This book really gave me the kick that I needed to get a bit more focussed on the projects that I want to achieve this year. So many things that he mentions in this book are basic "Getting Things Done" style, but sometimes you just need to be reminded of what you should be doing. It is too easy to slip back into old habits.

Already I have "got stuff out of my head" and created projects on our project management system with break down tasks and due dates. Now I don't need to worry that I will forget these good idea now!

I have also resurrected my "think it, ink it" theory, and I have a notepad with me at all times when I am out and about. I have also downloaded an application on my iphone for taking idea notes verbally for when I am out walking the dog, or in the car.

I have pledged to create the habit of doing my list of "must do today" - which I had slipped into not doing.

A good book and I would highly recommend listening to it!

As someone who has already read Getting Things Done and tries to use the GTD system, I found this book to be a helpful collection of essays to motivate me. This is not a book that explains the system, but instead gives unique inspiration and insight for the various aspects of the system like the weekly review and understanding projects. It's just what I needed to keep going and it helped refine my process.

Very disappointed in this book as a follow-up to Getting Things Done. It mostly restates the information in the original book and offers almost no new insights. Perhaps if I had not recently reread GTD this would have been a better refresher.

If you are going to read David Allen (and everyone should) read Getting Things Done. This one can be skipped.

I found this book a nice review of the Getting Things Done system, and while a lot of what the essays are saying is general, I think anyone reading would be better off already familiar with GTD.

These essays were a nice length, easily digested in a quick sitting with some interesting relevant quotes for each one. Some of them fire you up, some make you muse on your work and systems, but all succintly focus on an aspect of productivity, organisation, goals or structures.

Not as good as Getting Things Done, but still worth reading if you liked GTD. Also, check out the Outlook add-on.

I love pretty much everything written by this man. This seemed more stream-of-consciousness than his other offerings--which was both good and bad. It felt like he just woke up and wrote to his audience some good advice that was on his mind (I believe the book was taken from his newsletters). Good refresher on some neglected concepts.

Mix of philosophy and productivity techniques

This book was an interesting addition to the Getting Things Done method in the main GTD book by David Allen. While I enjoyed the ideas contained within, I felt that they bordered a little too much on philosophy and too little on practical productivity techniques. I also found them to repeat his work in other media. In addition, I found the multitude of quotes in each chapter to be distracting, especially in the Kindle edition, which has them inline in the text. I just ended up skipping most of them.

That being said, if you haven’t listened to David Allen’s GTD podcast, or read his newsletters, the information in this book might be interesting. Worth the read but not groundbreaking.

[December 2012] Meh, sure.

[March 2014] wow I read this so long ago! I recently revisited it, looking for a kind of light productivity read, and, honestly, a set of rules can't get much lighter. It was a solid 3 stars again, a good companion to GTD, for sure, but perhaps strays into the more philosophical areas that David Allen is not as strong at (for me at least?).

Невероятно нудная книга :) Читала ее год. Но методика GTD абсолютно гениальна, спасибо автору. Я смогла полностью внедрить ее в управление своими делами, и это было лучшее, что я пока что сделала для своей эффективности.

Создатель теории GTD написал очень простую в восприятии книгу, аккуратно нарезанную на крохотные разделы, размер которых чуть ли не с линейкой замерялся (на самом деле да: bookmate показал 50% книги на 26 разделе из 52). Но это скорее плюс для "чтения в метро", чем минус. И, конечно, книга очень порадует любителей крылатых фраз. Даже хочется пожурить Дэвида, что 30% мудрости его книги - слова других людей. Но журить Аллена не будем : )
Из лучшего:

Наиболее одарённые представители человеческой расы наилучшим образом реализуют свой творческий потенциал тогда, когда не получают того, что хотят, и вынуждены компенсировать эту недостачу развитием и реализацией своих способностей и талантов.
Эрик Хоффер

Когда возникают неприятности, и всё идёт хуже некуда, всегда находится человек, который чувствует, что может разрешить проблему и желает взять командование в свои руки. Очень часто этот человек сумасшедший.
Дэйв Барри

Если у вас всё находится под контролем, значит вы éдете слишком медленно.
Марио Андретти

Notes:

One's ability to be productive is a directly proportionate to one's ability to relax.
David Allen's program is irreducible. It is as simple as it can be and not simpler.

1. capture and corral ALL our internal and external "open loops" to regain clarity and energy.
2. Consciously managing our focus within the multiple levels of outcome and responsibilities to which we are committed.
3. creating trusted structures and consistent usage of them to trigger the appropriate focus and reminders as nescessary.
4. Grounding it all with flexible, forward motion at the physical action level.

imagine: completion, structure, focus, and action

David Allen said a month ago that something was coming I couldn't foresee that would affect me significantly. Ask me again on

May 16th. lol

Asian proverb: The more sweat in peace, the less you'll bleed in war.

SINCE I believe function follows form:
what will my ubiquitous capturing tool look like?

Quote: Samuel Johnson: All intellectual progress begins in leisure.

You can only feel good about what you're not doing when you know what you're not doing.

Collect (visionary)- Clarify and define all the outcomes you've committed yourself to accomplish, small and large, , process

(executive) and the actions required to move on them, organize (manager), review, do/focus
ALAS - I am a committee!
Tip: one skipper at a time.

Quote: Eistien: Everything should be made as simple as possible but not simpler. (irreducible)

Work:
1 - What are your current tasks? (typically 100 - 200 daily)
2 - What are your current projects? /requires more than one step to accomplish (typically 30 - 100)
3 - What are you current areas of responsiblity - (job/home/body. 10 - 15)
4 - How is your job and personal affairs going to be changing in the next month/year?
5 - over the next few years?
6 - why are you on the planet?

Quote Albert Camus: Real generousity to the future is giving all to the present.

Quote: Mencius: If you know the point of balance, you can settle the details, I you can settle the details, you can stop running

around. Your mind will become calm. If your mind becomes calm, you can think in front of a tiger. If you can think in front of a

tiger, you will surely succeed.


Projects vs someday maybe.
Someday maybe: projects without steps needed currently.
Either you need new tires or you don't.

Quote: Thomas Edison: Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Quote - Plutarch: The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.

not thinking about thinking
several times a day reassess all the actions required to accomplish what you are committed to.
weekly a thorough review of all projects and actions attached
month or two . check list of all responsiblities to be sure you are doing the right projects.
yearly - look toward the next 12 months.
few years vision and lifestyle.
grand think.. your reason for being

Review all this at appropriate intervels.

The world just is what it is, what makes the difference is how you're engaged with it.

Quote: Will Rogers: If you find yourself in a hole, its time to stop digging.

Take an inventory of your major assets and procedures- your spaces, your policies, your meetings, your staff, your big toys,

your old clothes, and your jewelry. I'll bet you'll want to change a number of things and you'll enjoy doing it.

minimal habitual habits
1- what is the next step, based on desired outcome.
2- write these down
3- look at the reminders choosing what to do with the windows that open.

Quote: Bergson: Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.

Qute: Fonteyn: The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and

taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.

Quote: Olivier: I'd like people to remember me for a diligent workman. I think a poet is a workman. Shakespeare was a

workman./ And God's a workman. I don't think there's anything better than a workman.

Quote: From a church in sussex 1730 A vision without a task is but a dream; a task without a vision is drudgery; a vision and a

task is the hope of the world.

Quote: Kerry gleeson: This constant, unproductive preoccupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest

consumer of time and energy.

So let's say that you have a list of all the actionable things in front of you. How do you decide what to do ?
1. Context: What can I do at this moment?
2. Type of work (Do I whats on my list, new stuff that shows up, or down back and process?)
3. Level of work - focus on task, resonsiblitly, project, goal, or destiny.

outcomes desired, next actions required.

The rhythm of things..

Handling interruptions.. plan for it, interruptions happen.

from podcast:
David Allen understands that the application of his research is as individual as the devotee.
He believes that we should get things off our mind, and there is an inverse relationship of on your mind and getting things done.
Be patient ... it takes 2 years to get how to get things off your mind. It is a disapline as strict as getting a black belt in K.

1. Write it down. Grab them all.
2. Sort them to determine the next forwarding action.
3. Clarify and Park it on :
projects - weekly
action list computer, phone, errand, read
4. review weekly.
5. do engage.
(each part of this is familiar - everyone has done before, often.)

You are not your work or your thoughts.















4:41 PM 4/21/2009

7:46 AM 4/22/2009

8:27 AM 4/24/2009

I received ‘Ready for Anything’ (RfA) as a belated birthday present from my sister. She saw it on my Amazon wish list. This came as a surprise. I don’t remember putting it on the list. Earlier, I dismissed this book in a conversation with Jennifer George, who thoroughly analyzed the text. I’ve been wondering several points about this slim book. I want to make comparisons to it as investigations into the organization philosophy. This book was born after ‘Getting Things Done’. In the order of thing, ‘Ready for Anything’ is the egg. If I compare the two, Ready for Anything is the philosophy in which GTD is the systematic execution, a methodology, where as Ready for Anything is a philosophy. There are some 52 short sections, which can be read as or compare to Koan. At times they are like Koan, because of they are mysterious in nature. At times, it’s hard to understand without a through understanding, and systematic practice of GTD. At times, RfA is a ‘Cliffnote’, a synopsis for the real text. Even though it is written after GTD, I wonder if this could have been a prequal, a predecessor, a subconsciousness lurking underneath GTD. It acts as if an introduction to the systematic execution of a process. In some ways, I prefer RfA, as it is not as dogmatic as GTD nor is it as instructional. It is rather a pondering about a methodology, a pretense for the rigor which is spelled out in GTD. The marvel of it is that, as systematic as GTD is, people who have read it devised their own system. GTD methodology is flexible. Another book by David Allen could not have conjure up a better scheme. It is better to revisit the existing scheme with new eyes and perspectives. I think that this is what RfA does best.
Posted by ducly Filed in Diary | Edit