Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

I first read this book a few years ago, which completely revolutionized my world. I subsequently & immediately adopted this methodology - & ultimately improved my procedure for systematically getting things done by mastering these principals the best I could, & also by upgrading to “OmniFocus” software. OmniFocus software is based entirely on David Allen’s GTD system & principals. By integrating GDT & OmniFocus, my computers, iPads & iPhones are now all synced. And, capturing fleeting ideas, & simultaneously getting them into my GTD system, is now effortless - even while driving (with Siri’s help). By utilizing “Getting Things Done” & OmniFocus, I have eliminated paper from my everyday life - & completely revolutionized my existence - with a more simple & automated, relaxed “GTD Lifestyle”. David Allen continually adapts to our fast-ever changing world (by providing new revised editions whenever appropriate). So, I bought his latest hard cover book, Kindle & Audible - & thoroughly studied his newest edition, which he has completely rewritten in it’s entirety - to now take advantage of the computer & Information Age! David is an amazing teacher, writer & communicator. I highly recommend David Allen, the GTD system & this amazing book to anyone serious about improving their ability to organize their projects, tasks & priorities ... & to ultimately get things done in an organized, systematic & non-stressful way.

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.

This is an excellent book that has a lasting impact on my life as I have integrated some of it's concept into my life: - Total brain dump - Workflow process - 2 minute rules - Natural project planning model - Action focused / Next action list The system is perfect if you are in a corporate environnement with the contexts imposed to you: you will act depending on the context. But this system lacks when you are fully responsible from completely shaping your day, as you do in some liberal professions, freelancers, individual entrepreneurs and the such where you are your own accountant. In these cases this books lacks prioritizing system. It could be easy to get stuck on urgent, administrative task if you don't have a plan to "put first things first" as would say another author. Another area where this system is lacking is measure of performance and accountability measures. Also the horizon of focus are not very clear.... David Allen seems to be really interested in one thing; micro managing and organizing actions, the rest is secondary. So this system is not a total life management system.... but it can compliment very nicely systems more focused on planning, prioritizing and measure performance.

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.

Self help is not a genre of books I read very often, but I made an exception for David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. One of my goals for 2017 was to become better organised and to be more productive. I first learned about the GTD methodology through Carl Pullein’s YouTube channel that I follow. I’ve been working on this for around six weeks now, so it’s too early to tell, but I’m happy with what I’ve learned so far. Getting Things Done, or GTD, is a productivity methodology based on a few deceptively simple concepts. Now, I’m still very new to GTD, but this is how I see it. One of the fundamental ideas behind GTD is that the human brain is excellent at processing ideas and being creative, but not a great storage facility. A key part of GTD is getting all ideas, projects and commitments out of your brain and into a trusted system or external brain. There are five activities to GDT: Capture, Clarify, Organise, Reflect and Engage. If I can take from the GTD website, this translates to: Capture: Collect what has your attention. For me, this means adding all my ideas, commitments and to-dos in my list manager application of choice, Todoist. I really love this application and regret that I don’t have it at work. I try to capture everything from my doctor’s appointments, to buying cat food for Lushka to a reminder to ask my husband if we have picture hooks. I’m planning a trip to Europe this summer, so any time I think of something like oh, I must remember to get Swiss francs, into Todoist it goes. Clarify: Process what it means. Here I can’t be any more concise than or as clear as the workflow diagram on the GTD website: Gtd Honestly, if I take away nothing more from my experience with GTD than the two minute rule (if you can do it in two minutes, do it now, otherwise delegate it or defer it) and the discipline to define the next physical action to move a task along it will have been worth it. Organise: Put it where it belongs. This is probably the area of GTD that’s least intuitive for me – I’m not very organised! At the very least, I try to put any appointments on my calendar, any tasks in the appropriate section of Todoist, and potentially relevant non-actionable information in Evernote. One interesting aspect of GTD is the use of contexts. This means organising your tasks not by priority but by the tools, location, and/or person you need to be able to complete them successfully. So, for example, in my Taxes 2016 list I have an item; pick up tax receipt from pharmacy. I tagged that as “pharmacy” along with other items like pick up Polysporin and drop off new prescription. So when I go to the pharmacy I just check that tag to be reminded of all the things I have to accomplish while I’m there. Similarly, while planning my trip to Europe I have a context of Susanne, the friend I’m visiting. Any time I think of something I need to ask her, I add it to that list of things to discuss next time I call or email her. Reflect: Review your to do list and calendar frequently. The idea here is to keep your “external brain” current with everything that you need to accomplish. If you don’t add to it or clear our stale items, your real brain will no longer trust your system and it will break down. Most GTDers do a review at least once a week. Engage: Simply do. Pick the tasks that are available to you based on your contexts and get cracking! The book itself is very well written and the edition I have was updated in 2015 to include discussion of new technology (not specific applications) and how it impacts the GTD workflow. if you are interested in improving your productivity and generally getting things done you could do a whole lot worse than to check out this book. I gave Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free productivity five stars out of five.

Months before purchasing this book, I read an article that discussed GTD and got interested interested in implementing some core ideas I gleaned from that abbreviated reading into my work flow. I didn't think there was that much more to it.... but then I took the time to read this book and I am glad I did. Many of the core ideas of GTD are very simple, but an understanding of WHY those ideas have stood the test of time as opposed to other approaches isn't immediate obvious. With breadth, depth, and optimism (and in a concise, well-articulated, non-condescending manner), David Allen walks you through implementing a system to get complexity out of your head and onto an external/extended mind. From this book, I was expecting mainly productivity tactics or "hacks", but instead I got a very comprehensive treatment of not just "getting things done", but how dealing with "low-level" or "trivial" things in our lives is essential for freeing ourselves to engage bigger issues. This book is not just a very practical volume, it is a work of philosophy in the sense that it explicitly states a path of living.

It's not life changing for me yet as many people have raved, but it's a great productivity system. It's a short enough book and a simple enough system that it's worth reading just to pick up a few ideas even if you aren't interested in implementing it fully. Hey, the simple system for reducing your email inbox to zero is easy to implement and follow and so helpful. I'm about a month into working the system and I am still honing it and learning to trust it, but I am already getting a lot more done. Basically, the whole point of the book is to write everything you need to do down, break larger tasks into individual actionable items, review it regularly and then just trust the system so you aren't trying to keep everything in your head. If you have dealt with depression or anxiety and I have had trouble with both, been to a therapist and learned a lot about them, then you know that one of the biggest, if not the biggest cause of both are recurring thoughts that keep rattling around in your head. The "stress-free" tagline on the cover is not hype. Stress=anxiety and it comes from those rattling thoughts going over and over and over and over...in your head. Writing them down and tracking them in a system like GTD will not remove stress in your life or all of those recursive thoughts that lead to anxiety, but it sure helps.

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.

Amazing book…. Hugely practical, and a great help. It has become my Bible. If you really want to increase your productivity, this is the go-to book.

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.