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Quotes

22-01-19

David Allen: Your attention

If you don't pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.

David Allen

David Allen (born December 28, 1945) is a productivity consultant who is best known as the creator of the time management method known as "Getting Things Done". 

His career path has included jobs as a magician, waiter, karate teacher, landscaper, vitamin distributor, glass-blowing lathe operator, travel agent, gas station manager, U-Haul dealer, moped salesman, restaurant cook, personal growth trainer, manager of a lawn service company, and manager of a travel agency. He is an ordained minister with the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. He claims to have had 35 professions before age 35. He began applying his perspective on productivity with businesses in the 1980s when he was awarded a contract to design a program for executives and managers at Lockheed.

He is the founder of the David Allen Company, an executive coaching firm using his "Getting Things Done" methodology.

Allen has written three books: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, which describes his productivity program; Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life, a collection of newsletter articles he has written; Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life, a follow-up to his first book. In 2015 David Allen also wrote a new updated version of Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free Productivity.