Think there aren't enough hours in a day? Then you haven't met the devotees of GTD.
Marc Orchant had tried just about everything in his quest to keep pace with life's demands. His garage was filled with old Franklin planners and day timers. A self-described "gadget freak" and early tech adopter, he had explored various kinds of software for mind-mapping, brainstorming, and otherwise jamming 48 hours into 24. "I was constantly trying to find a way to stay on top of all the stuff in my life," says Orchant.

Nothing really satisfied him until early 2001, when he went to work for a software developer in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was given two things on his first day: a key to get in the front door and a copy of Getting Things Done, a book written by consultant and executive coach David Allen. The company's president had attended an Allen seminar and had come away "completely captivated by how natural, logical, and consistent the methodology was," Orchant recalls.

Subtitled The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, Allen's book opens with a clarion call to the frazzled, keyed-up masses across the business spectrum: "It's possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a relaxed sense of control," Allen writes. GTD, as it is called by its devotees, offers "a coherent set of behaviors and tools that function effectively at the level at which work really happens," a system that will "maintain control over hundreds of new inputs daily."
Workers of the world, meet GTD.

At the time, Orchant didn't know that Allen's tome would radically change his life or that he would be part of a fast-growing army of GTDers who credit Allen for increasing their work output, bringing them success in work and life, and unleashing energy and creativity that they never knew before.