David Allen · 267 pages
Rating: (91.8K votes)
“If you don't pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.”
“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.”
“Your ability to generate power is directly proportional to your ability to relax.”
“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.”
“You can fool everyone else, but you can't fool your own mind.”
“Everything you’ve told yourself you ought to do, your mind thinks you should do right now. Frankly, as soon add you have two things to do stored in your RAM, you’ve generated personal failure, because you can’t do two things at the same time. This produces an all-pervasive stress factor whose source can’t be pin-pointed.”
“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.”
“Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does.”
“Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. —Henri Bergson”
“The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye. . . . The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. —J. Bronowski”
“Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. —Jonathan Kozol”
“It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide what to do. —Elbert Hubbard”
“You’ve got to think about the big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction. —Alvin Toffler”
“Every now and then go away and have a little relaxation. To remain constantly at work will diminish your judgment. Go some distance away, because work will be in perspective and a lack of harmony is more readily seen. —Leonardo da Vinci”
“At at any point in time, knowing what has to get done, and when, creates a terrain for maneuvering.”
“Suffice it to say that something automatic and extraordinary happens in your mind when you create and focus on a clear picture of what you want.”
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. —Mark Twain”
“Things rarely get stuck because of lack of time. They get stuck because the doing of them has not been defined.”
“Interestingly, one of the biggest problems with most people’s personal management systems is that they blend a few actionable things with a large amount of data and material that has value but no action attached.”
“You must use your mind to get things off your mind.”
“There is no reason to ever have the same thought twice, unless you like having that thought. I”
“Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior. —Dee Hock”
“Almost every project could be done better, and an infinite quantity of information is now available that could make that happen.”
“Reacting is automatic, but thinking is not.”
“The beginning is half of every action.”
“The big problem is that your mind keeps
reminding you of things when you can't do
anything about them. It has no sense of past or future. That means that as soon as you tell yourself that you need to do something, and store it in your RAM, there's a part of you that thinks you should be doing that something all the time.”
“But if you don’t decide what needs to be done about your secretary’s birthday, because it’s “not that important” right now, that open loop will take up energy and prevent you from having a totally effective, clear focus on what is important.”
“I am rather like a mosquito in a nudist camp; I know what I want to do, but I don’t know where to begin.”
“Welcome to the real-life experience of “knowledge work,” and a profound operational principle: you have to think about your stuff more than you realize but not as much as you’re afraid you might. As Peter Drucker wrote: “In knowledge work . . . the task is not given; it has to be determined. ‘What are the expected results from this work?’ is . . . the key question in making knowledge workers productive. And it is a question that demands risky decisions. There is usually no right answer; there are choices instead. And results have to be clearly specified, if productivity is to be achieved.”*”
“Get a purge for your brain. It will do better than for your stomach. —Michel Eyquem de Montaigne”
“Either this is madness or it is Hell.” “It is neither,” calmly replied the voice of the Sphere, “it is Knowledge; it is Three Dimensions: open your eye once again and try to look steadily.”
“A woman should not be judged for needing this reassurance, just as a man should not be judged for needing to withdraw.”
“No one knows what he or she is capable of until things are at their darkest.”
“And Isi always listened, never told Enna she had been foolish, never said hollow things like 'You'll be all right.' . . . Isi saw Enna's struggle and her sadness, and she understood.”
“Your Majesty, please get down. My friend Aris is really a very good man, and if you fall off that wall he's going to hang for it, and so will his squad, most of whom are also nice men, and though I can't say I really care if your attendants hang, there are probably many people that do care, and would you please, please get down?"
The king looked at him, eyes narrowed. "I don't think I've ever heard you say that many words in a row. You sounded almost articulate.”
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.