of aligned focus and vision, and his groundbreaking methodologies in management and executive peak performance.
David is the international best-selling author of "Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free Productivity"; "Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life"; and "Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life".
He is the engineer of GTD®, the popular Getting Things Done® methodology that has shown millions how to transform a fast-paced, overwhelming, overcommitted life into one that is balanced, integrated, relaxed, and has more successful outcomes. GTD’s broad appeal is based on the fact that it is applicable from the boardroom to the living room to the class room. It is hailed as “life changing” by students, busy parents, entrepreneurs and corporate executives. David is the Founder and Chairman of the David Allen Company, whose inspirational seminars, coaching, educational materials and practical products present individuals and organizations with a new model for “Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life.” He continues to write articles and essays that address today’s ever-changing issues about living and working in a fast-paced world while sustaining balance, control, and meaningful focus.
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Allen uses the metaphor of "psychic RAM", and suggests that we should not burden our working minds with issues that should be safely stored elsewhere. His approach is based on the assumption that if any task is "on your mind" then "your mind isn't clear", and therefore any task that is "unfinished" must be captured or collected in a "trusted system outside your mind" - in short, written down, whether on paper or in an electronic system. This, I suggest, is quite questionable as a universal assumption: there may be many people who can order their most important thoughts, prioritising in their heads, so that they can safely write down only those things that need to be written down and worked on actively. For those who have poor memories, or are always worrying that they will forget one key thing that will drop them in the soup, then this all-encompassing system may be worth the effort.
While I do question the universality of Allen's initial assumption, however, I don't doubt that this system would work if you devoted enough time to setting it up and getting into the habit of doing it. (His company provides software and other materials to help you, although pen, paper, traditional filing systems and simple software like Outlook or Lotus Notes are all you need.)
The second thing to do, having written down all of your tasks and wishes, is to decide which the active ones are. (The others should be consigned to a "someday/maybe list".) You should then to be clear about - and write down - the next action on each of those active projects. Actions should be specific, measurable way time bounded in SMART fashion (although he doesn't use that acronym). While that makes a great deal of sense, he doesn't balance that working forward in time, action by action approach with a plan back through time from the desired completion date to make sure that you will be able to complete it on time. I was taught that invaluable technique a long time ago as "time appreciation".
Even if you decided not to try to collect all of your thoughts, all of the other methods, techniques and "tricks" that he recommends in the rest of the book seem eminently sensible. Allen provides us with lots of techniques around envisioning, maintaining focus, natural planning, team alignment, using your diary/calendar, etc. There are, in my mind, some significant omissions, however. Allen says about one fifth of the way into the book, "Let us assume that you're not resisting any of your "stuff" (i.e. tasks/projects) out of insecurity or procrastination". He doesn't really come back to address this problem directly - productivity is often impaired by a general lack of will or determination or plain bravery to do the difficult, uncomfortable task. There is, for example, no equivalent to "eating the frog", which I personally found to be a most useful new approach to productivity a few years ago - possibly because Allen believes such tricks would be unnecessary if everything is completely ordered.
David Allen ranges from detailed practical advice on one page, e.g. prefer a simple A-Z general filing system, make sure filing cabinet drawers are no more than ¾ full, to theoretical or broad overview on another, such as the "six level model for reviewing you own work. I found that this maintained my interest quite well, although some might not like that style and wonder whether it might have been structured differently.
So, to conclude: this is a great book if you are interested in how best to use your time and how to be more productive. Whether his all-encompassing idea collection system will be right for everyone I doubt, but I don't doubt that anyone who did manage to apply it systematically would gain great benefits. That probably depends on the type of person you are - and I think that I might be someone who would find it useful and I might give it a go. There is, however, a great deal of good material here whether you adopt the "full system" or not. One last thought - it is probably not a good book to make a start with if you are already in over your head, as it is just too dense and the recommended system has too great an overhead to be usable unless you do have some coaching support to get you through it. Allen refers several times to spending whole weekends coaching clients, in their offices, as they collect all their "stuff"!
GTD has been criticised for being no more than common sense. In a lot of ways this is both untrue, and unfair. More accurately, it's two simple ideas put together, and supported by a collection of useful ideas borrowed (with appropriate acknowledgement) from elsewhere. The two ideas are the idea of 'stuff', and what you do with it (collect, process, organise, review, do), and the idea of using (and relying on) a reliable filing system. It's backed up with other good ideas like brainstoming, mind-mapping, the 50,000 feet perspective, and other notions that you may have encountered in their original contexts, or in programmes like TQM.
GTD is less revolutionary than the 4th generation time-management that Stephen Covey introduced in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People . However, it's more powerful for most of us in the sense that you can implement it easily on a computer or a PDA. David Allen makes the most of the power of easy storage of information. If you're a computer user (and if you're reading this on Amazon, then chances are that you are), then this is by the far the most practical system, whether you use a specialist piece of software like Omnifocus, or just make the most of the built-in functions of Outlook or iCal.
This is the strength, and the weakness of this book: get one of the many software packages, read the help-file, and you may not need to read the book at all.
Just one more thing about Getting Things Done. As the author points out, this is really a book for people on the fast-track to improve their personal organisation. It's not going to make a great gift for someone else who you _think_ should get organised.





