Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life
The long-awaited follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Getting Things Done.David Allen’s Getting Things Done hit a nerve and ignited a movement with businesses, students, soccer moms, and techies all the way from Silicon Valley to Europe and Asia. Now, David Allen leads the world on a new path to achieve focus, control, and perspective. Throw out everything you know about productivity-- Making It All Work will make life and work a game you can win. For those who have already experienced the clarity of mind from reading Getting Things Done, Making It All Work will take the process to the next level.
David Allen shows us how to excel in dealing with our daily commitments, the unexpected, and the information overload that threatens to drown us. Making It All Work provides an instantly usable, success-building tool kit for staying ahead of the game.
Making It All Work addresses: how to figure out where you are in life and what you need; how to be your own consultant and a CEO of your life; moving from hope to trust in decision-making; when not to set goals; harnessing intuition, spontaneity, and serendipity; and why life is like business and business is like life.
This eagerly awaited follow-up to Getting Things Done is guaranteed to find an audience in today’s competitive business environment and among David Allen’s many fans.
Product Details
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
A rehashing of old—if successful—ground from his 2001 book Getting Things Done, Allen revisits his simple yet comprehensive system of organizing every aspect of one's life for career, professional and personal development—even addressing how to plan a vacation, choose a babysitter or arrange eldercare for a parent. The author's inarguable premise is that a complete and current inventory of commitments organized and reviewed in a systematic way can sharpen focus and allow for wiser decision making. Allen cautions that the book does not provide answers to tricky life choices; its methods will aid in developing the self-assurance to trust one's own solutions. Readers are guided through the process of obtaining control and perspective, organizing tasks and goals to reach the Getting Things Done (GTD) holy grail of an empty in-basket and e-mail inbox. Although the book purports to expand on the principles of GTD, there's very little new material in this latest offering, which serves more as a sales tool for the first one than for a project all on its own. Those seeking organizational nirvana would do best to invest in the original and give this one a pass. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
David Allen is the internationally bestselling author of Getting Things Done and Ready for Anything. He is the chairman and founder of the David Allen Company, a global management and consulting company, widely recognized as the world’s leading authority in developing personal and organization capacity. In the past twenty years, he has developed and implemented productivity improvement programs for more than a million professionals and has been instrumental in assisting some of the world’s most premier companies to get things done. His clients include many Fortune Global 1000 corporations and government agencies.
From AudioFile
In today's crackberry-driven multitasking world, it's reassuring to hear David Allen's tempered voice and positive attitude--especially when you know that this is the man whose 2001 time-management book, GETTING THINGS DONE (GTD), caused millions to organize their in-boxes and adopt the mantra "Do it, Delegate it, or Defer it." Now Allen has returned with MAKING IT ALL WORK, a road map for implementing the GTD principles (along with an enhanced disc containing workbook materials). The new book is built around detailed self-analysis, planning models, and trigger lists. It's denser and much less friendly than GTD, but more rewarding. Allen reads his new book in a calm and convincing tone. Now, if only there were an abridged version for those of us who just don't have the time! R.W.S. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
Customer Reviews
An essential look at GTD
After finishing my hardcover, I immediately went to Audible to get the audio version. I loved this book.
First, if you're new to GTD then the best place to start is David Allen's first book "Getting Things Done". But definately come back to this one later, after you've been doing GTD for a while.
If you are already a "GTDer", then "Making It All Work" is an essential read in my opinion. If you find the first chapter or two slow-going, stick with it because it gets better. This is the book I will be going back to from now on, more so than "Getting Things Done". It is in some ways the GTD book I never realized I needed. It showcases powerfully David Allen's ability to tie concrete tasks to your deepest values and goals. This aspect of it was inspiring for me. It also clarifies many GTD concepts and steps back to look at the interplay of the GTD models - the 5-stage workflow and the 6 horizons of focus - for getting and maintaining control and perspective.
Highly recommended.
Great refresher for anyone procrastinating on GTD
If you're looking to use GTD principles with Microsoft Outlook, this is a great companion book to a more detail-level book, Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook by Michael Linenberger.
I read the first Getting Things Done book years ago but never really implemented it; I didn't find it was hands-on enough; I tried using Outlook Tasks and Categories to track "next actions" and goals, but it just didn't seem to cut it for me.
David Allen's new book repeats the same concepts but puts them in a different framework (the horizons you read about in other reviews here), but I found it did more to address some of the mental and physical obstacles toward using GTD. Essentially it gave me a good kick in the seat, to motivate me into better adopting GTD. It still is light on hands-on details for adopting this into your daily workload and tackling both the urgent and the important. But I think that's his approach, he teaches you the principles, you decide what software or methods to use to implement them.
The book inspires you to record many levels of information from your life purpose to the roles you fill every day, right down to logging a reminder to pick up a hammer at the hardware store tomorrow. It is liberating getting information out of your head and into a tracking system, but you have to be able to carry it on after a big bang of initial enthusiasm. If you never look at any of the information again, except to return phone calls or put deadlines on tasks, then you aren't getting the benefits of the system. If you have the original, but find yourself scrolling through these reviews on Amazon looking for a kickstart to get yourself into (back into) GTD, this book will help.
The Total Workday Control book gives you very detailed step-by-step instructions on how to configure Outlook and use to manage your workload. To most of us Outlook is where tidal waves of e-mail just keep crashing in day after day, but there are ways to use it to implement GTD practices, without having to buy add-on tools, although there are many out there that can take it even further. Taking advantage of Outlook tasks, categories, and e-mail handling techniques, it's possible to be very GTD-compliant.
You might get tired of hearing some phrases in Making It All Work repeated over and over, but I found the book motivated me to get back at adopting GTD, even more than the first book did originally. Together with Michael Linenberger's book, there's a good combination there of high-level and detail-level guidance.
Allen talks to his critics
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 co...more 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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