“Getting Things Done” book review
Summary for the busy people:
- The book introduces a unique but complicated system to manage your workflow. If you like simple solutions and systems, then you won’t find them in this book.
- However it’s good to know the basics of GTD as it’s the most popular personal organization system around and you may use some parts of it in your own system.
- I found the book hard to read and way too long. I do not recommend buying the book. It’s better to read a summary about GTD here and here.
I guess today it’s just impossible not to know what “gtd” is. I’ve always heard positive reviews about this book. I saw people telling how implementing gtd system changed their lives. Before reading this book I have been familiar with the basic methodology behind gtd. However, when I got my hands on the actual book I was expecting for it to change my life too. But it hadn’t such a life-changing effect on me.
In the book “Getting Things Done” the author presents his system to manage your workflow. Some parts of his system are new to me and some of it are plain common sense. Overall his system is unique but I found it too complicated for me. I found some parts of this system completely useless to me. For example - contexts. The author suggests of working by contexts. I understand “context” as a place or state, for ex @phone @computer @home. However for me it just wouldn’t work. I choose what to do not by context but by priority. Some things are just more improtant than others. And as I mostly work by my computer and have the phone always with me it’s just a matter of priority. I see context as a way to filter your next actions if have lots of them. At the moment I have about 60 tasks but sorting them by project and priority seems more rational to me.
According to Allen, it takes two hours a week just to make this system work for you. I don’t know if I can afford it. I think I better stick to plain common sense(or basics of time and project management) and little productivity tricks that works for me. I guess the whole gtd system would be life-changing for those who lack discipline and need a strong and strict system to get them on track. If you don’t like complicated systems, know the basics of time management and/or have work expierence in management I don’t think that you will like this book. In that case this book is more intresting as a social psychology subject because of it’s phenomenal effect on the blogging community. And of course it’s good to be familiar with the things that gain such popularity.
OK, about the good stuff. Here are the ideas that that I liked:
- You have to put everything out of your head into a trusted system because in this age of information it’s very hard to keep up with everything. Doing so gives you a “mind like water”.
- If you can do the little tasks now, then do them know.
- If a project seems too big, break it down into small, easily manageable tasks.
- When defining a task (or “next action” how Allen calls it) you should make it as clear as possible. And every-time you need to do something just ask yourself “What’s the next action?”
- Having a someday/maybe folder where you put your ideas and things that are not so important at the moment.
These are the things that I liked about this book. These things may sound as common sense but I found them useful.
David Allen suggests the idea of having a “mind like water”. I agree with that. But his writing style doesn’t feel clear like water to me. I found it very hard to read his book. The author constantly repeats himself. He begins his chapters like this: “Do you always find yourself overhelmed by the things you have to do each day? Do you always forget to do something?”, etc. After asking you this type of questions he explains that after reading this chapter you will be able to handle all this stuff, your life will become better, etc. And finally he gets to the point and explains HOW to do it. Actually much time is spent telling us what he’s going to tell us and how it will affect our life and save us time. As I tried not to skim and read every page I found myself struggling through his BS to find that little piece of real advice. And that’s the sad part because I really liked some of his ideas. And the whole book is just too long. He could easily put all his ideas into 30 pages article. I just believe that the book of productivity expert should also be productive in the number of pages and the amount of advice in them.
I thought I am the only one thinks this way. I have checked reviews on amazon.com. There are 295 customer reviews. 95% of them are positive: 4 and mostly 5 stars. However about 5% of those reviews are negative. It seems that there were people who felt the same way as I did: in their opinion the book is too long, the author repeats himself. There were several straight to the point comments like: “I felt like I was reading a shopping list to buy office supplies”(it’s for the second part of the book where author explains how to setup his system) or “If you want to save yourself some money, just read some of the reviews on Amazon and you’ll get the point of this 267 page book.”. These two comments all alone pretty sums up my opinion on the way David Allen presented his idea.
I believe that GTD system could also have been life-changing for those 5% readers too. But they bought a book on productivity and it just was a pain to read it. If they bought such book it means that there was a mess or chaos in their life. They wanted to change that. But then they started to read and found a mess in the book they thought to themselves “Why should I even bother reading such a book when it’s a mess by itself?”. I suppose that’s the typical scenario. If Allen would have made his book much more shorter and clearer, he would have been given a chance to reach those 5% readers.
As I already told, author of the book could have made this book much, much shorter. In that case David Allen would have saved me time. And isn’t this book about saving our valuable time? And in first case shouldn’t time management and productivity expert try to save us time? Although I found some parts of this book useful but I spent 4 hours reading it. If this book were 30 pages long instead of a 267 pages I would have spent 30 minutes and would have walked away with the same advice.
Author and Editor of this book, you owe me 3 hours and 30 minutes of my time!
This is a very topic for your 2nd post on your blog. I do find it disturbing that you were going into the book with such a grandiose outcome and you did not achieve the ‘revolutionary’ outcome that you were looking for.
Now a couple things. David Allen has never marketed the book as the revolutionary answer to all of your problems. He, himself calls this system “radical common sense” on an audio recording of a seminar that he gave some years ago. I agree that most of what puts forth is pretty easy to figure out. What Allen has done is created a framework to use to make yourself more productive. I do not use every part of the system. I don’t have a tickler file, and I actually have meandered back into using contexts. I would ask that you remove the link to my Contexts post since I do not use them because they are “completely useless” as you suggest.
You linked 2 of my posts on Black Belt Productivity, but did you go through and look at the other 100 articles that we have talked about, or the fact that our entire blog centers around the role of GTD in our lives!
You claim that Allen states that it takes several hours a week to keep up this system. Where, may I ask, did you get that statement? I have read the book 3 times and have never seen anything like that mentioned. He does state that the INITIAL collection may take up to 2 days, but after that the biggest time constraint is the Weekly Review, and for that he RECOMMENDS blocking out 2 hours for it. I have done reviews that have taken over 2 hours and I have done reviews that have taken 10 minutes. The more that you interact with your system, and keep up the day-to-day of it,your reviews will take no time.
Also, when you are teaching people new ideas the use of repetition is recommended so that people get the idea. That is pretty basic teaching skills there. That is why Allen repeats himself throughout the book.
Lastly, all of the things that you listed that you like about GTD, are the core tenets of GTD…Contexts, projects, 2 min rule, and the use of the trusted system. These are the things that make GTD so EASY to use, not “too radical and too complicated” to be used.
So I have to ask…Do you like GTD (the system) or Not?
First of all thanks for taking time to write such a long comment.
I would also like to clear some things. In my post I don’t claim that Allen calls his system “revolutionary”. His readers does that. And after reading such positive reviews I guess it’s obvious that my expectations were high.
I have already removed the link to your post on contexts. It’s just that your post title is “We don’t need no stinkin’ contexts”. And I thought that you found contexts useless too. Or maybe I misinterpreted the word “stinkin’”.
I haven’t read all articles on your blog. But I have read GTD primer and found it more useful than the book itself. So I’ll keep that link for others if you don’t mind
I don’t have the book with me right now but as I remember Allen talked about “blocking out 2 hours” for weekly review. I understand that then you become better at using the system you can do it in 10 minutes. But when I read it for a first-time that it takes 2 hours a week only to maintain this system that just didn’t seemed very attractive to me.
I am aware of repetition as a teaching skill. But that kind of repetition in this book seemed to me aimed more at 8th grader than to an executive.
Breaking down projects into small tasks, clearly defining the desired outcome is nothing but a plain common sense. Although I wrote in my post that I found them useful. However, David Allen has unique(for me) ideas: 2 min rule, need for a trusted system, the idea of a “someday” category. I say category because I don’t like the idea of “contexts”, I use categories(personal/job1/job2,etc) to separate my projects and tasks.
To answer your questions, I don’t like GTD as a whole system. I found useful only small bits of it and the other stuff I was already aware of and using it. I use my own system, which is much more simple than GTD. I find GTD complicated because it’s just too radical for me. I need more flexibility. I found it hard to adapt the whole system to my needs. So that’s why I say that I like only small bits of it. And there’s a lot of stuff that I found useless for example: tickler file, energy levels, contexts. And the whole setup of this system. He dedicated the whole section of the book entirely on setuping the system. I don’t think that he needed to write those shopping lists of office supplies. It reminds me of these get-rich-quick ebooks for example “Master google adwords and make millions”. And half of the book author explains how to setup google adwords account. It’s good that the author didn’t suggested to have a separate room dedicated to only your gtd system where you would have altar with his photo on the top(smiliar to jesus paintings in church)
I hope you understand that I’m joking here.
My post may sound harsh not because I liked gtd system or not. Everyone has it’s opinion here. The thing is that I was very dissapointed with the way author presented his system. I already told that the book is way too long. In my opinion he could have easily fitted it to 30 pages. And in that case there wouldn’t been a need for that BS(telling us what he’s going to tell us, how it will change our life, etc). And that’s the reason why I like your posts on GTD primer.
At the same time I read GTD book I was reading “Don’t make me think” by Steve Krug. And these two books differs like black and white. Steve Krug instantly gets to the point, he gives real advice in every page. And with David Allen book it was the opposite.
I hope you understand that everyone is different and each of us has its own opinion. And I hope you won’t take my opinion as a personal attack on GTD
Hi there. Thanks for the post. Keep on working on your English - you’re doing great. I’m glad you’re pushing on GTD - skepticism is healthy. I’m in the 95% - I got tremendous benefit from it, literally life-changing.
I’d like to comment on some of your points:
> Overall gtd system is too radical and too complicated for me.
This is a common complaint, one I think is warranted. The method is very process-oriented, and doesn’t work ofr everyone.
> If you are familiar with productivity and time management there’s a big possibility that you won’t find anything new in this book.
I think this is both true and misleading. First, every concept in the book has been seen before - I think Allen claims there’s nothing new under the sun, and it’s “advanced common sense.” That said, I think his unique *combination* is a major contribution. I’ve studied dozens of systems, and end-to-end ones like GTD are rare. Plus, the “clear mind” focus is pretty unique for a business book.
> I sincerely don’t think that busy people would also find this gigantic system very helpful.
I realize you’re simply trying to provoke here. I’d suggest a less emotional approach would be more sustainable for a new blog.
> …completely useless (for example contexts)
Again, jumping to an extreme position can be polarizing (and exciting in the short run), but I’d save the hype and simply explain why you think so. Regarding contexts, for people with a relatively small number of actions, one list (e.g., “Actions”) is fine. No need to make it more complex.
> …it takes two hours a week just to make this system work for you
Actually it takes more. 1-2 hours per *day* emptying your inboxes, plus the time you mention. However, for most people adopting the system, this is less overall than when they were doing it ad hoc - much more efficient, in other words.
> I guess the whole gtd system would be life-changing for those who are total losers in managing their time…
Again, avoid the provocation and try for something more concrete. You’ll build readers more steadily that way. My 2 cents…
> Author of the book could have made this book much, much shorter.
I’ve heard this from others as well, and I suspect you’re right. However, writing a book is a huge undertaking, and very personal. Allen’s presenting concepts he’s worked on for 20 years - I’ll give him some slack. But as you pointed out, there are many free resources on the web - read a summary!
Best of luck with this. If you come up with something that works better for you, why don’t you write it up. It can be rewarding to move from criticism to creation on stuff like this!
Hi Matthew,
Thanks for your comments. You’re right - I should have used less emotions and more arguments from the start. I have already edited my post and made it more objective(I hope).
My own system is very primitive and personal. I don’t know if it would work for others. And I do not intend to compete with David Allen
But maybe I’ll blog about it.
Anyway, thanks again for your constructive comments.
[…] Matthew comment in my previous post I decided to explain the system I use to get my things […]
sorry. your post too long. lots of repeats.
Thanks for your insight into this book.. its been on my shelf for a bl**dy long time, and I really want to get into it. I do need organising!
I only wanted to comment on your grammar, as you say in your ABOUT “You are very welcome to point me my grammar mistakes” .. You have one right there. It really should read, “You are very welcome to point OUT to me my grammar mistakes” or even, “You are very welcome to point out my grammar mistakes for me”
One other thing I noticed was missing the word THE sometimes. In some sentences, it helps to use that word. e.g. “In the book “Getting Things Done” author presents his system to manage your workflow”, place THE before AUTHOR..
By the way, where are you from? Your English is much better than some of my colleagues, and we all live in the UK! Home of the English Language!
RSS Feed added to Google Reader!
P.S >> I still get my there/their/they’re mixed up! Please don’t pick me up
Hi Jez,
You are very true here. To get organized and be organized is essential in this crazy world.
If you have that book I would recommend you to just skim through it and read only the parts that will seem intresting to you. Some of the things described in the book will work for you, some of them not. I would not recommend to blindly follow somebody’s else system. You should take some advice from it, apply your common sense and create your own system. Because neither GTD nor other system will do your job for you. So you just should stick to what works best for you.
Thanks for your comments on my grammar. I will need to correct it.
I live in one of the Baltic Sea countries, it’s not so far from UK. By the way I’m “he”, not “she” as mentioned in that blog
Also thanks for the feed add. I now feel responsibility to write quality posts. If you have any ideas what you’d like to read here, let me know.
Interesting posts. For what it’s worth, here’s my two cents:
First, a trusted system that captures and handles all your stuff is the heart of GTD. The least time it takes to process all the stuff coming into your life is the minimum, irreducible time you must spend to that ensure that nothing falls in the cracks, irrespective of the time management system you use.
Second, the amount of trouble caused by stuff falling in the cracks varies from person to person. As a lawyer who practiced by himself for many years, the consequences of unprocessed stuff was frequently too horrible to contemplate, because much of the stuff in the life of a lawyer is his client’s stuff that he is being paid to handle.
On the other hand, many occupations–retail sales clerks, for example–have very little stuff in their work life, because they are expected to immediately handle any problems that arise while on the job. While GTD might be of some use in their private lives, it would be overkill for someone whose job does not require a considerable amount of work be deferred.
Third, contexts are not essential to GTD, but since no one remains glued to the same spot 24 hours a day, many people find them useful. I currently have seven contexts in my system: home, errands, in the field, phone calls, computer, agendas, and waiting for. This works for me. “In the field” refers to things to do when I’m out of town working in courthouses running mineral titles for an oil company. Chances are that the less stuff you have the fewer contexts you will find to be useful. If you lead five lives like I do, contexts are a lifesaver.
Fourth, and probably most importantly, after you have followed the system for some time, it will become simple and you will wonder how you could have ever done things differently. In many respects it’s like cooking an elaborate recipe; the first time you make it, it’s wise to follow the instructions to the letter, or you run the risk of having to send out at the last moment for your guests’ dinner. After becoming more familiar with the dish one can make changes to suit one’s individual preferences.
So my suggestion is to give it a chance, and not get bogged down with some particular aspect of GTD and conclude that it’s not for you. First try the system exactly as laid out by The David in *Getting Things Done* for six months, using either a manual system, M$ Outlook, or another GTD program that conforms to Allen’s system. Only then think about customizing. If you don’t like contexts, use home, office (or home office), and away from home. The utility of these three contexts should be obvious. If you carry a cellphone and run around a lot, a phone context would probably be useful.
GTD reduced my stress level in law practice by 80%, so I can vouch for it. I did it by the book and have seen little reason to change. When things became franic, as they occasionally do in a law office, I found that a daily review, rather than a weekly review, would soothe my anxiety and ensure that everything that needed to be done was done. It took about 20 minutes to do a daily review and it made my Friday afternoon weekly review go a lot quicker.
Hi TomL,
Thanks for the comment. You’ve made some good points.
I understand that having a “trusted system” is essential. When I decided to write down everything into my system my stress level reduced a lot too. Now as I put everything into my system I don’t have to worry about forgeting something. If it’s on my system it means it’ll be done. I don’t know whom to credit for this tip - David Allen or my common sense.
As for trying GTD, at the moment I’m satisfied with my own system. It simply does its job. I just don’t need contexts or tickler file.
I see my system as a plain common sense mixed with basics of time and project management. To others it may look like “GTD Light”. I guess it doesn’t matter what it really is as long as it works for me.
[…] What’s the next action This weekend, I received a link to an articleon Everyfing.com which gives some pretty good critique on the GTD system. It is a very good article and some of the points he makes resonate with me. […]
Book is maybe written by a visual thinker for visual thinkers. I agree that the book is dense w/ confusing (to me) terminology (the altitude thing, eg). I had read lots of stuff about GTD on various sites and in various blogs, so I thought I should read the book. I bounced. Discussing my understanding of the system vs the bounce from the terminology of the book w/ my husband was interesting. His take is that David Allen is a visual thinker and that his words and descriptions are typical of a visual thinker getting stuff down in words. The circling through the same info a couple of times w/ slightly different slant is also typical of a visual thinker writing stuff down (in the picture in their head there’s a big difference between iterations that might not be so obvious in print)
I’m also turned off because the language in the book is very business executive. I think lots of folks could benefit from the GTD system, but not all of us “others” want to wade through all the business executive rhetoric to distill what is universally applicable (to students, to SAHMs or SAHPs, eg)
[…] at Everyfing.com there is a review of Getting Things Done by David Allen. The tenor of the review is that the book is too long and […]