About David Allen:

YOUR MIND IS FOR HAVING IDEAS, NOT HOLDING THEM.® That’s why David Allen created Getting Things Done®. GTD is the work-life management system that has helped countless individuals and organizations bring order to chaos. GTD enables greater performance, capacity, and innovation. It alleviates the feeling of overwhelm—instilling focus, clarity, and confidence. 

After decades of in-the-field research and practice of his productivity methods, David wrote the international best-seller Getting Things Done. Published in over 28 languages, TIME magazine heralded it as “the defining self-help business book of its time.” In 2015, he released a new edition of the book, with new insights, updates, and discoveries about the GTD methodology and its many personal and professional applications.

Today, David Allen is considered the leading authority in the fields of organizational and personal productivity. The David Allen Company, run by David and his wife Kathryn, oversees the certification academy and quality standards for Global Partners offering Getting Things Done courses and coaching around the world.

Episode Notes:

Dr. Laura welcomes one of the world’s leading experts on productivity, author David Allen, to the show to talk about his book, Getting Things Done. David shares why the book, first written in 2001 with a second edition in 2015, remains relevant and why the processes are useful in any situation. 

Getting Things Done, or GTD, outlines the five steps that David uncovered for taking control of situations in your life. Dr. Laura and David discuss how the process of externalizing and clarifying commitments is part of the journey required to manage stress. It’s the feeling of overwhelm in both personal and professional lives that GTD offers the tools to tackle. David Allen offers his personal reasons for writing the book, or manual as he refers to it, and why he believes that balance in life overall is key to wellness.  

“So my whole methodology was about getting appropriate engagement with your life. It wasn’t about working harder or being busier. Getting Things Done is not really about getting things done, it’s about clarifying the things that you have some investment in making happen and then being appropriately engaged with them.” – David Allen

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