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Adam Outland: Hello Action
Catalyst listeners!  Today's

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guest is someone whose work
personally impacted me as a

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young man, and whose work
continues to be spun out into

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numerous editions and versions,
printed in dozens of languages,

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and implemented across the
globe.  We're speaking with

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author and productivity
consultant David Allen, perhaps

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best known for 2001's
groundbreaking book and time

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management method, "Getting
Things Done".  And David, you're

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joining us from Amsterdam today?

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David Allen: I lived here nine
years.

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Adam Outland: How did you end up
in Amsterdam?

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David Allen: You know, we just
wanted to become more global in

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terms of both our work and our
interest in our focus. We love

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to California where we came
from. And we saw people slightly

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older than us looking a little
more sedentary than we wanted to

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be. So we said, you know, come
on, let's throw a dart. Let's

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time for an adventure could have
been anywhere as long as I was

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near a good airport. But we'd
been here a couple of times. We

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love the city. I mean, it's
under eyecandy. City. It's we're

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just in we'd love the Dutch.
We'd love the culture. And we've

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since we've been here, we've
kept falling in love with it.

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Adam Outland: Are you a cyclist
now?

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David Allen: I'm not like one of
those guys dressed for the for

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the kill, in latex. Adam, where
are you now? Where were you

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talking from?

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Adam Outland: Texas.

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David Allen: I know it well, I
grew up in Shreveport. So we

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traveled around Dallas and
Houston doing debate

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tournaments. And I had an I had
an uncle who was had research

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chemist for Texaco for many,
many years. And he lived in Bel

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Air.

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Adam Outland: So you know, part
of what I think brought up this

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connection was I was
interviewing Nick Sonnenberg. He

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had just come up with a book
kind of a his take on time

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management strategy. And I
brought up this idea, my first

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exposure to time management at
all was your book, getting

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things done, and I read it when
I was 21. Because I had an

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interesting path in college
where I was selling educational

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books and running a sales
organization during my summers

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between college. That's how I
paid for school. But it required

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a tremendous amount of
organization. And that was my

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worst functional trait as a
human and picked up your book

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read it. And it was very
transformational.

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David Allen: Well, I'm always
delighted right across people

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where some of this sticks. I
never know what sticks. Good for

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you.

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Adam Outland: Yeah, thank you.
And when I was combing through

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some notes about you, it was
just so interesting to hear your

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initial life story. I mean, you
just mentioned growing up in

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Shreveport, how does one go from
Shreveport to hold on a

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magician, waiter, karate
teacher, landscaper, vitamin

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distributor, travel agent, I
can't even say them all.

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David Allen: I didn't know what
I wanted to do. But I grew up.

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And you know, I didn't grow up
with deep pockets. And so I had

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to, I always had the work to
make spending money to do

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whatever I wanted to do. So it
banged around a whole lot then

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got very interested in, in my
school got very interested in

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liberal arts sort of expanding
my vision. Also, I was the sort

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of child actor in Shreveport, I
had two or three significant

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roles as a child in the
community theaters, I had an

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opportunity to experience a lot
of people and things that were

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kind of outside what you might
consider the street port culture

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early on. My mom was quite open
to having me just go experienced

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whatever I wanted to experience
wherever. So that's what I did.

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Adam Outland: I've got to ask to
you. I mean, early in your life,

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I couldn't help but wonder like,
was organization time management

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something you consider a
strength back then of yours?

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David Allen: No, I, I've always
been somewhat organized. I mean,

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I I always like, what I had my
own room in my little house in

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Shreveport, my mom had someone
come in and build kind of a wall

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to wall desk, you know that I
can do my homework, and I can do

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other things. And I'm always was
like that. I'm just a lazy guy.

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I don't like to have to look for
things, you know. And so I've

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always been attracted to just
clear space. I don't like to be

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distracted. I don't like to have
to do stuff. I'm just Mr. Lazy.

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And don't don't make me work or
think any more than I have to,

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you know, I didn't have that as
a conscious notion. It was not a

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conscious process.

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Adam Outland: Right? You do
graduate work in American

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history. And so I'm trying to
get the transition to all these

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automated jobs. And then all of
a sudden, boom, business

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productivity in the 1980s for
Lockheed.

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David Allen: You know, I dropped
out of graduate school, I was

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sort of, I was studying people
who were enlightened and decided

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that one of my own, so I dropped
out to try to just sort of

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discover who I was and come up.
This is the 60s in Berkeley. And

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so that's, that's when sort of
self exploration and whatever.

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So a lot of experimentation, a
lot of exploration, martial

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arts, meditation practices, who
are the gurus out there? What

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are they doing? What are they
teaching? What can I learn about

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any of that? So I was kind of
engaged in that. Of course, they

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weren't paying people to do
that. So I had to pay rent. What

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I like to do was go in and see
what people needed, if I can

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help them and those weren't my
areas of expertise. I would just

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go in and say I was kind of a
good And number two guy, I'd

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say, Well, how much easier can
we do this, and then I'd wind up

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doing that, and then get bored.
And then I go leave and go find

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another gig, then I discovered
they pay people to do that. They

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call them something. So that's
what I hung up my shingle in

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1982 and said, Okay, let me just
see if I can sell myself on a

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project by project basis. It's,
that's what I seem to do. And I

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didn't want to be hung up with
anything. And so that just

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became, we didn't call it
coaching back then. But that's

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kind of really what it was, was
Yeah. And then that threw me

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thrust me into the corporate
training world, and they were

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the ripest audience. So, you
know, at a certain point, you

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know, come on, Adam, it took me
20 years to figure out what I

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figured out, and that nobody
else had done it. And then it

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was bulletproof. So I had some
good coaching, somebody said,

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Well, you should write the book,
I never wrote a book, the first

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edition of getting things done.
Published in 2001, I had no idea

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whether anybody was gonna buy it
or interested in and I just had

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to get it out of my head.

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Adam Outland: You know, one of
the things that we often talk to

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leadership about is the four
levels of competency, the

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beginning of anything new that
you endeavor, you're

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unconscious, incompetent, and
hopefully, you became a

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conscious, incompetent, meaning
you're at least aware that

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you're not good at this. And
then you become a conscious,

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competent, and eventually an
unconscious competence, where

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it's so natural that it just
becomes easy for you.

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David Allen: Yeah, couldn't
agree more. By the way, that's

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that's exactly how that works
with people with my methodology.

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Adam Outland: Yes. Well, I I'm a
case study for you. But you

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know, one of the things that I
think is the hardest to do is to

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reverse engineer it. And this is
what I wanted to ask you.

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Because I imagined just hearing
kind of your a lot of the stuff

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came naturally to you,
personally. And so I see you is

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at the end, especially in the
earlier part of your careers and

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unconscious competent at this
stuff, right? You were doing it,

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what I find so challenging
sometimes is to go backwards and

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become a conscious competent
again, because that's what we're

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required to write the book you
did, it's you almost have to

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like, consciously realize the
steps that it took to get you to

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where you are.

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David Allen: Actually, that
wasn't quite my path. I don't,

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because what I figured out was
the methodology and started to

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implement it. I knew the
methodology work. So I didn't

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have to reverse engineer that I
just said, How do I describe

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that methodology in a way that
people could get it? That's

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right. And it was kind of
agonizing to write the book

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because I wanted to give people
the model, or I wanted to give

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them how to implement the model.
But I also wanted to tell them

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all the and the old by the ways,
the subtle stuff that's going to

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happen when you actually do
this. And I tried to lump that

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all together, kind of the way I
did seminars, it didn't work. It

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took me a year to write the
first draft and the first rep

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didn't work. It was it was the
way I did a seminar, but you

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don't read a book the way that
you go through a seminar. That

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was my big learning about what
to do with what I'd come up

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with.

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Adam Outland: How did so how did
you know the first draft didn't

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work?

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David Allen: I was getting
feedback from people that was

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giving sort of early versions of
this. And they said, Oh my god,

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David, you nailed me in your
first paragraph. But it takes

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three chapters to get to how to
do it. Okay, jeez. And also, you

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know, Adam, you know, I'm a big
believer in affirmations, and

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visioning, and so forth. And the
first thing I wrote, before I

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started writing the book were
the reviews, I wrote the reviews

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my anticipated best case reviews
that people would write about

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the book I'm about to write. And
that raised the bar internally

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for me hugely.

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Adam Outland: And it's so
incredibly challenging for many

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people to get their thoughts on
paper in a concise way in a

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relatable way. To many people
try and write a book for

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everyone. If you just think of
one person you've coached and

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how you speak to that one
person, you find your voice a

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little bit easier than trying to
talk to everybody.

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David Allen: Yeah, well, the
same is true. If you're, you

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know, I've done 1000s of
presentations for hundreds and

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1000s of people out there just
in terms of my work. I may be

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talking to 5000 people, but I
need to talk to one. And then

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they all get that I'm talking to
them, because I've stepped

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myself down to being personal,
you know, an authentic?

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Adam Outland: Yeah. And so I
actually did buy the revisited

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updated edition with, you know,
the upgrade of technology. And

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honestly, I think the book was
written down. I don't know if

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the right phrase is technology
agnostic, just meaning that it's

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applicable, regardless of
upgraded technologies. As long

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as you lean into the principles.

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David Allen: You're still going
to read that book when you fly

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to Jupiter in 100 years. You
still need an in basket, you'll

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still decide next actions, you
still need to then park the

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reminders of those things in
some sort of system that the

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right people will see at the
right time that you then reflect

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on and notice the status so that
you can get to Jupiter or get

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off Jupiter. So we made it as
evergreen as possible with that.

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That's the cool thing about it
was I uncovered something over

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all these years it was totally
evergreen. That's universal.

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Adam Outland: I wanted to ask
are you still doing some one on

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one work?

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David Allen: Every once a while,
some pro bono I'm doing and if

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somebody wanted to engage me for
a whole year, which I did with a

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Drew Carey you know, when I
first you know several years

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ago, he hired me for a year.

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Adam Outland: Oh, wow.  With
some of the applications just

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for listeners, the aspects that
I felt were valuable personally,

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were the concept of separating
your task list to make it more

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consumable, right? Because I
think everybody can relate to

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the pain of seeing 150 things on
their to do list. And it's a

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combination of at home tasks,
work tasks, no, no understand

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this concept of splitting those
tasks into the relevant

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geography that they belong to,
or the right next action folder.

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If you split this to do list
into these different folders

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that are more based on when you
can tackle those to do items so

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that you're able to just dive
right in when you have time. One

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of the challenges that sometimes
I run into personally with

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clients is that the job or
position that someone's in or

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their their world may not be so
cleanly separated as some of the

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examples that you give. So it's
just curious how you guide

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people now as to maybe what you
find to be the common and best

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practice next action buckets?

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David Allen: Well, probably the
best way to start that would be

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to have somebody list all 120
things on one list, we'll say,

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does that work for you? And say,
Okay, how would you split that

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out? It should be pretty obvious
that errands should be its own

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list, it should be pretty
obvious that stuff to talk to my

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life partner about should be its
own list, it should be somewhat

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obvious here, the websites I
need to serve want to have a

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good internet connection. For
me, it was important to

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distinguish between stuff I
could do when I had a good web

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connection and stuff like on a
plane when I didn't. But maybe

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let me reverse engineer this
back for you, Adam, to say how

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this all started. This all
started back in 1983 or 84, when

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I started doing public seminars
around us with handing people

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public planners that we had
found when the best planners to

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do this, and then printing a
list called next actions and a

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list called projects that we
just, you know, sort of the

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basic categories. And then at
some point, this weird thing

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showed up called a mobile phone.
Until then, pretty much all the

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actions you could take would be
done, you know, in pretty much

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one or two environments, Max.
That's right. So soon as the

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mobile phone showed up, guess
what was possible, you could

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make calls from almost anywhere.
So I went, wow. So what I did

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was I split my own next actions
list into next actions, calls

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and all the rest. Because that
made sense. Because now while

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I'm at with a phone, I can't do
any of the other stuff. But I

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could make all these calls. And
then I was doing a seminar, they

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had a great old friend, he was
semi retired, and he had a

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sailboat. And he took my
seminar, he said, wow, David,

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there's a lot of stuff I need to
do at my sailboat, not about my

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sailboat, because a lot of
things I need to do about my

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boat, I need to go to the marine
store and buy X, Y and Z

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assembly, there are a lot of
things I only like to do with my

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boat. So I created an app boat
list. But that's cool. So that's

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how all this started. And then,
you know, after all these years,

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we just gave people in my book,
The typical categories that

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people up until that time
anyway, found it useful or

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practical to separate things and
just the computer phone calls to

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make stuff to talk to people
about things I'm waiting for.

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But I've had people show up,
they like to list their things.

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Here's things that provide
service to other people hear

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things that provide personal
service to myself, hear things,

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and they organized it by
emotional value.

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Adam Outland: Yeah, it's less
rigid, right? It's yeah, it's

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really taken that consultative
perspective of yourself or

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another person that you're
helping and saying, you know,

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what's important to you? What is
your life segmented into, and

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then help them batch
accordingly? And I guess you've

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probably experienced this
working in a coaching

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relationship with anybody for a
year, you realize that it's that

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change is hard for people,
right? And part of what makes

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change so can be so difficult,
is that how rooted they are in

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habits that they've done their
entire life. So I just was kind

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of curious, your most difficult
scenarios of breaking someone's

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bad habits and what you found
helpful in getting them attached

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to this new way of showing up.

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David Allen: I haven't done that
so much myself, frankly, I am

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not an expert at changing
habits. I'm not. We know now

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that obviously follow up. And so
we have a lot of coaches around

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the world, we've certified them
a lot of what they do is do

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follow ups or they do coaching
and like eight sessions

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virtually with people so they
can work with them and then

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check with them in two weeks and
say how you doing whatever. So

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there's a lot of the Keep it
going stuff that helps build

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those kinds of handouts. The
biggest issue that most people

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have is their addiction to
ambient anxiety. They're willing

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to be waked up at three o'clock
in the morning about something

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they can't do anything about it.
Yes. How do you change that? My

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job has been demonstrating what
it's like to walk around and

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have nothing on your mind. No
matter how busy or whatever

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you're doing. That's kind of how
I live my life. I think we got

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round David, you look so relax,
what's going on? What's going

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on? Keeping you relaxed, what do
you need to do about that, that

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you need to do to get that off
your mind. So that's not

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spinning around you in some
inappropriate way. So you can

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trust, you'll see that thing in
front of the door you need to

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take to the office tomorrow, as
opposed to trying to remember

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you need to take that thing. Why
don't you build systems that

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remind you of stuff when you
have to do so you can become a

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dumb and stupid like me most of
the time, because I've just

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already made my decisions, then
I have the freedom to become a

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dumb and stupid and have fun,
and then still do effective

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stuff. As simple as that sounds.
That's it? Yeah, that really,

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that really is it, to what
degree someone buys into that

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what to read, someone integrates
any of that, if you just write a

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few more things down, then you
wouldn't normally you're going

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to improve your life, if you
just decide what's the next

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action on something a little bit
sooner than when it shows up,

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instead of when it blows up,
you're gonna improve your life,

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if you just implement the two
minute rule, anything in your

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email box right now that you
could actually complete and get

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rid of in two minutes or less
should not be there that's going

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to improve your life, you just
have to decide how much of that

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you think you need.

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Adam Outland: We'll ask people
on a scale of one to 10, you

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know, how do you feel like you
are with your time management

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and what kind of outline what a
10 means, and a one means to

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most people, and you get a lot
of people answer 456. And the

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interesting question after that
is, you know, it's really the

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ones that I don't worry about
too much. Because if you're at

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rock bottom, and time
management, like I was when I

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was 21, and bought your book,
you know, there's only one

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direction to go from there. And
life's gonna get hard real fast

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unless you change. But in the
middle, you can live your entire

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life without realizing what
you're capable of, and be

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mediocre at something. And
that's how a lot of people they

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don't haven't lost enough to
where they really want to make

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change.

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David Allen: Well, you're gonna
change out of pain, more than

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inspiration, you'll change out
of both, but the pain wins by

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far.

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Adam Outland: You know, we hear
people who've had so much

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success in life, and it's really
easy to go well, if they always

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had it, they always did it. Life
was like a Disney movie. And

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there were no bumps in the road.
Right? And that's rarely ever

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true. And so I guess my question
to you is, what were some of

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those bumps in your your Disney
movie have a story?

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David Allen: Well, we had to
make a decision at some point

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when the book was successful
about whether we should try to

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scale the GTD methodology
education any further than say,

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I could have just stopped
everything. And just with the

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success of the book just had a
career of speaking. But I had,

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by that time, 30 or 40 people on
staff, and they were we were

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doing work in doing coaching and
training around the US are quite

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a good bit. And I said, Come on,
guys, should we do this? And

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they said, Yeah, we should do
that. Okay, how do we scale this

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kind of business? Because to a
large degree, it was based upon

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me and my really well trained
facilitators that could inspire

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people to do this one on one.
But how do you scale something

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like this, and so trying to
figure that out, and we're still

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working that out. So that was
the big decision to make that

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decision to begin with wasn't
painful, but it was challenging.

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Couple of big mistakes that I've
made in the process were because

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I've made some decisions before
I should have without doing due

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diligence, about whether that
was the right decision. So

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hiring a senior person that
didn't work out, it was

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expensive and painful. Making a
deal with someone to partner

350
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with me in in one of my book
deals that I shouldn't have done

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then that they're getting a lot
more value out of this than I

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could have had some other people
who are closer to me that could

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have made, you know, a lot more
money that would have been more

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fun if they'd been involved with
that. So a lot of these were

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decisions that were made,
because people were pressuring

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me, okay, what do we need to do?
Or I was pressuring myself that

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oh, yeah, I need to make that
decision about that. But, you

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know, live and learn, it's hard
to denigrate shown rungs of your

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ladder. I mean, I got a great
life and lifestyle, you know, so

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hard to say that all those were
learning experiences and things

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that I had that I went through,
and then I learned stuff about,

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you know, obviously, it's pretty
big challenges before, back in

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my, in my 20s. But that was a
lot about, you know, a lot of

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experience I had but drugs that
was not, that was exploration, I

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wasn't escaping, I was
exploring, I was back in the 60s

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with like, wow, what's out
there, what's up there, what's

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whatever. And so, but that
didn't help a lot in terms of my

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nervous system and my physiology
or whatever. And then I ran it,

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and then I got kind of ran off
the rails for a little while.

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And so kind of understanding how
that happened and what I needed

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to do about that, and then how
to I could come back to a level

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of cooperation with my world,
you know, that work. So that was

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pretty big. That was a big
change.

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Adam Outland: That's right, with
methamphetamine or something?

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00:19:43,900 --> 00:19:46,570
David Allen: Oh, I did
everything, I snorted heroin for

376
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a year and there were hardly any
drugs that I didn't experiment

377
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with. But it didn't help my
nervous system. Kind of fried

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it. I haven't done any
recreational stuff since 1971.

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Adam Outland: And you live in
Amsterdam. That's amazing.

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David Allen: Well, come on, the
Dutch don't do that. It's only

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the tourists that show up and do
all that stuff.

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Adam Outland: So, you know, I
think in retrospect, knowing and

383
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having gone through this journey
that you've gone through, how

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would David Allen today, what
kind of advice would you provide

385
00:20:18,820 --> 00:20:22,240
that 20 or 21 year old self,
having been through your life

386
00:20:22,240 --> 00:20:25,180
already, right? Like, if you
could go back as a mentor.

387
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David Allen: I would say you
have an intuitive voice that's

388
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in there right now. It's always
been there, it will always be

389
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there. Learn to quiet yourself,
and ask the right questions. And

390
00:20:37,300 --> 00:20:41,950
listen to the intuitive voice
that loves you cares about you,

391
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doesn't judge you, but will give
you really, really good advice.

392
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I didn't learn that for another
20 years in my life, probably at

393
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that point, I would say that and
relax.

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Adam Outland: It's a great piece
of advice. And just as a kind of

395
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a last maybe a couple of
quickfire questions, what are

396
00:21:01,600 --> 00:21:04,150
the books that you're reading,
called in the last five or seven

397
00:21:04,150 --> 00:21:06,190
years that have been influential
to you?

398
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David Allen: I'm gonna give you
two big ones. One is a book

399
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called humankind. Rutger Bregman
is a Dutch writer, but it's a

400
00:21:13,540 --> 00:21:17,140
fabulous book, even in English,
it's a lot about how actually

401
00:21:17,140 --> 00:21:21,100
good human nature really is. And
it's a big rant about the

402
00:21:21,130 --> 00:21:25,120
sensational media that's made it
out as if there's so much bad

403
00:21:25,120 --> 00:21:28,870
going on in the world. He's
going, No, there's not. And he's

404
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got a lot of good data and a lot
of statistics and stuff in there

405
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to prove the people in sharp
when push comes to shove, they

406
00:21:36,820 --> 00:21:39,790
help each other out. They're
good people, there's a goodness

407
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:43,810
to the human consciousness. And
thankfully, I read something

408
00:21:43,810 --> 00:21:47,350
this morning or yesterday, and
they've done a study that short

409
00:21:47,380 --> 00:21:52,180
little pieces of kindness is a
universal trait across the

410
00:21:52,180 --> 00:21:56,260
world, that people actually are
very, for the majority of what

411
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they do, how they interact with
people is helping people and

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00:22:00,370 --> 00:22:05,110
being kind and being useful to
them in some way. So this is not

413
00:22:05,110 --> 00:22:08,320
something you get when you read,
read the media, and here's

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another one.

415
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Adam Outland: The 1619 project.

416
00:22:11,050 --> 00:22:14,739
David Allen: So this is a
compilation of some of the most

417
00:22:14,823 --> 00:22:19,267
elegant essay you can imagine
about how slavery as an

418
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institution has impacted on the
US culture, history, culture,

419
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politics, everything else. I was
an American History major Adam,

420
00:22:29,999 --> 00:22:34,527
and I read this away, oh, my
god, had no idea how much

421
00:22:34,611 --> 00:22:39,474
American history taught in
schools ignores some of the key

422
00:22:39,558 --> 00:22:44,169
elements of how much of our
culture was created by that

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00:22:44,253 --> 00:22:47,440
institution. Yeah, it's a page turner.

424
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Adam Outland: Thanks for sharing
all about changing perspective.

425
00:22:50,058 --> 00:22:52,728
And for people to be able to
find you and some of the

426
00:22:52,779 --> 00:22:55,751
resources and tools obviously
the book Getting Things Done.

427
00:22:55,801 --> 00:22:58,320
You've published two other books
as well, correct?

428
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David Allen: Yeah, ready for
anything, making it all work.

429
00:23:01,590 --> 00:23:07,530
And then GTD workbook, and, and
GTD for teams. So I've done a

430
00:23:07,530 --> 00:23:11,160
few of those. And we again, have
a new book coming out for teams,

431
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:14,760
and that's going to be out first
of the year. Ah, you know, all

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these years, people have run
across my stuff implemented, oh

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my god, if I could get people
around me to do this, it'd be so

434
00:23:21,210 --> 00:23:24,090
much cooler, it's so much
easier. And I've never had the

435
00:23:24,090 --> 00:23:29,070
bandwidth to really produce that
manual. Now we have, I've got a

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fabulous co author Ed Lamont
from from our partner in UK.

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It's dynamite. And by the way,
if anybody wants to just more of

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00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:40,320
my stick, getting things
done.com as website, you'll see

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00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:42,630
a lot of resources there, sign
up for our newsletter if you

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00:23:42,630 --> 00:23:46,920
want, but getting things
done.com/youtube You can see my

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00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:50,820
three TEDx talks I've done you
can see tons of short little

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00:23:50,910 --> 00:23:54,150
snippets of videos of tips and
tricks or whatever, if you're

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00:23:54,150 --> 00:23:56,490
interested in a little more
snacking.

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00:23:56,850 --> 00:23:59,160
Adam Outland: Yeah, love it.
Again, appreciate your time and

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00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:01,530
being on here and thanks for the
impact.

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David Allen: You got it, guy.  Delighted.