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Praise for Getting Things Done "The Season's Best Reads for Work-Life Advice my favorite on organizing your life: Getting Things Done offers help build ing the new mental skills needed in an age of multitasking and overload." —Sue Shellenbarger, The Wall Street Journal "I recently attended David's seminar on getting organized, and after seeing him in action I have hope David Allen's seminar was an eye-opener." —Stewart Alsop, Fortune "Allen drops down from high-level philosophizing to the fine details of time management Take a minute to check this one out." —Mark Henricks, Entrepreneur "David Allen's productivity principles are rooted in big ideas but they're also eminently practical." —Keith H Hammonds, Fast Company "David Allen brings new clarity to the power of purpose, the essential nature of relaxation, and deceptively simple guidelines for getting things done He employs extensive experience, per sonal stories, and his own recipe for simplicity, speed, and fun." —Frances Hesselbein, chairman, board of governors, The Drucker Foundation "Anyone who reads this book can apply this knowledge and these skills in their lives for immediate results." —Stephen P Magee, chaired professor of business and economics, University of Texas at Austin "A true skeptic of most management fixes, I have to say David's program is a winner!" —Joline Godfrey, CEO, Independent Means, Inc and author of Our Wildest Dreams "Getting Things Done describes an incredibly practical process that can help busy people regain control of their lives It can help you be more successful Even more important, it can help you have a happier life!" —Marshall Goldsmith, coeditor, The Leader of the Future and Coaching for Leadership "WARNING: Reading Getting Things Done can be hazardous to your old habits of procrastination David Allen's approach is refreshingly simple and intuitive He provides the systems, tools, and tips to achieve profound results." —Carola Endicott, director, Quality Resources, New England Medical Center PENGUIN BOOKS GETTING THINGS DONE David Allen has been called one of the world's most influential thinkers on productivity and has been a keynote speaker and facilitator for such organizations as New York Life, the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, L.L Bean, and the U.S Navy, and he conducts workshops for individuals and organizations across the country He is the president of The David Allen Company and has more than twenty years experience as a management consultant and executive coach His work has been featured in Fast Company, Fortune, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications Getting Things Done has been published in twelve foreign countries David Allen lives in Ojai, California Getting Things Done The Art of Stress-Free Productivity David Allen PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand Penguin Books {South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc 2001 Published in Penguin Books 2003 10 Copyright © David Allen, 2001 All rights reserved THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS: Allen, David Getting things done : the art of stress-free productivity / David Allen p cm Includes index ISBN 0-670-89924-0 (he.) ISBN 14 20.0028 (pbk.) Time management Self-management (Psychology) I Title BF637.T5 A45 2001 646.7—dc21 00-043757 Printed in the United States of America Set in Adobe Caslon Designed by Sara E Stemen Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser For Kathryn, my extraordinary partner in life and work ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Finally, deepest thanks go to my spiritual coach, J-R, for being such an awesome guide and consistent reminder of my real priorities; and to my incredible wife, Kathryn, for her trust, love, hard work, and the beauty she has brought into my life viii Contents Acknowledgments vii Welcome to Getting Things Done xi Part 1: The Art of Getting Things Done Chapter A New Practice for a New Reality Chapter Getting Control of Your Life: The Five Stages of Mastering Workflow 24 Chapter Getting Projects Creatively Under Way: The Five Phases of Project Planning 54 Part 2: Practicing Stress-Free Productivity 83 Chapter Getting Started: Setting Up the Time, Space, and Tools 85 Chapter Collection: Corralling Your "Stuff" 104 Chapter Processing: Getting "In" to Empty 119 Chapter Organizing: Setting Up the Right Buckets 138 ix CONTENTS Chapter Reviewing: Keeping Your System Functional 181 Chapter Doing: Making the Best Action Choices 191 Chapter 10 Getting Projects Under Control 211 Part 3: The Power of the Key Principles Chapter 11 The Power of the Collection Habit 223 225 Chapter 12 The Power of the Next-Action X Decision 236 Chapter 13 The Power of Outcome Focusing 249 Conclusion 257 Index 261 Welcome to Getting Things Done WELCOME TO A gold mine of insights into strategies for how to have more energy, be more relaxed, and get a lot more accomplished with much less effort If you're like me, you like getting things done and doing them well, and yet you also want to savor life in ways that seem increasingly elusive if not downright impossible if you're working too hard This doesn't have to be an either-or proposition It is possible to be effectively doing while you are delightfully being, in your ordinary workaday world I think efficiency is a good thing Maybe what you're doing is important, interesting, or useful; or maybe it isn't but it has to be done anyway In the first case you want to get as much return as you can on your investment of time and energy In the second, you want to get on to other things as fast The art of resting the mind and the as you can, without any nagging loose ends And whatever you're doing, you'd probably like to power of be more relaxed, confident that whatever you're doing dismissing from it at the moment is just what you need to be doing—that all care and worry is probably one of having a beer with your staff after hours, gazing at your the secrets of our sleeping child in his or her crib at midnight, answering great men the e-mail in front of you, or spending a few informal —Captain] minutes with the potential new client after the meeting A is exactly what you ought to be doing, as you're doing it 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 ... fire-fighting (the socalled urgent and crisis demands of any given workday) and an antidote for the imbalance many people bring upon themselves." xiv Getting Things Done part The Art of Getting Things Done. .. Getting Things Done xi Part 1: The Art of Getting Things Done Chapter A New Practice for a New Reality Chapter Getting Control of Your Life: The Five Stages of Mastering Workflow 24 Chapter Getting. .. Allen, 2001 All rights reserved THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS: Allen, David Getting things done : the art of stress- free productivity / David Allen p cm