Getting Things Done: Why David Allen’s 12-Year-Old Advice Still Works
Twelve years ago, David Allen stood on a TEDx stage and told a story about nearly dying at sea.
Twelve years ago, David Allen stood on a TEDx stage and told a story about nearly dying at sea. He and his girlfriend were anchored off California when their boat lost control in howling winds. The Coast Guard was three hours away. Rocks loomed. And in that moment of genuine crisis, something strange happened. They looked up, saw a full moon, and felt completely at peace.
Most productivity advice misses what Allen understood at that moment. Getting things done has nothing to do with getting things done. It’s about being appropriately engaged with what’s happening right now.
The crisis advantage
Crisis forces clarity. When your boat is drifting toward rocks, you don’t wonder if you should check email. You know exactly what matters. You take action. Everything else disappears. Allen calls this being in your zone, that rare state where time vanishes and you’re fully present.
The problem is we wait for crisis to give us permission to focus. We assume we need danger to access that clarity. We don’t. But we do need to steal crisis’s secret weapon, appropriate engagement.
Your brain is lying to you about time
Allen demolishes the time management myth fast. Leonardo da Vinci had 24 hours. Einstein had 24 hours. Bach had 24 hours and 20 kids. You want two more hours? You’d just have two more hours of overwhelming stickiness.
Time isn’t the issue. Psychic bandwidth is. How long does it take to have a creative idea? Zero time. How long does it take to recognize an opportunity? Zero time. If you lack mental space, two hours of free time gets wasted. If you have bandwidth, two minutes in an elevator produces breakthrough thinking.
Most people use their creative energy trying to remember things, patch things up, manage details in their head instead of in a system. They’re already drowning in mess, so they have no room to make the creative mess that actually produces results.
The three moves that change everything
Getting things done requires three specific behaviours, and Allen warns they’ll feel awkward at first. Like learning martial arts, you’ll spend hours doing something that feels unnatural. But once it clicks, you never go back.
First, get everything out of your head. Not most things. Everything. For 24 hours, write down every single thing pulling at your attention. Don’t have a thought twice. This alone gives people immediate relief.
Second, define the work. Your list will say things like “budget” or “dog” or “mum.” That’s not work. That’s noise. Ask two questions about each item: What outcome am I committed to finish? What’s the very next physical action? Outcome and action. Zeros and ones of productive behaviour.
Third, build maps. You probably have 30 to 100 projects right now and 150 to 220 next actions. Looking at that immensity without structure kills your newfound clarity fast. Organise your projects. Align your actions. Clarify your areas of focus. Then step back and see the whole picture.
Mind like water
Allen borrowed a martial arts concept. Water responds to force appropriately. Throw in a pebble, it does pebble. Throw in a boulder, it does boulder. It doesn’t overreact or underreact. It doesn’t get angry at the rock. Back to calm.
That’s the goal. Not perfection. Flexibility. The ability to shift focus rapidly without dragging one context into the next. To give appropriate attention to what has your attention, so it stops taking more attention than it deserves.
The weirdest part? You have to think to get things off your mind. But once you do, getting things done stops being about productivity and becomes about being ready for whatever adventure comes next.
Source: YouTube
