Ready for Anything

52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life

By: David Allen

Narrated by: David Allen

Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

Discover David Allen's powerful productivity principles and vastly increase your ability to work better, not harder - every day.

The "guru of personal productivity" - Fast Company - asks listeners what's holding them back and shows how all of us can be "ready for anything" - with a clear mind, a clear deck, and clear intentions.

Ready for Anything offers you ways to immediately:

Clear your head for creativity

Focus your attention

Create structures that work

Take action to get things moving

Allen's simple yet powerful principles help us master the mental game of productivity - what he calls "managing your mind, not your time." In motivational, bite-size lessons, we learn how to bring the calm focus of the martial artist to the onslaught of choices, decisions, and new circumstances we are faced with daily. Each principle - from "speed up by slowing down" to "the value of a future goal is the present change it fosters" - encourages us to think in fresh ways and to take action in order to achieve more relaxed control, ease, and fun in all our activities.

With wit, inspiration, and know-how, Ready for Anything shows us how to make things happen with less effort, stress, and ineffectiveness, and lots more energy, creativity, and clarity. This is the perfect audiobook for anyone wanting to work and live at his or her very best.

©2003 David Allen (P)2003 Simon & Schuster Inc. All Rights Reserved. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Great partner to GTD

Ready For Anything is more philosophical in nature. While less of a "how to" listen, Ready For Anything reminds us why we want to be organized and productive. Getting Things Done provided some great tips and ideas that I've been able to put into place, but Ready For Anything inspires me keep up the effort. If you love this stuff as much as I do, check out David Allen's website at davidco.com.

Abridgements....

Tiresome and a cheat in this case. The dead tree is so far superiour that I went ahead and purchased it as the audiofile is just not enough. You barely feel you've had your apetizer when Mr. Audible is hoping you've had an enjoyable listen. David Allen's book is worth the entire experience.

very helpful

I listened to this on a plane flying accross the country-- it was specific, constructive and inspiring. I want to download his other titles.

Good

I listened to the entire audio and it was good, yet not great. The hardback book might be easier to follow along with vs. the audio. The material was interesting, yet I didn't care for the voice on the audio. Some of the material I have heard or read before in other books.

Ready for Anything

I would recommend this for anyone who has dipped their toes in the water of David Allen's methodology. It should be seen as a follow on from the Getting Things Done book/audiobook and, for me, acted as a reinforcement and "pep talk". Listened to it from start to finish on a journey and it motivated me to renew my attempts at following the approach. He refers in the book to how important it is to not get hung up on the fact that you haven't fully implemented it right away and to keep trying.

For GTD lovers :)

Nice clarification of base book Getting Things Done. It repeats concepts but let your mind identify deeper with them.

I Need Both Books and I'm Waiting for a Third!!

I've listened to David Allen's books several times and I'll continue to buy whatever he publishes. I've read the other reviews and I agree that there is an overlap of information in the two books. That is normal and logical - text books are the same way. There are enough new ideas and/or unique ways of stating his points to motivate me again and anew! Maybe it depends on where you're starting from ~ if you get up and exercise before you go to work or you can't go to bed with dishes in your sink, then maybe one book would give you enough ideas and tactics for a great jumpstart. If you wish you had a clean glass in the house, you might want both books! :) Also, these are NOT books about housework. The examples given are all varied from the business world to family life, but I apply the principles to my own personal cross to bear!!

The principles behind the method

This book is a collection of essays written about the principles behind David Allen's personal organization system. It's worth going into them but the listener should probably listen to his other book "Getting Things Done" before listening to this one.

Small things consistently done make a big difference

Some have observed that this book is “just” a collection of short motivational thoughts. Hey, I need reminding of the the small steps that I want to make habitual. Nice to have a stream of those reminders that I can listen to over and over. Good work GTD team!

A good follow up to Getting Things Done

I don't know if this was the intent but this book is a good companion to Getting Things Done. I think you have to read and absorb that book before reading this one. it's a good reinforcement of GTD concepts but as a stand alone book not much of the material would be truly actionable.