Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

by David Allen

searched

for answers to the questions of what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.

The book is divided into three

parts. Part 1 describes the whole game,

Part 2 shows you how to implement the system.

Detalles

Part 3

describing

profound results you can expect when you incorporate the methodologies and models int...

I promise is not only possible but instantly accessible to you personally.

things you’ve been doing

all

along are right. I’ll give you ways to leverage t...

“When I habitually applied the tenets of this program it saved my life . . . when I faithfully applied them, it changed my life.

The methods I present here are all based on two key objectives: (1) capturing all the things that need to get done—now,

(2) disciplining yourself to make

front-end decisions about all of the “inputs”

“knowledge work.”

I know have at least half a dozen things they’re trying to achieve right now, and even if they had the rest of their lives to try, they wouldn’t be able to finish these to perfection.

How much available data could be relevant to doing those projects “better”? The answer is, an infinite amount, easily accessible, or at least potentially so, through the Web.

The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.

(Even as late as the 1980s many professionals considered having a pocket Day-Timer the essence of being organized,

Along with discretionary time also came the need to make good choices about what to do. “ABC” priority codes and daily “to-do” lists were

more people’s jobs are made up of dozens or even hundreds of e-mails a day, with no latitude left to ignore a single request, complaint, or order. There are few people who can (or even should) expect to code everything an “A,” a “B,” or a “C” priority,

Focusing on values does not simplify your life. It gives meaning and direction—and a lot more complexity.

Your ability to generate power is directly proportional to your ability to relax.

Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does.

Think about the last time you felt highly productive. You probably had a sense of being in control;

do you have the ability to get yourself back into it? That’s where the methodology of Getting Things Done will have the greatest impact on your life, by showing you how to get back to “mind like water,”

effectively to control the “open loops” of their lives.

You’ve probably made many more agreements with yourself than you realize, and every single one of them—big or little—is being tracked by a less-than-conscious part of you.

Open loops can include everything from really big to-do items like

to the more modest

You have accepted some level of internal responsibility for everything in your life and work that represents an open loop of any sort.

if it’s on your mind, your mind isn’t clear.

collection bucket,

clarify

what your commitment is and decide

what you have...

must keep reminders of them organized in a system you review regularly.

acquired a clearer definition of the outcome desired and the next action required.

As Peter Drucker has written, “In knowledge work . . . the task is not given; it has to be determined. ‘What are the expected results from this work?’ is . . . the key question in making knowledge workers productive.

“stuff”: anything you have allowed into your

psychological or physical world that doesn’t belong where it is, but for which you haven’t yet determined the desired outcome and the next action step.

As long as it’s still “stuff,” it’s not controllable.

once “stuff” comes into our

work,

we

commi...

to define and clarify its meaning. That’s our responsibility as knowledge workers; if “stuff” were already transformed and clear, our value, other than phys...