David Fein reviews Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
The vast and intense number of things we need to keep track of and do on a daily basis can be completely overwhelming. From everything to do with work to managing a home, kids at school, and family commitments, trying to keep on top of all of this can be nearly impossible. This information and “to-do” overload can easily leave you feeling frazzled and like you are not showing up as the best version of yourself.
I’m always looking for ways to be more productive and my own feeling of information and “to-do” overload and its negative impacts on my productivity led me to David Allen’s book called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.
With over 2-million copies sold, this book is a great tool for helping achieve stress-free productivity. By helping you set up a system of lists, reminders, and weekly reviews, it allows you to free your mind from having to remember an endless number of tasks and to-dos and instead let it work at full focus on the task at hand.
“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them” David Allen
David says,” Getting Things Done is a personal productivity methodology that redefines how you approach your life and work”, so it’s much more than a “to-do” list strategy.
The foundation of the method to “apply order to chaos” as David says, lies in the fact that the human brain is better at creativity and organizing rather than remembering. Allen suggests many techniques to achieve better productivity including:
- Using a “collection bucket” to store things outside your mind and stay focused
- Create a “next actions” list for all your projects so you have a clear focus (this is a life saver!)
- Do a weekly review of everything – this is crucial to success.
“The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” Lily Tomlin
Allan teaches us that the secret to succeeding using the Getting Things Done method is to learn that the task should not be the focus. Instead, we should look at the outcome we want. Focusing on our objectives and desired outcomes is how you cut through the clutter, prioritize where you channel your energy, and decide how much energy to expend on each goal.
I highly recommend Allen’s method, it really helped me be more productive and while we can never completely escape the rat race, we can certainly find ways to be better competitors and be more efficient at competing.
Check out the five steps to the Getting Things Done process at https://gettingthingsdone.com/what-is-gtd/.
About David Allen and his methodology
David Allen is widely recognized as the world’s leading expert on personal and organizational productivity. His thirty-year pioneering research and coaching to corporate managers and CEOs of some of America’s most prestigious corporations and institutions have earned him Forbes’ recognition as one of the top five executive coaches in the U.S. and Business 2.0 magazine’s inclusion in their 2006 list of the “50 Who Matter Now.” Time Magazine called his flagship book, “Getting Things Done”, “the definitive business self-help book of the decade.” Fast Company Magazine called David “one of the world’s most influential thinkers” in the arena of personal productivity, for his outstanding programs and writing on time and stress management, the power of aligned focus and vision, and his groundbreaking methodologies in management and executive peak performance.