As most of our users are using KarooLark web messengers in their office, I would like to recommend a book about productivity, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
We know if someone has a number of things to do, normal people may feel being buried while professionals may find their ways to do those things one by one and keep their positive senses of relaxed control. That is the differences of normal people and successful people.
Knowing the differences but still not knowing how to make changes that help normal people to become a productive people with high effectiveness and efficiency? David Allen’s book “Get Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” provide a practical way for you to follow to modify your old work habits and embrace the new significant shift.
David Allen wrote this book in 2001. And the book was the best sell in that year. And now 2011, after 10 years, it is still in the top 200 best sell book list. Lots of people give a 5 stars reviews in both Amazon and Google Books. Here are some of the reviews from Amazon:
DO NOT PASS UP THIS BOOK AT ANY COST!
OK, so when an associate of mine told me that this was the most influential book he’d ever read on organisational skills and that the book, and the system, had changed his life, I was reluctant to believe him. I decided, just to prove him wrong, that I’d grab a copy and see what all the fuss was about.
I read it in 2 sittings, commenced implementing it immediately, and after a week I realised that I too had found the best organisational system that I’d ever come across – and that is saying something! I’ve been in the business community for more than 20 years, have worked for international consulting firms, been to more training courses on the use of management systems, owned every PDA, manual time system and document tracking system known to man, bought every Ipad App available, but this one system has without doubt, absolutely and totally changed my life. And for life it is!
This Book Will Help You Get Organized and Reduce Stress in A Big Way
One way that I judge a book is by how much impact it really has on my career and life after I finish reading it. In this case, this book had and still has a huge impact in my life everyday.
First of all, I recommend purchasing the audio version of this book so that you can listen to it while you implement David’s organizational system in your office and home. This way you can listen to certain sections multiple times at your pace.
A few major impacts that this book had on my career include:
– I implemented David’s filing system for “loose” papers and now my office desk is clean (most of the time)
– My to-do list is much more effective based on David’s recommendations of how to layout your list
– I now manage my e-mails rather than letting them manage me (this is a big one)Most importantly all of these items allow me to lead a less stressful life.
David Allen and his book got lots of receptions in the past ten years (information from Wikipedia):
In 2005, Wired called GTD “A new cult for the info age”, describing the enthusiasm for this methodology among information technology and knowledge workers as a kind of cult following. Allen’s ideas have also been popularized through the Internet, especially via blogs such as Lifehacker, 43 Folders, and The Simple Dollar.
In 2005, Ben Hammersley interviewed David Allen for The Guardian, with an article called “Meet the man who can bring order to your universe”, saying “For me, as with the hundreds of thousands around the world who press the book into their friends’ hands with fire in their eyes, Allen’s ideas are nothing short of life-changing”.
In 2007, Time Magazine called Getting Things Done the self-help business book of its time.
In 2007, Wired ran another article about GTD and Allen, quoting him as saying “the workings of an automatic transmission are more complicated than a manual transmission… to simplify a complex event, you need a complex system”.
Here are content of this book:
1 Part 1 — The Art of Getting Things Done
1.1 Chapter 1 — A New Practice for a New Reality
1.2 Chapter 2 — Getting Control of Your Life: The Five Stages of Mastering Workflow
1.3 Chapter 3 — Getting Projects Creatively Under Way: The Five Phases of Project Planning
2 Part 2 — Practicing Stress-Free Productivity
2.1 Chapter 4 — Getting Started: Setting Up the Time, Space and Tools
2.2 Chapter 5 — Collection: Corralling Your “Stuff”
2.3 Chapter 6 — Processing: Getting “In” to Empty
2.4 Chapter 7 — Organizing: Setting Up the Right Buckets
2.5 Chapter 8 — Reviewing: Keeping Your System Functional
2.6 Chapter 9 — Doing: Making the Best Action Choices
2.7 Chapter 10 — Getting Projects Under Control
3 Part 3 — The Power of the Key Principles
3.1 Chapter 11 — The Power of the Collection Habit
3.2 Chapter 12 — The Power of the Next-Action Decision
3.3 Chapter 13 — The Power of Outcome Focusing
4 External Links
This book is priced at $9.22 on Amazon Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Go reading some more reviews and sample pages. It is worthy of buying it and reading it.