Book Review: David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” at 25
Rereading the foundational 2001 classic from a modern perspective
Book Review: David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” at 25
Rereading the foundational 2001 classic from a modern perspective
Mike Stein
Sep 01, 2026
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My well-worn copy of David Allen’s
Getting Things Done
(2001)
I first read
David Allen
’s foundational
Getting Things Done
13 years ago. I had already self-discovered the value of to-do lists and on
task capture
but had never seen or thought about any structure, principles or practices beyond that. This book was a pivotal early moment in my long path towards building my career around productivity.
Getting Things Done
is a foundational text for a reason, and, at a ripe old 25 years of age now, I’m pleased to say it holds up as an enlightening and entertaining read.
If you haven’t read it, consider this both my endorsement and a homework assignment.
I just finished my first-ever reread of the book and was struck by how much of the philosophy and tactics were ahead of their time. Of course, there are parts that haven’t aged perfectly, but fewer than I’d have expected. The core principles endure, and the ancient references, to e.g. the recently ubiquitous and still-hyphenated technology of “E-Mail”, are charming.
Want to join in with me on my next book? Paid subscribers get access to my Substack Chat room where I share my thoughts on my reads and rereads as I go.
My biggest takeaways
Allen does an enviable job of making his most important points stand out. Here are my favorite quotes from the book where he says it much better than I have and what I’ve learned from my reread:
It’s possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control. (page 3)
The number of things to do is only more overwhelming nowadays, and everything else about the time we live in makes it harder to have a positive sense of relaxed control about
anything
. Designing your productivity processes to be a means of stability and organization, rather than further overwhelm, is a well-stated and keenly oriented primary goal.
When I work with someone who self-identifies as bad at email, organization, or task tracking, or someone who is truly suffering from their current productivity system, they have usually lost hope and lost sight of the very possibility of functioning productively amongst overwhelm.
But it is indeed possible
.
So, what a perfect foundation for the first sentence of the book. It invites everyone in, promises solutions – and goes on to deliver them.
You must be assured that you’re doing what you need to be doing, and that it’s OK to not be doing what you’re not doing. Reviewing your system on a regular basis and keeping it current and functional are prerequisites for that kind of control. (page 181)
The word “assured” here is a great synthesis of a throughline of Allen’s approach:
you need to have a model that you fully trust
, which means you need to design your processes in a way that work for you and everything that makes you unique. You also need to have things that you’re
not doing
, an important permission for yourself to design around.
Building trust with yourself is similar to how you build trust with your colleagues through how you
manage and convey how you spend your time
,
capture and transfer knowledge
, and
get coverage from them when out of office
. You need to build systems that you can have confidence in as always being up-to-date, reflecting your most important tasks, and dynamically adapting to changing priorities.
Your past self should be your best coworker.
Allen also digs deep on how and why to keep a continuous
task capture mechanism
– when people only make to-do lists after they’re already overwhelmed on a big project, they’re playing catch-up and often adding to their stress and dysfunction. Chapter 2 (and its legendary flowchart) and Chapter 7 lay out a strong roadmap for this.
I’ve noticed that people are actually more comfortable dealing with surprises and crises than they are taking control of processing, organizing, reviewing, and assessing that part of their work that is not as self-evident. [...] Many people use the inevitability of an almost infinite stream of immediately evident things to do as a way to avoid the responsibilities of defining their work and managing their total inventory. (pages 197-198)
This sounds like a
lot
of the best people I’ve worked with.
Biasing towards reactive crisis-response work over planning is one of the most common productivity mistakes I’ve seen, especially on high-velocity engineering teams.
So many are more comfortable in the chaos of firefighting, that furious stasis of always pivoting to the latest emergency, than they are actually taking time to plan out and tune the rest of their work. When there are legitimate surprises and pivots, you and your team need to be nimble and ready to sprint,
but when that’s
not
happening,
you need to have a healthy set of processes to define and tune your work and not let your planning muscles atrophy.
One way I’ve said it: you can’t always be surging, you have to
antisurge
, too.
The Antisurge
Mike Stein
·
Apr 14
Read full story
Other chapters of note
The rest of the book builds upon these themes and defines tactical steps for implementing Allen’s foundational GTD system.
Chapter 3 lays out an approachable perspective on project planning that starts by highlighting how the simplest, lightest touch, back-of-napkin-level planning is often the highest return-on-investment (yup). Chapter 12 explores the how and the why of one of the most important pieces of any team’s rhythm of operations: consistently identifying the next action on a project or
as the output of a meeting
. A few chapters focused on pen-and-paper systems and managing a single, physical space of work suffered from various amounts of outdatedness for me, but still provide food for thought and don’t bog down the read.
Put it into practice
Read the book
if you haven’t, or reread it if you need a tactical GTD tune-up. It’s complementary to what I’m offering you in this newsletter.
Follow
David Allen
, as I just have, as he’s still at it!
If you’re looking for some exercises from the book to try, I’d recommend these two, each of which are detailed further in their chapters:
[...] write down the project or situation that is most on your mind at this moment. What most “bugs” you, distracts you, or interests you, or in some other way consumes a large part of your conscious attention? (pages 13-14)
[...] give yourself permission to make any changes that you have been contemplating for enhancing your work environments. Hang pictures, buy pens, toss stuff, rearrange your work space. Support your fresh start. (page 258)
In Part 2, I examine the few recommendations in the book that I’ve found, over the years, need updates for the modern workplace:
Updating Ideas from David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”
Mike Stein
·
Sep 8
Last week, I reviewed David Allen’s seminal productivity text Getting Things Done, a 25-year-old read that holds up surprisingly well and is rich with useful foundations for task management.
Read full story
I’ve organized my archives into a recommended reading order. You can learn more about this “book”
here
or hop to the next or previous “chapter” via the links below.
Previous chapter:
What I Learned While Subbing for an Executive Assistant
Mike Stein
·
Apr 28
I’m not an executive assistant (EA). I’m not trained as one. I don’t consult as one. EAs have many skills that I don’t.
Read full story
Next chapter:
Updating Ideas from David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”
Mike Stein
·
Sep 8
Last week, I reviewed David Allen’s seminal productivity text Getting Things Done, a 25-year-old read that holds up surprisingly well and is rich with useful foundations for task management.
Read full story
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