Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

I have read a lot of books on how to organize your life: Love People, Use Things Essentialism 7 Habits of Highly Effective People One Minute manager The Fifth Discipline I have also read books on leadership, self-help, therapy, productivity, working through failure, and on and on. NOTHING ELSE HAS COME CLOSE. Now, this may be because of where I am in my life. It may be that this book isn’t any better than the others, it’s just WHAT I NEEDED at this moment. I have 5 teenagers, 3 jobs, my own clinic, I’m writing a book, speaking publicly often, and I’m also auditioning for a play next week. Oh, and I love free time, relaxing on weekends and evenings, spending time with friends, going to plays, and reading books. I also WANT TO BE DEPENDABLE. I want to do what I have said I will do. I want to make less agreements, and have less obligations, so that I can NAIL the ones I have made. That’s where this book was so very helpful. Yes the author eventually asks you to think about long term goals and life values and those things, but he really starts at the day to day level. “HOW DO YOU GET DONE, THE THINGS YOU SAID YOU WOULD?” How do you meet your current obligations? How do you finish each day with a feeling of satisfaction. How do you better handle the things you have already agreed to do, and manage the barrage of things coming at you all day every day that are unexpected? DOING what he suggests has made me feel RELIABLE. I know what I can do, and what I can’t. I know when I can say yes, and when I have to say no. I know when I have to adjust, or change a previous agreement because it just AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN the way I had hoped. It is an amazing feeling of peace to know that I can reliably say yes or no to things, and I will honestly get back to them, finish them, remember them. My first attempts weren’t perfect. My first organizational attempt from early January has already been discarded. As have my second and third attempts. But each time was BETTER than what I was doing before, and each time I like the new system more and more, and it’s easier and faster to use and more reliable. My wife and kids know exactly when I am free, and we can do ALL SORTS of fun things, and movie marathons, and visiting family in other cities, and on and on. GETTING THINGS DONE has changed my life in just two months. If your life feels out of control, your mind feels scattered, and you constantly miss things you agreed to… READ THIS BOOK.

The GTD system is life changing. This book describes what is probably the most profficient productivity system which is also different from other techniques by the fact that it is very flexible and can be tailored to anyone. I will never look at my projects with the same attitude as before. I like the way David Allen describes each part of the system, puts it into context and showcases all the subtleties that can come from it. This system is applyable to both professional and personal life, both high tech and low tech guys. He also shows glimpses about different experiences he had with clients in his 30 years of coaching, which is also very helpful to check the real implementation of the system. He also guides the reader about how to approach different principles, for example the 2 minute rule or the weekly review and takes a warm approach when going through all the concepts. He begins by summarizing the context of our world and then goes step by step, putting all the pieces like a puzzle so in the end you have a complete system that memorizes your life. He also explains why this principles work and how our brain is very intelligent about doing creative work and brainstorming, but very stupind in memorizing meetings and dates. This book will change your life. You will realize how much stuff you have under your belt but doesn't make you guilty about it, but rather happy. I experienced an instant relief by applying the first chapters of the book while reading it. It was a rather unusual read as going through the book was mixed with activities like sketching my system, deciding which software to use and doing lots of 2 minute actions as soon as they popped into my head. Definitely recommend this one for those who want to do more and better in life.

I bought the paper-covered book, which was recommended by my friend. I had only read a few pages to get the summary of it, and I've already read a lot of useful advice given, very inspirational. It also included step-by-step action that readers can follow! Continue to look forward to reading more and commenting.

Happy with purchase. Smooth and fast transaction. Item as described.

This is a life-changing book. I am not in business but have to function in various domains: working scientist with 20-30 discrete, concurrent, collaborative projects at any given time; teacher; physician; mentor; member of various administrative committees; family man; and avid hobbyist with multiple pursuits. I don't need to read more of the usual inspirational / motivational crap; I'm already highly motivated and willing to work hard, but just needed something to help me organize and get a handle on all the demands placed on me. I'd used calendars and to-do lists like most people but this was not enough. The central message of this book of getting one unified system in place for all projects / tasks in your life and getting things quickly off your mind and into the system is simple yet profound. There is an upfront cost on the order of days, especially if you have a lot on your plate, to get started with such a system. Once you do this, however, keeping it going really only involves a few minutes a day and about 30-60 minutes once a week during a step he calls the weekly review. The key elements that I found helpful: 1) Immediate processing of tasks as they come in (do it if quick, delegate it to others if appropriate, or put it in your system with the appropriate flags; 2) Contexts. it doesn't make sense to look at a list of errands that can only be done on the computer when you are traveling without one or walking the dog. Having each task be assigned to a context (which can be a virtual or physical location) and being able to pull a context-specific list when you are in that context is incredibly helpful; and 3) Next actions. There is a distinction drawn between things that need to happen next (i.e. in the next week) and things that just need to happen at some point in the future. Everything gets tracked, but not everything needs to show up on your context-specific list; just the "next actions." This helped me get my life in order and relieved a lot of stress. I no longer worry constantly about what I should be doing because I always know, in any specific context at home or at work, what tasks I have already decided need to happen. Since I also put everything into the system that I trust and know works, I also don't miss things the way I used to.

This book is more profound than Marx's "Capital". My ex-boss, co-founder of 50M+ startup once verbalized his reason to deny employment of otherwise perfect candidate. In short, he meant the following: "She is not scared". I personally had more than 1000+ phone interviews during my career and learned it the hard way: if you are not scared for your life each and every day at work, even if you faked the fear at the interview - you'll lose your job very quick. The landscape changed way too quick for everybody during the last about 50-75 years, making us "knowledge workers". Capitalists, aristocrats and their kids, though didn't tell it to us, leaving most of the people unaware of the new way(s) they exploit everybody. NOT being scared to lose your job our days is rather exception that won't even get you hired. Ever. I don't want to spoil the book, but consider the following example from my personal experience. I told my boss once: I want to keep working part-time for you, like 20 hours a week instead of 40, and you pay me half my salary. He agreed, doing me a "favor". About 6 month later I realized that I still working 80+ hours for him for half the money. There is no way most of us can stop working leaving the office. I wanted to do "my own projects" for the other half of the time, but I couldn't. It's plain impossible. I dare you to try it, if you are in denial. The author claims that "it's possible" not to be scared. He teaches you how. This is a very quiet revolution, but this mentality is much more dangerous than what Marx, Gandhi, Kennedy, ML King did all together. This book is a revolution manifesto. Surprisingly, the author is still alive and nobody wants to kill him.

This revolutionized my life. I have been well organized... but I didn't know how to organize the FLOW of paperwork in my life. How to keep my in-box empty. !! My desk was always a pile of paper that I didn't know where to put things... and I would actually lose things on my desk. Whew! NO MORE! I got the physical copy of this book as well as the CD version and listen to it going to sleep and waking up in the morning... when I'm driving, or exercising or doing something where I can just let the information flow through my brain again. The clarity and specific depth of insight and clear instructions have helped me to completely reorganize my office so that projects get completed and nothing backs up. I know EXACTLY what to do when I sit down... and then just go do it. I keep my in-box empty... (mostly... still working on it. At last my whole desk is no longer my in-box. LOL.) I'm blown away by this. I no longer feel the conflict of trying to focus on a project and at the same time thinking I should be doing something else. Everything is written down on my List. It's out of my field of concentration until I want to check my List and see all the random other little things I want to accomplish. Clear focus. Zen mind. Peaceful mind. Balance. Wow. I'm deeply grateful.

This is awesome

Excellent read for every professional

Just by reading it, I am just convinced that it should be mandatory to read it a few times starting middle-school, really. Scientiffically, your brain is not very good at remembering all the things you have to remember out of the blue. having those thoughts marked somewhere helps your brain realease stress, and save a lot of energy. Having a proactive approach and do the think-work in the front-end (when you idea arrives, or when you realize you remembered that you have something to do) really changes your whole life... I hope the author is having a great life, and I thank him a LOT for writing this, and make it accessible.

Getting Things Done is a method for planning and organising your life in a manner that ensures you don't miss anything, thus removing stress while also enabling one to set out their life by focusing on their own priorities and wishes. David Allen has been developing his system for over 30 years and the book definitely reflects this. He initially worked mainly with CEOs of big companies, however, this does not mean his methods cannot be implemented by those living less busy lives. The main idea behind David Allen's strategy is that everything that we keep in our mind takes up our "brain space." The only way to avoid pending tasks and errands from taking over our mental clarity is by having a reliable system that does the work for us. If we know that all our "ought to", "should", "have to" aspects of our lives are safely stored somewhere in a way that we will be reminded, then we do not have to worry about them at all. Then David Allen takes this even one step further, as he emphasises that the main question you always need to ask yourself is WHY. Why are you doing certain things? What kind of value do they bring? This is the golden nugget which in combination with an effective organising system allows one to really focus on tasks that bring them purpose and joy in their lives and to achieve higher goals (while not forgetting to buy bread in the shop). Is this book for everyone? Definitely not. This is a 300+ page thick system that one has to work through and then work even harder to implement it in their life. Will it help a person with a 9-5 job with very few responsibilities or projects, whose main concerns are only buying bread and remembering a doctor's appointment every now and then? It well might, but not as much as to those who run several different projects, who have to constantly schedule or attend meetings, conferences, trips or whose areas of focus expand on many different fronts. If you are one of the latter, this book is a must-read! And if you aren't, you might still give it a try, who knows, it might still change your life.

ACTUALIZACION: 2021 Al escribir esta review había empezado a aplicar algunos de los primeros consejos e ideas y noté una mejoría en la forma de gestionar el tiempo y acabar proyectos y tareas pendientes. Esto hizo que fuese dejando el libro y dedicarme a otras cosas, sin acabarlo completamente. Esto fue un error. El libro da todo su potencial cuando lo lees sin pausa. No significa que no vayas aplicando algunas de las ideas y pensando como ir aplicandolas a tu dia a dia, pero sí que no debes perder de vista el objetivo, que no es otro que aprender de forma consistente cómo mejorar la organización personal y profesional del tiempo y el trabajo. Lo anterior es importante tenerlo claro: hay que dedicarle esfuerzo a pensar sobre cómo aplicar las ideas del libro a tu vida y tu flujo de trabajo, proyectos, etc. No basta con leer el libro, sino que hay que dedicarle algo de esfuerzo en diseñar tu sistema de organización. Pero los beneficios son enormes, así que animo a hacerlo. En particular, aproveché una semana de vacaciones para dedicarme a leerlo a fondo desde el principio, tomando notas en lugar de intentar crear sobre la marcha un sistema de organización a medio hacer. Lo mejor es ir apuntando las ideas o formas de usar sus consejos y esperar a aplicarlo hasta acabar el libro, porque cuando ves el conjunto global, te das cuenta que no son ideas sueltas, sino que es un sistema de principios completo. Por tanto, cuando lo acabes tendrás una idea mucho mejor y más completa de cómo montar tu propio sistema de organización. Y que conste que lo reelerás más de una vez para revisar conceptos y adaptar el sistema a los cambios que ocurran al pasar el tiempo. De ahí que actualice esta review: voy a releerlo para reajustar y volver a ser igual de eficiente como cuando lo acabé la primera vez. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cuando compré el libro, sabía que tenía un problema con mi sistema de organización. Así que me puse a leerlo inmediatamente. Lo cierto es que tenía algunas dudas, porque había leído otros del mismo tema que no pasaban de expresar lo obvio y de sugerir sistemas que le funcionaban al autor, pero no se adaptaban a mí. Pero este libro sí es bueno. No es como los anteriores, una simple guía de recetas. Sino que desmenuza los fundamentos básicos e, incluso, la psicología que implica un buen sistema de organización. Además, explica en cada paso el motivo de cada proceso o cada sugerencia. Lo que me encanta del libro es que no ofrece un sistema dise;ado y definido, sino que por medio de ejemplos va hasta el principio general que quiere explicar y eso permite que uno pueda adaptar o modificar las ideas a su propia forma de trabajar y a su propio tiempo. Quizá esto haga que algunas partes se hagan más largas, pero es muy recomendable. Lo que más me impactó fue la parte psicológica. En el libro explica uno de los principales problemas que tiene la gente que fue buscando su ayuda y es dejar tareas o cosas en una lista de pendientes, sin pararse a determinar las acciones que han de realizar para finalizar esa tarea. Como ejemplo: la tarea "solucionar problema con factura luz" debería dividirse en realidad en varias, siendo la primera, probablemente "Localizar número de atención al cliente de la compania", luego llamar (para algunas personas, eso requiere planificar la llamada en su agenda diaria), y de ahí, depende de la respuesta, se seguirán más pasos o no. Lo que comenta es que al compactar tantas tareas en un solo item, en realidad estamos obligandonos a dedicar mucho espacio mental a esa tarea y salvo que tengamos tiempo de sobra, probablemente se nos atasque un buen tiempo en la lista. De la otra forma, un dia damos por cerrada la tarea de localizar el numero. Otro, cerramos el de la llamada, otro el de enviar los datos que nos hayan pedido... Y el efecto psicologico de sentir que vamos resolviendo el problema es brutal. Porque ya no es el mismo item desde hace dias, sino que es el mismo asunto, pero con acciones mas concretas y simples. El libro esta lleno de ideas de este tipo que, una vez leídas, suenan muy obvias, pero es algo en que mucha gente (al menos yo) fallaba constantemente. Un libro imprescindible para cualquier persona con poco tiempo o que tiene problemas para gestionar su tiempo de forma eficiente. Como nota final diré que aún no he terminado el libro (llevo más de la mitad) porque es un proceso, no solo una lectura. Sin embargo, ya puedo confirmar que he mejorado la gestión de mis obligaciones y del tiempo en general, así que no puedo más que recomendarlo.

llego en perfecto estado completamente recomendable