Top 100 David Allen Quotes
#1. My tolerance for crazy people is, I think, high a tolerance as you're ever going to find. I love being around David Allen Coe. I would have loved to hang out with Tiny Tim. I can listen to Sun Ra on a tape-recording rant.
Penn Jillette
#2. In his book Getting Things Done, David Allen shares a crucial insight: "You can't do a project. You can only do the next step.
Michael Bungay Stanier
#3. [T]he last thing a fish notices is water.
David Allen
#4. One missed e-mail, untracked commitment, or decision avoided can have hugely magnified consequences.
David Allen
#5. Your brain has an in-built mechanism for finding patterns you've programmed because of where you've put your attention. Solutions, innovations, and success come not from greater intelligence or creativity but from what we notice because of where we point those attributes
David Allen
#6. You won't see how to do it until you see yourself doing it.
David Allen
#7. Klara Sztucinski, and Elliott Kellman. The administrative
David Allen
#8. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but the way out is through.
David Allen
#9. Decide the outcome and the action step, put reminders of those somewhere your brain trusts youll see them at the right time, and listen to your brain breathe easier.
David Allen
#10. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein
David Allen
#11. It's easier to change directions if you are in motion.
David Allen
#12. Healthy skepticism is often the best way to glean the value of what's being presented - challenge it; prove it wrong, if you can. That creates engagement, which is the key to understanding.
David Allen
#13. Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind.
David G. Allen
#14. People allow themselves to get distracted; I think ultimately, probably the biggest thing that gets in the way of people doing what they ought to be doing at any point in time is distraction.
David Allen
#15. 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.
David Allen
#16. Many of us hold ourselves back from imagining a desired outcome unless someone can show us how to get there. Unfortunately, that's backward in terms of how our minds work to generate and recognize solutions and methods.
David Allen
#17. You can do anything, but not everything.
David Allen
#18. Organizations must create a culture in which it is acceptable that everyone has more to do than he or she can do, and in which it is sage to renegotiate agreements about what everyone is not doing.
David Allen
#19. A successful executive is one that solves bigger problems than he/she creates.
David Allen
#20. Virtually every problem that would show up in your business can be traced back to communications; somebody didn't talk to somebody about something.
David Allen
#21. art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of our great men. - Capt. J. A. Hatfield
David Allen
#22. Capturing ideas and input will become more and more critical as your life and work become more sophisticated. As you proceed in your career, for instance, you'll probably notice that your best ideas about work will not come to you at work.
David Allen
#23. The right amount of complexity is what creates the optimal simplicity
David Allen
#24. It can be difficult to accept the fact that a lot of birds have to be identified as "possible" or "probable.
David Allen Sibley
#25. The substantive issue is how to make appropriate choices about what to do at any point in time. The real work is to manage our actions. That
David Allen
#26. Woody Allen has done some excellent serious movies, too, like Crimes And Misdemeanors. Very overlooked movie, I think, and really his best. And currently I like Big Fish!
David Zucker
#27. Anything you consider unfinished in any way must be captured in a trusted system outside your mind, or what I call a collection tool, that you know you'll come back to regularly and sort through. Second,
David Allen
#28. Chaos isn't the problem; how long it takes to find coherence is the real game. - Doc Childre and Bruce Crier
David Allen
#29. Complaining is a sign that someone isn't willing to risk moving on a changeable situation, or won't consider the immutable circumstance in his or her plans.
David Allen
#30. A renegotiated agreement is not a broken one.
David Allen
#31. Review your list as often as you need to get them off your mind.
David Allen
#32. Every decision to act is an intuitive one. The challenge is to migrate from hoping it's the right choice to trusting it's the right choice.
David Allen
#33. Taking the inventory of your current work at all levels will automatically produce greater focus, alignment, and sense of priorities.
David Allen
#34. An idealist believes that the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run. - Sydney J. Harris
David Allen
#35. When you assess something as a problem instead of as something to simply be accepted as the way things are, you are assuming there is a potential resolution.
David Allen
#36. Minute-to-minute and day-to-day you don't have time to think. You need to have already thought.
David Allen
#37. 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.
David Allen
#38. Anything that does not belong where it is, the way it is, is an "open loop," which will be pulling on your attention if it's not appropriately managed. In
David Allen
#39. Procastination is not about not doing is about not doing and feeling crappy.
David Allen
#40. It was helpful to be able to call a lawyer ... it turns out, that not only did they help me, but they really helped the whole community ...
David Allen
#41. I wanted to work with Mike Leigh. I had my list of British people I wanted to work with, and I wanted to work with David Lynch and Woody Allen.
Carmen Ejogo
#42. Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. - Henri Bergson
David Allen
#43. There are no interruptions, only mismanaged inputs
David Allen
#44. Almost every project could be done better, and an infinite quantity of information is now available that could make that happen.
David Allen
#45. My opinion is that anybody offended by breastfeeding is staring too hard
David Allen
#46. It's a waste of time and energy to keep thinking about something that you make no progress on. And it only adds to your anxiety about what you should be doing and aren't. Most
David Allen
#47. Thinking in a concentrated manner to define desired outcomes is something few people feel they have to do. But in truth, outcome thinking is one of the most effective means available for making wishes reality.
David Allen
#48. It's the nature of human experience, which is always in some form of motion, to veer off course - sometimes in major, but consistently in minor, ways.
David Allen
#49. A lot of people have nothing very well organized, and a lot of people have nothing, very well organized.
David Allen
#50. Stress such as you experience in exercise is what creates builds focus, strength, and the capability for expanded expression; and the same is true for any kind of performance.
David Allen
#51. Whereas purpose provides the juice and the direction, principles define the parameters of action and the criteria for excellence of behavior.
David Allen
#52. When television began, it modeled itself after radio. Many early television programs were radio programs first. 'My Favorite Wife,' 'The Jack Benny Show,' 'Burns and Allen,' 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents.'
David Gerrold
#53. You need no new skills to increase your productivity - just a new set of behaviors about when and where to apply them.
David Allen
#54. 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.
David Allen
#55. (1) collect things that command our attention; (2) process what they mean and what to do about them; and (3) organize the results, which we (4) review as options for what we choose to (5) do.
David Allen
#56. The trick is to ensure not so much that what you are doing is, for you, the right thing, all the time (how, ultimately, could you know that for sure?) but that you are firmly in the driver's seat with a functioning process for discovering and engaging with your best choice.
David Allen
#57. If you don't pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.
David Allen
#58. Creating "ABC" priority codes and daily "to-do" lists were key techniques developed to help people sort through their choices in some meaningful way.
David Allen
#59. 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.
David Allen
#60. Decision-making when things show up instead of when they blow up is actually a habit that can be developed and enhanced. The trick is to get used the clean feeling of having decided, instead of sitting on a fence.
David Allen
#61. A Keyring? Achievements? These are not WoW-specific things. They are common sense. They exist in the real world.
David Allen
#62. The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.
David Allen
#63. First of all, if it's on your mind, your mind isn't clear. Anything you consider unfinished in any way must be captured in a trusted system outside your mind, or what I call a collection bucket, that you know you'll come back to regularly and sort through.
David Allen
#64. You don't manage priorities, you have them.
David Allen
#65. An infinite number of things in the universe are held back from you only by your altitude and attitude.
David Allen
#66. At any point in time, the first thing to consider is, what could you possibly do, where you are, with the tools you have?
David Allen
#67. When we truly need to do is often what we most feel like avoiding.
David Allen
#68. If not controlled, work will flow to the competent man until he submerges. - CHARLES BOYLE
David Allen
#70. Woody Allen likes to do a lot of master shots. He likes to get the whole thing in one take, and so you could be going along doing a scene, and then the next to last line, all of a sudden, you stumble, and you have to go back to first base.
Larry David
#71. Reacting is automatic, but thinking is not.
David Allen
#72. 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
David Allen
#73. Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.
David Allen
#74. If you don't pay attention to the things that have your attention, you'll give them more attention than they deserve.
David Allen
#75. Write all your notes and quotes on separate three-by-five-inch cards. Then, when you get ready to organize your thinking, just spread them all out on the floor, see the natural structure that emerges, and figure out what's missing.
David Allen
#76. There is usually an inverse relationship between how much something is on your mind and how much it's getting done.
David Allen
#77. Allen Ginsberg was a world authority on the writing of William Blake, and had an incredible knowledge of classic literature and world politics.
David Amram
#78. 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.
David Allen
#79. I remember how inspiring it was to meet players like Bobby Charlton or Bryan Robson when I was a kid. I still remember Clive Allen showing up when I received a trophy for my Sunday league team.
David Beckham
#80. Here's how I define "stuff": anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn't belong where it is, but for which you haven't yet determined what, exactly, it means to you, with the desired outcome and the next action step.
David Allen
#81. There's a lot of reasons why deadline-driven may actually - it's not necessarily a bad thing, it just all it does is it speeds up and makes you a little proactive about decision making.
David Allen
#82. The great secret about goals and visions is not the future they describe but the change in the present they engender.
David Allen
#83. Without a gut-level sense that you are ultimately in control of what's happening to you, you won't even consider the option that you could manage it better.
David Allen
#84. Let our advance worrying become our advance thinking and planning. - Winston Churchill
David Allen
#85. The number of coulds, shoulds, might-want-tos, and ought-tos they generate in their minds are way out beyond what they have recorded anywhere else. Many
David Allen
#86. I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. - Oliver Wendell Holmes
David Allen
#87. The value of goals is not in the future they describe, but the change in perception of reality they foster.
David Allen
#88. It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide what to do. - Elbert Hubbard
David Allen
#89. If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. - WILL ROGERS
David Allen
#90. Trust yourself to do what you really feel like doing, and what you feel like doing will change. Don't, and it will plague you.
David Allen
#91. I think positive stress is actually a good thing. It's sort of the stretch goal "Wow, let me see how much faster I can run" or "Let me see how many more ideas I can generate in five minutes."
David Allen
#92. Your Brain is for having ideas not storing them.
David Allen
#93. The problem is, is when your focus is created by a crisis, then the frontal lobe shuts down essentially, the frontal cortex which is your intuitive intelligence. So you get very clever and very stupid in a crisis. Also, you pump adrenalin into your body from what you - physiologically you'll crash.
David Allen
#94. Even if you've already decided on the next step you'll take to resolve a problem, your mind can't let go until and unless you park a reminder in a place it knows you will, without fail, look.
David Allen
#95. It seems that there's a part of our psyche that doesn't know the difference between an agreement about cleaning the garage and an agreement about buying a company
David Allen
#96. Most stress they experience comes from inappropriately managed commitments they make or accept.
David Allen
#97. At at any point in time, knowing what has to get done, and when, creates a terrain for maneuvering.
David Allen
#98. Most of the stress people experience comes from inappropriately managed commitments they make or accept. Even
David Allen
#99. 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.
David Allen
#100. Horizontal" control maintains coherence across all the activities in which you are involved.
"Vertical" control, in contrast, manages thinking up and down the track of individual topics and projects.
David Allen
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
