David Allen
Author of Getting Things Done
Author: David Allen Chapter 1: A New Practice for a New Reality Old style: ❝ IT’S POSSIBLE FOR a person to have an overwhelming nu…
(1) capturing all the things that might need to get done or have usefulness for you—now, later, someday, big, little, or in betwee…
(2) directing yourself to make front-end decisions about all of the “inputs” you let into your life so that you will always have a…
(3) curating and coordinating all of that content, utilizing the recognition of the multiple levels of commitments with yourself a…
A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members. —DAVID COBLITZ – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
A core aspect of successful GTD implementation is having a total-life action list as the foundation of hour-by-hour decision-makin…
A core principle in our personal-productivity methodology confronts this issue head-on: Write it all down, think about it all, dec…
A discussion of priorities would have to incorporate all of these levels of current agreements between you and others. If you get …
A great way to think about what your principles are is to complete this sentence: “I would give others totally free rein to do thi…
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. —CHARLES DARWIN – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anyth…
A map is not functional until you know where you are on it. Locating yourself in space and time provides a reference for motion: h…
A second real benefit accrues from organizing action reminders by appropriate context: in itself that forces you to make the all-i…
A signpost of GTD mastery at this stage—and, indeed, life mastery!—is when one recognizes anything that has his or her attention (…
A vision of a desired future allows you to focus immediately on an improved condition. It changes what you perceive and how you pe…
A vision without a task is but a dream; a task without a vision is but drudgery; a vision and a task is the hope of the world. —Fr…
AH, THE DELICIOUS EXPERIENCE of not thinking. Athletes in their “zone,” ecstatic worshipers “in the spirit,” moviegoers and novel …
AT ANY MOMENT, giving full attention to the one thing at hand is a hallmark of high performance. This is relatively easy when you’…
After checking your calendar, you’ll most often turn to your Next Action lists. These hold the inventory of predefined actions tha…
After twenty-plus years, I’ve been able to find only one common denominator among the people and the organizations that have most …
Again, I don’t see that happening in the opposite direction. Knowing that you can set goals and have visions does not translate in…
Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things …
All of your Projects, active project plans, and Next Actions, Agendas, Waiting For, and even Someday/Maybe lists should be reviewe…
An example of a poorly designed system is a reference filing system that stuffs multiple files into labeled hanging file holders. …
An hour of effective, precise, hard, disciplined, and integrated thinking can be worth a month of hard work. Thinking is the very …
An idealist believes the short run doesn’t count. A cynic believes the long run doesn’t matter. A realist believes that what is do…
An interesting dance takes place in the interplay between using your system to unjumble your thinking and then using your thinking…
An interesting phenomenon I have noticed more than once is that for some highly energetic people, incorporating the Getting Things…
An old Asian proverb says, “The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.” The military model is not a bad one—in the ar…
And add to this the more subtle interaction—you uncover order as you expand. You unlock the infinite as you limit with discipline.…
And when I’m in the doldrums, it’s great to pull out my set of personal affirmations and read through them, to lift my focus and e…
Another example of a systemic bottleneck is using the computer’s mouse for things that speed keys can handle four times as fast. W…
Another way to think of this is as a list of open loops, no matter what the size. – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things Done…
Answering the question about what, specifically, you would do about something physically if you had nothing else to do will test t…
Anyone who waits to be struck with a good idea has a long wait coming. If I have a deadline for a column or a television script, I…
Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does. Responding inappropriately to your e-mail, yo…
Are you willing to accept that there may be a bigger reality asserting itself through you and that you need to swallow hard and tr…
As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select …
As you begin to use it habitually as your primary means of addressing all situations—from processing e-mails to buying a house or …
Aside from your calendar, if you don’t have at least fifty next actions and waiting-fors, including all the agendas for people and…
At 3:22 on Wednesday, how do you choose what to do? At that moment there are four criteria you can apply, in this order: context, …
At any given time most people have between thirty and a hundred projects to keep track of (given my definition of multiple-step ou…
At any point in time, the first thing to consider is, what could you possibly do, where you are, with the tools you have? Do you h…
At the very least, right now or as soon as possible, take those few of your projects that you have the most attention on or intere…
At times, tightening up our systems is what’s needed to release new levels of output and expression. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for …
Be open to creating any kind of checklist as the urge strikes you. The possibilities are endless—from “Core Life Values” to “Thing…
Be patient. Patience is also preparation. It is the action before the act. —NOAH BEN SHEA – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
Be steady and well ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work. —GUSTAVE FLAUBERT – David Allen in ⚟ …
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the …
Blockage in the flow of anything undermines the ability to be present, fresh, and creative in that arena. – David Allen in ⚟ Getti…
Both e-mail and meetings are critical to organizational life, but too often they fall into the category of necessary evils, primar…
Brainstorming Some of the projects that have your attention right now will require you to do your own free-form thinking; this is …
Bring to mind a time when new opportunities showed up for you. What had you been doing in the months previous that prepared you fo…
But how do you get there? And once there, how do you keep yourself there? It has a lot to do with trusting a bigger game and with …
But if you really pay attention to your mind’s concerns and how to handle them (decide outcomes and take next-action steps, with r…
But it’s the holding of a steady focus in one area at a time that actually allows the process to work to its fullest. – David Alle…
But when I’m in Visionary mode and I start thinking about how I ought to finish up all the stuff I’ve created and how much work I’…
By asking myself, “What’s the next action on this?” I have generated more creative thinking, tough decision-making, critical conve…
By this point you’ve probably noticed that Getting Things Done is not some new technology or invention—it simply makes explicit th…
Clarity is never found within something unclear. You must loosen your conceptual grip, let go, and lift your sights. – David Allen…
Commitment to the ultimate quality of anything gives access to unique creativity and intelligence. From the smallest activity to t…
Company principles and values are most often maintained as a list, which is featured on wall plaques, posters, Web pages, or anywh…
Complete the projects you begin, fulfill the commitments you have made, live up to your promises—then both your subconscious and c…
Concentration is the key to power, in physics and in life, and cooperation is the lubricant for the efficient flow of that energy.…
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. —AMBROSE REDMOON – Da…
Defining Your Work Defining your work entails clearing up your in-tray, your digital messages, and your meeting notes, and breakin…
Defining specific projects and next actions that address real quality-of-life issues is productivity at its best. – David Allen in…
Defining what real doing looks like on the most basic level and organizing placeholder reminders that we can trust are master keys…
Delegated Projects If you’re a senior manager or executive, you probably have several projects that you are directly responsible f…
Demonstrating integrity in managing internal and external agreements optimizes all of your relationships. – David Allen in ⚟ Getti…
Developing comfort with an external mind frees up and leverages one’s cognitive abilities, paving the way for many more creative a…
Do you feel in balance with your inner and outer worlds? If not, what would bring them more into balance? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready…
Does anything need improving in terms of your personal or business expense reporting, banking or investing processes, or how you k…
Doing proactive knowledge work (thinking, deciding, and sorting) and setting up a well-organized personal-management system to han…
Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps. —David L. George – David Allen…
Drive thy business, or it will drive thee. —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything Relates to working on vs in th…
Emptying the contents does not mean that you have to finish what’s there; it just means that you have to decide more specifically …
Energy Available How much energy do you have? Some actions you have to do require a reservoir of fresh, creative mental energy. Ot…
Ensure the best intuitive choices by consistent, regular focus on priorities (“What is the value to me of doing X instead of doing…
Every decision to act is an intuitive one. The challenge is to migrate from hoping it’s the right choice to trusting it’s the righ…
Every month or two, you probably need to think through the checklist of all the areas of responsibility of your life and work, to …
Every person I have worked with in the past thirty years has uncovered at least two or three important gaps at this level of discu…
Everything in life worth achieving requires practice. In fact, life itself is nothing more than one long practice session, an endl…
Everything on your lists and in your stacks is either attractive or repulsive to you—there’s no neutral ground when it comes to yo…
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. —ALBERT EINSTEIN – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
Everything that might require action must be reviewed on a frequent enough basis to keep your mind from taking back the job of rem…
Expansion and contraction. Creation and completion. Right brain, left brain. Yin and yang. The more we bring these polarities into…
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as…
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin. . . . But there was always some obstacle in the way, something t…
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin—real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Somethi…
For all of us, there are situations and circumstances that emerge that bother, interest, or distract us, but with which it is not …
For fast-acting relief, try slowing down. —LILY TOMLIN – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
For knowledge workers, at least three sets of dynamics come into play about deciding what we do, and somewhat in this order: Conte…
Games are fun only when you know very specifically what the goal is. The vision of “playing soccer” is realized only with a playin…
Get your beingness perfected so that the routine of your life does not distract you or disturb you and so you can maintain a state…
Given that definition, you probably have between thirty and a hundred projects right now. The problem is not that you have them al…
Have you made a big enough mistake lately? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
He suggested that as long as the reception staff experienced new business as creating more stress (due to clogged systems), they w…
How are your job and personal affairs going to be changing in the next year? These are the objectives one is committed to fulfill …
How easily can you drop any thoughts you have right now and focus on wild success? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
How fast can you get back to “ready”? How easily and rapidly can you relax and refocus when it’s necessary to do so? – David Allen…
How is your work space at home? What could you do to ensure that you have a more functional life-management control room or cockpi…
How valuable would it be to create a way to have more of those? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
How, exactly, are you going to set that meeting with Bob? Delegate it to your assistant? Send an e-mail? Make a call? If you haven…
I AM CONTINUALLY AMAZED at how often I forget about our astonishing ability to create what we want by what we envision. Outcome th…
I am frequently asked to facilitate meetings. I’ve learned the hard way that no matter where we are in the conversation, twenty mi…
I am often asked, “How can this methodology improve an organization?” In fact, all the principles I’ve put forward are as applicab…
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes…
I decided that this was going to be my Year of Better Choices—and hoped that every year thereafter would be as well. How often do …
I define a project as any desired result that can be accomplished within a year that requires more than one action step. This mean…
I define a project as any desired result that can be accomplished within a year that requires more than one action step. This mean…
I don’t recommend using after-hours for this work. It usually means seriously reduced horsepower and a big tendency to get caught …
I especially notice this when I walk around organizations where in-trays are either nonexistent or overflowing and obviously long …
I have been reminding people for years that it helps immensely to achieve a sense of control before they can stretch into the hori…
I have discovered over the years the practical value of working on personal productivity improvement from the bottom up, starting …
I have had several sophisticated senior executives tell me that installing “What’s the next action?” as an operational standard in…
I have learned over the years that the most important thing to deal with is whatever is most on your mind. – David Allen in ⚟ Gett…
I have noticed this for years. Good people who haven’t incorporated these behaviors come into my environment, and they stick out l…
I hope I have described a way to relate to our knowledge-based world that provides room for everyone to have a lot more to do than…
I need to state for the record that I firmly endorse the clarification of ultimate purpose as the primary criterion for setting pr…
I often ask in my workshops how many people have had at least a couple of situations turn up in the last few days that they knew t…
I recommend that you always keep an inventory of things that need to be done that require very little mental or creative horsepowe…
IT’S POSSIBLE FOR a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a …
IT’S POSSIBLE FOR a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a …
Identifying the next action runs neck and neck with defining the desired outcome in terms of generating value in a given situation…
If I didn’t have the lists I have, and if I hadn’t done a thorough review of them within the last few days, I wouldn’t have been a…
If our work environment is easily understood, even by strangers, . . . it also makes it easier to collect the wisdom of everyone. …
If you are a novice to this process, these details and distinctions may seem unnecessary or overwhelming. Just keep in mind that w…
If you are not doing a thorough weekly assessment of all your projects, some part of your brain will keep trying to review them co…
If you are that rare person who has only twenty-five next actions, a single Next Actions list might suffice. It could include item…
If you can’t concentrate, it’s impossible to maximize your effectiveness in any activity, whether it’s playing the piano, breaking…
If you could return phone calls while you were waiting for someone to show up for a meeting, but you didn’t have a list of all the…
If you don’t do the weekly review, feeling that you should be thinking about something will constantly bother you. It will drain y…
If you don’t know the total current inventory of your work, you won’t be fully aware of what you can’t do. – David Allen in ⚟ Read…
If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, t…
If you happen to have a lifestyle that seldom has more than one screenful of un-dealt-with e-mails at any one time, simply keeping…
If you happened to be “out and about” in your car, and didn’t bring a list of all the errands you needed to run in order to move t…
If you have found yourself wandering away from the content of this book while you were reading it, there’s a good chance that wher…
If you have only twenty or thirty of these, it may be fine to keep them all on one list labeled “Next Actions,” which you’ll revie…
If you have professional goals, company objectives, and strategic plans, have you identified all the projects that they should eng…
If you have too many collection zones, however, you won’t be able to process them easily or consistently. – David Allen in ⚟ Getti…
If you haven’t yet figured out the next action for a particular item, you have no idea whether it will take two minutes or two hou…
If you know the point of balance, you can settle the details. If you can settle the details, you can stop running around. Your min…
If you put too much weight on the conviction that there are only a certain small number of items that can genuinely be considered …
If you really focused on the bigger picture for yourself, what new activities might you find engaging? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready fo…
If you scan your personal universe, notice (if you can) areas that you are resistant to examining in detail; they will probably re…
If you try to make something too simple, it will make everything seem more complex and difficult. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Any…
If you want different results, a change of focus is required. Once you shift the image held in your mind, different things will au…
If you want to express yourself on canvas, and oil paints are your medium, you will organize your paints and brushes. You won’t th…
If you were to adequately capture everything that had your attention at all of the more subtle horizons, and if you were to approp…
If your project needs more clarity, raise the level of your focus (e.g., move from actions back to plans, plans back to brainstorm…
If your project needs more to be happening, lower the level of your focus (e.g., move from vision to brainstorming, from plans to …
If you’re having trouble getting into your “zone,” or getting to the “mind like water” state, ask yourself at what level you need …
If you’re involved in anything that has a future of longer than a year (marriage, kids, career, a company, an art form, a lifelong…
If, however, I’m able to move my inner awareness to a more spiritually connected place, more from my heart than my head, it’s a to…
Imagine something you’d like more of today. Have that thought as many times as you can in the next hour. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready …
Imagine yourself wildly successful, five years from now. How would that feel? How would you relate with the world around you? Try …
In addition, if you find it useful, you may want to maintain information about their birthdays, names of family members, hobbies, …
In golf and tennis, too firm a grip can cause you to “choke” a shot. Hanging on too tightly can limit your ability to deal with th…
In my experience, anything that is held only in your head will take up either more or less attention than it deserves. The reason …
In order to hang out with friends or take a long, aimless walk and truly have nothing on your mind, you’ve got to know where all y…
In order to relieve the pressure of broken self-agreements, you must know that: • You have captured, clarified, and organized your…
In our work, when we happen to coach all members of a group in the workflow process, we teach them to create a response now, so th…
In practice, however, there is often a need to address the Horizons of Focus in separate, dedicated processes. There is so much co…
In the end, it is attention to detail that makes all the difference. It’s the center fielder’s extra two steps to the left, the sa…
In the real world, you probably won’t be able to keep your stuff 100 percent collected all the time. If you’re like most people, y…
In training and coaching many thousands of people, I have found that lack of time is not the major issue for them (though they may…
In what location and during what kind of activity do you automatically think from a higher altitude? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for …
Is there too much complaining in your culture? The next time someone moans about something, try asking, “So what’s the next action…
It can be intimidating enough to go through the clarification stage, which necessitates deciding all the next actions on all the m…
It requires a discipline of logistical focus to bracket one to two hours at the end of a workweek, to back out of the daily grind …
It’s easy to feel out of control in this space because of the speed and volume of items that need to be tracked. It’s also where y…
It’s hard to be fully creative without structure and constraint. Try to paint without a canvas. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anyth…
It’s important that you record the date on everything that you hand off to others. This, of all the categories in your personal sy…
It’s most often the small things, done consistently in strategic places, that make the most difference. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready f…
It’s only when you have the hard choices about how to allocate limited resources that the real need for clarity of direction and e…
It’s simple, but not superficial. It can be learned and practiced by children, yet can catalyze and contain infinite sophisticatio…
It’s the irony of professional development—the better you get, the better you’d better get. – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things Done…
I’VE REALIZED LATELY that there are two distinctly different hats that I wear internally as I move forward in my life: the Visiona…
I’ve experienced (more times than I like to admit) avoiding the slightly uncomfortable conversations with others I should have had…
I’ve often spent ten to fifteen hours with a person just identifying his or her work on the two most mundane and operational level…
Keep everything in your head or out of your head. If it’s in between, you won’t trust either one. – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Thing…
Knowing in your gut that everything you toss into your own in-basket will soon turn into a single, simple, easily accomplished phy…
Knowledge must come through action; you can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial. —SOPHOCLES – David Allen in ⚟ Ready…
Let’s examine the three requirements to make the capturing phase work: 1 | Every open loop must be in your capture system and out …
Let’s examine the variables that have an impact on that decision, which are too numerous and complex to allow you to use a simple …
Life is a series of inspired follies. The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance. It doesn’t come every day. —GEORG…
Little seems clear for very long anymore, as far as what to do at the office, at home, on the plane, in the car, and at the local …
Loss of control and perspective is the natural price you will pay for being creative and productive. The trick is not how to preve…
Maintaining a complete, current, and reviewable inventory of all the open loops, no matter how big or small they are, is a prerequ…
Maintaining an objective and complete inventory of your work, regularly reviewed, makes it much easier to say no with integrity. –…
Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably in themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim …
Making It All Work will give you a road map for life. Or for throwing your kid a birthday party. Or for arranging your home office…
Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men. —BENJAMIN DISRAELI – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for …
Many executives I have worked with during the day to clear the decks of their mundane stuff have spent the evening having a stream…
Many organizations are exhorting their people to be “customer driven” and to “go the extra mile” to add a competitive edge of extr…
Many people are trying but can never work hard enough, because working hard is not really what they need. They need to simply bedo…
Many people have a vague sense that they want to do or be something in the future—something different. But without a reality-based…
Most of the studies of these issues and proposed remedies center on the external environment—too much e-mail, too many interruptio…
Most people feel best about their work the week before they go on vacation, but it’s not because of the vacation itself. What do y…
Most people get ready for change a few days before a long vacation, when they divorce and have to sell everything they own and mov…
Most people have 10-100 current projects, personally and professionally. – David Allen in 𝍌 Managing projects with GTD…
Most people have a resistance to initiating the burst of energy that it will take to clarify the real meaning, for them, of someth…
Most people, however, do that kind of list-making drill only when the confusion gets too unbearable and they just have to do somet…
Multiple horizons of commitment: And if you haven’t had the appropriate discussions with your boss, your spouse, or your partner t…
My life and work seem to have that same kind of rhythm, but on a bigger scale. I go through cycles of six to twelve months when I’…
My projects and someday/maybe lists. They are trophy cases for the Visionary. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
Neutral is a state where you are not jumping ahead too quickly or moving too slow. Neutral does not mean being inactive, complacen…
Ninety-nine percent of the time, my answer is the same: “Once a week, do a thorough review of all your projects in as much detail …
No external tool or organizing format is going to be perfect for sorting both horizontally across and vertically down through all …
No matter how big and tough a problem may be, get rid of confusion by taking one little step toward solution. Do something. —Georg…
On the other side of the equation are individuals and teams who keep their e-mail and other communications processed and emptied r…
Once a purpose, goal, or standard is clear, the best you can do is get there and maintain it with as little effort as possible. En…
Once people catch on to the power of organization per se, they sometimes go too far and try to microorganize everything: “Let’s cr…
Once they get a taste of the GTD model and are motivated to get effectively organized, people tend to want to overcategorize their…
Once you have determined that an item is actionable, you must then apply a critical thought process to it—one that represents a re…
Once you taste what it’s like to operate with a clear head (I mean a really clear head), I doubt that you will spend much energy t…
One Alpha System I have one A–Z alphabetical physical filing system for general reference, not multiple ones. My e-mail reference …
One day he just started picking up each individual piece of paper on an executive’s desk and forcing him to decide what the very n…
One of the greatest challenges you may encounter is that once you have gotten used to “What’s the next action?” for yourself and t…
One of your better weekends may be spent just finishing up a lot of little errands and tasks that have accumulated around your hou…
Organizations are now almost universally in morph mode, with ever-changing goals, products, partners, customers, markets, technolo…
Organizations must create a culture in which it is acceptable that everyone has more to do than he or she can do, and in which it …
Our minds have a seductive way of convincing us that what we’re thinking about, while we’re thinking it, is so clear and obvious t…
Over many years I have discovered that the best way to be reminded of an “as soon as I can” action is by the particular context re…
Over many years of research and coaching, we’ve discovered that these phased aspects of workflow management are best done as separ…
Over the years, we have discovered that what we call the “weekly review”—catching up with all your capturing, processing, and orga…
People should know what you stand for. They should also know what you won’t stand for. —UNKNOWN – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anyth…
People with the most elevated view of what they are doing perform the most elegant-looking actions. In one sense, the farther away…
Perhaps the questions really should be these: Where is the balance between my shoulder-to-the-wheel hard work and my inner reflect…
Power is facilitated by access to clear space, a principle I experienced dramatically in martial arts training. Having a “mind lik…
Productivity will improve only when individuals increase their operational responsiveness. And in knowledge work, that means clari…
Project Support Material For many of your projects, you will accumulate relevant information that you will want to organize by the…
Projects are defined as outcomes that will require more than one action step to complete and that you can mark off as finished in …
Projects seldom show up in nice, neat packages. Small things often slip unexpectedly into bigger things. – David Allen in ⚟ Gettin…
R EAD/R EVIEW It is useful to gather things you need to read in one location, to remind you of outstanding commitments in this are…
Researching and sharpening processes will not always be the most strategic focus for high performers, but they’ll always have thei…
Right now you probably have between thirty and a hundred projects. – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things Done…
Rules tend to show up because principles are not clear or trusted. When you know that people have bought into standards, you can g…
Runway—current actions (daily) 10,000 feet—current projects (weekly) 20,000 feet—current responsibilities (monthly) 30,000 feet—on…
SOMETIMES I’M NOT AS SMART as I am at other times. And most of the time, I’m not as inspired as I want to be. So if I really want …
Setting Up Meetings Often the next progress to be made on project thinking is to set up a meeting with the people you’d like to ha…
Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to sim…
So I put reminders in my personal-management system, and I see them in my weekly review. Few people I know really grasp the power …
So when do you think most people really make a lot of their next-action decisions about their stuff—when it shows up, or when it b…
Some people like to sort their projects by major areas of focus—parents tracking those about their children, an entrepreneur divid…
Stress comes from unkept agreements with yourself. You can relieve that stress only by canceling the agreement, keeping the agreem…
THE BETTER YOUR SYSTEMS, the more you don’t know you have them. The less attention you pay to them, the more functional they proba…
Teaching them the item-by-item thinking required to get their collection containers empty is perhaps the most critical improvement…
That said, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with creating a quick, informal, short list of “if I have time, I’d really like to . .…
The Weekly Review is the time to: Gather and process all your stuff. Review your system. Update your lists. Get clean, clear, curr…
The Weekly Review. It’s the way I get the Visionary and the Doer together in a regular staff meeting, and they get to work things …
The angst arises when you let loose the reins and stop directing your own energy. Indeed, we are all at the mercy of things bigger…
The best players manage their own game no matter what. We’re all alone in this together. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas. —LINUS PAULING – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
The book is also written with an understanding that life consists of cycles. Things go better, and then get worse. At some points …
The bottom line is that when you use your memory as your organizing system (as most everyone on the planet still does, for most of…
The challenge is to marry high-level idealistic focus to the mundane activity of life. In the end they require the same thinking. …
The challenge will continually be to apply the two essential elements of this art: defining what done means and what doing looks l…
The commander will always have to handle an unmanned post. If no one has been duly charged with ensuring clean toilets, the CEO wi…
The definition of work I will use in this book is quite universal: anything you want to get done that’s not done yet. From that pe…
The development of real knowledge requires intentional activity. If you wait to know something before you do something, likely nei…
The distinction I do recommend is very simple: projects versus someday/maybe. The first list is a complete inventory of all the op…
The final success factor for capturing should be obvious: if you don’t empty and process the stuff you’ve collected, your tools ar…
The form will often trigger the focus that then fuels the intention, which produces creative energy and content. If you want to ex…
The good news is that when your operational behavior is grooved to engage with everything that comes your way, at all levels, base…
The great psychologist Abraham Maslow had it right—the survival aspect of life and work must be addressed before humans have any c…
The hallmarks of this next level of maturity with Getting Things Done are: a complete, current, and clear inventory of projects; a…
The inner reflective focus and the outer expression and manifestation are different processes and can be experienced as mutually e…
The main reason you’ll feel much better when you implement the methods of collecting, processing, organizing, and intuitively mana…
The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experim…
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled. —PLUTARCH – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
The most productive approach is to think as little as you can get by with but as much as you need to. How do you get today off you…
The most “lean and mean” (and creative) companies will be the ones with the greatest gap between their vision and their current re…
The mundane is not a substitute for the sublime. It’s just a secret passageway to it. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one’s work seriously and taking one’s self …
The operational purpose of the Areas of Focus list is to ensure that you have all your projects and next actions defined, so you c…
The oversimplicity of ABC priorities or daily to-do lists can never really answer that question for any of us. No matter how organ…
The passion for a certain quality of experience (relaxation, fun, productive in-your-zone-ness) or the desire to have something sh…
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. —WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD – D…
The positive experience goes away if the system and the process that created it fall behind, and that can happen quickly. – David …
The potential double meaning of “making it all work” is also a clue to the message of this book. What if we considered everything …
The power of your inner intentions is limitless—whether negative or positive. Are you less than enthusiastically waiting for phone…
The priorities of your current job (and the actions you focus on) may shift if you think about what your job needs to be eighteen …
The problem most people have psychologically with all their stuff is that it’s still stuff—that is, they haven’t decided what’s ac…
The problem, however, with stopping too soon in dealing with your reading matter—just getting a sense of order by corralling the c…
The two most common situations I have experienced that call for a one-to-two-year reassessment are (a) when old goals have been ov…
The value of reflection for perspective is perhaps best expressed by another basic GTD tenet: your mind should be used to think ab…
The way I look at it, the calendar should be sacred territory. If you write something there, it must get done that day or not at a…
The way I look at it, the calendar should be sacred territory. If you write something there, it must get done that day or not at a…
The “Grand Think” is figuring out your purpose here on the planet. If you really come up with that one, once should be enough, alt…
The “silly” question is the first intimation of some totally new development. —ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for…
There are lots of inspirational sources for the high-level “purpose, values, vision” kind of thinking, and many more mundane tools…
There are times when, during my own weekly review, I mark off quite a number of actions from my lists that I’ve finished in the la…
There is always more to do than you can do, and you can do only one thing at a time. The key is to feel as good about what you’re …
There is no reason not to be highly productive, even when you’re not in top form. – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things Done…
There is no “right” way to structure your Next Actions lists—only what works best for you, and that part of your system will likel…
There’s another issue here, however. How would you feel if your list and your stack were totally—and successfully—completed? You’d…
There’s plenty of talk in the big meetings that sounds good, but learning to ask, “Why are we doing this?” and “What will it look …
These first three criteria for choosing action (context, time, and energy) bespeak the need for a complete next-action reminder sy…
These two practices—doing short actions as soon as they appear and delegating anything else that you can immediately—have proven t…
Things on lists and in stacks and e-mail generally repel instead of attract us to get involved, until we know exactly what our int…
This consistent, unproductive preoccupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and energy. —…
This constant, unproductive preoccupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and energy. —KE…
This is a very big habit for adults to change. The best of the best we have coached, who really “catch” what this methodology is a…
This is another paradox that I have come to accept in working with the GTD methods: to really get things off your mind, you must p…
This is where you need to access your intuition and begin to rely on your judgment call in the moment. To explore that concept fur…
Though this category is primarily useful for tracking the most mundane level of actions, there are situations in which it might be…
Thought is useful when it motivates for action, and a hindrance when it substitutes for action. —BILL RAEDER – David Allen in ⚟ Re…
Thousands of people have talent. I might as well congratulate you for having eyes in your head. The one and only thing that counts…
Three things go on your calendar: time-specific actions; day-specific actions; and day-specific information – David Allen in ⚟ Get…
Time Available When do you have to do something else? Having a meeting in five minutes would prevent doing any actions that requir…
To be or to do is not the issue. The question is this: “What type of doing most aligns me with my being?” – David Allen in ⚟ Ready…
To maintain control, you must review the data of your system and refresh it to match current realities. – David Allen in ⚟ Making …
To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. —LIEH-TZU – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
Trying to do it all, have it all, and be it all will exhaust the human mechanism. “More and better” will always stretch out in fro…
constant new input and shifting tactical priorities reconfigure daily work so consistently that it’s virtually impossible to nail …
Two years after I began writing the essays, I decided to write and distribute a newsletter to those who were becoming familiar wit…
Typical Partial Someday/Maybe List – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things Done…
Ultimately I take actions to complete projects in order to fulfill responsibilities that I have so that I can move myself forward …
Uncaptured, unclarified, and therefore unmanaged things that you have agreed to do own a piece of you and give you no rest. Naming…
Unfortunately, you can’t legislate personal systems. Everyone must have his or her own way to deal with what he or she has to deal…
Until those thoughts have been clarified and those decisions made, and the resulting data has been stored in a system that you abs…
Use your mind to think about your work, instead of thinking of it. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
Vision is not enough; it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps; we must step up the stairs. —Václa…
WHAT’S THE BEST THING to do, right now, at this moment? I’m still working on how to get the best answer to that question. Frankly,…
We are all already powerful, but deciding on and effectively managing the physical actions required to move things forward seems t…
We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisi…
We don’t feel constrained by the limitations that really work for us. We’re grateful for the lines down the middle of the road—the…
We never do great good or great evil without bringing about more of the same on the part of others. —FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD …
What are some of the most creative, fun, and productive things you’ve done that weren’t planned or on any list? – David Allen in ⚟…
What are your current areas of responsibility? Most people have ten to fifteen, including the main areas of a job (staff developme…
What are your current projects? These are the outcomes you have agreed with yourself to achieve, requiring more than one action to…
What are your current tasks? These are the physical actions you need to take right now about all your commitments and responsibili…
What conversations, at what horizon, are due or overdue for you? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
What could you put in front of your mind more regularly that would serve you? Where would you put it? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for…
What else would you like to stop thinking about? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
What parts of your systems do you have to keep thinking about? What could you do to get them more on “automatic”? – David Allen in…
What project do you know you need to do more thinking about? What’s the next action to get that to happen? – David Allen in ⚟ Read…
What projects have you not reviewed sufficiently, to ensure that you have captured, clarified, and organized everything you should…
What system may be clogged, personally or organizationally, that may be preventing new business? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anyt…
What wheels seem to be spinning in your life and work that could use a rest? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
What would you really like to be free of? What discipline is needed where, to accomplish that? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anythi…
What you’re doing is exactly what you ought to be doing, given the whole spectrum of your commitments and interests. You’re fully …
Whatever we’ve let into our inner or outer environment that doesn’t belong where it is the way it is needs to have something done …
What’s the best thing that’s happened to you in the last few days? What could you do to get something like it to happen again? – D…
What’s the longest-term project or goal you’ve actually committed to? Is there an action step determined? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready…
What’s true for you right now? Would it be useful to bring others in your life and work up to date with any of that right now? – D…
When I sincerely ask myself, “What is the absolute best thing for me to be doing right now?” and when I’m willing to hear the answ…
When I’m doing errands or surfing the Web, it’s good to be reminded of what I wanted to get for someone when I was more thoughtful…
When I’m driving in the car and think about a really creative and loving thing to do for somebody, I need to note it right away on…
When I’m in a state of consciousness more sublime than usual, I need to express it by writing out an affirmation or inspired thoug…
When a culture adopts “What’s the next action?” as a standard operating query, there’s an automatic increase in energy, productivi…
When did you last experience being “in the zone”? Do you know how you got there? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
When do you feel most in your “zone”? How do you get there? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean. —LIN-CHI – Dav…
When is a problem a project? Always. When you assess something as a problem instead of as something to simply be accepted as the w…
When people first encounter my methods, more control, energy, focus, and creativity are unleashed than they expect. I have struggl…
When people gain a method of achieving that kind of balance in their day-to-day endeavors, no matter what’s going on, they have ea…
When people know they have a process in place to handle any situation, they are more relaxed. When they’re relaxed, everything imp…
When people with whom you interact notice that without fail you receive, process, and organize in an airtight manner the exchanges…
When something pushes your button, rings your bell, grabs your attention, bothers, upsets, engrosses, or excites you, what is your…
When these forms reach a certain level of ossification, we will begin to feel a pressure internally, procrastinating about doing t…
When you demonstrate to yourself and to others an increasing ability to get things done “in the trenches,” you probably won’t stay…
When you don’t know what to do, what are some really good things to do? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
When you have to focus on your system, you are detouring energy that could be used to create and produce with your system. The obj…
When you know that you are consistently doing some version of the “weekly review,” you afford yourself the luxury of not having to…
When you least feel like slowing down may be the most critical time to do it. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
When you plan that your plans may be interrupted or disturbed, you gain steadiness. Denial of the reality of constant change produ…
When you start to make things happen, you begin to believe that you can make things happen. And that makes things happen. – David …
When you stay attuned to where the real action is, you’ll probably have to give up what used to work for something new that you’re…
When you’re getting things done, or “working” in the universal sense, there are three different kinds of activities you can be eng…
When you’re in a certain context, to be the most efficient, you need to see all the things that could be done in that context. – D…
When you’re in an earthquake on a unicycle, juggling chain saws, the only way to survive is to tack down everything you can tack d…
Whenever I am rested and feeling good, I can’t help feeling frivolous. —MARK TWAIN – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
Whenever actionable and nonactionable items are parked in the same location, a numbness develops in the psyche regarding the whole…
Whenever thinking is murky, ambiguous, or off purpose, you must let go of the level you’re focusing on and shift the horizon to an…
Whenever we coach a senior manager or executive, we often find it useful to warn all of his direct reports that they are likely to…
When’s the last time you did absolutely nothing? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
When’s the last time you did something really unusual for you? Time to do another? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
When’s the last time you updated your projects list (those things that take more than one action to complete) and brought it curre…
Where could you use more looseness? Where could you use more structure? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
Which part of you is dominant, the Visionary or the Doer? What could you do to support the weaker part? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready f…
Who’s driving you up the wall? Why? What standard do you hold that that person’s behavior violates? – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for A…
Why are you getting that e-mail? What’s the purpose of that meeting, and why do you have to attend? What’s coming up next quarter …
With anything you consider a problem at the moment, what’s the actual data that causes you to think it’s a problem? Can you see th…
Without my lists, I would probably still have pruned my pine tree this morning—but for all the wrong reasons. – David Allen in ⚟ R…
Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a map for life and work that served the same functions? Have you ever not known exactly where you w…
You can actually finish that exercise and quiet that nagging part of your mind. But it takes about one to two hours weekly—for the…
You can also plan nonactionable projects and not need a next action—for example, designing your dream house. The lack of a next ac…
You can only feel good about what you’re not doing when you know everything you’re not doing. – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things Do…
You can’t fool your mind. It’s an expert on your current personal management system, and it knows whether you can be trusted to lo…
You can’t really manage time; time just is. What you can manage is yourself— your focus and your actions. Time is what creates the…
You don’t make the lists of actions and projects just to get them all done and then do nothing else in your life. You process the …
You exist on many levels. If you’re avoiding any of them, you may be short-sheeting all of them. To the degree you accept the resp…
You get things done by defining “done” and deciding what “doing” would look like. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
You have to engage with it—and not just in a cursory manner, but with sufficient focus to absorb the information in a way consiste…
You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. W…
You need to use your system—not continually have to re-create it. – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things Done…
You need well-organized, discrete systems to handle things that require no action as well as those that do. No-action systems fall…
You won’t see how to do it until you see yourself doing it. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
Your automatic creative mechanism is teleological. That is, it operates in terms of goals and end results. Once you give it a defi…
Your brain’s pattern-recognition mechanism is triggered by the images you identify with and the focus you hold. You see the outcom…
Your calendar should contain only those three items—appointments, day-specific actions, and information. If it is used for any mor…
Your integrity will lead you into an infinite amount of new to-dos. When you consciously track all your commitments, that same int…
Your life and work are made up of outcomes and actions that you engage in more or less consciously. Whether they are merely less-t…
Your mind is for having ideas, not for holding them. – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things Done…
Your system has to be better than your mind for your mind to let go. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
You’d better be relaxed. Find out what’s stressing you, and deal with it—now—if you want to be truly effective on all levels at on…
You’ll probably have some other types of information that are similar to Someday/Maybe but that probably need a review only when y…
You’ve got to get back to squeaky-clean again, in terms of what you’re doing and what you’re not doing. Your mind must stay engage…
You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things so that all the small things go in the right direction. —ALVI…
You’ve probably made many more agreements with yourself than you realize, and every single one of them—big or little—is being trac…
and all those that you are waiting for others to do (put these on a Waiting For list). – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things Done…
constant new input and shifting tactical priorities reconfigure daily work so consistently that it’s virtually impossible to nail …
if it’s on your mind, your mind isn’t clear. – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things Done…
if there’s something on a daily to-do list that doesn’t absolutely have to get done that day, it will dilute the emphasis on the t…
in order to afford the luxury of “getting on a roll” with confidence, you’ll probably need to clean house and refresh the contents…
instead of being upset with my refusal, everyone was impressed with my discipline!” – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things Done…
just as I have never visited everywhere that’s on a given map, you may not need or want to do anything at this point in your life …
many projects seem overwhelming—and are overwhelming because you can’t do a project at all! You can only do an action related to i…
most stress they experience comes from inappropriately managed commitments they make or accept. – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things …
once you’ve decided on all the actions you need to take, you must keep reminders of them organized in a system you review regularl…
projects are likely to change their meaning over time, your system also needs to reflect that fact. What was an active project las…
renegotiate implicit and explicit agreements with themselves and others, – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
the challenge that we are dealing with in all this is getting to the state in which we can trust that what we’re doing at any poin…
the more those techniques begin to work together as a whole, systematically and consistently, the more dramatic will be the increa…
the rewards to be gained from implementing this whole process are exponential: the more complete the system is, the more you’ll tr…
there are only two solutions: Make it up. Make it happen. We are constantly creating and fulfilling. This can be construed from th…
threefold nature of work—The categories of what we do as we go through our day: (1) work we’ve previously defined (actions predete…
to get to the place where truly the only thing on their mind, aside from whatever they’re doing in the moment, may be the last cou…
when these techniques are incorporated across the spectrum of life and work, a wonderful integration takes place. Work takes on a …
you can only feel good about what you’re not doing when you know what you’re not doing. – David Allen in ⚟ Making It All Work…
you must clarify exactly what your commitment is and decide what you have to do, if anything, to make progress toward fulfilling i…
you’ll need to get in the habit of keeping nothing on your mind. – David Allen in ⚟ Getting Things Done…
“Finish your thinking” simply means to decide what the next physical thing to do is to move them forward from where they are. This…
“Long term” just means that “as soon as possible” will take more next actions. – David Allen in ⚟ Ready for Anything…
“Okay, give me your calendar, let’s just toss it.” Most wouldn’t think of doing that. To me, that’s intellectual dishonesty. If on…
“What do you want to have happen in this meeting?” “What is the purpose of this form?” “What would the ideal person for this job b…
Link: https://gettingthingsdone.com/2017/05/managing-projects-with-gtd/ Author: David Allen…
Up: § My productivity system Within the GTD methodology, it is recommended to have a Next Actions list with all possible next acti…