Top 120 David Allen Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide what to do. – Elbert Hubbard.”

— David Allen

102. “Get a purge for your brain. It will do better than for your stomach. – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne.”

— David Allen

103. “My mission is to create a world where there are no problems only projects.”

— David Allen

104. “Uncaptured, unclarified, and therefore unmanaged things that you have agreed to do own a piece of you and give you no rest.”

— David Allen

105. “Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. – Jonathan Kozol.”

— David Allen

106. “Nothing is really new in this high-tech, globally wired world, except how frequently it is. When.”

— David Allen

107. “Every now and then go away and have a little relaxation. To remain constantly at work will diminish your judgment. Go some distance away, because work will be in perspective and a lack of harmony is more readily seen. – Leonardo da Vinci.”

— David Allen

108. “We fought so hard against the small things that we became small ourselves. – EUGENE O’NEILL.”

— David Allen

109. “Complaining is a sign that someone isn’t willing to risk moving on a changeable situation, or won’t consider the immutable circumstance in his or her plans.”

— David Allen

110. “Frankly, as soon as you have two things to do stored only in your mind, you’ve generated personal failure, because you can’t do them both at the same time. This produces a pervasive stress factor whose source can’t be pinpointed.”

— David Allen

111. “Interestingly, one of the biggest problems with most people’s personal management systems is that they blend a few actionable things with a large amount of data and material that has value but no action attached.”

— David Allen

112. “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be: “meetings.” – DAVE BARRY.”

— David Allen

113. “There is usually an inverse relationship between how much something is on your mind and how much it’s getting done.”

— David Allen

114. “But if you don’t decide what needs to be done about your secretary’s birthday, because it’s “not that important” right now, that open loop will take up energy and prevent you from having a totally effective, clear focus on what is important.”

— David Allen

115. “There are no interruptions, really – there are simply mismanaged occurrences.”

— David Allen

116. “Suffice it to say that something automatic and extraordinary happens in your mind when you create and focus on a clear picture of what you want.”

— David Allen

117. “We need to transform all the “stuff” we’ve attracted and accumulated into a clear inventory of meaningful actions, projects, and usable information.”

— David Allen

118. “It’s fine to decide not to decide about something. You just need a decide-not-to-decide system to get it off your mind.”

— David Allen

119. “It is a tricky business to know when you should set goals and objectives in order to achieve a focus, and when you would be better off dealing with the acceptance and management of your current reality so you can later step into new directions and responsibilities with greater stability and clarity. Only you will know the answer to that, and only in the moment.”

— David Allen

120. “One missed e-mail, untracked commitment, or decision avoided can have hugely magnified consequences.”

— David Allen

121. “An infinite number of things in the universe are held back from you only by your altitude and attitude.”

— David Allen

122. “THE PURPOSE OF this whole method of workflow management is not to let your brain become lax, but rather to enable it to move toward more elegant and productive activity. In order to earn that freedom, however, your brain must engage on some consistent basis with all your commitments and activities. You must be assured that you’re doing what you need to be doing, and that it’s OK to be not doing what you’re not doing.”

— David Allen

123. “When time itself turned into a work factor, personal calendars became a key work tool.”

— David Allen

124. “You don’t actually do a project; you can only do action steps related to it. When enough of the right action steps have been taken, some situation will have been created that matches your initial picture of the outcome closely enough that you can call it “done.”

— David Allen

125. “Merely having thoughts is one thing. Consciously feeding them is quite another. You are powerful all the time, by way of your attention and intention. The question is, Toward what are you pointing that power?”

— David Allen

126. “Anything that does not belong where it is, the way it is, is an “open loop,” which will be pulling on your attention if it’s not appropriately managed. In.”

— David Allen

127. “Bright people have the capability of freaking out faster and more dramatically than anyone else.”

— David Allen

128. “This would be a Zen-like state of productivity, in which you deal with what’s present from a perspective that is both detached and fully engaged.”

— David Allen

129. “But sometimes I have to get out of my comfort zone to stay motivated to do excellent work over the long term.”

— David Allen

130. “Your life and work are made up of outcomes and actions. When your operational behavior is grooved to organize everything that comes your way, at all levels, based upon those dynamics, a deep alignment occurs, and wondrous things emerge. You become highly productive. You make things up, and you make them happen.”

— David Allen

131. “Lots of people have been making lists for years but have never found the procedure to be particularly effective.”

— David Allen

132. “I have learned over the years that the most important thing to deal with is whatever is most on your mind. The fact that you think it shouldn’t be on your mind is irrelevant. It’s there, and it’s there for a reason.”

— David Allen