WIXLIB

GettingThingsDoneThe Art ofStress-Free ProductivityDavid Allen

Praise for Getting Things Done"The Season's Best Reads for Work-Life Advice . . my favoriteon organizing your life: Getting Things Done . . . offers help building the new mental skills needed in an age of multitasking andoverload."—Sue Shellenbarger, The Wall Street Journal"I recently attended David's seminar on getting organized, and afterseeing him in action I have hope . . David Allen's seminar was aneye-opener."—Stewart Alsop, Fortune"Allen drops down from high-level philosophizing to the fine detailsof time management. Take a minute to check this one out."—Mark Henricks, Entrepreneur"David Allen's productivity principles are rooted in big ideas .but they're also eminently practical."—Keith H. Hammonds, Fast Company"David Allen brings new clarity to the power of purpose, theessential nature of relaxation, and deceptively simple guidelinesfor getting things done. He employs extensive experience, personal stories, and his own recipe for simplicity, speed, and fun."—Frances Hesselbein, chairman, board of governors,The Drucker Foundation"Anyone who reads this book can apply this knowledge and theseskills in their lives for immediate results."—Stephen P. Magee, chaired professor of business andeconomics, University of Texas at Austin

"A true skeptic of most management fixes, I have to say David'sprogram is a winner!"—Joline Godfrey, CEO, Independent Means, Inc. andauthor of Our Wildest Dreams"Getting Things Done describes an incredibly practical process thatcan help busy people regain control of their lives. It can help yoube more successful. Even more important, it can help you have ahappier life!"—Marshall Goldsmith, coeditor, The Leader of the Futureand Coaching for Leadership"WARNING: Reading Getting Things Done can be hazardousto your old habits of procrastination. David Allen's approach isrefreshingly simple and intuitive. He provides the systems, tools,and tips to achieve profound results."—Carola Endicott, director, Quality Resources, NewEngland Medical Center

PENGUIN BOOKSGETTING THINGS DONEDavid Allen has been called one of the world's most influentialthinkers on productivity and has been a keynote speaker andfacilitator for such organizations as New York Life, the WorldBank, the Ford Foundation, L.L. Bean, and the U.S. Navy, andhe conducts workshops for individuals and organizations acrossthe country. He is the president of The David Allen Companyand has more than twenty years experience as a managementconsultant and executive coach. His work has been featured inFast Company, Fortune, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. GettingThings Done has been published in twelve foreign countries.David Allen lives in Ojai, California.

PENGUIN BOOKSPublished by the Penguin GroupPenguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, EnglandPenguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, AustraliaPenguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, IndiaPenguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New ZealandPenguin Books {South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South AfricaPenguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, EnglandFirst published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. 2001Published in Penguin Books 20035 7 9 10 8 6Copyright David Allen, 2001All rights reservedTHE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGEDTHE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:Allen, David.Getting things done : the art of stress-free productivity / David Allen.p. cm.Includes index.ISBN 0-670-89924-0 (he.)ISBN 0 14 20.0028 0 (pbk.)1. Time management. 2. Self-management (Psychology). I. Title.BF637.T5 A45 2001646.7—dc2100-043757Printed in the United States of AmericaSet in Adobe CaslonDesigned by Sara E. StemenExcept in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to thecondition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out,or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of bindingor cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar conditionincluding this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

For Kathryn, my extraordinary partner in life and work

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSFinally, deepest thanks go to my spiritual coach, J-R, forbeing such an awesome guide and consistent reminder of my realpriorities; and to my incredible wife, Kathryn, for her trust, love,hard work, and the beauty she has brought into my life.viii

ContentsAcknowledgmentsviiWelcome to Getting Things DonexiPart 1: The Art of Getting Things DoneChapter 1 A New Practice for a New Reality13Chapter 2 Getting Control of Your Life:The Five Stages of Mastering Workflow24Chapter 3 Getting Projects Creatively UnderWay: The Five Phases of Project Planning54Part 2: Practicing Stress-Free Productivity83Chapter 4 Getting Started: Setting Up the Time,Space, and Tools85Chapter 5 Collection: Corralling Your "Stuff"104Chapter 6 Processing: Getting "In" to Empty119Chapter 7 Organizing: Setting Up the Right Buckets 138ix

CONTENTSChapter 8 Reviewing: Keeping YourSystem Functional181Chapter 9 Doing: Making the BestAction Choices191Chapter 10 Getting Projects Under Control211Part 3: The Power of the Key PrinciplesChapter 11 The Power of the Collection Habit223225Chapter 12 The Power of the Next-ActionXDecision236Chapter 13 The Power of Outcome Focusing249Conclusion257Index261

Welcome to Getting Things DoneWELCOME TO A gold mine of insights into strategies for how to havemore energy, be more relaxed, and get a lot more accomplishedwith much less effort. If you're like me, you like getting thingsdone and doing them well, and yet you also want to savor life inways that seem increasingly elusive if not downright impossible ifyou're working too hard. This doesn't have to be an either-orproposition. It is possible to be effectively doing while you aredelightfully being, in your ordinary workaday world.I think efficiency is a good thing. Maybe what you're doing isimportant, interesting, or useful; or maybe it isn't but it has to bedone anyway. In the first case you want to get as much return asyou can on your investment of time and energy. Inthe second, you want to get on to other things as fast The art of restingthe mind and theas you can, without any nagging loose ends.And whatever you're doing, you'd probably like to power ofbe more relaxed, confident that whatever you're doing dismissing from itat the moment is just what you need to be doing—that all care and worryis probably one ofhaving a beer with your staff after hours, gazing at yourthe secrets of oursleeping child in his or her crib at midnight, answeringgreat men.the e-mail in front of you, or spending a few informal —Captain].minutes with the potential new client after the meetingA.is exactly what you ought to be doing, as you're doing it.Teaching you how to be maximally efficient andrelaxed, whenever you need or want to be, was my main purposein writing this book.xi

WELCOME TO GETTING THINGS DONEI have searched for a long time, as you may have, for answersto the questions of what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.And after twenty-plus years of developing and applying newmethods for personal and organizational productivity, alongsideyears of rigorous exploration in the self-development arena, I canattest that there is no single, once-and-for-all solution. No software, seminar, cool personal planner, or personal mission statement will simplify your workday or make your choices for you asyou move through your day, week, and life. What's more, justwhen you learn how to enhance your productivity and decisionmaking at one level, you'll graduate to the next accepted batch ofresponsibilities and creative goals, whose new challenges will defythe ability of any simple formula or buzzword-du-jour to get youwhat you want, the way you want to get it.But if there's no single means of perfecting personal organization and productivity, there are things we can do to facilitatethem. As I have personally matured, from year to year, I've founddeeper and more meaningful, more significant things to focus onand be aware of and do. And I've uncovered simple processes thatwe can all learn to use that will vastly improve our ability to dealproactively and constructively with the mundane realities of theworld.What follows is a compilation of more than two decades'worth of discoveries about personal productivity—a guide tomaximizing output and minimizing input, and to doing so in aworld in which work is increasingly voluminous and ambiguous. Ihave spent many thousands of hours coaching people "in thetrenches" at their desks, helping them process and organize all oftheir work at hand. The methods I have uncovered have proved tobe highly effective in all types of organizations, at every job level,across cultures, and even at home and school. After twenty yearsof coaching and training some of the world's most sophisticatedand productive professionals, I know the world is hungry for thesemethods.Executives at the top are looking to instill "ruthless execu-xii

WELCOME TO GETTING THINGS DONEtion" in themselves and their people as a basic standard. Theyknow, and I know, that behind closed doors, after hours, thereremain unanswered calls, tasks to be delegated, unprocessed issuesfrom meetings and conversations, personal responsibilitiesunmanaged, and dozens of e-mails still not dealt with. Many ofthese businesspeople are successful because the crises they solveand the opportunities they take advantage of are bigger than theproblems they allow and create in their own offices and briefcases.But given the pace of business and life today, the equation is inquestion.On the one hand, we need proven tools that can help peoplefocus their energies strategically and tactically without lettinganything fall through the cracks. On the other, we need to creatework environments and skills that will keep the most investedpeople from burning out due to stress. We need positive workstyle standards that will attract and retain the best and brightest.We know this information is sorely needed in organizations.It's also needed in schools, where our kids are still not beingtaught how to process information, how to focus on outcomes, orwhat actions to take to make them happen. And for all of us individually, it's needed so we can take advantage of all the opportunities we're given to add value to our world in a sustainable,self-nurturing way.The power, simplicity, and effectiveness of what I'm talking aboutin Getting Things Done are best experienced as experiences, in realtime, with real situations in your real world. Necessarily, the bookmust put the essence of this dynamic art of workflow management and personal productivity into a linear format. I've triedto organize it in such a way as to give you both the inspiring bigpicture view and a taste of immediate results as you go along.The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 describes thewhole game, providing a brief overview of the system and anexplanation of why it's unique and timely, and then presenting thebasic methodologies themselves in their most condensed andxiii