There are five separate phases of effective work: Mental work has five distinct phases: Collect, Process, Organize, Do, and Review

When you’re having trouble making progress, first clarify what being done looks like. If you don’t know what that point looks like, you’ll find it very difficult to make any progress at all. That’s a huge problem – your brain is naturally designed to help you figure out how to do things, but only if you know what the end point looks like.Įverything you’re working on should have a very clear stopping point – a point where you know you’re done. Most of the tasks people keep on their to-do lists are “amorphous blobs of undoability” – commitments without any clear vision of what being “done” looks like. The goal is to establish a sense of comfort and control over the work that’s on your plate right now, so you can free up some mental energy and space to think about the big stuff. GTD is a “bottom-up” approach to productivity. That’s why it’s important to get control of your daily tasks before working on your big-picture life planning. When you’re feeling overwhelmed about how much you have to do (and who isn’t, really?), it’s difficult to focus on ensuring your life and work is moving in the direction you want to go. If your day-to-day life is out of control, it’s almost impossible to think strategically or plan effectively. Here are 10 big ideas from David Allen’s Getting Things Done… 1. For more information about his work, check out David Allen’s website.

About David Allenĭavid Allen is the author of the Personal MBA-recommended book Getting Things Done, as well as Ready For Anything, and Making It All Work. If you’re ready to stop stressing and start accomplishing your goals, David Allen’s Getting Things Done can help you create a simple, effective personal productivity system. David saw it and commented to Josh, “I’ve run across few people who have “grokked” GTD conceptually as well as you have.” With Josh’s permission, we’re sharing his complete review here. Josh Kaufman wrote a succinct review of Getting Things Done on his blog, The Personal MBA.

Getting things done book