Hi, I'm Sarah and this is the Squiggly Careers podcast. This week is one of our Ask the Expert episodes and you'll hear me in conversation with David Allen.

David is the pioneer and creator of getting things done, a system really designed to improve your productivity to make sure not only that you get things done, but I guess most importantly that you get the right things done.

And I was re-familiarizing myself with his work, and I wasn't sure how I would feel about it because I'm not a sort of productivity guru.

I'm quite messy.

I don't like the idea of having to do lots of the same things or

perhaps being constrained by systems. That kind of brings out the, maybe the inner rebel in me.

But the more time I've spent with David and learning about some of David's work, the more

useful I found it. And it definitely is one of those episodes where I have done things differently as a result

of going back and looking back at some of the tools, techniques, frameworks, figuring out what I

already do well, but just spotting some gaps where actually if I spent some time sorting these

things, it would make my life easier and free my brain up for the things I really want to spend

time on. So I hope you enjoy the conversation today and find it as practical and useful as I did.

And I'll be back at the end to say goodbye.

David, thank you so much for joining us today on the Squiggly Careers podcast.

I'm really looking forward to our conversation together.

Thanks for the invitation, Sarah.

I'm delighted to be here.

So I'm going to dive straight in with this idea of getting things done.

And I want to know from all of your years of work and expertise and insight in this area, why do people

not get things done? What do you see as the biggest barriers or the obstacles that get in our way?

And are they universal or do they end up being very individual? So yeah, what gets in the way of

getting things done?

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