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Book - Product Information
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
David Allen
Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Rank: 148
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. Not quite.
Yes,
Getting Things Done offers a complete system for downloading all
those free-floating gotta-do's clogging your brain into a sophisticated
framework of files and action lists--all purportedly to free your mind to
focus on whatever you're working on. However, it still operates from the
decidedly Western notion that if we could just get really, really
organized, we could turn ourselves into 24/7 productivity machines.
(To
wit, Allen, whom the New Economy bible Fast Company has dubbed "the
personal productivity guru," suggests that instead of meditating on
crouching tigers and hidden dragons while you wait for a plane, you should
unsheathe that high-tech saber known as the cell phone and attack that list
of calls you need to return.) As whole-life-organizing 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-for gotta-do cramming your head onto its own scrap of paper. Finally, throw the whole stew into a giant "in-basket" That's where
the processing and prioritizing 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 commonsense
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 belabored, self-improver aimed at everyone from CEOs to soccer
moms (who we all know are more organized than most CEOs to start with).
--Timothy Murphy--This text refers to the
Hardcover edition.
About the AuthorDavid Allen has been called one of the world's most influential thinkers on
productivity and has been a keynote speaker and facilitator for such
organizations as New York Life, the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, L.L.
Bean, and the U.S. Navy. He is president of The David Allen Company and
has more than twenty years experience as a management consultant and
executive coach.
His work has been featured in Fast Company,
Fortune, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times,
The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.
Editorials
Sample 3 of 9
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
David Allen
![]() | | | Amazon.com | | 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... read full editorial |
![]() | | | From Booklist | | Allen, a management consultant and executive coach, provides insights into
attaining maximum efficiency and at the same time relaxing whenever one
needs or wants to. Readers learn that there is no single means for
perfecting... read full editorial |
![]() | | | Download Description | | """The personal productivity guru"" (Fast Company) delivers powerful
methods that vastly increase your efficiency and creative results-at work
and in life In today's world, yesterday's methods just don't work. In
Getting... read full editorial |
Customer Reviews
Sample 3 of 51
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
David Allen
![]() | | | Allen's premise is simple | | (Washington, DC) September 23, 2004 - 5.0/5 stars | | In Getting Things Done, management consultant David Allen shares the
methods for stress-free performance. Allen's premise is that our
productivity is proportional to our ability to relax. when our minds are
clear and... read full review |
![]() | | | A real opinion and a long review | | (Tokyo, Japan) August 12, 2004 - 5.0/5 stars | | I love this book. I have carried it in my briefcase for about 6 months now,
and flip back often to keep focused on how I want to get to be in my
life.
That being said- I think that most of the reviews here
were probably... read full review |
![]() | | | mind like water! | | (Berkeley, CA United States) December 13, 2004 - 5.0/5 stars | | This book is a great book, a life-saver for anxious, overworked people. I
now get more done, but with less anxiety ("mind like water", as David puts
it). I was an obsessive list-maker, but his system and suggestions... read full review |
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