David Allen

Isn't it interesting that people feel best about themselves right before they go on vacation? They've cleared up all of their to-do piles, closed up transactions, renewed old promises with themselves. My most basic suggestion is that people should do that more than just once a year.

It is a tricky business to know when you should set goals and objectives in order to achieve a focus, and when you would be better off dealing with the acceptance and management of your current reality so you can later step into new directions and responsibilities with greater stability and clarity. Only you will know the answer to that, and only in the moment.

Most of the stress people experience comes from inappropriately managed commitments they make or accept.

Once a week, do a thorough review of all your projects in as much detail as you need to. If you do, your systems will work. If you don't, no system will work.

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 mind is for having ideas, not holding them.

If you don't pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.

Sometimes the biggest gain in productive energy will come from cleaning the cobwebs, dealing with old business, and clearing the desks—cutting loose debris that's impeding forward motion.

Much of the stress that people feel doesn't come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they've started.

The ancestor of every action is a thought. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's hard to be fully creative without structure and constraint. Try to paint without a canvas. Creativity and freedom are two sides of the same coin. I like the best of both worlds. Want freedom? Get organized. Want to get organized? Get creative.

Things rarely get stuck because of lack of time. They get stuck because the doing of them has not been defined.

You can do anything, but not everything.