Episode 103 of the Getting Things Done® podcast. Listen above, or read the full transcript below.
Transcript
Automatically transcribed and lightly edited. Timestamps omitted for readability.
Morten: Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Getting Things Done podcast from Vital Learning. I am Morten Røvik, and I'm here with my super duper really good friend Lars Rothschild Henriksen, as always. Privet, Lars.
Lars: Privet, Mr. Ravik, colleague, good friend. Good to see you as always, and good to be with our listeners and viewers out there.
Morten: No super duper?
Lars: Sorry?
Morten: No super duper?
Lars: Everything, everything you said and more.
Morten: Thank you.
Lars: And now for the reminder of the purpose of the podcast, which is to help you learn GTD or become even better GTDers. We hope that today's episode supports you in that. If you are new to GTD, we always recommend you go back and listen to episodes 1 through 6 to get an introduction to the basics of GTD. That's the audio-only version. So you can find that in your podcast player by searching for Vital Learning. Today's episode number is 102, and today's episode is about calendar and reference systems.
Morten: It is. We've been discussing different topics under these two, this umbrella, and we are going to touch upon use of calendar, when and how to use a calendar practically, just any calendar. And look at the different calendar solutions out there that you might want to look at, and how you can share them with other people, and how you can integrate the different calendars into different apps, or at least the ones that we know of. So it's going to be a practical episode around calendars. And we've been talking about reference systems. We're going to touch on files and folders as a reference system and different apps that Lars and I are using and trying to give you some of the best practices we have found around those. Does that sum it up, Lars?
Lars: I think so. And just to add on to that, this episode sort of, well, it follows episode 101. No surprise there. But we're talking about how to, you know, pick the different tools that we would like to use. And this was sort of a follow-up on that. So how are we actually, the different tools that a GTDer would need to have available to them. This sort of follows that episode.
Morten: Indeed. So should we just dive right into it? What does the Getting Things Done methodology say about the use of calendar? How and when should you use the calendar? And when should you not use the calendar? Lars. Okay.
Lars: I was wondering if that was sort of a rhetorical question or are you going to throw the ball to me?
Morten: I am going.
Lars: No, so we're, we're back at the good old, good old clarifier step, and we've decided that there's a next action to be taken on this. Something that takes longer than 2 minutes, we are the right person to do it. So we want to capture that somewhere in a system that could be in our list manager, as we spoke about in the other episode about choosing the right tools. Or it could be in your calendar, and we would use the calendar when it has to happen on a specific time or in your calendar. So 3 things go on your calendar as a GTDer. Time-specific actions, that would be your meetings and stuff that shows up that has to happen on a specific time. Then we have day-specific actions, which are actions that has to be taken on a specific day, but not at any specific time during that day. And lastly, day-specific information. So that would be information that I would want to be aware on, on any given day. So that could be someone's birthday, or I'm staying at this hotel, here's the booking number. And the day-specific actions would be, you know, I used to have to do my time registration as a consultant. I had to do that every Friday. So that would be a whole, you know, a full day block in my calendar. Have to make sure that I have space for that during Friday so I can get that one done.
Morten: And just to take a little bit, you know, step even further back through before we talk about calendars, just to see how this fits into the 5 steps of GTD. Step number 1 is capture, which is Capture anything that has your attention, write it down, whatever it is, somewhere that you will see it later. It will then leave your brain and it will stay out of your brain if you then later at some point between 24 and 48 hours after clarify, that is decide what you need to do specifically and granularly calling into memory the next action. What is the next action of this that will move it forward, and then my desired outcome. If this next action doesn't finish it, what is that? That is the clarify step. But we are talking about now is organize. So where do you put your commitments after you decided you need to do something about them? And I don't know if you do this, but I'm trying to help people, my coaching clients, because I don't know if you— how does— when you coach people are. Have you ever encountered a full calendar and what would your advice be for someone that has a full calendar?
Lars: I.
Morten: Call it wall-to-wall calendar.
Lars: Yeah. No, at least it's, yeah. A week ago, I think I most recently saw a pretty booked calendar. Before we go there, I have to correct myself. I said episode 102 and this is actually episode 103. Because I was, you know, 101, that was Holacracy with Bryan Robertson. The Tools episode would then have to be 102. So this is episode 103. So hold your emails. Sorry. This is episode 103. No, coming back to that, that full calendar.
Morten: You saw that in the calendar, didn't you?
Lars: It's just, there was something that the math didn't add up. So I had to go back and check. Yeah, no, the calendar can be, can be really tricky. I think it's, It's one of the more, let's say, one of the things that really varies in coaching, I think, when we see, and then also in people attending the seminars, is that there will be a lot of difference in the volume of email and how much they have in their calendar. So it's, I think it's, I would love to sort of give a generic or, you know, really broad suggestion for what you might want to do when it comes to calendars, but it really is so different from people to people. I have seen basically empty calendars. I mean, the calendar with one appointment in a week, I mean, that's— it does not happen often. Most people have some meetings throughout the week and some people have that very blocked calendar like you spoke about. But it really varies a lot. Same with email, as we'll touch on in reference as well. Most people will say they get a lot of emails, but for some people it's 300 emails a day and some people it's 20, 25 emails. It really is a big, big difference. But coming back to your question, that full calendar. Actually, the thing that we spoke about in my most recent coaching was exactly that. So we had our initial call some weeks before we met, and we had a quick look at the— or we spoke about the calendar, I think, online. And I got that clear understanding that you just described that, yeah, it's pretty booked. So already back then, some weeks before, I said, Can you start to block some time for yourself? Can we start to put in some blocks so people don't steal them? Really, you know, go in there and carve out time, perhaps more than you think you need, because we do need to find that time for you. So starting to make some room in the calendar because it can really be a challenge when you have that wall-to-wall calendar. Some of the things we walk through then, which would be very common in a coaching scenario when we have that full calendar, is to review those commitments in the calendar. Do I actually need to be there? Should I actually attend this meeting or can I delegate it to someone else? Can I delete it? Can I get a summary notification from my colleague or just drop by and let me know what they spoke about? Anything I need to be aware of? That kind of thinking. So we try to clean that out. And in this case, it certainly helped. I'm guessing you've seen that before as well.
Morten: Yes. Yes. And that's especially when you work with an executive. Of sorts where other people will take their time in their calendar without maybe not even asking, is it okay? They just summons you to a meeting, which is okay if it is necessary, you need to be in that meeting. But if not, make sure that you don't go to meetings you don't need to. And there is some, you mentioned something that I thought I could tip the listeners on. I don't know if you're on an Exchange server, Outlook. The newer versions have both online and in the app the possibilities to set up Viva. Viva is help trying to find you— find time for focusing, focus time for you. So it will— every week you can set up rule systems. How many hours of focus do I need in a week? And it will try and then go to the next week and block that to you. And then the next week it will block some time for you there as well, for you to focus. One of the worst practices for any executive is just doing and no reflection. Your job is to make decisions. If you do not reflect, you cannot do your job well. You will make your decisions from the hip. And or from the gut. And those are most likely not the best decisions you can make. Do you agree, Lars?
Lars: Yeah, certainly make time for that. And it's, there'll be, you know, different blocks of times that you would need. And it really depends from person to person how detailed they want to go in there. For some people, I've just seen people block out for, you know, just doing work. And some people would go in and say, no, this is a block for defining work. So actually making room for those kinds of reflections as well. So it varies from person to person. And of course, the weekly review, we have to find time for that as well when we talk about the calendar. But yeah, making that kind of room is so valuable and necessary to make sure that you can actually reflect and make those good decisions.
Morten: Yes. And one of the things I would suggest people to think about or reflect on is that What I do is, I'm not saying that how I do things are the right thing for you, but it might be an idea, is that I never accept a meeting invitation before after 9 in the morning. When I arrive in the office somewhere after 7:30, 7-something, I have an hour and a half for my clarifying and organizing and today's reflection, what is the most important things to work on today and tomorrow and maybe the day after. So I start planning a little, and that avoids getting dragged into something that you are not ready to be dragged into in the morning. And we have in the Nordic region, as you know, there is every now and then, I don't know if it's every 3 or 4 weeks, there's a business partner meeting. And that's in my weekly review time. I don't know whoever decided that, but that means that I have to, that week, have to reschedule my weekly review with myself. I normally start a little earlier so that I can get that finished because then my head is really a lot clearer than if I've not done my weekly review. Okay, so So we've told you what should go on the calendar. Some of the things that I've, I'm just, my calendar tips from my personal life is that sometimes I admitted to this before in the podcast, sometimes I procrastinate a little. There are things I need. I, yes, I'm sorry, but this is, I'm human. So, but it is, it is like this that sometimes when you find yourself procrastinating a task or it's, possibly that it's not well enough crafted, that is, it's not the real next actions, and your brain is stopping you from trying to do that because it involves more thinking. But if you decided to make a good next action that you can move on it and still procrastinate, and you think it is important and it should be done and it's kind of urgent, then my remedy is put it in the calendar. So, for instance, one of the things I normally schedule for forcing me to do that is to record videos with me. Like, the podcast goes well because now we are two people, we are committed to do this, and it's on both audio and video. And then, you know, it's a certain level of— well, we've done 100+ episodes now, so I'm not uncomfortable with the medium. But when I try to do videos for marketing and such, that is not a fun part. That is really tough and hard work. And so that goes in my calendar. Do you have something that you procrastinate, that you put in the calendar, Lars?
Lars: You know I don't procrastinate, Morten. That just does not happen for people from Denmark. No.
Morten: I'm so full of it.
Lars: No, actually, I— The calendar things, I think for me, I actually don't use the calendar as much like you do, but it's not because I don't procrastinate or that I don't need to push myself to do some things. I just, I tend to, I will still put things in the calendar, but I still need to train myself to be more strict in following what, you know, Smart Mass planned and put in the calendar. There's still some part of present Lars that says, yeah, but I know better. I know stuff now that we didn't know back then. So there is still that debate going on in my head when I see something pop up in my calendar. So I still use that. But for now, I will most times still have it in my list manager and then present Lars can have that decision even though I've sort of highlighted to myself that this is what you need to do. So it's probably just a trick for myself. But that being said, that's for most of the stuff. Some things will still go on the calendar to get done.
Morten: My little trick when it comes to this procrastination thing is that I don't do, I don't plan ahead more than maybe 2, 3 days maximum, because I know things will show up that change the landscapes. And if I, If I plan too long ahead, it becomes a source of disappointment because I have to move this. I didn't plan well enough. So I'm trying to plan, be flexible enough, and plan so that I get the things done that I need to get done, but I'm not committing to do that far into the future. There is an exception from that, for instance, like when you have some hard deadline next Friday, I have to finish this project because it's on Saturday, it will happen, or the next week it will happen. And then I set aside time further into the time. One of the things I'm teaching my clients is use the Eisenhower Matrix when it comes to when you clarify and organize, just a little extra step that might help you understand, does it go on the calendar or does it go on my lists? And I use the Eisenhower Matrix. It's just a general, what is that, 2×2 matrix where the two upper parts is, is it urgent and important or is it important, not urgent. So I say that if it is important and urgent, it should go on the calendar or it should at least you should consider putting it on the calendar. If it takes more than, like, if it takes 15 minutes, it should be on your calendar, 15 minutes or more. And if it is important but not urgent, it should go on your lists. Does that make sense to you, Lars?
Lars: Yeah, yeah, certainly. I haven't actually used that myself, but, you know, people will sometimes mention it and we'll talk through it. But most of the time, my experience is that they will have a sort of they kind of know where it should go. But of course, that will vary from client to client.
Morten: Yeah. No, but it is helpful when you clarify what the next action is, is that, you know, does that go on the calendar? And I have a lot of, or some clients who don't have a lot on their calendars and then deciding that this is urgent and important, I should put it on the calendar has unstuck them from a lot of, you know, further procrastination in not doing things. So, okay, so I think we covered, you know, the use of the calendar, what goes there and how, how you clarify things on the calendar. So let's get a little more, you know, tooly, that is looking at the different tools. So we have some, some, let's go to Bird Sight overview. You have different services for calendar, and there are two main ones. There is Google Calendar and, you know, the, the Microsoft Office 365. Or is it still Office 365, or is it just Microsoft 365? Microsoft 365. Thank you, Microsoft, for keeping us on our toes by changing names all the time. Thank you. I'm sure, of course, you have to evolve your services, so I'm joking. But okay, so, but, and then you have them, you know, the non— all the— you have some hosting services that has, um, what's the name of that, um, not POP calendar, but what's the name of that? It's a service on the It's a protocol on the server where you have files and folders, and you look like you are an IT consultant, you should know this. You're talking about IMAP? IMAP, there it comes. Yeah, IMAP, which is a way to do calendars a little bit more, um, better than, you know, that sync of your calendar. So that's if you look at IMAP as, you know, generic hosting service have this, and then Google and Outlook is probably the— sorry, of Microsoft 365 are the 2, 3 biggest ones. Do you agree? Do you have someone to add that.
Lars: You'Ve— No, I actually thought IMAP was just for email, so that's why I didn't mention it. But other than that, yeah, I completely agree. And what we most commonly see, Outlook and Google, that is basically all we come across. I did come across Lotus Notes, I think, in my very first seminar, and Denmark back in 2015, but other than that, it's been pretty much Outlook and Google Calendar for the rest, I think.
Morten: Yes. And what is then— so you have two, maybe three different options for, you know, calendar, let's call it backend or service, but then you can put that into a lot of different apps and operating systems. Like you can have it on the Android and on an iPhone, you can have it on a PC or a Mac or a Linux box, and there is a heap of different calendar apps that handles both integration and sharing of your calendars differently. And some of them have, like Gmail has the possibility for you to add calendars from other users within your organizations. Like that could be policy-wise, or you can add it just by by asking this person to share their calendar with you, and then they— it will show up, or be a link you can click, and you can be added so you can see that person's calendar. But let's— I suggest we talk about calendar apps. What are you— first, what are you using in your, you know, everyday life, Lars?
Lars: Um, so I'm on the iPhone, and I both have the Apple Calendar and and the Google Calendar is installed. So I will need both for different things. If I am on the go and I need to see your calendar, for example, I need to have the Google Calendar available so I can go in there and find you. I still haven't found a way to do that on the iPhone calendar reliably. At least sometimes you show up, sometimes you don't. So I don't have you in there. On that one, I also have my iCloud calendar. So that's perhaps worth mentioning as well for some people who might be using those. I don't use them much. I use them for the very rare occasion where I need to throw something in a calendar that someone who has access to my calendar should not see. So in practical terms, that is when I need to go and buy a Christmas present for my wife. I think that's basically the only items that you will find in that iCloud Home calendar. Other than that, I don't use that. But they have sort of two different tips for people out there. No, so I use them both with regards to actually accessing those shared calendars. We have a lot of shared calendars as well in the family. We have both for myself, personal and work-related, for my wife the same. We have for our boys as well, for their playdates and soccer practice and all that. So there are some pretty, pretty heavy calendar gymnastics going on on the personal side of things. And same for work. Obviously, we have to coordinate these meetings that, you know, that we've set up to record these podcast episodes, meetings with clients, etc. So the way I have— the one way to use them was to access those shared calendars. The other way to use them is that I, again, as I've mentioned a million times during the last 103 episodes, is that I really try to limit how much information I'm presented with. And that can often be a challenge in the calendar to make it easily more simple, because either I want to see everything or I want to see just my own stuff. So that is actually how I use them in, in, in practical terms is that I will open one, I will open the, typically the iPhone built-in calendar for just seeing my own stuff. So personal calendar and work calendar. And I will open the Google Calendar to see everything, get that full overview of everyone's calendar and, and, and other things like that. So that is how I use them just to make it, make it more simple for myself to get an overview of what do I need to know and not know that my son is playing soccer once again, this afternoon. So that is how I use it. How do you use it? Or do you use anything different than the standard ones?
Morten: No, I use on my iPhone, I use the same setup as you do, but that's a mixture of the calendar, built-in calendar app and the Google Calendar. Since we are on the Google end of back system for calendar and email, That's a good choice for me because it is— I can then see, as you do, see all the calendars of the people that's in the organization at a glance. It's easy to, to access that information. And another added benefit is that you, if you in the Google Calendar setup add— I just want to see if I can do that quickly now to see if that's possible actually because I'm a little— see if I can— yes, if I make a new— yes, because I can then— the calendar integrations that you can do in Google is that you can integrate conference solutions. So we use Microsoft Teams for some clients and some other we use Zoom, and that calendar integration is inside the calendar app so that I can I can schedule a Zoom call with a client by the click of a button inside the Google Calendar app, which is something you cannot, or I haven't found a way to do that outside of, or sorry, inside the Calendar app from—.
Lars: You can just use FaceTime, Morten. That's Apple's answer.
Morten: Yeah.
Lars: Well, don't want to get you started on that one.
Morten: No, don't. Don't go there. Well, I like FaceTime. It's really good, but it is more for personal, you know, private calls and not for your professional calls. And yeah, no, and so what I've done is I've disabled all the notifications for the Google— sorry, the Apple Calendar in my phone and enabled the notifications for Google Calendar. And the reason why is because I don't want to have them doubled. And one of the things I've found that I'm curious to how you solve this, because you can integrate, or for instance, if you have a calendar for your personal calendar for your wife that you would like to see in your calendar so that you can turn it on or off, or you have like a family calendar that you want to turn on and off. How do you do that? Because that can be done, as far as I can understand, in two levels. One at the service level on the website or in the app itself. How do you solve that, Loris?
Lars: Well, that was part of the reason also to make the distinction between the two, because I want to only get notifications about my own stuff and not about the rest of the family. I don't need to be notified that my son's school starts in 10 minutes, and that's the kind of notification that I would get if I wasn't careful about it. So I use Google Google Calendar to get the overview, Apple Calendar to only see my own stuff and only get notifications about that. And I've actually disabled notifications all across the board except for my watch. So that is the only place that I will get those notifications, not on the screen, not on the iPad, not on the phone, just on the, on the watch, because I always have that, have that on me. And also as part of the newest standby mode that actually came with the new version, which is right in front of me now, it only shows my own calendar events that I'm talking to you now. And then I have another appointment in 2 hours and things like that. So I don't see all of those calendars. It only shows me what I actually want to see. So that's how I've done it.
Morten: That sounds a lot like I do it. And one of the things that I just want to say to people that if you are buying into the Apple Reminders as a system for your GTD, it might be good for you to look at some YouTube videos because you can on your phone, and I understand not many people know this exists. Maybe I will shock even Lars. I don't think so, he's a little nerdy. But you can actually, when you are in your, in your Notes— sorry, Reminders app, you can tap and hold on a next action. You can then, and then it pops out, you can swipe up and move to calendar and then just drop that in the calendar. Did you know that?
Lars: Yes.
Morten: Is that possible? You know that. Good nerd. No, but it is a way for me to say that, well, okay, if I need to get something done today, you know, Morten the procrastinator is here. So he needs a little stern talking to, and he listens more to his calendar than to his reminders app. So then it goes on my calendar from the phone, which is not many people know.
Lars: But what I don't remember, how does it then link back to it or how does it show up in your calendar?
Morten: No, no, no, it's going to be a standalone. No, well, you can link back if you, as I do, use a hashtag to to tell me which kind of project it is. It's kind of— it's not a good link, but you can search for that in the calendar to see what's like a hashtag cabin, and everything that has hashtag cabin will then show up on the calendar. And I can do the same in the— or I can do— if I do this on the, on the Mac, I can do the Spotlight search for that hashtag, and it shows everything that has that as a calendar. Is that a reminder? Is that a note? Is somewhere? Is that a file tagged with the same thing. So, um, yeah, so, so, but, um, but what I do to, to get around that is to remind me that this actually comes from the Reminders app, is that I have, um, I don't, you know, I'm sure maybe not all the listeners know this, but you can do a text replacement on iOS and Mac, is that you can then you can For instance, I have in Norwegian a checkmark would be "hake", and then I will make— I have made a text replacement when I write "HHA", which is not a word, and then it would just replace it with the emoji checkmark. And then I drag it into the calendar just to tell myself this came from the Apple Reminders and this this is where it came from. So know that when you finish, you can tick it off as done, like double the pleasure. I know that this is a little nerdy, but it is a way to get around this. Keep it simple, but keep it, remember what you need to remember. So, so a lot of people that I, that, you know, I talked to saying, well, I have a calendar, it's full, my I can't get my, you know, I have different things I see. For you, it's a blessing not seeing everything at the same time. For some, they want to see, you know, more things. Like, we have a family calendar, iCloud. How do we get that into the Outlook? How would you tell people to integrate calendars? Do you have like a What would you suggest for a client there? How would you integrate that?
Lars: Well, it really depends on the system and what they use. I think that was going to be my sort of transition to the reference. One thing to mention was that you don't forget to share these calendars. It's actually pretty easy, pretty straightforward for the most part. There will still be different requirements and possibilities regarding your IT security and setup. What can you actually share how do we actually do it. There will be custom systems sometimes where I've worked with doctors that would have, you know, a separate booking system. And were we able to get data out of that? No. So, so, and in some cases there will be, you know, you can extract ICS files or something like that, and you can enable them and show them in Google Calendar. And you can, you know, you— it's— I think it would be hard to sort of come up with any generic suggestions because there are so many So many differences out there, but don't forget to, um, don't forget to share them and set them up in a way that, that works for you. Um, I have— that was back in the day and perhaps not needed anymore— I used to have a separate application that would run locally on my machine to synchronize with a Google Calendar somewhere out there, because this was at a time when we were not able to actually share these. So for those who might need that, that software might be out there. Be sure to check it and vet it because obviously there might be some sensitive information in that calendar.
Morten: It can, but basically if you want to share a calendar, like you have, let's say that you have a family calendar where the milestones or the big things are like we go on vacation this date and we come back at this date and this Friday we have family dinner, we are, you know, and then maybe specific for each of the children so that they understand where they can put things that when, you know, there is some school activity that I need to, you need to know about. And, you know, and, and what many people do is to do that in, for instance, iCloud or another service like Gmail, and then share those calendar as a link and then add that to whatever app you would like to see that calendar in. And if you have given the rights of that calendar to just not read but also write to that, you can edit the, the different calendar entries on the go. That might be something that would be beneficial for people to, to know that this actually exists.
Lars: Absolutely.
Morten: Okay. I feel like we have exhausted calendars. Do you have anything?
Lars: Yeah, I think, I think we have. Just, yeah, remember to, I think taking a step back and really coming back to what we started with. Be sure if you have that busy calendar to take the time to clean out the calendar because I, you know, I saw this recently with a coaching client last week, sit down there and suddenly instead of looking at that calendar, oh, I have to, you know, maybe I have to go to that meeting and I have to perhaps be there and I have to maybe, you know, the change in once we clean that up and look at calendar. Hmm. Nice. I actually want to look at this. So again, does this list attract or repel you? That goes for the calendar as well. Take that time. And in some cases it actually doesn't take that long to, to go through. So certainly invest the time if you have that busy calendar.
Morten: I have one pet peeve that I will, or pet peeve that I get back to, time management. And there's, you know, I grew up with that word. I'm that old where people try to handle life on, you know, like a paper planner designed for that. And then, but the word time management is a thing, you know, comes up not very often, but it comes up when we talk to people. Well, this GTD thing is that time management. And I said, No, that's not possible. You cannot manage time. Time is a constant. We are in it. You can't manage it. You're not God. But the only thing you can manage is your focus. And so Getting Things Done is about focus management. So what do I give my attention to when? And make sure that that is aligned with your purpose of life and your values and your principles. And that is getting things done. So make sure that you use your calendar to manage your focus in time. That is probably the best way of explaining the purpose, getting things done purpose of a calendar, manage your focus in time. I don't know. Would you agree with me, Lars, or.
Lars: Am I— Yeah, that makes sense. No, no, that makes sense. I love that we are wrapping the calendar up on a philosophical note. And looking at the time, this could have been a standalone episode. We should have just focused on the calendar. But we also wanted to cover reference as well.
Morten: Yeah. So, so moving on to, um, we have then files and folders, and I think I've— haven't we done a, um, a files, file naming, uh, and folder naming episode before?
Lars: I think you've mentioned yours a number of times, and I remember at least listeners writing to us as well, commenting on, on using that as well. So, so there's certainly an episode out there about that.
Morten: Yeah, I go look in the archive. There is some, I have a filing naming convention that I'm using that is helpful for me to find my files after when I file them away after when I save them. And the reason, just very quickly, there is for me, if you are good at making file naming correct every time, you actually don't need folders. It can just be one big heap because search will then find them for you. You can create search folders or you can just search for them in your archive. And if it is, oh, it was in 2022, it was a receipt from Egon restaurant, if I want to find that, that is very easy. Because then it's 2023 receipt, it's gone. Boom, it comes. Not that I go there often, but it happens every now and then we go to that restaurant. But most likely I will not save that somewhere. But for reference material, it is the idea of having an easy way to retrieve your information. And I think that 90% of retrieval, ease of retrieval comes with changing the name of the file. Make it something that you actually can find and only file things that has value for you in the future. Don't file documents you will not need in the future. File only files that you need to have in your reference system. So anything to add, Loris? You are doing it differently, I know. Tell us, spill the beans.
Lars: No, no, I have some of the same, but it really depends on what reference we're talking about. So, so if, if I were to take a step back, we would often come across, you know, different things that need to be filed. And what we spoke about earlier, we talked about the clarify flow and this being the organized step on things that we want to be able to get back to at a later stage that we don't trust that we can, you know, Google online. There's no need to save that manual because, you know, you can find it somewhere online. Online perhaps. But I would, you know, be on the lookout for 4 different things. There will be perhaps physical notes. There will be those files and the corresponding folders, email folders, and then meeting notes and other digital stuff that might show up in any person's world. So for the filing stuff, no, I have a structure that I follow. I don't have that specific naming convention. I don't struggle with finding the things. I think the search works well for me. In rare occasions, perhaps it might be a challenge to find something, but overall it's pretty easy to dig this stuff up. If not, I can always message you and ask you where do I find things, because you do it for me. You did not know, but I had this planned all along.
Morten: I am your system. Who needs AI? You need an MR. Yeah, you have an MR, yes. Okay, so, but I do believe that the file naming is a good thing and that has helped saving my both time and bacon. So I find things and I find it fast there with a file naming scheme.
Lars: And I think my biggest challenge right now is that it happens in different locations because we have some stuff on Google Drive, most of it.. There's stuff I need to have handy more directly, for example, on the iPad, and my experience is that iCloud just is so much better integrated there. If I have presentations of a certain size, I'm not able to do it via Google, so I have to have some iCloud stuff. I used to have something in Dropbox. I don't think I have anymore, but there'd still be some David Allen Company things in Dropbox for Crucial Learning things. There will be Box-related items. OneDrive, I think, I don't think I have anything in OneDrive, but there might be some things over there. So having those different services and, you know, in some cases the search seems to work well across them and the app is running and all is good. And in some cases, I think that is probably my biggest challenge in recovering and finding things.
Morten: So which platform or which pile is it in?
Lars: Yeah, but, and that's the same for, so my mom messaged me, did she do that on Was it a text message? Was it on Facebook? Was it an email? Was it, I mean, it goes for personal stuff as well.
Morten: Yeah. That goes to the point of make sure that you are not having too many apps that you can get contacted on.
Lars: Yeah. Too many inboxes.
Morten: Yeah.
Lars: Yep. Very, very common challenge.
Morten: Scale them down. So, I'm reminded of the, Just for the sake of people thinking, "Oh, does he memorize this file naming scheme?" You know, how I make this convention. No, I do not. I use an app called TextExpander. You can do that in text replacement actually, if you want to, inside iOS. And there are tons of apps that are text expanders. So if you search for TextExpander PC, you will find for PC alternatives.. But it is that I have a shortcut that I type and then boom, I get a box where I can then do dropdowns and fill-ins, and it also automatically sets today's date. I can change that if I'm not happy. I can also write, you know, using that file naming convention. So if you're into some of that, you want to save yourself some time down the road by doing a good job up front. So make sure that the files that you are saving has way that you will find them. So yes, okay, moving on to apps. And I am using today— I mean, you know, we've been using different, you know, OneNote used to be your go-to for a lot of things before. Evernote, we've used both of us. I've cancelled that a long time ago, became an You know, I don't even remember, but the slogan of Evernote at some point, I don't know, I'm not sure what it is now, but they call it the everything bucket. And that was exactly what it was. It's a big stack of ha. So in Getting Things Done, we talk.
Lars: About stacks of ha. Unless you were diligent about maintaining it, it quickly became that.
Morten: Yeah.
Lars: Yeah.
Morten: Yeah. Well, if you didn't, if I started without knowing Getting Things Done, understanding that things need to go in different categories, you can't have just a big bucket of ha. You will not find things in there because there are things you want to do something about, something that's just reference, something that is, you know, and you don't clean, it's just a big mess. It becomes the garage you never cleaned out ever. 20 years after, it's still cluttered. So, okay, but so, you know, apart from the tool itself, it must be beneficial for your needs, but you need to use it well. If not, it becomes just clutter. Do.
Lars: You agree? Completely. But that's, you know, that goes for everything we talk about here. I think you said wrapping up last time, a fool with a tool is still a fool. I think that goes for the reference systems as well. It's very easy to overwhelm them. I think we spoke about this last time as well, that I had my system set up in OneNote, and that can work very well if you're very diligent about maintaining it, which I think overall worked okay for me, but just was a lot of work that I did not want to do, so that's why I switched. I also seem to remember Espen from Norway having shown an Evernote setup back in the day, which seemed very, a very nice setup, very good overview, a nice and clean structure. So as long as you maintain it, then, then yeah, basically anything can work. Yes.
Morten: And then the clear boundaries, clear definitions on what goes where. So, but today I am using, apart from files and folders, um, I'm using, um 2 apps basically for reference material outside of files and folders. It's a database app called Devonthink where everything that I have finished that is clearly just reference material that I need to be easily retrievable lives there. And then I have for Notes and thinking and short reference materials lives in the Apple Notes app. So the definition is when something is finished, it leaves Notes and then goes into DEVONthink if it is value enough to be archived there as future reference. So how do you use your app or what apps do you use, Lars?
Lars: Yeah, so just wrapping up on the different types of stuff that might show up that need to have somewhere to go and live. Physical stuff, obviously have a nice digital, not digital, the physical reference archive behind me over here. Simple A to C or O in Danish with the stuff that I need to retrieve. Still use it. I use it on a weekly, monthly basis perhaps. Stuff still shows up and has to go there, but not that much compared to all the other digital channels. The other one worth mentioning, I think, before we talk about the apps was also email. Obviously, there are a lot of emails coming in, stuff that you want to retrieve. I keep it very simple. Still have that one archive folder that I will then search for. So somewhat similar to my my file archive, except that is where I will still use the different folders to navigate. But when it comes to meeting notes and other digital stuff, I still— I used OneNote for a long time, so transitioned away from OneNote using it as a GTD list manager, but still kept my support material there and the digital reference material. So you will still find that in there. I think what probably It should be all cleaned out when it comes to support material. There should be nothing in there because that has now transitioned to the other app that I use more now, which is the Notes app, the built-in Notes app for iOS. And that seems to work very well for me. So I still have my digital reference stuff in OneNote and also my coaching notes simply because I haven't migrated them. So I have those still over there with all the templates that I want to have for for, you know, initial calls and follow-up calls and virtual coaching sessions and all that. So it still lives over there and that works, works fine for me. All the other stuff is over in Notes. And I have to say, I've gotten really happy with the setup that I have right now. I don't know how you use it, but the way I've set it up now is that the Notes, the default folder that exists in the Notes it's also called Notes, at least in Danish. So that's kind of my inbox there. So if I, if you and I have a meeting, which I did not have any sort of agenda for or already had a template for, I would create a new note. So that would be my sort of digital inbox for meeting notes. So I have a few in there from meetings that we attended yesterday that I will walk through as well. The podcast notes that I have for this podcast I have in there as well. So I can go through that and clean that out as we create the the show notes, for example. Then I have my support material. And one of the tips that I picked up, I think you actually shared this with me in a previous episode, talking about dragging from one app to the next. I drag, you know, dragging the note in my support material into my Reminders app in the project list will then give me a link back to my support material there. So that seems to work, work well for me as well. Then I've moved my agendas there as well. So they're in notes now as well. I used to have them in my list manager. I actually like having them over there. Makes it easier for me to get an overview in my list manager because I don't need to see these next to my next actions because I only need to action on them when we have those meetings. And so I would open the notes app in that case. And it also gives me the opportunity to combine this with some of the stuff we spoke about in the Holacracy episode, episode 101.. And also to have sort of that historical information. We spoke about this last time. So I have one for new items that I need to talk to you about, for example. And then I have one for ongoing stuff that we spoke about last time or the time before that I just need to follow up on. And then all the done stuff with the timestamps and other meeting notes from those specific meetings. So for now, really, really happy with that part as well. So that seems to, seems to actually work, work very, very good. And also just the scripts in there that I've started to create templates for podcasts or for client meetings, or there are some coaching notes that are starting to migrate over there as well. Just nice and simple and easy to set up and synchronize as well. I think that's a critical thing for me across the different devices, and Notes seem to do that well. Do you use some of the same approaches that I have ended up with.
Morten: At least in my practice now. Yes, yes, I do. Then I, well, I don't use the notes folder, default folder as an inbox. I use my reminders as an inbox. I don't use it as much for notes as you do. I think like meeting notes or, you know, I'm using my Remarkable for that. Yeah, exactly. And that then goes from when that's finished, when, you know, either the meeting is over or the coaching is over or the year is over for meeting notes, then I will archive that as a PDF and then it goes into my database, DevonThink database, so that I can retrieve them after. So because I'm kind of like a handwriter more than anything else, but I use it, I use notes Notes for— and if you haven't tried that out and you have an iPhone or you want to just dabble with it, it's one thing that I find it very beneficial is can be very good for capturing. I am not using that on the go, but for instance, you can then open a note and then just add, you know, take a photo and put it straight into the note. You can also scan a document, just from your phone directly into the note. And that easy capture, for instance, I see, let's say you have a client meeting where there's somebody drawing on a whiteboard, you want to capture that for future reference, then just get that into your system very fast and easy and then just retrieve that in one place, in OneNote, that you can see everything that happened. You can also scan your notes if you take paper notes. Just take a photo and then everything is in that meeting. I'm just giving people a way to think about this because there are some integrations. Even if you have a Mac and you're on your— in the Notes, you can use your phone to scan documents into your Mac Notes app. A lot of people don't know this exists. Exist. But it does. Another thing that I use it for that I find very beneficial is to use it for checklists. I have a checklist for packing. I have a checklist for getting the house ready before we leave. And it's shared with my wife, so she knows what I pack. So she doesn't need to look at what— you know, because it updates the lists. And another thing that I find very beneficial is that if you have a checklist— I have my weekly review checklist, my adapted list in there. One of the things that I like a lot is that when you tick something off, it still remains on the side. It doesn't go away like it does in the Reminders app default. If you tick something off, it disappears. I just want to see where am I in this, and sometimes I skip an item and I want to go back, and I just want to maintain the visual view. Then that's very easy to— when I've done that, I just click inside the document right-click and then unhook everything, you know, uncheck everything, and it's back to before. And I like that. Um, I don't know if you do.
Lars: This, do the same. Yeah, so I still have my checklists in OneNote. That goes for my checklist as well for packing, like you mentioned now, and also for my weekly review. That still resides in there. But I do have a, I think, a someday maybe about about transitioning it over to Notes. But the one thing I do use actually frequently is I started using some of the widgets that came, came available. So now I have a widget that shows me if I have anything in the Notes folder, because that would then mean that I have something in my inbox there. Same goes for the Reminders app. But the one I would want to highlight is the daily checklist that I actually have started using quite a lot since, since we last spoke about it, I think. So somewhat resembles what I think we have shared before about this checklist I think you made once for a GTD year with stuff to be reminded about doing on a daily basis as you start to work your GTD practice. And I've made my own in there that I actually almost use on a daily basis, looking for time-specific actions, day-specific actions, a list of my inboxes, day-specific reminders in the Reminders app or in Pipedrive, our CRM system. And a reminder for the different next actions, what could I actually be working on. And it's just been helpful for me because I will, you know, as time goes by, I will tend to give too much of my attention to one list or one inbox, or I will forget that I recorded some things in the Memos app if I don't have that list. So for me, it's a pretty simple list. It has, I think, 10 items. So it's easy to get an overview of what I could be doing, what I should be doing, where should I go to look at what I could be doing. So it's been helpful for me to set that up. So that is where I find it helpful to have those checkboxes I can check and uncheck. So I will uncheck them in the morning and then as I go through them, I will check them off. Oh yeah, the memos app is empty, right?
Morten: Yeah.
Lars: Check. Done. Done. Yeah. So that's the last thing I would probably highlight from my notes and reference systems.
Morten: One of the things I would recommend for listeners who were triggered by what Lars talked about now, like, you know, a daily checklist for remind yourself that you are learning, getting things done, is to, a lot of the clients that I've had, had chosen to, I recommended, and they've chosen to continue doing that, is to create that somewhere and then print print it. You can create it in Notes and then just print it and have it as a daily, or however you want to do that, on your desk as a physical visual reminder that you are going to do some Getting Things Done today. I don't know if you've seen that before, but a lot of my clients forget that they actually have a methodology that they want to learn and get good that. So I am suggesting for them to try to build that as fast as possible and make sure that when you try to build that, make sure that you use as little energy as you need to. And then this is really low-hanging fruit for reminding you that getting things done thing. Yes, I have a weekly review coming up. Do I have a checklist? Yes, it's on my desk. And some of the clients had really— I'm not saying this to be really old school, but sometimes old school works. Work. But just take a plastic folder. And you should be surprised how many of my clients have actually done what I'm telling you now, then tape that plastic folder to their desk and then put a small stack of checklists in there, pull out one every morning and go through the ritual of clarify my email, look at my calendar, you know, all the things that you might want to do in the order you think is good for you. So that you can get your job done. Clarify and organize all my emails. It's a good practice to do that on a regular basis. Just to be reminded of that and have another plastic folder for your weekly review, for instance. You do that as you may, but the physical reminders are old school, but they work. Before, we had a lot of— all our commitments were not digital. It was not hidden. Inside a screen or under a program or inside, saved on some hard drive. It was physical. It was letters. It was notes, paper notes. And some of them have paper notes everywhere, but at least they were physical, so you can find them. I understand people. I've met a lot of people who have this, you know, stacks of what we call ha, you know, physical paper stacks of things they And of course they will say, "Ah, I know where everything is." I'm sure you do, but that was a piece of your mind. And I understand why people have reluctance of letting go of that, because it is a reminder of something that's not done yet, that you might want to get done. So it's like a big stack of not only her, by her being, I have not decided on what this is and what I need to do about it, If anything, I just put it here and it becomes a stack of something. But if you then decide what the nature of this beast is and then put it somewhere, it's calm, calm. But I understand people have problems letting go. Now we are in the totally— that's one ditch to fall into. Paper everywhere and reminders everywhere. And the other ditch is only digital reminders and only digital system, which is for some people it works well, but for some it is a good help to do part of getting things done on paper. I don't know, have you seen some of that? Have you tried that out with one.
Lars: Of your clients, Lars? Rarely. It really tends to be much more digital, but certainly always keeping that option open because as you say, some Some things just do work better on paper, and I still have my paper notes, notepad next to me, and I still take handwritten notes in some cases for specific things that I want to capture in that way. So certainly, there's something to keep in mind as you build your system, and maybe parts of your system would actually.
Morten: Benefit from being analog. Yeah. And I've found that the more, well, This is, of course, it is a trend, I think, that the more executive you become, that is, the more of a boss of a company you become, the more difficult it is for people to— well, some leaders don't have closed doors. They never close their door. And then you lose track of if you're in the middle of your weekly review and you allow someone to to interrupt you, then where did you leave off? Then you forget all the weekly review. But if that is on a paper beside you, and then you look down after this person leaves your office and then have a look at that, no, I'm here. Okay, let me continue now. Not just because it is so easy to be rabbit-holed and hijack your focus by someone else. So, well, if it has any benefit for you, write us at podcast@vitallearning.dk and tell us if you do. podcast@vitallearning.dk. So I, I don't know, do you feel that we have.
Lars: Emptied this box of knowledge as well? The box of knowledge has been emptied. If we went for catchy podcast titles, I think we caught the podcast title just there. No, I think we covered pretty much everything. It was fun to just dive into and hopefully this was valuable as a companion episode, episode 102 about the list manager and some ideas. As Morten said, happy to hear from you if any of this resonated with you. And as we wrap up, a quick reminder of the GTD Summer Camp 2024, which we are really excited about. We have participants from all over the world now, Europe, North America, South America, Asia too. We really hope to see you there. Takes place June 15th to 16th, 2024. It'll be in Denmark again. If you want to learn more, head on over to gtdsommercamp.com, where you can learn more about it and you can also sign up, of course.
Morten: So we hope to see you there. We do. And just one piece of information regarding this, that if you're not familiar with Denmark and think, oh, how do I travel to that venue? It's very difficult. No, it's not, because DJs are the nicest people. We are trying to help each other to get to that place with the least effort. So if you sign up saying that I need some help to get from to the venue. Some person will then reach out to you in good time so that you.
Lars: Can relax about how you will get to the venue. So, and as we always wrap up, we do with a quick reminder for you to head on over to vitallearning.eu, have a look around on the website, learn more about the different offerings, a lot more about Getting Things Done, about Crucial Conversations Mastering Dialogue, Crucial Conversations for Accountability. There's much more information there, of course, information about some really great courses. So learn more there. You can find your way to the different country websites as well and learn more in each of those languages. If you are outside the Nordics Plus, then head on over to cruciallearning.com to.
Morten: Find your local partners. Good. And if you are looking for coaching in the US and Canada, go to gtdfocus.com. That is is the place for coaching. I had some people asking me where do we get that, and that is gdtfocus.com. These people are trained by David Allen Company, and some of them are old employees of the David Allen Company. Really good people when it comes to coaching. So go there. That I think we will wrap up with me saying, as I always do, thank you for listening, and until next time. Time. Stay safe and stay productive.
Lars: Bye-bye.
Morten: Bye everyone.
