Here’s how David Allen put it (in Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity):

One of my favorite sayings is, “The better you get, the better you’d better get!”

On the one hand, Getting Things Done is all about getting much better at doing the work you have to do, so things will be easier.

On the other hand, the better you get at doing the work you have to do, the more you will end up doing, because you have gotten so much better at your work.

And the challenge is to always be getting better at doing the work you have to do.

And so, “the better you get, the better you’d better get.”