All That Stuff to Do...

So, I recently started reading David Allen's book Getting Things Done, which is just about the most popular book in the blogosphere. I've been reading about it for at least a year, but I was hesitant to get into it. Basically, the reason I shied away was due to some misconceptions about it:

1. I misunderstood the concept of "next actions," thinking that I would have to define every action throughout a project right at the outset. I don't claim to fully understand it yet, but the truth is that you only need to define the one thing that you have to do next, and you don't worry about the step after that until after the first action is completed.
   
2. I was under the impression, based on certain reviews, that it heavily relied on Eastern mysticism. In actual fact, he just draws on aspects of Eastern thinking to clarify his ideas (at least so far).

In general, I'm very impressed with the book so far. I'll be blogging later about the process of figuring out what he means, and about the processes I'm working on in my own life to make all the "stuff" easier to deal with.

In the meantime, go read Merlin Mann's excellent blog, 43 Folders. It's chock full of great GTD tips (which I might find more meaningful after having actually read the book), and is one of the main reasons I actually decided to give the book a go.