Do you feel like you need some inspiration get more productive? Well I just finished reading David Allen‘s book ‘Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work & Life‘ and this book contains a lot of short bits of useful knowledge. The book is organized based on the 52 principals.
Each part reveals some piece of advice that can help you get organized at work and home. The book is more philosophical than practical, so it’s unlike Allen’s more well known work ‘Getting Things Done’. However while many of the chapters focus on ideas that you may be aware of, Allen puts them in an interesting perspective.
Instead of reviewing all of the chapters of the book I have decided to summarize a few of my favorite excerpts from his ’52 principles’. I will reference the principal numbers from the book in case you want to look them up and get more details.
1. Cleaning up creates new direction – Simply removing clutter and making a space for you to work will clear your mind.
2. You can only feel good about what you’re not doing when you know what you’re not doing
3. Knowing your commitments creates better choices of new ones
4. Getting to where you’re going requires knowing where you are
5. Infinite opportunity is utilized by finite possibility – The fact of life is that we must make choices of how to use our limited time and energy.
16. Working hard enough is impossible - We have to learn to work smarter, so try to find whatever tools motivate you or make your life easier.
17. Energy follows thought – If our minds are unclear and unfocused then we make it harder for ourselves to generate the energy to finish our work.
18. The clearer our purpose, the more ways we find to fulfill it
27. Stability on one level opens creativity on another
35. Whenever 2 or more are responsible for something, usually nobody is – This reminds me of the great line from legendary investor Peter Lynch ‘A symphony only has one conductor’.
40. You’re the only one playing your game – This thing called your life is a unique experience for all of us and we make of it whatever we choose.
42. Your power is proportional to your ability to relax- So true!
49. Small things done consistently create major impact
51. It’s easier to move when you’re in motion – Think of your work and life as a train; it takes a lot of energy to go from standstill to move quickly, but once you’re in motion it takes a lot of energy to stop you!
52. The biggest successes come from the most failures - There are people like Abe Lincoln or Milton Hershey who have failed numerous times before achieving incredible success. They didn’t allow their mistakes to define them or overwhelm them. Instead they learned from these failures and used their knowledge to finally get it right.
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