David Allen Quotes

The short-term-memory part of your mind—the part that tends to hold all of the incomplete, undecided, and unorganized “stuff”—functions much like RAM on a personal computer. Your conscious mind, like the computer screen, is a focusing tool, not a storage place. You can think about only two or three things at once. But the incomplete items are still being stored in the short-term-memory space. And as with RAM, there’s limited capacity; there’s only so much “stuff” you can store in there and still have that part of your brain function at a high level. Most people walk around with their RAM bursting at the seams. They’re constantly distracted, their focus disturbed by their own internal mental overload.

I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. — Oliver Wendell Holmes

Organizing without first capturing & clarifying what needs organizing is simply rearranging your angst.

most of the stress people experience comes from inappropriately managed commitments they make or accept. Even

Anything that does not belong where it is, the way it is, is an “open loop,” which will be pulling on your attention if it’s not appropriately managed.

That means as soon as you tell yourself that you might need to do something, and store it only in your head, there’s a part of you that thinks you should be doing that something all the time. Everything you’ve told yourself you ought to do, it thinks you should be doing right now. Frankly, as soon as you have two things to do stored only in your mind, you’ve generated personal failure, because you can’t do them both at the same time. This produces a pervasive stress factor whose source can’t be pinpointed.

You are the captain of your own ship; the more you act from that perspective, the better things will go for you.

The better you get, the better you better get.

Tu capacidad para generar fuerza es directamente proporcional a tu capacidad para relajarte.

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.

There are no problems, only projects.

The game of work and the business of life are really the same thing, when it comes down to the principles and behaviors and techniques that eliminate distraction and foster beneficial focus.

If you're appropriately engaged w/your life, you don't need more time. If you're not, more time won't help.

How much attention have I given what really deserves my attention today?

In order to deal effectively with all of that, you must first identify and collect all those things that are “ringing your bell” in some way, and then plan how to handle them.