Saturday, April 4, 2009

50BC09 #6: Making It All Work

50BC09 #6: Making It All Work: Winning At The Game of Work and the Business of Life
Author: David Allen
Pages: 305
Year: Viking, 2008
Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life
rating: 3 of 5 stars

For those who have read and/or familiar with Allen's Getting Things Done, this is a great follow-up. If you like Allen's strategies for organization and general productivity, but occasionally find yourself "falling off the wagon," this book will help.



The book elucidates the major mindsets crucial to GTD, but sometimes gets too wrapped up in its philosophical approach. The "horizons of focus" will cloud your system if you worry about implementing them as actual components, rather than a way to encapsulate the entire GTD process. If you are interested in GTD as a system, I recommend that you start with the book of the same title, rather than this one.

The book contains some very helpful appendices, including a "project planning trigger list" to make sure that your mind dumps are complete, leaving no stone unturned.

Allen uses this book to address his critics, and does an admirable job. Much of the criticism of GTD has been aimed at purists or those who take Allen's ideas to an extreme. Allen allows for a certain amount of flexibility and custom-tailoring (indeed, mandates it) and this book will help you do that.


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