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Ready for Anything
Book

Ready for Anything

52 Productivity Principles for Work & Life

David Allen
Penguin, 2004
First Edition: 2003

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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

Author David Allen lists 52 basic principles for productivity, including: write everything down, do the jobs that nag you, focus on the matter at hand and so on. As he notes, the principles are both simple to understand and difficult to implement. The book is essentially a collection of gleanings from the author’s previous writings, so it does not present a systematic or unified approach to time and productivity management. However, Allen’s straightforward tips are handy, if sometimes duplicative. The number 52 suggests that you might find one helpful tip to use each week in a one-year program of self-improvement and productivity management. In that case, repetition is probably a good thing, since bad habits tend to spring up again like weeds and require the same remedies often. The author is relentlessly upbeat, optimistic and witty, like a motivational speaker. That might be hard to read in a big chunk, but it is easy to digest if you spend a little time every week reading a recommendation and implementing it. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone who urgently needs help with time management and productivity.

Take-Aways

  • Setting priorities can be counterproductive to getting organized.
  • To be more productive, write everything down - and follow these tips:
  • Clean out your head.

About the Author

David Allen is president of the David Allen Company, and has more than two decades experience as a management consultant, executive coach and educator. His consulting clients have included Merck, the Ford Foundation, the World Bank and New York Life. His work has been covered in Fortune, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and other publications. Allen publishes an e-newsletter entitled Principles of Productivity, Ready for Anything and is also the author of Getting Things Done.

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