The ever-generous David and Kathryn Allen seeing the new book for the first time in our warehouse.
I remember business book buyer Hans Huisman walking past the shelves and pointing to a book titled Getting Things Done by David Allen and asking: “Who IS this guy? We’ve sold thousands of this book, but I have no idea who he is.”
A few months later, “the guy” actually showed up in the store, together with his wife Kathryn and dog Suki, offering to help us get our heads cleared of stuff and possibly to do a book event. They had decided to move to Amsterdam for a while, the first of several cities they wanted to explore deeply by living in them after leaving California.
They never got further than Amsterdam.
Meanwhile, GTD, as its millions of fans call it, has been one of our curated ABC Favorite titles for more than two decades. And Allen’s new book (co-authored with Ed Lamont), Team: Getting Things Done with Others, is being released today, May 21st.
The Allens were as good as their word, offering first a sack lunch quick course to all interested staff to introduce us to GTD, a method of personal productivity. The first principle many of us have adopted is to Capture and Clarify thoughts as they swim by our consciousness. It’s okay to write them down, record them on your phone, any way will do to set them down somewhere so that they stop wriggling through your brain again and again. Once captured, they can be sorted and dealt with.
After seeing my office, Kathryn offered to go through it with me, touching every single thing in it from door to door, deciding where each item should go. To this day, many years later, I keep a running list of things to do soon, am waiting for or to defer for now.
Always, for every little thing, the question is: “What’s the next action?”
Once I’ve got all my stuff slotted and off my mind, the energy to actually do what’s next flows. As David says, Clear it up and make your mind like water. The depth of philosophical thinking that underpins both GTD and Team is visible in his other titles, Making It All Work and Ready for Anything.
After making books available at countless events at which David spoke, we are looking forward to a new wave of events with Team’s publication.
A logical and long-awaited expansion on how to apply the GTD principles to working in teams, this book is already being highly praised by first readers in the know and enjoys major publisher support. Ever helpful, the authors will sign all our stock so that every copy of the first edition will be special, a collectible for fans. There are years of wisdom and experience in this book, I can attest.
Between books, David and Kathryn have generously helped ABC clarify our tasks and purpose. Our sessions are always delightful, full of stories and questions, philosophical and coupled with exceptional food. And the company of sweet dogs.
