Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity -- anyone read this book?

[Flyback]

David Allen wrote a book titled "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity".

Book has quite a following with IT people from what I gather (on wikipedia, slashdot, and otherwise). On its own, the book has a good sales record and lots of followers.

Has anyone read it? Is it worthwhile?

Right now my time management goes like this:
I spend 10-15 mins dumping everything I need to do into a .txt file for the day. I spend a few minutes to prioritize them. Then I go about the list and when I complete a task I write in the time beside it. At the end of the day I reflect for 5 minutes and look over the list. While it works okay, if I could improve the approach (by using this book) then I'll give it a shot.

 

[FoBoT]

does it have a section about neffing internet forums?

 

[Wheatmaster]

i already do somethign similar to this, everyday before during breakfast i write down what i need to do for the day in my planner and order them with numbers by urgency and importance.

 

[tweakmm]

Yup. I had a GTD system down and then I fell off and it went to hell. I've been re-reading the book and reading how people implimented it in their own lives.
43folders.com is a great site
Plus, the hipster PDA is awesome.

 

[Descartes]

I've not read it, but as an owner of an IT firm, the biggest stress has little to do with the amount of work that actually needs to be done; rather, it's almost always about people issues.

Seriously, simply having to deal with people has to be the greatest stressor of my professional life. Finding reliable resources to which you can delegate and simply know it's going to get done are worth their weight in gold.

Maybe I'll read the book.

[edit]I should say that I manage my appointments and tasks largely through Outlook and my SmartPhone (T-Mobile Dash right now). I find any other decoupled method to be inefficient, because there are always times I need to capture tasks, review tasks, etc. when I'm away from my computer. I always have my phone.[/edit]

 

[Flyback]

Originally posted by: tweakmm
Yup. I had a GTD system down and then I fell off and it went to hell. I've been re-reading the book and reading how people implimented it in their own lives.
43folders.com is a great site
Plus, the hipster PDA is awesome.

How much better a system is it over what I currently do? Mine lacks any sort of structure. It is good for day-to-day stuff like what I want to fix around the house, cleaning, email, tasks like that but it is horrible for large projects (school, and programming). Can it help with larger things or is it mostly for the small stuff ? I'm about to start a 4-6 month long programming project and might read this ahead of time.

 

[leftyman]

drinking reduces stress.

 

[tweakmm]

Originally posted by: Flyback

Originally posted by: tweakmm
Yup. I had a GTD system down and then I fell off and it went to hell. I've been re-reading the book and reading how people implimented it in their own lives.
43folders.com is a great site
Plus, the hipster PDA is awesome.

How much better a system is it over what I currently do? Mine lacks any sort of structure. It is good for day-to-day stuff like what I want to fix around the house, cleaning, email, tasks like that but it is horrible for large projects (school, and programming). Can it help with larger things or is it mostly for the small stuff ? I'm about to start a 4-6 month long programming project and might read this ahead of time.

The main criticism of the GTD system is it's handling of repeating daily tasks(although it's quite easy to work that out). It's really amazing for handling larger projects.

 

[Flyback]

Originally posted by: tweakmm

Originally posted by: Flyback

Originally posted by: tweakmm
Yup. I had a GTD system down and then I fell off and it went to hell. I've been re-reading the book and reading how people implimented it in their own lives.
43folders.com is a great site
Plus, the hipster PDA is awesome.

How much better a system is it over what I currently do? Mine lacks any sort of structure. It is good for day-to-day stuff like what I want to fix around the house, cleaning, email, tasks like that but it is horrible for large projects (school, and programming). Can it help with larger things or is it mostly for the small stuff ? I'm about to start a 4-6 month long programming project and might read this ahead of time.

The main criticism of the GTD system is it's handling of repeating daily tasks(although it's quite easy to work that out). It's really amazing for handling larger projects.

I tend to use a software design approach for the overall project planning (including some work breakdown structures, gantt charts, often some UML and word documents...whatever). For the actual time management aspect and day-to-day I'm thinking I could use GTD.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Originally posted by: leftyman
drinking reduces stress.

increase anger?

 

[tweakmm]

Originally posted by: Flyback

Originally posted by: tweakmm

Originally posted by: Flyback

Originally posted by: tweakmm
Yup. I had a GTD system down and then I fell off and it went to hell. I've been re-reading the book and reading how people implimented it in their own lives.
43folders.com is a great site
Plus, the hipster PDA is awesome.

How much better a system is it over what I currently do? Mine lacks any sort of structure. It is good for day-to-day stuff like what I want to fix around the house, cleaning, email, tasks like that but it is horrible for large projects (school, and programming). Can it help with larger things or is it mostly for the small stuff ? I'm about to start a 4-6 month long programming project and might read this ahead of time.

The main criticism of the GTD system is it's handling of repeating daily tasks(although it's quite easy to work that out). It's really amazing for handling larger projects.

I tend to use a software design approach for the overall project planning (including some work breakdown structures, gantt charts, often some UML and word documents...whatever). For the actual time management aspect and day-to-day I'm thinking I could use GTD.

That's the great thing about GTD, you can impliment it in whatever medium you want. You might need to tweak the way you plan out your projects, but because you use software doesn't exclude GTD.
Once I finish reading the book again I plan to roll my own web based task manager/project planner.
There is some great software out there already to help impliment GTD in one's life.

 

[Flyback]

Just got home from the store an hour ago where I picked up the book. Going to read it tomorrow

 

[boredhokie]

I feel like I'm always putting out fires in my job. I have 3 main projects that I managed to work on in between keeping operations, IT and one of our salesforces from killing each other.

I feel like I get things done by just writing them down in my notepad as I go through the day, but 3 weeks later I sit down and wonder just what the hell I did. I'm sure it's stuff that would look good on a perf review or resume but if I didn't write down the outcome then I probably forgot it ever happened.