A friend of mine at work asked me to read over this and tell him what I made of it. Years ago I worked with a woman who is now my home state’s attorney general – you really couldn’t meet a nicer person – but she was perhaps also the most organised person I’d ever met. Given that she is Victoria’s attorney general, you’d have to say that being organised hasn’t particularly hurt her progress through life. I’m just not sure I’m the sort of person who can really do the kinds of hyper-organisation stuff that is implied as the baseline for this book. And I’m not boasting about that. I can see I would probably be a better person if that wasn’t the case.

A lot of the advice in this book is disturbingly obvious – disturbing because as obvious as it is, I’d never thought of it before. I really liked his ‘two-minute’ rule – essentially, you need to sort stuff into piles to process them and work out what needs to happen next with them, if you can do whatever that is in under two-minutes, do it now. This is his version of the ‘handle it once’ rule, which he, rightly enough, says can’t possibly work. You know that, because one of the things on everyone’s list is apparently ‘write a novel’ – and so you can’t possibly do that by ‘handling it once’. To really know if something will take under two minutes requires you to have thought about it properly and in the right way.

Which is his most important piece of advice, well, for me, anyway. Thinking about things in the right way is to decide what the next actual, literal action needs to be to move it forward. This can be anything from ‘file in the rubbish bin’, but what it can’t be is ‘plan to invade Poland’ or ‘marry Susan’. The reason why it can’t be either of these things, even if, ultimately, they are what you would like to do, is because there is no concrete action attached to either of those grand plans. The concrete task is whatever is the very next action you will need to take to move your overall plan one step closer to completion – in both of these cases that might well be ‘spend more time in bars in Munich’, for example.

I really like this idea – not of marrying Susan or invading Poland so much, but of not finishing with something before you have figured out the next concrete action needs to be, and probably also the when, where, how and who that are likely to go along with that action. I mean, like I said, it’s bloody obvious once you are told, but the obvious is far too often a bit like that, only any good in retrospect, when it is too late.

The other really nice thing I liked about this method was that it took into account the fact that we don’t work at 10/10 for all of 24-7. There are times when we are only able to function at a solid 3/10, and other times when we are topping 7/10 in spurts and starts. And since that is the case, being able to have what another book might call a store of ‘mindless shit’ to be getting on with when you are not in what Wodehouse would call ‘mid-season form’ is well worth thinking about. In that sense, this book is a kind of mindfulness for the anally retentive.

And therein lies the problem for me, of course. I don’t see myself as anally retentive and the shift in self-image that would be necessary to go from what I am now to what I would need to become would require a kind of psychological funeral along the way. I’m not proud to admit of any of this, but self-awareness comes with age, I guess. All the same, I am going to try to do some of the things mentioned in this book – a lot of it is clearly worthwhile – but even as I type this a phase involving ‘old dogs and new tricks’ is echoing about the place.

Oh, except, the other thing – he does say something that did make me think, ‘Oh, yeah, too bloody right!’ and that was that if you are about my age (or any age, really) and you can’t touch type then you should receive a slap across the back of the head every time someone sees you ‘hunting and pecking’. Keyboards aren’t going away anytime soon. If you are going to use technology in a way that allows you to sit and think and effectively hear and see what you are thinking as you type, wondering where the bloody D key is really isn’t allowing you to make the best use of that technology. You can learn to touch type in a couple of weeks – just do it, what the hell? Not being able to type isn’t something you should be proud of. You should be ashamed in the same way you would be ashamed if you owned a car but could only push it around the place because you never learnt how to drive.

I don’t think I’m ever going to have a manila folder filing system with dynamo labels, but my ‘to do’ lists are never going to be quite the same again either. I have one beside me now that I wrote last week – it has items on it like: 3. Vietnam Paper, 5 Ambitions and International Student Paper, 10 Jen W. check in – how’s she going? Only the last one here is anything like an action I could actually do, or even know what the action is that I might need to do. I have to say, thinking of ‘to do’ as ‘things you can actually do’ is a damn useful thing to learn from any book.

A book that helps you see your day to day work differently paired with a highly customized system that allows you to exercise control. Mind like water, Grasshopper.

I've recommended this book to several people who felt overwhelmed at their jobs and they've all loved it. Just be careful not to take the system too far - the excitement of something that works will have you spending hundreds of dollars playing with various software programs, tweaking your productivity flow. Nobody wants to talk to you about that.

خیلی خوشم اومد. از اون کتابایی بود که می‌گفتم کاش زودتر می‌خوندم.
ایده‌ی کتاب رو چند روزی‌اه شروع کردم به پیاده‌سازی و واقعا دنیا شفاف‌تر(: و ساده‌تر شده. ذهنم راحت‌تر شده و سریع‌تر کارها رو انجام میدم.

البته‌ ایده‌ی کتاب خیلی فضایی و جادویی نیست. صرفا میگه که همه چیزها رو بنویسیم. همه کارهایی که قراره بکنیم، همه اونایی که قرار بوده انجام بدیم و ندادیم(حتی مثلا ۱۰ ساله هی بعضا میاد تو ذهنمون که انجام بدیم) و همه اون کارایی که شاید یه روزی انجام بدیم.
همه‌ی اینا باید تو سیستمی باشه که مطمئن باشیم بهش سر می‌زنیم و چک می‌کنیم. اگه چک نکنیم، ذهن ما می‌فهمه که این نوشتن‌ها بازی‌ای بیش نبوده و باز سعی می‌کنه همه چی رو خودش حفظ کنه و نگه داره.
در حالیکه اگه تو یه سیستم مطمئن(مثلا رو کاغذهایی که سر می‌زنیم، رو یه نرم‌افزار) بنویسیم و چک کنیم، مغز ما می‌فهمه که لازم نیست وظیفه‌ی انبار بودن رو هم انجام بده. لازم نیست تبدیل بشه به یه حافظه‌.
عوضش تمام توانش رو می‌زاره برا اون کاری که براش رشد کرده،‌ یعنی انجام دادن و درگیر شدن لحظه‌ای با فعالیتی که در حال انجام دادنش هستیم.
همچنین راحت‌تر می‌خوابه. چون می‌دونه یه جایی لیست کارایی که فردا صبح باید انجام بده هست.
راحت‌تر هم به تفریحش می‌رسه. چون وقتی تفریح می‌کنه، وقتی سریال می‌بینه، ذهنش هی درگیر این نیست که «نکنه یه کاری یادم رفته باشه؟» هی یه اضطراب مبهم نداره. با خودش و انتخاب‌هاش راحته.

و البته دیوید آلن به شدت توصیه می‌کنه که لیست‌ فعالیت‌هایی که باید انجام بدیم حتما Actionable باشن. یعنی مشخص باشند چه کاری فیزیکی‌ای باید انجام بشه. «تولد پسرخاله» یه پروژه‌س، اتوی لباس برای تولد چیزی‌اه که باید بره تو لیست. «خرید ساعت شنی برای هدیه از بازار ولیعصر» چیزی‌اه که باید بره تو لیست.


کلا پیشنهاد اکید دارم بیشتر آدما اینو بخونند.
در ضمن آخرین نسخه‌ش برا ۲۰۱۵ئه. اونو بخونید.

I would say a badly-written, poorly-organized but most comprehensive and best productivity litrature ever produced.


This book doesnt offer quick recipies, shortcuts or things-to-do list.You can not find valuable information by skimming the book. This book is all about understanding and applying the "whole system". By reading is quickly or just by skimming it you will not get the essence of the book. You only remember 2 minute rule, capture, filing or project list etc. Also, you cannot even get the crux of the book by listening to YouTube summaries or presentations. You must read the book again and again until it becomes the part of your understanding. The first sign of getting most out the book is you feel frustrated and overwhelmed. I think it is worth it.

I would say it is the bible of productivity. Just like bible different thing resonate at different time and differently to different people. You only need to consult it again and again.
Even the phrase "getting things done" got a deep philosophy in it.
The only flaw in this book is it is hard to comprehend in its entirety without a coach. But with efforts, you can learn the "gtd".

If you find yourself turning a little moist and your pulse quickening with pleasure when you read words and phrases such as:

-High-performance workflow management
-Family commitments
-Priority factors
-The ability to be successful, relaxed, and in control during these fertile but turbulent times demands new ways of thinking and working
-key work tool
-assembly-line modality
-workforce
-values thinking
-desired results
-ups the ante in the game
-deal effectively with the complexity of life in the twenty-first century

as well as quotes around "colloquial" phrases, such as "ringing your bell" (which I think he uses incorrectly, at least according to MY understanding of a what a "bell" is and what it means to "ring" it)

then not only is this the book for you, this is also the society and era for you, because these things are inescapable and even more so in this book. If such terms instead have you thinking wistfully of the sweet, enveloping darkness to be found at the bottom of your nearest 300-foot drop onto rocky crags, then you have, like me, found yourself woefully living in the wrong universe. You want to be three branes over, where there is still all this awesome new technology and decentralization of art and science and society but nary a hard-charger to be found. In that universe, if someone wants to help others to be more productive, that someone wouldn't expect their readers to slog through a 400-page book that contains about 370 pages of enthusiastic self-congratulation on the startling effectiveness of the method outlined in the remaining 30 pages. Writers in that universe also don't get bored of their own choking newspeak every two paragraphs or so, needing to take a break for a witty and apropos quote, one-sentence summary or reminder of the previous two paragraphs that passed as ephemerally through their own mind as it will through that of the readers, or to just start a new section on either the same or a new topic, either one, it doesn't matter, no one will notice, it's just the same randomly-generated buzzwords bouncing off their eyeballs.

However, in that universe as well as our own, the general concept outlined in this book of turning yourself into an automaton of your own design is still valid. Only in that universe when someone wants to get more done in their life by exporting their brain to external resources, it's done matter-of-factly and with little fanfare, since that universe has also failed to create an entire race of creatures that can't figure out how to function without following explicitly outlined methodologies taught to them by highly paid professional consultants. People in that universe have external brains because it's obviously the thing to do, not because it'll make them more effective entrepreneurs, more successful businessmen, more highly admired community leaders not to mention better partners and parents. Half those things aren't taken seriously in this other universe and the other half are taken even less seriously but still done well. There, they learn how to be alive while they're being alive, by being alive, not from a book they read in middle age in desperation after having already failed miserably at living and this is the thing that'll finally get their shit together, I swear to high heaven this is it, for real, everything's gonna be different from here on out. God I wish I was in that universe.

As someone who's fairly obsessive (in sprints) about personal productivity, I should've read this sooner. This is essentially a 300-page book about managing to-do lists. That should either exhilarate you or cause you to roll your eyes. Depending on which one you are, you either pick this up or stop reading this review. The advice in the book has stood the test of time, but don't expect him to recommend you any system (rather, attributes of one). The main insights for me:

* If you are procrastinating an item it's probably because it's not clearly describing the next action. E.g. "Apply for Canadian citizenship" is a terrible task. Split it into the 20 tasks that actually requires: "Get passport photo taken", "Fill out travel history for the past 5 years", "Find a good source of information for the Canadian history test" and so on.
* If there's more than two tasks associated with something and it takes less than a year to complete it's a project, not a task--a feature most to-do applications support.
* Tag everything based on: energy, context, deadline, and time to complete. If you have these tags properly organized, you know what you can do when you're in a waiting room on your phone (low energy, mobile context, and 5 min or less time to complete). If you don't know what's highest priority where you are right now, your system is not serving its function.
* Thinking "about" things cause stress. If you think about something and it's in your system, you should be able to immediately dismiss it. Put everything in there.
* You cannot run a proper to-do system if you don't review all tasks once a week.
* If a task takes less than two minutes, just do it now, the graphs cross of system overhead and cost of doing it immediately just around here.
* If you don't trust your system, you need to do a complete dump of everything in your life that needs to get done. The book has multiple-page "triggers" to make sure everything in your life is captured.

If you've ever opened "Things" and had no idea what to do, this book is for you. I've used Things for many years, but find now that I am lacking some power and now consider switching to OmniFocus as a result of reading this book. Time will tell whether it all sticks, but I find it highly likely.

I should say that if you are someone who doesn't have a million things on the go, you might not need this. However, you may find that you have more on the go than you realize...

Who among does not have trouble Getting Things Done? I'm conflicted about this book. The core advice is solid, but the follow-through to the hard parts is often skimpy.

The goal of Getting Things Done is a productivity flow state, or what Bruce Lee called a "mind like water". Allen's insight is based around the cognitive-psych wisdom that working memory is a very limited resource, and that anything you have on your mind, even minor stuff like a mental to-do list or inbox, is taking up resources that should be used to make important executive decisions; you are after all an important business executive, right?

The first tool for doing this is a mental model of do-defer-delegate-delete. Anything that hits your awareness should either be done immediately, if it can be done so, deferred or delegated to the right person or future block of time for a complex task, or deleted. Most things in the universe are spam. The second tool is a rigorous system of alphabetical folders, which should contain every pieces of paper in your life, and every piece of information similar to paper, especially emails.

I buy the importance of these two tools, the need to reduce clutter, and the need to block out large chunks of time for purge and organization to set up the system. Allen also recommends that you add your personal life to the system. After all, a successful business executive like yourself would never let family and friends waste away because they aren't on the agenda. The thing is that setting up a knowledge management system across multiple email accounts, computers, cloud file systems, etc, is legitimately hard, and there's not much there. Allen also recommends a weekly review session to make sure that there's alignment between long term goals, your projects (something you intend to finish in less than a year), and what you're doing right now, but didn't have much to guide these review sessions except "think wisely".

Getting Things Done is not actively wrong business advice, some of which I've read, but there's a major gap between what's recommended and what's doable, and I'm not sure how well the half-measures work.

I have not had much success applying strategies from productivity gurus. I am referring to books like "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Steven Covey, and other books which share use top-down strategies to order our lives. There are two reasons why these have not worked for me. The first is technical: day-to-day life happens on the level of "stuff". The myriad of small tasks of varying importance and in multiple contexts hampers the effectiveness of top-down approaches. The second reason is a personal one. The entire mindset of these books is very unappealing to me. Books which simplify and systemize our entire lives, such as Covey's books, seem to suck the imagination and life right out of living. Peter Pan would barf and toss these books to his crocodile buddy.

Incredibly, one productivity book has managed to overcome my objections: David Allen's "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" has succeeded where other books failed. "Getting Things Done" (from now on I'll refer to it as GTD) has made quite a splash since its release in 2001. It's influence is already pervasive and some of the most useful blogs on the internet swear by it. I probably see it randomly mentioned every week. So for anyone who doesn't know much about it, I'd like to summarize the book and at the same time show how beneficial Allen's method has been for me.

First of all, GTD is not a top-down approach. Allen explains that "...most people are so embroiled in commitments on a day-to-day level that their ability to focus successfully on the larger horizon is seriously impaired. Consequently, a bottom-up approach is usually more effective." Allen is dead on. I already do plenty of big-picture thinking, and it really hasn't helped me deal with the nitty-gritty details of whatever messy projects and tasks are on my plate. Allen admits that a lot of times what is needed are a few tricks. GTD has equipped me to better deal with my responsibilities, and in some cases gave me some trick that helped make all the difference.

The second problem I've had with productivity books is more complex. I believe it is important to maintain a little bit of a child-like disposition in life. My impressions of the professional world are that it creates uniformity and kills creativity. It's very easy to figure out where my attitudes come from: I grew up watching Mary Poppins and Peter Pan, and Peter Pan was the first "big book" that I owned and read. I think I got that book out of my grandpa's library after his funeral. Both of these stories portray growing up as a very dangerous thing to do, and I've never stopped worrying that I will become old, dry, boring, and bored. But whether I like it or not, life happens, and responsibilities accumulate. And here is how "Getting Things Done" succeeds where others fail: without wasting time suggesting a cookie-cutter pattern for my life, it aids in conquering mundane tasks and responisibilities so that my energy can return to the activities that excite me. As I've implemented Allen's method, I've found myself able to mentally relax and in general am feeling a lot more creative again. That's pretty much fantastic!

Here is a quick summary of the GTD method. Allen describes a five-stage workflow: collecting anything that commands our attention, processing, organizing the results, reviewing the options, and taking action. Going through these steps for the first time is a huge project; Allen suggests taking several days to do this. It took me quite awhile to get all the papers and "open-loops" collected or written down, and several hours of work to organize them. Fortunately, Allen does plenty of hand-holding through this. If someone as absent minded and flighty as myself can do it, anyone can. Allen also includes chapters on developing and tracking projects (really excellent stuff) and deciding what to do next at any given moment. As a manual, it is very well written. It gives brief overviews of everything before going into greater detail. By the time you are implementing it, you already have a decent grasp of the material.

Allen sold me in the early chapters, so I dived in with both feet. It took awhile, but the results are wonderful. I have no loose unorganized papers anywhere. Before I did GTD, my mind felt like it was completely in knots. It's felt that way for years. Now that I don't carry the anxiety of lots of unidentified mental baggage and millions of unsorted papers, my mind feels relaxed and focused. GTD also helps me keep a clear picture of any tasks in front of me, and it's much easier to decide what to do next. Tackling a "next action" list feels a bit like a game. I hope to get one down to zero someday. I am more productive and am feeling more energetic. The method is also somewhat flexible: everyone's implementation will vary a bit. I use a clipboard with next-action divded by context, big wallets to hold file folders in place of a file cabinet, basic office supplies, a paper calendar, and four trays for "inbox", "next action / outbox", "data entry" (for business cards and such), and "waiting for". Very low tech, which is how I like it.

Only time will tell what effect all this will have on me. Increased responsibilities will be the real test of GTD's effectiveness. Although GTD will hold special appeal to workaholics and productivity worshippers, it is potentially beneficial to anyone who struggles to keep track of all the little tasks we need to get done. Check it out!

Not completely what I was looking for, but I definitely got some things out of it that I will use.

Այս գրքի հետ ծանոթացել եմ դեռ մի քանի տարի առաջ ու հասկացել նրա երկարակեցությունը։ Դեյվիդ Ալենն առաջարկում է գործերը հասցնելու պարզ մեթոդ, առանց ճոռոմ բառերի, առանց բարդ նկարագրությունների, որն ի դեպ, աշխատում է։

Այդ իմաստով հայերեն հրատարակությունն ուշացած չէ։ Ավելին, այն գրքի վերափոխված տարբերակն է, որտեղ հաշվի են առնված ՏՏ վերջին զարգացումները, էլփոստի ու սոցցանցների համատարած օգտագործումը։

Այս գիրքը սկզբից մինչև վերջ կարդալու համար չէ։ Ընդհակառակը, ժամանակ առ ժամանակ կարելի է վերադառնալ գրքին, կարդալ որևէ գլուխ, հետո, որոշ ժամանակ անց, շարունակել։

If you don't pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.

I've been using many of the GTD principles and techniques for years without ever reading the book. I learned them through blog posts and other people without being aware that they are of GTD. Some of them I discovered myself, simply because they made sense.

The principles of GTD - essential. The techniques - good, but I didn't and wouldn't recommend adopting all of them. The book itself - could be cut in half without losing content.

I would recommend the book for anyone who experiences procrastination and anxiety around trying to get things done. Just be prepared to skim and roll your eyes at all-older-white-male examples.

Pfff wat ne klepper, ik heb me er echt moeten doorworstelen, volgende keer lees ik hem in het Nederlands.

Ik las dit boek al eens jaren terug en dit is 1 van de boeken die echt een verschil in mijn leven heeft gemaakt. Benieuwd wat ik er nu weer zal van opsteken. Ten eerste is dit een volledig herschreven nieuwe versie van het boek en ten tweede ben ik klaar voor wat meer gtd (het systeem ... niet om nog meer gedaan te krijgen, wel efficienter)

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Dit boek is een aanrader. Sinds ik dit boek gelezen heb, heb ik mezelf helemaal gereorganiseerd en ik durf zeggen ... het is beter nu.
Dit boek gaat over herkenbare dingen en geeft concrete, waardevolle richtlijnen over hoe jezelf te organiseren. Op professioneel vak, maar evenzeer in het persoonlijke leven.

Haal alles uit je hoofd en in een systeem. Bepaal eenduidig wat je wil bereiken en welke concrete acties je moet nemen.

De weg naar efficiënter, georganiseerder en vooral met minder stress handelen.

Maar 't komt niet vanzelf, het boek helemaal doorlezen is geen ontspanning. Dat is werken, een minimum aan motivatie om hieraan te beginnen is wel vereist ... maar het is de moeite waard !!!