Getting Things Done

Allen first demonstrates stress reduction from the method with the following exercise, centered on a task that has an unclear outcome or whose next action is not defined. Allen calls these sources of stress "open loops", "incompletes", or "stuff". (The first edition used the names collect, process, organize, plan, and do;) Many task management tools claim to implement GTD methodology and Allen maintains a list of some technology that has been adopted in or designed for GTD. Some are designated "GTD Enabled", meaning Allen was involved in the design. Perspective Allen emphasizes two key elements of GTD—control and perspective. The workflow is the center of the control aspect. The goal of the control processes in GTD is to get everything except the current task out of one's head and into this trusted system external to one's mind. He borrows a simile used in martial arts termed "mind like water". When a small object is thrown into a pool of water, the water responds appropriately with a small splash followed by quiescence. When a large object is thrown in the water again responds appropriately with a large splash followed by quiescence. The opposite of "mind like water" is a mind that never returns to quiescence but remains continually stressed by every input. == Reception ==

In 2004, James Fallows in The Atlantic described GTD's main promise as not only allowing the practitioner to do more work but to feel less anxious about what they can and cannot do. In 2005, Wired called GTD a "new cult for the info age", describing the enthusiasm for this method among information technology and knowledge workers as a kind of cult following. Allen's ideas have also been popularized through The Howard Stern Show (Stern referenced it daily throughout 2012's summer) and the Internet, especially via blogs such as 43 Folders, Lifehacker, and The Simple Dollar. In 2005, Ben Hammersley interviewed David Allen for The Guardian article titled "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". A 2008 paper in the journal Long Range Planning by Francis Heylighen and Clément Vidal of the Free University of Brussels (VUB) showed "recent insights in psychology and cognitive science support and extend GTD's recommendations". == See also ==