Robert Kelsey 
Get Things Done 
What Stops Smart People Achieving More and How You Can Change

Robert Kelsey’s What’s Stopping You? has
become a self-help classic. His What’s Stopping You?
books have helped thousands of people worldwide overcome their
limiting beliefs and bash through their barriers to success. Now
Robert is back to help us defeat the obstacles that stop us
achieving more in our everyday lives. Many of us have the greatest
of intentions but find ourselves procrastinating, which results in
low attainment and frustrated ambitions. Grounded in solid
psychological research Robert helps us examine why we might have
these tendencies and how to overcome them in order to feel more
together, in control and on-top of everything.

* Looks at the psychology behind why we procrastinate, in order
to understand and change our behaviour, forming new, effective
habits

* Provides practical solutions to help us ‘get things
done’ in real life situations including meetings, on the
phone, with e-mail, looking for a job and starting a business

* Includes techniques to improve focus and aid concentration

* Examines how disorganisation is not innate and how we can learn
processes that will allow us to be more effective

* How to bring control to certain areas of your life and reduce
stress and uncertainty

Get Things Done is emotional ergonomics for the
organisationally-challenged individual – at home, at work,
with themselves, and with others.

Table of Content

Introduction: My Own Personal Chaos 1

Part One – The Unproductive Mind 9

1 Organizational Incompetence 11

2 Conditions and Types 21

3 Procrastination, Clutter and Self-sabotage 34

4 Motivation, Goals and Flow 45

Part Two – Tools and Resources 57

5 The Need for Desire 59

6 Planning for Freedom 69

7 Getting Started 81

8 Managing Time 92

9 Developing Good Habits 102

10 Making Decisions 111

Part Three – Get Things Done … 121

11 … On the Phone 123

12 … Using Email 128

13 … In Meetings 136

14 … When Managing Others 144

15 … Beyond Work 151

Part Four – Other People 159

16 Persuasion and Influence 161

17 Dealing with Conflict 173

18 Dealing with the Family 182

Conclusion: ‘It’s All Chaos’ 195

The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People 204

Bibliography 210

About Robert Kelsey 214

Index 216

About the author

Robert Kelsey is author of Capstone’s bestselling What’s Stopping You? exploring why smart people failed to reach their potential. He has gone on to sell over 64, 000 copies across three What’s Stopping You? titles.
Robert Kelsey is CEO of Moorgate Communications, a financial PR agency, and was previously CEO of Metrocube, a start-up incubator located in London’s fashionable ‘City-fringes’. He trained as a financial journalist before becoming an investment banker and a now an entrepreneur, running his successful PR agency.
Yet Kelsey remains and perennial outsider. From a rebellious childhood to an adulthood of pursuing a series of unsuitable careers, he has had a lifetime of failing to settle into any group activities, yet lacking the confidence, guile or know-how to profitably ‘rebel’. Kelsey has developed an enormous insight into both the root causes of alienation and the all-encompassing negative consequences.