David Allen Quotes

First of all, if it's on your mind, your mind isn't clear. Anything you consider unfinished in any way must be captured in a trusted system outside your mind, or what I call a collection bucket, that you know you'll come back to regularly and sort through.

Almost every project could be done better, and an infinite quantity of information is now available that could make that happen.

Anything you consider unfinished in any way must be captured in a trusted system outside your mind, or what I call a collection tool, that you know you'll come back to regularly and sort through. Second,

An idealist believes that the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run. - Sydney J. Harris

Many of us hold ourselves back from imagining a desired outcome unless someone can show us how to get there. Unfortunately, that's backward in terms of how our minds work to generate and recognize solutions and methods.

When we truly need to do is often what we most feel like avoiding.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. - WILL ROGERS

Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.

The balance you have between drive and patience may be your master key to success.

The most experienced planner in the world is your brain.

If not controlled, work will flow to the competent man until he submerges. - CHARLES BOYLE

You won't see how to do it until you see yourself doing it.

Chaos isn't the problem; how long it takes to find coherence is the real game. - Doc Childre and Bruce Crier

If you're not sure why you're doing something, you can never do enough of it.

At at any point in time, knowing what has to get done, and when, creates a terrain for maneuvering.

There are no interruptions, only mismanaged inputs

When you assess something as a problem instead of as something to simply be accepted as the way things are, you are assuming there is a potential resolution.

You've got to think about the big things while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction. - Alvin Toffler

One missed e-mail, untracked commitment, or decision avoided can have hugely magnified consequences.

You can do anything, but you can't do everything

You can try it for yourself right now, if you like. Choose one project that is new or stuck or that could simply use some improvement. Think of your purpose. Think of what a successful outcome would look like: where would you be physically, financially, in terms of reputation, or whatever? Brainstorm potential steps. Organize your ideas. Decide on the next actions. Are you any clearer about where you want to go and how to get there?

Welcome to the real-life experience of "knowledge work," and a profound operational principle: you have to think about your stuff more than you realize but not as much as you're afraid you might. As Peter Drucker wrote: "In knowledge work . . . the task is not given; it has to be determined. 'What are the expected results from this work?' is . . . the key question in making knowledge workers productive. And it is a question that demands risky decisions. There is usually no right answer; there are choices instead. And results have to be clearly specified, if productivity is to be achieved."*

Procastination is not about not doing is about not doing and feeling crappy.

The Reticular Activating System The May 1957 issue of Scientific American magazine contains an article describing the discovery of the reticular formation at the base of the brain. The reticular formation is basically the gateway to your conscious awareness; it's the switch that turns on your perception of ideas and data, the thing that keeps you asleep even when music's playing but wakes you if a special little baby cries in another room. Your automatic creative mechanism is teleological. That is, it operates in terms of goals and end results. Once you give it a definite goal to achieve, you can depend upon its automatic guidance system to take you to that goal much better than "you" ever could by conscious thought. "You" supply the goal by thinking in terms of end results. Your automatic mechanism then supplies the means whereby. - Maxwell Maltz

The focus we hold in our minds affects what we perceive and how we perform.

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

But if you don't decide what needs to be done about your secretary's birthday, because it's "not that important" right now, that open loop will take up energy and prevent you from having a totally effective, clear focus on what is important.

Mosquitoes can ruin the hunt for big game.

There's a lot of reasons why deadline-driven may actually - it's not necessarily a bad thing, it just all it does is it speeds up and makes you a little proactive about decision making.

Getting things done, and feeling good about it, means being willing to recognize, acknowledge, and appropriately manage all the things that have your consciousness engaged. Mastering the art of stress-free productivity requires it.

Most stress they experience comes from inappropriately managed commitments they make or accept.

If you don't pay attention to the things that have your attention, you'll give them more attention than they deserve.

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.

People allow themselves to get distracted; I think ultimately, probably the biggest thing that gets in the way of people doing what they ought to be doing at any point in time is distraction.

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.

why has almost everyone done the calendar thing, but almost no one has moved everything else in their life into a similar zone, by capturing it all and creating the habit of assessing it all appropriately? Three reasons: First, the data that is entered onto a calendar has already been thought through and determined; it's been translated down to the physical action level. You agreed to call Jim at noon on Monday: there is no more thinking required about what the appropriate action is, or where and when you're going to do it. Second, you know where those kinds of actions need to be parked (calendar), and it's a familiar and available tool.

There is usually an inverse relationship between how much something is on your mind and how much it's getting done.

It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide what to do. - Elbert Hubbard

(1) collect things that command our attention; (2) process what they mean and what to do about them; and (3) organize the results, which we (4) review as options for what we choose to (5) do.

Too much information creates the same result as too little: you don't have what you need, when and in the way you need it.

Everything you've told yourself you ought to do, your mind thinks you should do right now. Frankly, as soon add you have two things to do stored in your RAM, you've generated personal failure, because you can't do two things at the same time. This produces an all-pervasive stress factor whose source can't be pin-pointed.

Most often, the reason something is "on your mind" is that you want it to be different than it currently is, and yet: you haven't clarified exactly what the intended outcomes is; you haven't decided what the very next physical action step is; and/or you haven't put reminders of the outcome and the action required in a system you trust. That's why it's on your mind.

One insurance executive I worked with described the major benefit he derived from implementation of this system: "Previously I would just tell everyone, 'Sure, I'll do it,' because I didn't know how much I really had to do. Now that I've got the inventory clear and complete, just to maintain my integrity, I have had to say, 'No, I can't do that, I'm sorry.' The amazing thing is that instead of being upset with my refusal, everyone was impressed with my discipline!

Trust yourself to do what you really feel like doing, and what you feel like doing will change. Don't, and it will plague you.

You increase your productivity and creativity exponentially when you think about the right things at the right time and have the tools to capture your value-added thinking.

The Value of Thinking About Why Here are just some of the benefits of asking why: It defines success. It creates decision-making criteria. It aligns resources. It motivates. It clarifies focus. It expands options.

Thinking in a concentrated manner to define desired outcomes is something few people feel they have to do. But in truth, outcome thinking is one of the most effective means available for making wishes reality.

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

You can't manage time, you actually only manage what you do during time. So the management issue is not so much about time, it's more about how do you manage your focus, how do you manage your actions and your activities in terms of what you do.

Once a week, do a thorough review of all your projects in as much detail as you need to. If you do, your systems will work. If you don't, no system will work.

We need to transform all the "stuff" we've attracted and accumulated into a clear inventory of meaningful actions, projects, and usable information. Almost

Want freedom? Get organized. Want to get organized? Get creative.

It was helpful to be able to call a lawyer ... it turns out, that not only did they help me, but they really helped the whole community ...

You don't actually do a project; you can only do action steps related to it. When enough of the right action steps have been taken, some situation will have been created that matches your initial picture of the outcome closely enough that you can call it done.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. - Mark Twain

Clarifying things on the front end, when they first appear on the radar, rather than on the back end, after trouble has developed, allows people to reap the benefits of managing action. Getting

Organizations must create a culture in which it is acceptable that everyone has more to do than he or she can do, and in which it is sage to renegotiate agreements about what everyone is not doing.

Virtually every problem that would show up in your business can be traced back to communications; somebody didn't talk to somebody about something.

Suffice it to say that something automatic and extraordinary happens in your mind when you create and focus on a clear picture of what you want.

A successful executive is one that solves bigger problems than he/she creates.

Sometimes the biggest gain in productive energy will come from cleaning the cobwebs, dealing with old business, and clearing the desks - cutting loose debris that's impeding forward motion.

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

If you don't pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.

The more confidence you have that you can actually manifest things before you have all the knowledge and resources you might need, the more you can potentially overwhelm yourself with your own possibilities.

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

A great hammer doesn't make a great carpenter; but a great carpenter will always want to have a great hammer.

Horizontal" control maintains coherence across all the activities in which you are involved.
"Vertical" control, in contrast, manages thinking up and down the track of individual topics and projects.

Anxiety is caused by a lack of control, organization, preparation, and action. - David Kekich

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein

It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head. - Sally Kempton

you have to think about your stuff more than you realize but not as much as you're afraid you might.

My opinion is that anybody offended by breastfeeding is staring too hard

Review your list as often as you need to get them off your mind.

You don't manage priorities, you have them.

The methods I present here are all based on three key objectives: (1) capturing all the things that might need to get done or have usefulness for you - now, later, someday, big, little, or in between - in a logical and trusted system outside your head and off your mind; (2) directing yourself to make front-end decisions about all of the "inputs" you let into your life so that you will always have a workable inventory of "next actions" that you can implement or renegotiate in the moment; and (3) curating and coordinating all of that content, utilizing the recognition of the multiple levels of commitments with yourself and others you will have at play, at any point in time. This

You can do anything, not everything

When people know they have a process in place to handle any situation, they are more relaxed. When they're relaxed, everything improves. More gets done, with less effort, and a host of other wonderful side effects emerge that add to the outcomes of their efforts and the quality of their life.

The substantive issue is how to make appropriate choices about what to do at any point in time. The real work is to manage our actions. That

The hardest thing about being productive is not the work, but the split second it takes to decide to take control.

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

Not being aware of all you have to do is much like having a credit card for which you don't know the balance or the limit - it's a lot easier to be irresponsible.

What you'll tend to avoid doing is probably the most important thing you need to do because it'll probably be the most daunting and the most potentially successful thing you could be doing and that's usually out of people's comfort zone.

You can fool everyone else, but you can't fool your own mind.

There are no problems, only projects.

Every decision to act is an intuitive one. The challenge is to migrate from hoping it's the right choice to trusting it's the right choice.

If you're at zero backlog, it's a whole lot easier to change priorities.

If you don't fall off the wagon regularly, you're not playing a big enough game.

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. The

You can do anything, but not everything.

People think a lot, but most of that thinking is of a problem, project or situation - not about it

What you've probably discovered, at least at some level, is that a calendar, though important, can really effectively manage only a small portion of what you need to organize. And daily to-do lists and simplified priority coding have proven inadequate to deal with the volume and variable nature of the average professional's workload.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, it's hard to eat spaghetti.

Get a purge for your brain. It will do better than for your stomach. - Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

In Ireland we have a very old saying, When you can see the mountains it's going to rain and when you can't see the mountains it's raining.

You need no new skills to increase your productivity - just a new set of behaviors about when and where to apply them.

The number of coulds, shoulds, might-want-tos, and ought-tos they generate in their minds are way out beyond what they have recorded anywhere else. Many

Let our advance worrying become our advance thinking and planning. - Winston Churchill

We're never really taught that we have to think about our work before we can do it; much of our daily activity is already defined for us by the undone and unmoved things staring at us when we come to work, or by the family to be fed, the laundry to be done, or the children to be dressed at home.

A complete and accurately defined list of projects, kept
current and reviewed on at least a weekly basis,
is a master key to stress-free productivity.

Most people move actually into high performance in a crisis because that creates the kind of focus that creates high performance.