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Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity

Author: David Allen
Publisher: Piatkus Books
Category: Book

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

47 reviews
Sales Rank: 268

Media: Paperback
Pages: 282
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5 x 0.9

ISBN: 0749922648
Dewey Decimal Number: 158
EAN: 9780749922641
ASIN: 0749922648

Publication Date: January 24, 2002
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. Shipped from UK Mainland. Delivery is usually 2 - 3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail.

Customer Reviews:

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The Art of Stress-Free Productivity April 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

If you don't have time for one more thing in your life, read Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. While that advice may seem counterproductive, and a little crazy, (where will you find time to read it?) this book will assuredly give you some realistic advice about getting all those projects completed while staying sane.

This first thing that's apparent about this book is the author's enthusiasm. He presents workable solutions with this contagious "can-do" attitude. He uses a basic premise that everything we do--whether it's an assignment or work-related task--has a specific place and time. Once that's understood, it's easier to put those activities into the right slot in our lives. This provides a sense of freedom even though deadlines are mounting. Time is no longer the enemy; it's merely the container.

By having all these tasks in their proper places, it's almost like opening a filing cabinet, working on a specific project, then replacing the file and closing the drawer. There is a start and finish time and everything gets done. That terrible overwhelming feeling vanishes.

Another interesting aspect the author develops is how to achieve those wonderful moments when we are so in tune with our work, that it's really effortless. His strategies for managing time actually open up the unconscious mind by freeing it of negative stress. In other words, when our work is properly scheduled, we are cut loose of time constraints and are able to grab hold of maximum creativity and productivity. Even though there are still deadlines to meet, we would have already dealt with them before starting the project. Time is put in its proper place as well.

While author David Allen's advice is really on the mark, at times his system gets a little complicated. He coins some fancy terms and sub-terms that make these principles seem complex. But the gist of his ideas is presented on a one-page flowchart that makes the price of this book worthwhile. This single page is a terrific review of the key concepts.

Although some of his ideas may seem like good old-fashioned common sense, the author takes these thoughts and puts them within a system that operates in the contemporary workplace. Readers should be prepared to actually try out these ideas and not just read the book and put it on a shelf. Have a notebook handy to start organizing your thoughts and begin prioritizing your actions based on the advice presented.

One of the best pieces of advice, and one that can be immediately put into action, is the Two-Minute Rule. This states that if you need to do something and you can do it in two minutes or less, do it now, and therefore free up your mind and time. Ultimately, by completing these smaller, quicker tasks, you will gain an enormous amount of time and freedom of thought for those larger assignments. It works!

These pages have the power to unlock you from the chains of time that limit your actions and thinking. When you are finished reading this book, you will have learned some genuine principles that can be put into your life right now. The investment of time you put into reading this book will increase your productivity level and decrease your stress.

Raymond Le Blanc. Psychotherapist & economist
author: Achieving Objectives Made Easy! 978-9079397037

1 out of 5 stars

The Emperor's new clothes of time management February 2, 2008
8 out of 19 found this review helpful

This book should be sub-titled "How to Make the Simple Complicated". After I read it I had to lie down in a dark room to recover from the mind-numbing headache it gave me.

This really is the emperor's new clothes of time management. Very quickly you begin to realize that this is total nonsense passed off as cutting edge wisdom. After setting out its grand life changing aims,it quickly settles down into tired, jaded and well worn formula.

The writing style is plain awful, it's hard to read and is totally confusing. Its style is mechanical and lacks any flow, forcing you to plod through a meandering rats maze. Not surprisingly you wind up at a dead end, re-reading chapters and still scratching your head.

If you have the energy to labour through this cure for insomnia, you will eventually come across a Wizard of Oz type moment when you pull back the curtain and realize this guy has nothing of substance to say.

It's unintentionally funny (if you're a fan of black comedy) talking about "emptying buckets" when in fact the book should be flushed down the drain. At this stage anger sets in when you realize time management has turned into time wasted.

The author clumsily mentions invented high-powered situations where he's used these " proven techniques " successfully. A child would see through these tissue thin stories. They are cobbled together in a cheesy attempt to add weight to this book.

If your life is already complicated this will tip you over the edge, turning your thought process into mangled spaghetti. I questioned if David Allen believed in the rubbish he has written, one positive in Allen's book is the accidental creation of a new english dialect which I affectionately called Garble.

Think about a disappointing Christmas morning where you tore off the fancy wrapping paper only to discover an empty box, there is no happy ending here. Instead of a book an A5 sheet of paper could have housed its "key ideas" and still left plenty of space.

After finishing the book I came up on my own personal meaning for GTD ( Garbage Trash Dire ) Trust me, be nice to yourself, your time is better spent reading anything except this nonsense!

5 out of 5 stars

Time management that makes sense November 21, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

I have to be honest only been using it a little while, however it works. It's a simple process to follow and without trying achieved tons of things that have been lying around for ages. I've cleared the decks, tidied the desk at work and made by home office spotless. Everything is where is should be and I know what there is to do and when it needs to be done.

5 out of 5 stars

Excellent! November 6, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Time management has always been a particular challenge for me, and I've picked up more than my share of books on the subject. None of them have worked quite as well as this system. Allen alone seems to understand most people's foibles and knows how to work them into the system. GTD can work in almost any situation or employment. The book is geared towards the individual and helps reconcile what a person wants to do with what has to be done. This system will only work, however, if you can devote the time to setting it up. Depending on your work/life/situation this may take up to two days or possibly more. It is worth it though. Since implementing GTD, I sleep better and feel more positive. I am getting lots more done, and I expect this to continue. You may not agree with all of it, but that's the beauty of the system. It is endlessly adaptable.

Highly recommended!

3 out of 5 stars

Basic common sense and difficult to read September 11, 2007
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

As the author admits throughout this book, it contains little more than good common sense. There's nothing wrong with this - many people need common sense solutions to be spelled out to them. However, it's a real slog to get through this book - the material is dry and it could have been better written and less repetitive.

The book is very USA-centric. It annoyingly uses local product names, for example, that won't mean much to people outside the USA. Furthermore, despite Allen's protests to the contrary, I would contend that his system needs tweaking to make it more useful for many people outside his own main area of experience (white collar higher management in Western societies). Understandably, Allen's experience with those of us in other jobs and in other cultures and who wouldn't dream of hiring a consultant to tell us how to organise ourselves, let alone be able to pay them, is limited, and though the main (common sense) approach is fine, it can be approached more flexibly than Allen suggests.

I do have to ask myself how Allen's customers had managed to become top executives of large companies without being able to organise themselves, even with all the resources at their disposal ...