David Allen Quotes

The better you get, the better you better get.

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

Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.

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

Use your mind to think about things, rather than think of them. You want to be adding value as you think about projects and people, not simply reminding yourself they exist.

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.

It seems that there's a part of our psyche that doesn't know the difference between an agreement about cleaning the garage and an agreement about buying a company

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

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.

Your life and work are made up of outcomes and actions. When your operational behavior is grooved to organize everything that comes your way, at all levels, based upon those dynamics, a deep alignment occurs, and wondrous things emerge. You become highly productive. You make things up, and you make them happen.

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.

At any point in time, the first thing to consider is, what could you possibly do, where you are, with the tools you have?

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

Whereas purpose provides the juice and the direction, principles define the parameters of action and the criteria for excellence of behavior.

The greater the volume of thoughts you have to work with, the better the context you can create for developing options and trusting your choices.

Your Brain is for having ideas not storing them.

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

When you start to make things happen, you really begin to believe that you can make things happen. And that makes things happen.

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.

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.