The principles of efficiency are very simple.  Yet the mystery of this work is why so many people struggle to implement the basic moves on a consistent basis.  There seems to be more at play here than meets the eye.

In a recent blog post, David Allen addresses this question head on and generates some intriguing, yet familiar to GTDers, insights into the problem.

“A typical question I get is, “What’s the one thing that we do that gets in the way of us being productive?” It’s not one thing, but five, all wrapped together: People keep stuff in their head. They don’t decide what they need to do about stuff they know they need to do something about. They don’t organize action reminders and support materials in functional categories. They don’t maintain and review a complete and objective inventory of their commitments. Then they waste energy and burn out, allowing their busy-ness to be driven by what’s latest and loudest, hoping it’s the right thing to do but never feeling the relief that it is.”

Read the rest of his blog post at the Getting Things Done web site.