David Allen Quotes

Everything in life worth achieving requires practice. In fact, life itself is nothing more than one long practice session, an endless effort of refining our motions. When the proper mechanics of practicing are understood, the task of learning something new becomes a stress-free experience of joy and calmness, a process which settles all areas in your life and promotes proper perspective on all of life’s difficulties. — Thomas Sterner

The vast majority of people have been trying to get organized by rearranging incomplete lists of unclear things; they haven’t yet realized how much and what they need to organize in order to get the real payoff. They need to gather everything that requires thinking about and then do that thinking if their organizational efforts are to be successful.

When you know how, any time, to get to the place where it's all sort of funny, you've mastered GTD.

Most people feel best about their work the week before their vacation, but it's not because of the vacation itself. What do you do the last week before you leave on a big trip? You clean up, close up, clarify, and renegotiate all your agreements with yourself and others. I just suggest that you do this weekly instead of yearly.

Water is what it is, and does what it does. It can overwhelm, but it’s not overwhelmed. It can be still, but it is not impatient. It can be forced to change course, but it is not frustrated.

Getting things done requires two basic components: defining (1) what “done” means (outcome) and (2) what “doing” looks like (action). And these are far from self-evident for most people about most things that have their attention.

Not stopping to really catch up (Weekly Review, GTDers!) means trying to catch up constantly & never getting there.

That said, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with creating a quick, informal, short list of “if I have time, I’d really like to . . .” kinds of things, picked from your Next Actions inventory.

The value of goals is not in the future they describe, but the change in perception of reality they foster.

To ignore the unexpected (even if it were possible) would be to live without opportunity, spontaneity, and the rich moments of which “life” is made. — Stephen Covey

Books to read Music to download Movies to see Gift ideas Web sites to explore Weekend trips to take Ideas — Misc. (meaning you don’t know where else to put them!)

If you figured out why making a list reduces overwhelm & confusion, you'd keep nothing in your head the rest of your life.

Freedom to create a mess is proportional to your ability to know what "no mess" is and how to get there.

Rule your mind or it will rule you. — Horace

We fought so hard against the small things that we became small ourselves. — EUGENE O’NEILL