Getting Things Done

The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

By: David Allen

Narrated by: David Allen

Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

In today's world of exponentially increased communication and responsibility, yesterday's methods for staying on top just don't work. Veteran management consultant and trainer David Allen recognizes that "time management" is useless the minute your schedule is interrupted; "setting priorities" isn't relevant when your e-mail is down; "procrastination solutions" won't help if your goals aren't clear.

Allen's premise is simple: our ability to be productive is directly proportional to our ability to relax. Only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve stress-free productivity and unleash our creative potential. He teaches us how to:

Apply the "do it, delegate it, defer it, drop it" rule to get your in-box empty.

Reassess goals and stay focused in changing situations.

Overcome feelings of confusion, anxiety, and being overwhelmed.

Feel fine about what you're not doing.

From core principles to proven tricks, Getting Things Done has the potential to transform the way you work - and the way you experience work. At any level of implementation, David Allen's entertaining and thought-provoking advice shows you how to pick up the pace without wearing yourself down.

©2002 David Allen, All Rights Reserved (P)2002 Simon & Schuster Inc., SOUND IDEAS Is an Imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster Inc.

Critic reviews

"[Allen is] the personal productivity guru." (Fast Company)

Great way to get your life in order!!

A very profound strategy on how to become organized and stay that way while getting things done. This book gives you ways of how to make better use of your time so that you can free up valuable brain space to be used for creative thoughts. I highly recommend this book for people of all professionals.

Getting Things Done

Great tool for freeing up time. Need next CD, Ready For Anything, to implement system.

Fantastic set!

Dated examples but good advice

The overall advice is great - very straightforward, at times it may seem obvious, but it is a good reminder to do things you may not have been doing.

The examples are dated and sometimes made me roll my eyes, and the delivery is very dry. Ultimately, the content was very useful. I’d probably recommend reading as opposed to listening.

Repetitive and not terribly useful

This was somewhat useful, but only if you are completely disorganized. This is basic knowledge for anyone who works in an office or uses microsoft outlook. The author makes a few good points, but the audio book is mainly filled with repetitve examples. This book would have been more useful if it were half as long (and half the price).

It's Ok, but not Great!

I bought the book thinking I would get more out of it, but that wasn't the case. The author gives you a few ideas and a process to use, but for someone like me who is already using a Franklin, I needed more. I wanted maybe a unique trick on getting things done. I wanted something that I didn't think of already. Basically, he talks about how things are thrown at us from all different directions, emails, projects etc. The best way to handle these would be to write them down. The things that can take two minutes to complete, do them first, write an action list etc. General basic stuff you can get from the web. I wanted more. One thing I got out of it was the "Mind like Water" reference. Stay calm at all times, if something is thrown your way, react as water would. It would react to the force, but then it would go back to calm. Little things like that I picked up from the book, but overall - I would have liked more. It's ok, but not great.

Great

Helped me a lot

Good information - difficult to get in one pass

I think the information here is very good and useful, but listening to it in the car it is hard to pick up on all of the tips and procedures. I plan on listening to it again and buying the book.

Very complex system

Can anyone really follow the advice given, with countless folders put in right order?

We live in electronic age. We deal with paper less and less. The author assumes otherwise.

To me, not useful at all.

Horrible to listen to....

First, I'd like to say that I also bought his book (which I really liked). David Allen's voice is so monotone and boring that I couldn't listen past the first 20 minutes of the audiobook. I would continue to fastforward after that thinking that his voice would liven up but to my dismay...nope...same boring voice. Don't get me wrong, he has useful info that is very helpful (I read the book) but he needs to liven it up A LOT!!! If authors aren't good at recording audiobooks then they should hire people to do it for them. They'll sell more audiobooks if they do. All authors who want to record an audiobook - take note from Tim Ferriss's audiobook (The 4 Hour Work Week). Tim Ferriss was engaging, funny and I couldn't wait to listen to it everyday!

who is the target here?

OK, real quick. The average business person, even a relative newbie is way beyond the "techniques" in this book. This is a good book for domestic engineers with a LOT of tasks and subtasks, a college kid trying to stay on top of his/her studies/clubs/work etc, an administrative assistant, prhaps a VERY BRAND new office employee who still has their price tag and doesn't know where the bathroom is yet. But as a 14 yr manager, I wouldn't want my folks depending on elaborate lists and keep/don't keep quick and dirty decisions to manage their workload and priorities. I would suggest starting with Covey's "First Things First" which, in my humble opinion, is still one of the best books for establishing a solid base of principles for decision making which will pay much higher dividends than a "get more done in an hour" book. Are you BRAND new to multiple simultaneous tasks and just need some type of structure?..sure...this will probably help. Are you a maturing manager of tasks, people or projects OR a battle hardened business vet looking to be more effective....this is not for you. Again, look to Covey, McCormack or the like for more strategy and priciple based techniques.