Common sense put into words (but be careful of the cultish aspects)

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	• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity David Allen Penguin (Non-Classics), 2002 - 267 pages average customer review:based on 445 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Excellent method to get things done!

This is an excellent booked filled with practical advice and methods to get your personal and professional lives organized, more productive and less stressful. The methods are quite simple and common sense but extremely valuable. This book can help anyone become more organized and more productive.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone needing a useful and practical system to become more successful and will be recommending it to many of my clients!

Common sense put into words (but be careful of the cultish aspects)

As someone who has unsuccessfully tried numerous products and methods to get organized -- from the overly involved FranklinCovey system to Julie Morgenstern's Organizing from the Inside Out series, to various other organizational self-help tomes -- this book helped me change my life dramatically and once and for all. Other reviewers have already asserted here the finer points of the system. There are just a few points I want to add.

First, you can adapt "GTD" to pretty much any way you want to work. This is especially suited to creative types who would otherwise eschew more corporate solutions that tend to be very structured. With a couple of exceptions, you don't need to purchase a specific product or type of system; you could use any of kind of planner (FranklinCovey, DayRunner, etc.), but you could also use a stack of index cards held together with a binder clip. Or a Moleskine notebook. Or Post-It notes strung together with rubber bands. It's your choice. You can be creative with this system. You can even adjust the different procedures involved, depending on your needs. Many people have successfully created their own planners for GTD. (In fact, there's a whole slew of Internet sites dedicated to freely downloadable templates for such DIY planners.)

The products that David Allen does recommend are: (1) a good-quality file cabinet, (2) a label-making machine, (3) manila file folders (instead of hanging file folders), and of course (4) certain types of office supplies, such as staplers, rubber bands, etc.

In my own personal experience, I've found that having a label-making machine has been invaluable. And I really like the used Steelcase file cabinet I bought for $125.

The most common complaint about David Allen's recommendations is his bias AGAINST using hanging file folders in favor of manila folders, but most people who prefer to use hanging files do so anyway. (I'll tell you -- it's somewhat difficult these days to find file cabinets with a so-called spring-loaded follower block, which allows you to stand manila folders up by themselves in the cabinet.)

Second, anyone who criticizes GTD for being "obvious" or "simple common sense that doesn't need to be explained in a book" has missed the point entirely. GTD works precisely because it is based on common sense techniques that many people have been using for years. The beauty is that its intended audience are those who do not understand how to enact the simple organizational measures that their more organized peers intuitively understand. (When I described GTD to a friend of mine, he affirmed that he'd been using pretty much the same techniques for years with great success and without having known of or read "Getting Things Done.") I suppose the worst you could accuse David Allen of is being the first person to actually write down common-sense techniques for organizing oneself.

Third, if you plan to buy this book and adopt this system, you should be aware of the huge online presence of others who have done the same. David Allen's and Merlin Mann's websites are just two examples; there's a large online family of people out there who love and use GTD, exchanging ideas, methods, products, etc. In other words, not only is GTD tweakable for your own ends, but you'll have lots of people to talk to about it too.

Update as of August 2, 2008: Reviewers of the GTD system here and elsewhere have suggested the GTD system has cultish aspects. I think it's important to note that, as with anything, it's easy to take the GTD system too far. Many of the online forums centered on the GTD system are helpful in terms of allowing practitioners to trade tips and tricks, but there is a subculture here that gets extreme. I'm talking mainly about people who just take the system too literally, who simply don't do a single thing unless it's written in one of their lists. For example, someone initiated a thread on David Allen's forum soliciting advice on how to use list-tracking during an emergency. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that pausing during an emergency to make a list (!) is the antithesis of being productive.

That said, I still think there's an enormous amount of value to the GTD system. Use it for what it's worth. Some people on these forums would have you believe it's important to track your bathroom visits in a list. Don't use it for anything else, or take it to extremes.

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Very cool system to free your mind and become creative...

Such a simple concept yet a freeing exercise when done which allows you to lose that mental weight/baggage and become more creative and productive. Highly recommend for all, especially people with big task lists, or people who always have a lot of things to remember to do. :-) Make Today Great! Tom Beal

Organizational Salvation for the Time Management Impaired

I'm a young adult who's been in the professional world for about a year and a half. I found that the one skill that no college or high school could ever seem to teach me was good time management and project organization. It was just something I never took seriously because someone else was always there to tell me what to do and when it needed done.

This book has empowered me to organize the many projects that I have as the Assistant Director at a year round Camping and Retreat facility. I can now get more done in less time and with SIGNIFICANTLY less stress. David Allen is a smart man.

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Indespensible common sense

Most of David Allen's advice is common sense, but it is the sort of common sense you wouldn't tend to focus on without a guide like this. Allen's method for productivity relies heavily on keeping track of your obligations, keeping them organized, and preventing procrastination. The methods are clear and easy to implement but elegant enough to inspire you.

I read the Kindle version and initially was a bit worried that the flowcharts would not show up correctly. They do work well on the Kindle, though, and have tiny but ultimately readable text.

I heartily suggest this book to anyone needing to get a grip on their obligations and projects. There is a large online following with many resources to support thebook and its practices. Buy the book and then dive into a rich and productive experience.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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