In 2003 or 2004, I read David Allen’s Getting Things Done for the first time. For those of you unfamiliar with the book, it presents a very novel system along with countless specific solutions for dealing with the ongoing problem of managing one’s time and energy in a modern information-heavy world. I highly encourage you

This morning, I took all three of my children with me to the grocery store, where we bought food for the next two weeks or so. After I unloaded those groceries and we had a nice family lunch, I took my oldest son to soccer practice, did some household chores, then the five of us

I get a lot of emails from people in their forties and fifties who are suddenly panicking about their retirement savings. Often, they don’t have any or they have very little, yet they still want to retire at age 65. At the same time, I also get emails from people in their twenties who are

This is the nineteenth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. Much of this book focuses not on the day-to-day actions that fill our lives,

This is the eighteenth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. In an earlier section of the book, Allen tells the tale of a guy

This is the seventeenth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? How do I

This is the sixteenth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. “What would long term success look, sound, and feel like?” Again, Allen opens the

This is the fifteenth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. “What do I want to achieve?” Allen opens the chapter with this question and

This is the fourteenth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. What, exactly, are areas of focus? I think the best way to spell this

This is the thirteenth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. All of us have ongoing tasks in our lives – individual things that need

This is the eleventh entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. Starting with this chapter, Making It All Work spends some time focusing on how

This is the eleventh entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. For me, this is the exact point at which the book moved from an

This is the tenth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. Allen takes an interesting detour in this chapter. Here, Allen uses the example of

This is the ninth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. Engaging? To put it simply, the fifth (and final) element of positive engagement with

This is the eighth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. For me, the single most important part of keeping my life on track and

This is the seventh entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. So, you’ve dumped all of the stuff out of your brain and you’ve put

This is the sixth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. Earlier this week, we talked about the idea of “capturing” – getting everything that’s

This is the fifth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. This chapter is where the meat of the book begins, in my opinion, this

This is the fourth entry in a twenty part series discussing the wonderful time and priority management book Making It All Work by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday mornings and Friday mornings through December 10. Time management. Money management. Health management. Management of your stuff. Relationship management. All of