Skip to main content

Getting Things Done Guru David Allen and His Cult of Hypereff...

Popularity Report

Total Popularity Score: 0
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...

Rank

Bookmark History

Saved by 44 people (-9 private), first by anonymouse user on 2007-09-27


Public Sticky notes

Everything must be inventoried without distinction or prejudice. Errands, emails, a problem with a friend: It all must be noted for processing.

Highlighted by quilly

llen offers dozens of clever tricks for classifying, labeling, and retrieving stuff.

Highlighted by quilly

Emails to be answered are in a separate folder from emails that merely have to be read;

Highlighted by quilly

The life-hackers like it because it stimulates their ingenuity. They have optimized versions for the iPhone, for Entourage, and for sets of manila folders.

Highlighted by quilly

nothing on his mind

Highlighted by quilly

Do not write "set up a meeting," for instance. Instead, write "call to set up a meeting.

Highlighted by quilly

open loops

Highlighted by quilly

ny open loop requiring more than one action is a project

Highlighted by quilly

Some of the devotees lived in a Los Angeles mansion called the Purple Rose Ashram of the New Age. Allen was, and still is, a minister in the church.

Highlighted by quilly

technical innovation in clock making that would eventually bring whole new opportunities for guilt and shame. Along with all your other problems, you could now be late

Highlighted by torben

Humans have a problem with stuff. Allen defines stuff as anything we want or need to do. A tax form has the same status as a marriage proposal; a book to write is no different than a grocery list. It's all stuff.

Highlighted by torben

Allen says his goal is to be free from worrying about anything he has to do. His techniques allow him the pleasure of having, much of the time, nothing on his mind. "People are afraid of the void, afraid of negative space," he says. "But having nothing on your mind is one of the most awesome experiences.

Highlighted by torben

"People are afraid of the void, afraid of negative space," he says. "But having nothing on your mind is one of the most awesome experiences."

Highlighted by jpwoodland

"But having nothing on your mind is one of the most awesome experiences."

Highlighted by jpwoodland

At his seminar, Allen asks the audience to try to capture all their stuff by writing a list, and at the end of a few minutes he tells us to look at the list and think about the way it makes us feel. He guesses that our feelings include a mixture of grief and relief. The relief, he suggests, comes from the simple fact of making the list. But where does the grief come from? "These items represent agreements you haven't kept with yourself," Allen says. "What happens when you break an agreement with yourself is that your self-esteem plummets."

Highlighted by torben

New Age movement's most dubious ideas: the theory we can control destiny with our mind

Highlighted by torben

One way to understand Getting Things Done is to see it as Taylorism for knowledge workers, those poor — or privileged — souls who must handle both sides of this equation in the same consciousness. The boss is nowhere in sight, and yet the demands never cease. As ever-more complicated communication networks both extend our reach and hem us in, Allen's strict routines supply exact instructions on how to manage ourselves.

Highlighted by torben

"The people who take to GTD are the most organized people," Allen says, "but they self-assess as the least organized, because they are well-enough organized to know that they are fucking up." Allen would no more crowd his mental environment with unprocessed email in his inbox than he would go to bed in filthy clothes, or stop brushing his teeth. "The scuzz factor gets too high," he says.

Highlighted by torben

They suggest an increase in the demands of civilization, a change in what sociologist Norbert Elias called our habitus, by which he meant our normal psychological organization, our comportment. As these changes become the norm, they turn invisible.

Highlighted by torben