I have three kids, a husband, a job, and I run a website in my free time (ha!). Managing my time is a huge concern for me. That is a lot of stuff to juggle, and I was never able to manage it before. I was always forgetting something or screwing something up. Getting Things Done was a miracle for me!

With this book I learned that I needed to schedule blocks of time, instead of just running around and letting things get done willy nilly (if at all). Truthfully, this wasn't easy at first. I couldn't get things done in the alotted time, and had some scheduling conflicts. But I stuck with it, and fine tuned the schedule so it worked perfectly. Sticking with it was key here!

There are more tips here than I can reasonably run through, but needless to say I now have it all (mostly) under control,and even have some time to just lay around from time to time.

This novel grants you a perspective to realize that you are in control of everything that goes on in your life. Small changes such as cleaning a room or maybe even going back to school will change everything. The smallest action causes the most change. But you must first find the way to organize your thoughts, actions, and accomplishments in an order that is manageable. This novel gives you the tools to do that.

I must say that before reading this novel my life was a complete and utter jumble. Now that I read it for the second time, I realize that everything that is going on in my life is because I'm not happy with the organization within myself. I have made the corrections and life has gotten so much better.

I know, there are naysayers out there that will say that this is just another variation on the basic concept of organizing your life that has been around forever. But the thing is...if you follow the system, set it up, start following the principles of the book, you will find that suddenly, you aren't as overwhelmed by the day to day responsibilities of life and the avalanche of information and requests for information that plague most of us. You start getting the things done that need to be done. Your life works better, your ability to get work done improves, and the overall quality of your life starts improving. This book has spawned a bunch of knock offs and support information. There are getting things done blogs, websites, software...read the book. You don't need all the add-ons that people have created to implement the system. Read the book, apply the principals, start getting things done.

I was a hardcore Franklin Covey method user for ten years before I finally discovered David Allen and GTD. As I found the work force and my own work habits and environment changing with the continuing development of technology, I found it harder and harder to get through my email inbox and my various creative projects. I felt like I just couldn't process or filter so much information, and day by day, no matter how much I wrote in my organizer and tried to plan and schedule everything out, I got further and further behind in my work and felt like I was always frazzled and unable to focus.

Based on recommendations from friends, I finally got this book to read about how I could handle all of this information overload. It was just fantastic - I felt something close to a revelatory experience as I read it. I felt as though David Allen was describing exactly my predicament - and he gives such a clear step by step method of how to deal with everything, without being rigid. In fact he advocates an idea of having, like a Jedi, "Mind like Water", so that we can have the structure to get things done but also the flexibility to adjust when unexpected things come up. Highly recommended!

I have literally read this book four times. If you want to get things done and feel relaxed in the process, there is no better book. The first time I read this book I didn't like it. Years later I realized it was because I was actually committed to being messy!

Now that I have a full GTD system, I am loving life so much more.