GETTING THINGS DONE

How To Achieve Stress-Free Productivity

By David Allen; Piatkus Books Ltd., 2001

From the moment we wake up provides systems, tools, About the Author/s:
until the time we go to bed, insights, and tips on how to
most of us have an accomplish more with less David Allen
overwhelming number of effort, be happier and more i s a n
things to do everyday, at successful individuals. international
a u t h o r ,
home, at school, at work. We read the summary lecturer, and
have to go at a hurried pace founder and
just to get everything done, President of
and sometimes we feel that the David
A l l e n
we have too much to handle Company, a management
and our lives are getting out of consulting, coaching, and
our control. We get home tired, training company.
stressed out and worried In the last twenty years he has
about the things we failed to do developed and implemented
and all the other things that we productivity improvement
programs for over a half million
have yet to do the next day. professionals in hundreds of
organizations worldwide,
“Getting Things Done” by including many Fortune 500
David Allen describes an corporations and U.S.
Government agencies. He
“incredibly practical process delivers public and in-house
that can help busy people seminars, executive workflow
regain control of their lives”, coaching, and consulting
programs that address
become more relaxed, and still interactive and organizational
get everything done. He productivity and alignment
issues.
for author info

Inside This Book Summary:

Ÿ The Big Idea Phases of Natural Planning
Ÿ Too Many Things On Your Mind Ÿ Getting Started: Setting Up The
Ÿ Clear Your Mind Time, Space and Tools
Ÿ Horizontal and Vertical Action Ÿ Making the Best Choices
Management
Ÿ Gain Control of Your Life: Five Stages of
Managing Workflow
Ÿ Getting Projects Under Way: The Five

Published by BusinessSummaries, 3001-91, 11010 NW 30th St., Suite 104, Miami, Florida 33172 ©2007
BusinessSummaries All rights reserved. No part of this summary may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior notice of BusinessSummaries.com.
 BusinessSummaries.com

parent, all of these are on your mind at any

I. Too Many Things On Your Mind given moment.
If you're a normal person, chances are you
have too many things on your mind right now. Every time you fail to do one of these or leave
This is the result of the world you live in-- people one unfinished, it stays on your mind and adds
usually take on more than they have the to your stress level. Why? Basically, because of
resources to handle things. three things:
 You haven't clarified exactly what the
In the era of globalization, the nature of jobs intended outcome is.
changes such that work no longer has clear  You haven't decided what the very next
boundaries. From assembly-line work, most physical action step is.
jobs now call for “knowledge work.” Companies  You haven't put reminders on the
are continuously evolving and people have to outcome and the action required in a
change and evolve to keep up. While your system you trust.
parents held the same jobs for forty or fifty
years, most people these days are more like Unfinished or unfulfilled tasks and
free agents, and change jobs and careers commitments are what constitute much of the
several times for continual growth pressure and stress you feel everyday.
Aside from work, you are probably trying to do
several other personal projects or tasks you
want or need to achieve and accomplish. We
want to be good parents, good daughters or II. Clear Your Mind
sons, good sisters, good friends, good There is no way to achieve relaxed control if you
neighbors. And we work hard at fulfilling all keep things only in your head. The first step in
these roles. taking positive action and gaining control is to
get clarity on what you need to do, make
The commitments that you make with yourself decisions, and then take action. The key to
and with other people constitute most of the managing all the “stuff” on your mind is
things on your mind. And these commitments, “managing your actions.”
once mismanaged or inappropriately
managed, usually cause most of your stress. “Managing actions” means making appropriate
choices about what to do at any point in time.
It's likely that you have more internal This may sound obvious, but the truth is, many
commitments than you are aware of. From people have no idea what next step they need
answering emails to taking out the trash, from to take to accomplish a project or a
making a presentation to seeing an aging commitment.

Also, people say “I don't have time to

About the Book: _________” and feel overwhelmed by a
particular project because they keep focusing
on how big a task it entails. What you need to
recognize, is that you can't do a project at all--
you can only do an action related to it. And
Author: David Allen
most actions only take a minute or two, in the
Publisher: Piatkus Books Ltd
right context, to move a project forward.
Date of Publication: 2001
ISBN: 0-7499-2264-8 Most of the time, the real problem is not lack of
Number of Pages: 267 pages time, but the lack of clarity or definition about
what a project is, and what actions are required
to do it.

Getting Things Done by David Allen 2 of 8

 BusinessSummaries.com

III. Horizontal and Vertical Action well; others are bad at organizing results, while
others fail to review them consistently. If you are
Management unable to do any of these first four stages well,
You need to control commitments, projects and then what you decide to do may not be the best
actions horizontally and vertically. Horizontal choice.
management means keeping track of all the
things and activities that you need to do go to
the drug store, visit your aunt, have lunch with a WORKFLOW DIAGRAM - PROCESSING
friend, water the plants, finish a paper, shine “stuff”
shoes, buy stamps, and others. In fact, you
may be surprised at the volume of things you
in-basket
need to deal with in just one day.

You need to have a system to help you keep trash

what is it?
track of most of these things, supply the right
information when you need it, and to allow you
someday/
to shift focus from one thing to the next, quickly no maybe
is it actionable?
and easily.
reference
Vertical management or vertical control means yes (retrievable
when required)
being able to think up and down the track of someday/
various individual projects and commitments. maybe
This is project planning in its broad sense. It's what’s the next action?
reference
focusing in on a single endeavor, situation or (retrievable
person, and fleshing out the details, priorities when required)

and sequence of actions required to handle it. will it take less than 2 min?

yes no
IV. Gain Control of Your Life: Five
do it delegate it defer it
Stages of Managing Workflow
First, let's take horizontal management. To gain
control of your projects and commitments, and waiting calendar projects
(for something else to) (planning)
ultimately your life, is to deal with them through
a five-stage process:
1. Collect things that command your
attention. A. Collect
2. Process what they mean and what to In order for your mind to let go of the need to hang
do about them. on to everything, you must know that you have
3. Organize the results which you… truly captured and collected all the things that
4. Review as options for what you might represent something you have to do.
choose to…
5. Do. So first, just like filling a bucket, collect all the
things that you consider incomplete in your life
The method is straightforward and is usually personal or professional, big or little, urgent or
what most people do to accomplish things. But, insignificant. This means all the things that you
what you need to do is to improve how they want or think should be different than it currently
handle each of these stages. Most people are is, and that you feel committed to changing.
unable to collect all the things or process them Use various collection tools to do your collecting:

Getting Things Done by David Allen 3 of 8

 BusinessSummaries.com

 Physical in-basket If an action takes less than two minutes, it should

 Paper-based note-taking devices be done at the moment it is defined. If the action
 Electronic note-taking devices takes longer than two minutes, ask yourself if
 Voice-recording devices you're the right person to do it. If the answer is no,
 e-mail delegate it. If the action takes longer than two
minutes, and you're the right person to do it, defer
Having these devices, however, does not acting on it until later and track it on one or more
ensure successful collecting. Most people do “Next Action” lists.
use some of these tools, but still feel out of
control. To make sure your collection system
works, you should do the following: C. Organize
Ÿ Every open loop must be in your collection After you've completed your processing stage,
system and out of your head. you will have eight categories of reminders and
Ÿ You must have as few collection tools or materials that will result from your processing
baskets as you can get by with. (see workflow diagram). Together they make up a
ŸYou must empty them regularly; this
doesn't mean you have to do everything in
your in-basket; it just means you have to
regularly review what you find there, and
About the Author/s:
then decide what to do about it. You don't
keep it in there. Not emptying your collection David Allen is an international author,
baskets is like never dumping your garbage. lecturer, and founder and President of
the David Allen Company, a
management consulting, coaching,
and training company.
B. Process
In the last twenty years he has
After you've made your collection, you need to developed and implemented
go over each item and ask yourself: productivity improvement programs
Ÿ What is it? Most of us keep things in our for over a half million professionals in
basket for days, months or years (such as hundreds of organizations worldwide, including many
Fortune 500 corporations and U.S. Government
emails from other departments, work agencies. He delivers public and in-house seminars,
colleagues, etc) simply because we failed to executive workflow coaching, and consulting programs
really identify what they are or what they that address interactive and organizational productivity
mean to us, and if we really need to do and alignment issues.
something about them. Having logged thousands of hours working with individual
Ÿ Is it actionable? If the answer is yes, then executives and senior professionals, David has
decide what the action should be and do it. If developed a revolutionary, unique and highly practical
system for improving personal and organizational
the answer is no, then you can either throw it productivity.
out, or keep it because it might need action
in the future (incubate), or keep it because it He is the author of two books -the international best-
could be useful information (reference). selling book, Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free
Productivity (Viking; 2001) and Ready for Anything: 52
Productivity Principles for Work and Life (Viking; 2003).
Deciding on the next action for something simply He has published numerous essays and articles in
means deciding on the next physical, visible professional journals and periodicals on the topic of
personal effectiveness. More than 150 of his original
activity that needs to be engaged in, in order to essays have been featured in his e-newsletter, "David
move the current reality toward completion. It Allen's Productivity Principles," with a global readership of
can simply mean making a phone call, writing more than 120,000 people. He is a popular keynote
down ideas for the next meeting, talking to speaker on the topics of time and stress management,
individual and team productivity, and high performance
someone, or doing research. work practices.

After you've decided on the next action, you To know more about the author, please visit
http://www.davidco.com.
have three options: Do it, Delegate it, or Defer it.

Getting Things Done by David Allen 4 of 8

 BusinessSummaries.com

system for organizing just about everything do on a specific day (reports, calls, etc) but not
that's on your plate. All of these categories necessarily at a specific time
need to be organized and physically contained Ÿ Day-specific information things you need to
in some form, such as a list or another know on a specific day (flight schedules,
retrievable set of reminders. directions for appointments, etc)

For non-actionable items (or things you said The calendar should be sacred territory. If you
'no' to in the diagram), the possible categories write something there, it must get done that day or
are trash, incubation tools (Someday/Maybe), not at all. The only rewriting should be for changed
and reference storage. For items that fall into appointments.
Trash, you need to get rid of quickly.
Someday/Maybe lists can be useful and The 'Next Actions' list is where you put all the
inspiring, as they contain a list of things you longer-than-two-minutes, non-delegatable action
might want to do someday, much like a parking you have identified, which you need to do but not
lot of possible projects. This may include on any given time or day, and therefore does not
learning a new language, sport or artistic need to go in your calendar. If you have only 20 or
activity. The Reference file contains 30 of these, you can put them all in one files. But if
information that has intrinsic value and may be you have more, it's better to subdivide them into
useful in the future. categories, such as 'Calls', 'Project Head
Questions', etc.
To manage actionable things (the 'yes' group of
items), you will need a list of projects, storage You will also need a “Waiting for” list for all the
for project plans and support materials, a items that you have placed in the “delegate”
calendar, a next actions list, and a list of category, and that someone else needs to do
reminders of things you're waiting for. before you can take action.

A 'Projects' list need not be listed in any After you have made all these lists, you will have
particular order; they just need to be on a to set up a personal organization system.
master list that you can review regularly. For
example, a partial 'Projects' list may look
something like this: D. Review
Ÿ Get new staff on board After you've organize all your 'stuff', you need to
Ÿ August vacation periodically review it, to see what's getting done.
Ÿ Staff off-site retreat After all, writing is different from doing. You need
Ÿ Publish book to be able to review the whole picture of your life
Ÿ Finalize computer upgrades and work at appropriate intervals and levels.
Ÿ Update will
Ÿ Finalize budgets Do a weekly review of all your open loops or
Ÿ Finalize new product line Projects, Project Plans, Next Actions, Calendar,
Waiting For, and even your Someday/Maybe list.
Project Plans and Support Materials are This also gives you an opportunity to ensure that
relevant information to help you implement your brain is clear and that all the loose strands of
your projects and that you can organize by your past few days have been collected,
theme or topic. processed, and organized.

For next action categories, you need 1) a The weekly review is the time to:
Calendar and 2) a Next Actions List. A Calendar Ÿ Gather and process all your 'stuff'
is where you put three things: Ÿ Review your system
Ÿ Time specific actions things you need to Ÿ Update your lists
do at a specific time (appointments, etc) Ÿ Get clean, clear, current and complete
Ÿ Day-specific actions things you need to

Getting Things Done by David Allen 5 of 8

 BusinessSummaries.com

Aside from the weekly review, you also need to V. Getting Projects Under Way: The
have a bigger view. This means you need to be
clear about the big picture of your life, as well as Five Phases of Natural Planning
a vision of what you would like it to become in The five phases of natural planning is vertical
the next year, in three to five years. You need to management, or simply, advanced common
have a good idea of your main areas of sense, in accomplishing tasks and projects.
responsibility (family, work, etc). This gives you Natural planning entails:
a clearer perspective about what your current 1. Defining Purpose and Principles
actions and projects have to be. 2. Outcome visioning
3. Brainstorming
4. Organizing
E. Do 5. Identifying Next Actions
Even with your personal organization system,
every decision to act will still remain an intuitive
one, whether you make a call or do something 1. Defining Purpose and Principles
else. The challenge is to migrate from 'hoping' Before planning and doing a project, ask
it's the right choice to 'trusting' it's the right yourself 'why?' Almost anything you are
choice. The basic purpose of this workflow currently doing can be enhanced and
process is to facilitate your making good galvanized by more scrutiny. Why are you going
choices about what you're doing at any to your next meeting? Why are you having
particular time. friends over? Why are you hiring a marketing
director?
At 3:22 on a Wednesday, how do you choose
what to do? Given your personal organization Asking 'why' helps you define success, creates
system, you can apply criteria for choosing: decision-making criteria, aligns resources,
Ÿ Context (some things can only be done at motivates, clarifies focus, and expands options.
work or at home, near a computer or a
phone)
Ÿ Time available (don't start a 30-minute 2. Outcome Visioning
task if you only have 10 minutes; do Next, you need to envision an ideal outcome for
something that takes 10 minutes or less to a project. You must have clear picture of what
accomplish) success would look like. This gives you the
Ÿ Energy available (don't begin a difficult power of focus, which can create ideas and
task when you are feeling tired; do thought patterns in your head that you wouldn't
something less taxing) have otherwise. So you need to create a clear
ŸPriority (ask yourself; given your context, outcome in your head, define what it is you want
time and energy available, what task would to accomplish, see yourself actually doing it.
give you the greatest payoff?)
Three basic steps for developing a vision are:
Doing entails: doing predefined work (tasks in Ÿ View the project from beyond the
your Calendar or Next Action lists), doing work completion date
that shows up (unexpected tasks, visitors to Ÿ Envision “wild success” (suspend “Yeah,
entertain, emergencies), defining your work but…)
(breaking down new projects into actionable Ÿ Capture features, aspects, qualities you
steps, and processing your inputs as you do imagine in place
them).

Getting Things Done by David Allen 6 of 8

 BusinessSummaries.com

3. Brainstorming 5. Identifying Next Actions

Once you know what you want to happen, and The final stage of planning comes down to
why, the 'how' mechanism comes into play. The decisions about the allocation and
most popular technique for brainstorming is reallocation of physical resources to
“mind mapping”, or simply creating a graphic actually get the project moving. The key
format for your ideas. In mind mapping, the core question to ask is: “What's the next action?”
idea is presented in the center, with associated
ideas growing out in a free-form fashion around
it. This is external brainstorming, putting ideas
down in a tangible, physical form, such as
writing it down on a board, using Post-its, or
outlining a program on the computer. VI. Getting Started: Setting Up The
Time, Space and Tools
The great thing about external brainstorming is To get started on vertical and horizontal
that it allows you to look at your original ideas, management of your 'stuff', set up a block of
and think up of new ones. This is called time and prepare a workstation with the
distributed cognition. appropriate space, furniture and tools. If
your space is properly set up, it will reduce
So when you brainstorm, just let ideas flow at your resistance to dealing with your 'stuff'.
this stage. The key is expansion, not
contraction, so the more ideas you generate the An ideal timeframe for most people is two
better. Just empty your mind of all your ideas whole days, back to back. But if you don't
and analyze them later. Brainstorming keys have the luxury of getting two days free, just
also include the following: start the process of collection and you will
Ÿ Don't judge, challenge, evaluate, or instantly see the payoff from this process.
criticize You can set aside a weekend or a holiday to
Ÿ Go for quantity, not quality do this. But be sure to clear your time of any
Ÿ Put analysis and organization in the other commitments.
background
It is imperative that you have your own
space to do this, and have your papers
4. Organizing untouched by others. Don't share your
If you've done a good job of emptying your space with a spouse, or sibling.
mind, you will feel a natural organization
emerge. Organizing usually happens when you If you're committed to the full
identify components and subcomponents, implementation of this workflow process,
sequences or events, and priorities. This is the you will need the following supplies:
stage where you can use structuring tools, from Ÿ Paper holding trays
informal bullet points, scribbled literally on the Ÿ A stack of plain letter-size paper
back of an envelope, to project-planning Ÿ A pen or pencil
software like Microsoft Project. Ÿ Post-its
Ÿ Paper clips
Once you perceive a basic structure, your mind Ÿ Binder clips
starts to fill in the blanks. Here is where the Ÿ Stapler and staples
Basics of Organizing need to be done: Ÿ Scotch tape
Ÿ Identify the significant pieces Ÿ Rubber bands
Ÿ Sort by: components, sequences and Ÿ Automatic labeler (try the Brother
priorities labeler as it's the most user-friendly)
Ÿ Detail to the required degree

Getting Things Done by David Allen 7 of 8

 BusinessSummaries.com

Ÿ File folders
Ÿ A calendar
Ÿ Wastebasket/recycling bins

VII. Making the Best Choices

In the end, of course, deciding and doing really
comes down to a matter of trusting your heart,
your spirit or your gut. The vertical and horizontal
workflow process outlined in this book only gives
you a better idea, and a better standpoint for
doing so.

ABOUT BUSINESSSUMMARIES BusinessSummaries.com is a business book Summaries service. Every week, it sends out to
subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in
the United States. Summaries are available in PDF, PDA, HTML, Powerpoint and Audio formats. For more information, please
go to http://www.bizsum.com.

DO YOU LIKE THIS SUMMARY but not a member yet? Subscribe now and learn the latest business trends in minutes from book
summaries of today’s business bestsellers. Simply go to http://www.bizsum.com/offer01.htm.

Getting Things Done by David Allen 8 of 8