Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

David Allen (Author, Narrator), Simon & Schuster Audio (Publisher)

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David Allen reads an all-new edition of his popular self-help classic for managing work-life balance in the 21st century - now updated for the new challenges facing individuals and organizations in today's rapidly changing world.

Since it was first published more than 15 years ago, David Allen's Getting Things Done has become one of the most influential business books of its era and the ultimate book on personal organization. "GTD" is now shorthand for an entire way of approaching professional and personal tasks and has spawned an entire culture of websites, organizational tools, seminars, and offshoots.

Allen has rewritten the book from start to finish, tweaking his classic text with important perspectives on the new workplace and adding material that will make the book fresh and relevant for years to come. This new edition of Getting Things Done will be welcomed not only by its hundreds of thousands of existing fans but also by a whole new generation eager to adopt its proven principles.

Listening Length

10 hours and 23 minutes
Author

David Allen
Narrator

David Allen
Audible release date

February 23, 2016
Language

English
Publisher

Simon & Schuster Audio
ASIN

B01B6WSK5C
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

9,019 global ratings

5 star		71%
4 star		17%
3 star		7%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

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Simple Citizen

No Book I have ever read led me to MAKE as many changes as this book.

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2023

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I have read a lot of books on how to organize your life:
Love People, Use Things
Essentialism
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
One Minute manager
The Fifth Discipline

I have also read books on leadership, self-help, therapy, productivity, working through failure, and on and on.

NOTHING ELSE HAS COME CLOSE.

Now, this may be because of where I am in my life. It may be that this book isn’t any better than the others, it’s just WHAT I NEEDED at this moment.
I have 5 teenagers, 3 jobs, my own clinic, I’m writing a book, speaking publicly often, and I’m also auditioning for a play next week. Oh, and I love free time, relaxing on weekends and evenings, spending time with friends, going to plays, and reading books.
I also WANT TO BE DEPENDABLE. I want to do what I have said I will do. I want to make less agreements, and have less obligations, so that I can NAIL the ones I have made.
That’s where this book was so very helpful. Yes the author eventually asks you to think about long term goals and life values and those things, but he really starts at the day to day level.
“HOW DO YOU GET DONE, THE THINGS YOU SAID YOU WOULD?” How do you meet your current obligations? How do you finish each day with a feeling of satisfaction.
How do you better handle the things you have already agreed to do, and manage the barrage of things coming at you all day every day that are unexpected?
DOING what he suggests has made me feel RELIABLE. I know what I can do, and what I can’t. I know when I can say yes, and when I have to say no. I know when I have to adjust, or change a previous agreement because it just AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN the way I had hoped.
It is an amazing feeling of peace to know that I can reliably say yes or no to things, and I will honestly get back to them, finish them, remember them.
My first attempts weren’t perfect. My first organizational attempt from early January has already been discarded. As have my second and third attempts. But each time was BETTER than what I was doing before, and each time I like the new system more and more, and it’s easier and faster to use and more reliable.
My wife and kids know exactly when I am free, and we can do ALL SORTS of fun things, and movie marathons, and visiting family in other cities, and on and on.
GETTING THINGS DONE has changed my life in just two months.
If your life feels out of control, your mind feels scattered, and you constantly miss things you agreed to… READ THIS BOOK.

21 people found this helpful

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Doug Wilson

Better the second time

Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2023

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David Allen’s book is pretty clear and convincing about the most essential principles for achieving results. Chiefly, identify what needs to be done about every item the comes into your life’s in basket. Then build and maintain a system for keeping yourself on track with every project and priority in your life. As a result you will most likely experience a much greater sense of calmness and creativity, not to mention making progress on many goals you didn’t realize you had. On my second read, I realized I had forgotten some core principles and although I had already experienced good results, a revamp of my system (using Evernote) has moved me forward on several more goals.

One person found this helpful

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Diana Lucia Castillo Midence

great book!

Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2023

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It’s very simple to understand, with clear examples and a step by step guide in how to organize your day to day and future vision in a way your mind can be free to flow and create !

One person found this helpful

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Gurpreet Singh

Great book and Equally Great Narration!

Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2023

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Great book, and very well narrated by David Allen! I have implemented GTD in my life, and it has been a game changer. Read the book, and give the system a whirl!

One person found this helpful

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A must read for any Solopreneur

Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2023

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This book has been transformational for my personal journey into entrepreneur world. If you’re looking for guidance on how to keep your life and business organized and as stress free as possible, read David’s work. With the myriad of software solutions on the market today, putting the GTD model into practice for all areas of your life it’s easier than ever before!

One person found this helpful

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Canadian eReader

This is the go-to book for the GTD methodology

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2017

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Self help is not a genre of books I read very often, but I made an exception for David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. One of my goals for 2017 was to become better organised and to be more productive. I first learned about the GTD methodology through Carl Pullein’s YouTube channel that I follow. I’ve been working on this for around six weeks now, so it’s too early to tell, but I’m happy with what I’ve learned so far.

Getting Things Done, or GTD, is a productivity methodology based on a few deceptively simple concepts. Now, I’m still very new to GTD, but this is how I see it. One of the fundamental ideas behind GTD is that the human brain is excellent at processing ideas and being creative, but not a great storage facility. A key part of GTD is getting all ideas, projects and commitments out of your brain and into a trusted system or external brain.

There are five activities to GDT: Capture, Clarify, Organise, Reflect and Engage. If I can take from the GTD website, this translates to:

Capture: Collect what has your attention. For me, this means adding all my ideas, commitments and to-dos in my list manager application of choice, Todoist. I really love this application and regret that I don’t have it at work. I try to capture everything from my doctor’s appointments, to buying cat food for Lushka to a reminder to ask my husband if we have picture hooks. I’m planning a trip to Europe this summer, so any time I think of something like oh, I must remember to get Swiss francs, into Todoist it goes.

Clarify: Process what it means. Here I can’t be any more concise than or as clear as the workflow diagram on the GTD website:

Gtd

Honestly, if I take away nothing more from my experience with GTD than the two minute rule (if you can do it in two minutes, do it now, otherwise delegate it or defer it) and the discipline to define the next physical action to move a task along it will have been worth it.

Organise: Put it where it belongs. This is probably the area of GTD that’s least intuitive for me – I’m not very organised! At the very least, I try to put any appointments on my calendar, any tasks in the appropriate section of Todoist, and potentially relevant non-actionable information in Evernote. One interesting aspect of GTD is the use of contexts. This means organising your tasks not by priority but by the tools, location, and/or person you need to be able to complete them successfully. So, for example, in my Taxes 2016 list I have an item; pick up tax receipt from pharmacy. I tagged that as “pharmacy” along with other items like pick up Polysporin and drop off new prescription. So when I go to the pharmacy I just check that tag to be reminded of all the things I have to accomplish while I’m there. Similarly, while planning my trip to Europe I have a context of Susanne, the friend I’m visiting. Any time I think of something I need to ask her, I add it to that list of things to discuss next time I call or email her.

Reflect: Review your to do list and calendar frequently. The idea here is to keep your “external brain” current with everything that you need to accomplish. If you don’t add to it or clear our stale items, your real brain will no longer trust your system and it will break down. Most GTDers do a review at least once a week.

Engage: Simply do. Pick the tasks that are available to you based on your contexts and get cracking!

The book itself is very well written and the edition I have was updated in 2015 to include discussion of new technology (not specific applications) and how it impacts the GTD workflow.

if you are interested in improving your productivity and generally getting things done you could do a whole lot worse than to check out this book.

I gave Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free productivity five stars out of five.

127 people found this helpful

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Larry

Out of date

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 2, 2019

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This book was supposedly a brand new edition for 2015 but it reads like it was written for a previous century. There is so much emphasis on hard copy documentation, memos and letters that it just doesn’t fit with how work or life is conducted in the modern world. For example you are strongly advised to buy a label printer so you can stick labels on all your files. Our files are in the cloud these days. Where are we suppose to stick these printed labels?

There are some good ideas here but it’s hard to relate them to modernity. Its like reading Jane Austin for tips on using Tinder.

If you are a historian researching productivity methods of bygone eras then this would be a good purchase for you.

89 people found this helpful

A great system described in a bloated and outdated book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 11, 2021

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This book is at least three times longer than it needs to be. I think I skipped over more sections in this book that I have in recent memory. And that’s saying something, considering the amount of business / self-help I read.

For instance, the author will describe some approaches to collecting information (e.g. pen and paper, whiteboards, whatever). But then immediately following will be ten dedicated sections discussing the minutiae of each of those methods. Some things don’t need expanding on!

However for me, the biggest issue was the outdated nature of the content. It’s been very lightly updated with references to “digital tools”, but I think it’s overdue a rewrite to reflect that digital tools are the norm now, not the exception. This would also cut out half the book.

17 people found this helpful

Ridwan

It's a behavioural change with GTD

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 3, 2021

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David suggests revisiting the book every quarter. I totally agree. I purchased this book in 2016. Read it once. Skimmed it once. Now, re-reading it again in 2021, I concur.

One-liner: Getting things done is not about getting things done. It's about being appropriately engaged with a task or an activity in hand.

One-takeaway: In David's own words, Weekly Review is the “critical success factor” in making your GTD practise stick. So, do your Weekly Review.

11 people found this helpful

MotherOfAbundance

Great Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 10, 2018

Verified Purchase

Highly recommended for busy people who want to flow whilst working instead of feeling overwhelmed.

The book is heavy going though, I bought it in paperback, Kindle and upgraded the Kindle to audio too so that I could read it quickly.

An email workflow infographic would have been handy, I'm likely to create these for myself so that I can embed the theories quicker.

I also wanted to annotate both the Kindle and paper versions so that they'd make better reference materials.

21 people found this helpful

Louise

Yes, but no.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 4, 2015

Verified Purchase

I desperately wanted to love this book. I had heard about GTD from several places, and I thought "Yep, this is ME". I think the principles behind this book are so valuable and could help a lot more people if it weren't surrounded in such WAFFLE! Seriously, this is the sort of stuff I lap up usually, but I couldn't get into this. Like others have said, it needs paring down a lot for it to be something the masses could get on board with. Shame really.

62 people found this helpful

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Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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