David Allen (author)

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David Allen
TNW Con EU15-David Allen - 4.jpg
David Allen in 2015.
Born (1945-12-28) December 28, 1945 (age 78)
Alma mater New College
University of California, Berkeley
Occupation(s)Management consultant and author
SpouseKathryn [1]
Website gettingthingsdone.com

David Allen (born December 28, 1945) is an American author and productivity consultant. He created the time management method Getting Things Done.

Contents

Careers

Allen grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana where he acted and won a state championship in debate. [2] He attended New College (now New College of Florida) in Sarasota, Florida, and completed graduate work in American history at the University of California, Berkeley. [3]

After graduate school, Allen began using heroin and was briefly institutionalized. [4] He is an ordained minister with the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. [5] [6] He claims to have had 35 professions before age 35. [7] He began applying his perspective on productivity with businesses in the 1980s when he began consulting at Lockheed's human resources department. [8]

Publications and habitat

Allen has written three books: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, [9] which describes his productivity program; Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life, [10] a collection of newsletter articles he has written; Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life, a follow-up to his first book. In 2015, he also wrote a new updated version of Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free Productivity.[ citation needed ]

In 2024 David Allen has co-authored Team: Getting Things Done with Others on how to work effectively in groups using GTD Principles. [11]

Personal Life

Allen lived in Ojai, California with his fourth wife, Kathryn. [1] In 2014, they moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. [12]

Bibliography

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References

  1. 1 2 Paul Keegan, June 21, 2007 How David Allen mastered getting things done Business 2.0[ dead link ]
  2. "Organize Your Life!". The Atlantic. July 1, 2004.
  3. Keith H. Hammonds, April 30, 2000. "You can do anything – but not everything" Fast Company, retrieved April 8, 2010
  4. Wolf, Gary. September 25, 2007 Getting Things Done Guru David Allen and His Cult of Hyperefficiency Wired  : 15.10
  5. Jack Coats, 2000. "David Allen – Ministering to the Business Community" The New Day Herald online retrieved January 18, 2008
  6. Jack Coats, 2000. "Getting Things Done: David Allen's Keys to Completion" The New Day Herald online retrieved October 24, 2007
  7. David E. Williams, February 9, 2007 Cutting through the clutter to get things done CNN
  8. Wolf, Gary. "Getting Things Done Guru David Allen and His Cult of Hyperefficiency". Wired via www.wired.com.
  9. Allen, David (2001). Getting things done : the art of stress-free productivity. New York: Viking. ISBN   0-670-88906-7. OCLC   44868871.
  10. Allen, David (2011). Ready for anything : 52 productivity principles for work and life. London: Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN   978-1-4055-1075-2. OCLC   1129684569.
  11. Allen, David; Lamont, Edward (May 21, 2024). Team: Getting Things Done with Others. Penguin. ISBN   978-0-593-65290-9.
  12. Pascoe, Robin (January 17, 2024). ""Once here, we started falling in love with Amsterdam even more"". DutchNews.nl.

Further reading