David Allen

It is possible to be effectively doing while you are delightfully being, in your ordinary
workaday world.
– David Allen

The only people who have to be right are the ones who aren’t really sure they are.
– David Allen

Being organized simply means that where something is matches what it means to you. No
more, no less.
– David Allen

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

In training and coaching thousands of professionals, I have found that lack of time is not the
major issue for them (though they themselves may think it is); the real problem is a lack of
clarity and definition about what a project really is, and what the associated next-action
steps required are.
– David Allen

People love to win. If you’re not totally clear about the purpose of what you’re doing, you
have no chance of winning.
– David Allen

Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from
not finishing what they’ve started.
– David Allen

A functional work space is critical. If you don’t already have a dedicated work space and
in-basket, get them now. That goes for students, homemakers, and retirees, too. Everyone
must have a physical locus of control from which to deal with everything else.
– David Allen

If you think getting an empty mind is not worth doing, then throw away your calendar.
Halfway is unjustifiable.
– David Allen

Chaos corralled fuels creativity.
– David Allen

Once you know what you want to have happen, and why, the “how” mechanism is brought
into play.
– David Allen

Small things, done consistently, in strategic places, create major impact. What are our top
“small things” right now?
– David Allen

Engaging in complexity is a key to simplicity. Fear of it will haunt your inner recesses.
– David Allen

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.
– David Allen

If you don’t pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it’ll take more of your
attention than it deserves.
– David Allen

Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.
– David Allen

Secret to instant stress-free productivity: be of total service, in the moment, to anyone or
anything.
– David Allen

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

When you know what you’re doing, efficiency and style are your only improvement
opportunities.
– David Allen

A paradox has emerged in this new millennium: people have enhanced quality of life, but at the
same time they are adding to their stress levels by taking on more than they have resources
to handle. It’s as though their eyes were bigger than their stomachs. And most people are to
some degree frustrated and perplexed about how to improve the situation.
– David Allen

The purpose of a purpose? Tunes you to meaningful things you wouldn’t be aware of,
otherwise.
– David Allen

If you’re not totally sure what your job is, it will always feel overwhelming.
– David Allen

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.
– David Allen

The purpose of this whole method of workflow management is not to let your brain become
lax, but rather to enable it to move toward more elegant and productive activity.
– David Allen

The goal is to get projects and situations off your mind, but not to lose any potentially useful
ideas.
– David Allen

The clearer you are about all your tasks, the freer you are to multitask.
– David Allen

I suggest that you write down the project or situation that is on your mind at this moment.
What most “bugs” you, distracts you, or interests you, or in some other way consumes a
large part of your conscious attention?
– David Allen

There’s no reason not to be highly productive, even when you’re not in top form.
– David Allen

How you list projects and subprojects is up to you; just be sure you know where to find all
the moving parts.
– David Allen

Collect, process, organize and review what has your attention, so you can stop half-trying to
be doing all that, constantly.
– David Allen

If it’s a truth, the simpler something is said, the greater its impact. Compression creates power.

– David Allen

Often the only way to make a hard decision is to come back to the purpose.
– David Allen

There is no reason ever to have the same thought twice, unless you like having that thought.
– David Allen

It is a tricky business to know when you should set goals and objectives in order to achieve a
focus, and when you would be better off dealing with the acceptance and management of
your current reality so you can later step into new directions and responsibilities with greater
stability and clarity. Only you will know the answer to that, and only in the moment.
– David Allen

We need to transform all the “stuff” we’re trying to organize into actionable stuff we need to
do.
– David Allen

The great secret about goals and visions is not the future they describe but the change in
the present they engender.
– David Allen

Bailing water in a leaky boat diverts energy from rowing the boat.
– David Allen

Taking off midday, midweek, to play golf. Seems naughty, but so should holding such
irrational beliefs.
– David Allen

Your best thoughts about work won’t happen while you’re at work.
– David Allen

Having a total and seamless system of organization in place gives you tremendous power
because it allows your mind to let go of lower-level thinking and graduate to intuitive
focusing, undistracted by matters that haven’t been dealt with appropriately. But your
physical organization system must be better than your mental one in order for that to
happen.
– David Allen

If your filing system isn’t fast, functional, and fun, you’ll resist the whole process.
– David Allen

If the project is still on your mind, there’s more planning to do.
– David Allen

The key ingredients of relaxed control are 1. clearly defined outcomes (projects) and the next
actions required to move them toward closure, and 2. reminders placed in a trusted system
that is reviewed regularly. This is what I call horizontal focus. Although it may seem simple,
the actual application of the process can create profound results.
– David Allen

When you know how, any time, to get to the place where it’s all sort of funny, you’ve
mastered “Getting Things Done.”
– David Allen

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but the way out is through.
– David Allen

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.”
– David Allen

If you’re appropriately engaged with your life, you don’t need more time. If you’re not, more
time won’t won’t help.
– David Allen

Your ability to generate power is directly proportional to your ability to relax.
– David Allen

When I get people to focus on a successful scenario of their project, they usually experience
heightened enthusiasm and think of something unique and positive about it that hadn’t
occured to them before. “Wouldn’t it be great if…” is not a bad way to start thinking about a
situation, at least for long enough to have the option of getting an answer.
– David Allen

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

Moment-to-moment collecting, thinking, processing, and organizing are challenging enough;
always ensure that you have the tools to make them as easy as possible.
– David Allen

The in-basket is a processing station, not a storage bin.
– David Allen

When in doubt, relax and listen.
– David Allen

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.
– David Allen

You often need to make it up in your mind before you can make it happen in your life.
– David Allen

You can fool everyone else, but you can’t fool your own mind.
– David Allen

A basic truism I have discovered over twenty years of coaching and training is that most of
the stress people experience comes from inappropriately managed commitments they make or
accept. Even those who are not consciously “stressed out” will invariably experience greater
relaxation, better focus, and increased productive energy when they learn more effectively to
control the “open loops” of their lives.
– David Allen

Distracting reactions about anything undermine a clear mind about anything else.
– David Allen

Once you know how to process your stuff and what to organize, you really just need to
create and manage lists.
– David Allen

Anything that causes you to overreact or under react can control you, and often does.
Responding inappropriately to your e-mail, your staff, your projects, your unread magazines,
your thoughts about what you need to do, your children, or your boss will lead to less
effective results than you’d like. Most people give either more or less attention to things than
they deserve, simply because they don’t operate with a “mind like water.”
– David Allen