I am taking a week of vacation.  Today’s post is a Best of 2009 Post.  It celebrates some of the best content from the site based upon user feedback and analytics.  It was originally posted on this day.  I hope that you enjoy it!

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This post is a book review. It is a book that should have a great impact on a great number of fields including that of Information Technology. If you like this post, I would like you to know that it is part of a series of book reviews for works that I think all Information Professionals should take a look at.

I am a big fan of David Allen and his Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. The book that started it all is called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and it carries my highest recommendation.  David Allen has been called “The Personal Productivity Guru” by Fast Company Magazine and “The Henry Ford of the Digital Age”.  If you know me, you know that his work has become the foundation of my success. GTD is all about living your life successfully.

By the way, his teachings are very popular in the Information Technology profession.  I am constantly running into fellow practitioners at work.  I think that this is so for a number of reasons. I have heard David suppose that this is because his book provides an all-encompassing recipe or process for handling your life that is very similar to  a developer producing elegant code.  While I agree with him that there are similarities, I think that it is popular because it is so closely aligned with the system engineering discipline that is the basis for nearly all of the information technology field. 

Systems Engineering stresses that all projects begin with a formal set of agreed to requirements.  GTD does the same.  Systems Engineering then accomplishes success by the decomposition of said requirements into technical elements that must be achieved.  These elements are then completed as building blocks and integrated together to form an output product.  The final package can be validated and verified against the original specifications down to whatever required level and forms a perfect closed loop process that has no seams.  GTD basically applies the Systems Engineering commandments to your life and provides a construct to manage everything in your life from remembering to buy milk on the way home from work, to maintaining loving relationships with your family, to even accomplishing your dreams and aspirations.  This is all provided, not through “pie-in-the-sky” platitudes and positive thinking, but by giving you real world advice including how to buy a file cabinet, how to set-up a binder to manage your to-dos, what to do at any time that you find yourself free, and even how often you need to stop and collect your thoughts.

gtd

This is how David, himself, describes his system on his website:

Sophisticated without being confining, the subtle effectiveness of GTD lies in its radically common sense notion that with a complete and current inventory of all your commitments, organized and reviewed in a systematic way, you can focus clearly, view your world from optimal angles and make trusted choices about what to do (and not do) at any moment. GTD embodies an easy, step-by-step and highly efficient method for achieving this relaxed, productive state.

Wikipedia has a very complete page dedicated on his teachings here.  One gem from that site is:

GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them externally. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks.

Alltop has what I consider to be the best collection of links to GTD web-based content that I have found.  If you want to learn more, first go to the David Allen Company Site and then check out their comprehensive listings of GTD links.

I think that every Information Professional should give this book a read.  I expect that you will find a comprehensive life management system that can have immediate impact on your, your teams, and your organization’s success.

So what books do you recommend for IT professionals?  Feel free to add your ideas in the comments section.

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for December 27, 2009 ©Scott Coughlin .

Photo credits: Amazon.com and DavidCo.com

Happy New Year to you and your loved ones.  Don’t forget that our Amazon Holiday Store is still open and a great way to support the site!


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