I love GTD and I feel like this is a good “snack” to read if you’re in need of a kick in the pants or a refresher course.

Title felt like a companion book to David Allen's GTD program, as opposed to something stand-alone. Unfortunately not a lot of value added.

This book contains 52 redacted essays from David Allen's Newsletters. They are meant to get you thinking at your practice and how you organize your life.

It does not teach you the "Getting Things Done" methodology - there are other books for that.

If you consider yourself a "Level 3" practitioner and like to think about your thinking, this book is timeless wisdom you can dip in whenever you need to. Or read one essay a week. Or discuss it with GTD friends.

My 2nd time reading this book ; it's that good, because it's so spiritually nourishing. Full of revelations on staying in the zone, and how tweaking to stay inside requires way less effort.

Quotes :
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"... Though most people, when they think about it say, 'No - your head is probably not the best place to keep something in a trust-worthy fashion' they still keep over half their life in there."

"I have a vision that 25 years from now, every 12 year old on the planet will say 'Why did you ever keep things in your head?' What an old-fashioned and dumb thing to do.' "

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." - Plutarch

"Creativity shows up when there's space... How is limited. Clear the pipes and you attract and foster new productive thinking that almost happens by itself."

"Years ago a mentor of mine - who consulted with healthcare organizations - told me that whenever the front office of a clinic cleaned up its backlog of claims and paperwork and streamlined its flow, patient volume invariably increased dramatically. He suggested that as long as the reception staff experienced new business as creating more stress due to clogged systems, they would unconsciously turn it away."

"God forgives those who invent what they need." - Lillian Hellman

"Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." - Michaelangelo

"Find out what's stressing you and deal with it now, if you want to be truly effective at all levels at once."

"Your power is proportional to your ability to relax."

"The history of productivity is the history of personal freedom."

"To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders." - Lao Tzu

"Don't eliminate fear, but transcend it to diffuse its paralyzing effect."

"People with the most elevated view of what they are doing perform the most elegant-looking actions."

"There is no rest for the wicked, and the righteous don't need it." - English proverb

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about." - Charles Kingley

"The people who need what we [at the David Allen Company] do the least are the people who use it the most. Why? Because they're already in the driver's seat and already in motion... It's easier to move when you're in motion... I've never known anyone to get carsick when she was driving the car. A much deeper level of equilibrium is accessed when you actually take charge of the moving vessel. The main reason you'll feel much better when you implement the methods of collecting, processing, organizing, and intuitively managing the total inventory of your work is not that it creates less to do. It's because it automatically puts you back in the driver's seat, at the center of your universe. You become cause, instead of effect."

"Missiles and rockets are off-course most of the time they are in the air. They get where they're going because they continually course-correct."

"Play a game you can win, and lose as much as you need to, to get there."



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