Book of the Week: Getting Things Done

This week’s book of the week is David Allen’s Getting Things Done.  The funny thing is I am a week late on this book review because I have had too much to do!  I made it 7 weeks into the new year with a book a week, and I failed miserably on the week I was reading a productivity book.  Dr. Chuck Lawless recommended his system a while back to me, and I have used some of the principles without actually reading the book.

Here’s some of the premises of the book:

  • “Teaching you how to be maximally efficient and relaxed, whenever you need or want to be, was my main purpose in writing this book” (xi).
  • “It’s possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and positive sense of relaxed control” (3).
  • “…you’ll need to get in the habit of keeping nothing on your mind” (18).
  • “…the real problem is a lack of clarity and definition about what a project really is, and what the associated next-action steps required are” (19).
  • “No matter what the setting, there are five discrete stages that we go through as we deal with our work.  We (1) collect things that command our attention; (2) process what they mean and what to do about them; (3) organize the results, which we (4) review as options for what we choose to (5) do” (24).

The rest of the book is tips on how to get the most done that you possibly can do.  Instead of giving you a ton of quotes from this book, this diagram below is a great start to understanding the system.  If you want to eliminate time-wasters from your life and get more done, I encourage you to check this book out!

Any questions or any thoughts on how you are getting your life organized?

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