David Allen Quotes

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.

The world itself is never overwhelmed or confused — only we are, due to how we are engaged with it.

Nothing is really new in this high-tech, globally wired world, except how frequently it is.

A task left undone remains undone in two places — at the actual location of the task, and inside your head. Incomplete tasks in your head consume the energy of your attention as they gnaw at your conscience. — Brahma Kumaris

We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs subordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling. — Eric Hoffer

Is there too much complaining in your culture? The next time someone moans about something, try asking, “So what’s the next action?” People will complain only about something that they assume could be better than it currently is. The action question forces the issue. If it can be changed, there’s some action that will change it. If it can’t, it must be considered part of the landscape to be incorporated in strategy and tactics. Complaining is a sign that someone isn’t willing to risk moving on a changeable situation, or won’t consider the immutable circumstance in his or her plans. This is a temporary and hollow form of self-validation.

Uncaptured, unclarified, and therefore unmanaged things that you have agreed to do own a piece of you and give you no rest.

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

The trick is to ensure not so much that what you are doing is, for you, the right thing, all the time (how, ultimately, could you know that for sure?) but that you are firmly in the driver’s seat with a functioning process for discovering and engaging with your best choice.

Знание своих текущих обязательств способствует правильному выбору новых.

It's fine to decide not to decide about something. You just need a decide-not-to-decide system to get it off your mind

But sometimes I have to get out of my comfort zone to stay motivated to do excellent work over the long term.

More often than not, it seems that people are having thoughts, though not really thinking about what they’re thinking about — at least not in an effective way that resolves, advances, or manages the content.

Much of what sophisticates loftily refer to as the “complexity” of the real world is in fact the inconsistency in their own minds. — Thomas Sowell

Reacting is automatic, but thinking is not. The