Episode 109 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 as always with my good friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Prævit Lars. Prævit Morten.
Lars: Good to see you as always, and as always, good to be with our listeners and viewers out there. We always start off with a quick 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, the 5 steps. Today's episode number is number 109, and today's topic is another listener question.
Morten: Yes, it is. And we have received 3 listener questions that we would like to answer today. And I suggest that we just start on the top. Lars, what's on top of our list now?
Lars: Like the inbox, we start with the top item first.
Morten: Exactly.
Lars: First question is from Christian. Christian says, hi Morten, hi Lars. Thank you so much for a great and valuable podcast, which I really like, follow, and learned a lot. Good to hear that, Christian. I wanted to share with you a fantastic way of capturing and digitizing handwritten notes. It's called Rocketbook, and I think it's a brilliant idea. Rocketbook is a physical notebook that can easily be digitized by a mobile app. You can write in it using a special erasable pen and then scan your notes using your smartphone camera. The app then saves your notes as PDF or JPEG files, which can easily be shared and stored in the cloud. Once you have digitized your notes, you can erase them from the notebook and reuse it, which is great for reducing paper waste. I find Rocketbook extremely useful for taking notes during meetings, brainstorming sessions, and personal planning. It's effortless to use, and the app is intuitive and user-friendly. The only downside is that the pens included with Rocketbook are not aesthetically pleasing. They are plastic and don't have the look and feel of designer pens. I'm currently looking for a solution to this problem. Problem. But if you haven't heard of Rocketbook before, I highly recommend checking it out. Here's the link to their website: myrocketbook.eu. Best regards from Christian.
Morten: Yes, and since I am the oldest person here and actually do have, have tried the Rocketbook, or I've used the Rocketbook for a year and a half. I just want to start by zooming out a little because this is kind of the holy grail for a lot of people, myself included, the holy grail of having a way to capture notes and next actions using a pen on paper. And before Rocketbook came along and became the new kid on the block and the potential solution to the problem. There was a system where you, I think it calls Livescribe, if I'm not mistaken, Livescribe, where you had a, you know, a really a bulky pen who had a little camera and it has special dotted paper, normal paper, but with special dots that indicated where the pen was on the paper, on which page. Of your book, and then it recorded what you drew or wrote on it. And then you have to then manually sync, at least the version I had, where you have to plug it in with a USB cable to your computer and then download everything to your PC and the software that kept your notes. The thing that made it a little extra special is that you could, when you had like in your meeting, you could then, you probably should tell your meeting attendees that, but you can actually record the audio at the same time as you're writing. So you will then, what did I write when, sorry, what did I hear when I wrote this? And it then can go back and you can listen to that. That was fairly special. And I used that maybe for year, maybe year and a half. And then I went back to paper, just went back to paper and just, you know, this good old paper, you can't get away from that. And then, then I found the Rocketbook and this is one of the pens that he don't like. This is a Pilot Frixion ball pen. I'm showing that on my, for those of you who are looking. Are seeing this at YouTube. This is the— but those of you who don't, it's a Frixion Pilot pen, and it is a little unesthetic. It's not very beautiful. It comes in a variety of, a lot of colors, and it has an eraser on the end, so you can erase what you just wrote. That's fairly cool. You can— that also you can do on normal paper, not only on the— I'm sorry, on the Rocketbook. The app itself, as he says, is fairly user-friendly. One of the things that I like is that you have some codes at the end of the paper where you can tick where it belongs. There's a symbol like a three-leaf clover and a star and different things, and then you can automate where they go. And for instance, I can have— this is— I need to— this page I want to send to my After scanning, I want to send an email to Lars, and I want it to be saved in Evernote and in my Dropbox. You just tick 3 different things, and then that happens automatically when you scan it. That's fairly cool. And the reason I stopped using it is because I got so attracted to what I'm using today, which I'm still using 3 years after, is the reMarkable. This is Remarkable 2 for those of you who are looking at video. And the Remarkable does everything a little better, I think. One is that the app is in the Remarkable itself. It's a tablet. It is a very paper-like feeling and it has the app that is using is automatically syncing. When you close a note or a notebook, it will automatically sync to the cloud., and you can also retrieve PDFs from the cloud if you have a Connect membership, which I got complimentary because I've been a client of those for a long time. They gave it to me for free, and that means that I can, for instance, connect my Google Drive there and then to retrieve any file that I have that's PDF or Word doc on— at least I think it is Word doc, at least PDFs. From the Google Drive from the tablet itself. So I can then find that file and I can annotate on it and I can send it to whoever I want or just save it back to the Drive with my annotations and highlights. So then I think Rocketbook is good. It's a good alternative to normal paper and it is faster than scanning by your You know, for example, Apple Notes have the possibility to scan things right into a note, which is a cool way of doing things, but it doesn't have the automation that the Rocketbook have. You can automate where it goes. You just tick the right boxes and then scan it and voilà, it goes where it's supposed to go. Have you tried this, Lars, at all?
Lars: I have not actually. No, I've seen it in the wild a couple of times and been introduced to it and seen some people that were very happy with it, just like Christian. I think I've more seen the Rocketbook, sorry, the Remarkable that you just showed, seen that more in the wild. Neither of them very much, but I guess this is also more for the sort of hardcore note-takers and those people who geek out on the tools like that. So no, I don't, I haven't really tried it. I've seen it a lot. You've demonstrated it to me and I've seen some people very passionate about But yeah, for my part, I think I'm still okay with old paper, but that's because much of what I do will be on a digital device anyway. So that's where I'll be. But it does remind me and make me, his question made me reflect on this need that I think, at least from my perspective, comes from a lot of people having their lists and tools in a digital format. And that does have its, it certainly has its ups and more ups than downsides, I think, for most people. But the problem is that it does lack the flexibility that paper would then offer. So that means that people have this sort of hybrid approach with reMarkable, with Rocketbook. And I can certainly recognize that I find myself being more I've sort of forced myself more to use just random notes, and they can be on paper, but they can be digital as well, just in Apple Notes, just opening up a new field. I can draw if I have my iPad. I can just write if I, if I don't have that and just use the keyboard. That works okay for me. It's not been a challenge so far for me to just work it that way. But certainly if I needed more flexibility and noticed there was some kind of friction there for me, then I would certainly look into whether remarkable, or Rocketbook might be a good place to look. So notes would be one place. And also still, I'm weirdly excited about the mind mapping in MindNote that I use today. I use it, yeah, those who are listening who are on the, what we call Vital Learning Community in Denmark, the page that we've set up for GTDers and S&Ds of Crucial Conversations, and then, you know, all the things that we teach. I just posted this weekend an example from, you know, there was a talk about when kids use GCD and how they might show up and checklists and things like that. And I just showed her, you know, a brainstorm that I did with one of my kids because, you know, the oldest one was away and there was nothing he could do. There was nothing he could come up with to play with. And we sat down and said, don't, you're not going to do any of this, but just let's, let's make a list of all the things you could do. And then we, I think 34 items we came up with, and then he sort of had to agree that, okay, maybe I can. Maybe I can think of something to do. So, but that was in MindNote and yeah, that works well for me, but could just have been paper, right?
Morten: Yeah, it could be, but it is, you know, the digital format for mind mapping is very flexible, easy to drag things around, delete, move, show connections. So I do understand that your fascination of mind maps, I do, I'm also fascinated by that. Just to, and also a comparable something for Rocketbook vs. reMarkable, just a thing is that the reMarkable is not a cheap device. It's, I think it is how many dollars? Maybe you could look that up while I talk about the Rocketbook. Yeah, because the Rocketbook is fairly cheap. If I'm not mistaken, also the app that you have on your phone or on your tablet is also free after you bought the Rocketbook, if I'm not mistaken, if nothing has changed. And, but a Rocketbook is how much? $279.
Lars: I think it showed up as the Remarkable 2.
Morten: Yeah, in dollars. Yes. So $279 VS, what is a Rocketbook? It's like 1/10th, $27 or something.
Lars: Yeah, maybe.
Morten: Maybe.
Lars: Yeah. Remarkable Rice is what I started to search for and that was quite a bit cheaper. So just, what is Remarkable Rice? If you miss out the P, then you'll get different search.
Morten: Results. I'm not sure what you're looking at now, but Why your smile is either funny or a little.
Lars: Naughty. Remarkable Rice. I don't think it's, that is just food.
Morten: Yeah, I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. $35. Yeah.
Lars: And they don't look there for Rocketbook.
Morten: Sorry, did you find, did you find the Rocketbook?
Lars: The Rocketbook, $35.
Morten: So it's like, okay, so it's, it's 9 times, sorry, you can have 9 books, Rocketbooks to 1 Remarkable. Yeah. So it all is, it is not only convenience, but it is also a price is a factor for a lot of people, especially now. I'm super happy with my Remarkable. If I didn't have Remarkable, I would use Rocketbook. So that's my my take on this. Okay, do you feel we have answered the question?
Lars: Yeah, we wanted to share this recommendation and add our thoughts. I think we've done that, so we can go to question number 2, which is from Grete. He says, hi, I am an avid listener of your podcast. In a few weeks, I've listened to 47 episodes already. Holy smoke. I hope you're okay. He says, I've had a really supportive— he did the overdose— of my implementation of GTD. So thank you so much for that. I have a question, but maybe you've already covered this item. I'm listening to episode 48 as I write this message. Don't multitask, one thing at a time. But anyway, he says, which habits help me in implementing Getting Things Done? I know the 5-step process, weekly review, etc. But I'm guessing there is more to it. I'm thinking about things like Adding some time after a meeting in order to process my meeting notes in order to capture anything from that. After every execution of a next action, questioning myself what the next one is. Next time could be crossing off next actions as I complete them. I know it's very basic, but still a struggle for me having undiagnosed ADHD. Next one is looking in my calendar each morning and evening. And last one, putting up sound reminders for time-related actions like meetings or getting my kids from school or hobbies. I've been reading the book, The Power of Habit, and I think I could really benefit from some tips that you have implemented as a habit and thus even don't think about anymore. So my question is, which habits have you implemented that have helped across your GTD process other than capture everything you come across and we care of it? Thanks. Kind regards from Crete in.
Morten: Belgium. Yes. Thank you for your question. You want to go first on this?
Lars: Which habits have you implemented? No, I think the— well, first of all, I just want to, you know, applaud the listener for the viewer, whatever it was, for the tips. I think those are really great tips. And that's also part of the reason why I wanted to add this question today, because, you know, adding some time after a meeting to process our meeting notes when we can, that's a great thing to do because you can quickly go through it. It's all fresh in your memory. You can easily go through, clarify, and organize however you need to do with those meeting Notes, great tip to carry with you. Questioning yourself what the next action is once you've completed one. That I remember for myself as well, you know, sending an email, should that be a waiting for? Oh, there's— and the phone rang, and then, oh, there was a message, and nope, there's something else distracted me, and then I didn't capture that waiting for that I might have wanted to get into. So I think that's, you know, they're all good points. Crossing off next actions as you complete them. I forget that sometimes too. That just gives me some wins in the weekly review that I can then check them off. But, you know, they're really good tips. Looking at the calendar, I think, is certainly a recommendation, perhaps also your lists. That would be one addition to the tips here from Grete. Run through that as much as you can. And if you prefer to in the morning, that is one of the recommendations that we give now when we start off with GCD. Start your day not with email or other communications. Start your email and your calendar, see what you've committed to today. Secondly, run through a list, see what's waiting for you in there, because that does help you prioritize instead of having, you know, it's easy to get stuck in emails all day, pinging back and forth stuff that you already put on your list that you've deemed important enough to put on those lists. It can perhaps be a good help to revisit those before you start the day. So you have those in mind and what could you be working on as opposed to whatever else shows up. During the.
Morten: Day.
Lars: I would add just two other things. And that's perhaps reflecting back on the episode that we did recently with having too much to do is how much time we spend and having enough time to actually do both defining and organizing or clarifying and organizing, meaning defining your work and time for checking off stuff on your list, actually doing your work. So I think it really comes back to that for me. And I think, you know, having that in mind and keeping those blocks and keeping that room for yourself, whether you want to, you know, carve that out there because your calendar is being stolen by others, blocked by others, or whether it's just something that helps you stay on track and actually get the right things done at the right time, whatever the reason might be, protecting and making sure that you have the time to clarify and organize, to check things off. Two things that I would certainly add to that. To that list. What would you add, Morten?
Morten: No, I made some notes there that the first thing that comes to mind is that the habits that really gave me the fastest and biggest payoff when I started learning GT was getting really, I don't like the word, but a little religious when it comes to capture, so that being more consistent and be more, you know, paying more attention to actually what has my attention to get it off my brain. And then that was the first thing that I think, you know, made a big difference for me. The second biggest, you know, the payoff is to the weekly review to get established as one of my habits and paying attention to the The importance of this, if you don't pay attention to how important the weekly review is, you will let it, let somebody steal your time.
Lars: This.
Morten: Is in my book, this is holy time for me. It is the time of the week where I take time to think, to reflect. And make sure that I'm on the right track. So if I can't do it when I'm supposed to because something else is deemed more important in my, you know, my tree of values, then I will move it. I will make sure that I am doing my weekly review because if not, I don't feel good. So, One of the things that I've been thinking about also when you were talking, Lars, is that my pet peeve with a lot of clients that I do, or the peeve, I wouldn't call it that, but just kind of one of the things I'm stressing people to do is that you need time to just reflect throughout the day. You can't, if you run from meeting to meeting, you are not going to get some of your, you know, your list system is going to go stale because you're not using it. And you will put things in there. If you don't tick them off as done at some point, just because you can't because of your meeting schedule, then you have to schedule some time for doing that and schedule time for reflection. I think that most people that I coach do have that challenge in their life. So set aside time for reflection. It is a beautiful thing. A lot of people get giddy and excited. Well, I can think, I can think about my work. Yes, it's kind of like, duh, of course you must to make sure you're doing the right work. You have to think about the work, but it doesn't come automatically. You have to schedule it. So schedule time in your calendar for reflection is a good thing. And my last little note here that I noted down is something that I have benefited from when I learned GTD or trying to get better is my daily checklist. Morning checklist. What do I do in the morning? What do I do in, at noon? And what do I do before I leave the office? And we've been talking about this before. I think we do have an episode with checklists. I think we made some time in.
Lars: The past or what? Yeah. Episode 104.
Morten: So that's 104. Yeah.
Lars: And we'll be referring to in the next email as well.
Morten: Yeah. So, so the, the idea with the daily checklist is just to make sure that what you decide to build as a habit gets a place to land so that you can see it. The things that you put in your list system are things you need to get done. But for example, you wouldn't put clarifying and— well, I wouldn't anyway— clarifying and organizing emails there. That more or less happens by itself. But having them reaching an empty inbox, clarifying and organizing everything. On a daily checklist helps me, or this is past tense now because this is an established habit with me, but when I, helped me at that time to establish that habit. The same with making sure that you are doing, you know, the weekly review is part of, you have a checklist for that. So the weekly review checklist is also a helpful tool to use to build the habit of doing the weekly So anything to add on top of that again, Loris?
Lars: No, just echoing what you said and using that daily checklist as a way to establish those habits. Coming back to the power of habit, I think that's a great way to sort of just reinforce that what I'm trying to do, what I'm trying to become better at, what I'm trying to just do naturally during the week or during the day and having that checklist, either the daily checklist that we talked about in episode 104 or the weekly review checklist customized to your needs and then having those on that list, perhaps the 5 or 6 different ones that Grete mentioned, or perhaps some other ones that you're trying to implement. I think that's a great tip.
Morten: Should we then move on to the last listener question?
Lars: Let us do that. And that is from Kim. And he wrote this, I think, very nice email, which seemed to be sort of a mind stream of thoughts. And I just really, really appreciated it. So I wanted to So it's somewhat long, but I wanted to go through the whole thing and simultaneously translate it from Norwegian to Danish. So let's see how that goes.
Morten: Maybe to.
Lars: English. Let's try with English. Danish would be interesting as well, but yeah, let's go for English.
Morten: And I can do from Danish.
Lars: To English. And you can.
Morten: No, we can't communicate on this.
Lars: He starts off by saying, hi, thanks for a great podcast. I've listened to most of the episodes and especially like the most recent episode about checklists, episode 104. Routines and checklists are probably some of the most important things to do to be organized. What I wanted to ask about whether you, you know, recommend inspiration or impulsivity. So let's say that I'm— how do you even handle that? So he says, let's say that you come across an interesting article on the internet, or perhaps an ad on social media. You follow the link because there is, you know, it sounds like something you're interested in. It might be cooking, it might be, you know, garden work, it might be running or something completely different. And then you find a free, you know, guide or something that where they really, you know, suggest that you can, you can really learn something, something smart from this. And of course you want to be smart, so you click, it says yes, give me everything I can get. With this free gift follows a subscription on a newsletter, or you get a lot of emails that are reminding you about this, you know, signing up for a seminar, buying a product. You probably recognize this flow from, from stuff that you have tried out as well. And the result is that you have an inbox with a lot of emails about stuff you would, could, should do something about. You want to, you know, make good food, you want to have a nice garden, you want to run far. So regardless, these emails still, you know, they, they are representative of a reminder that there's something you wanted to do. But what am I going to do about them? So a starting point could be to just delete them. That would be the easy way to start. But of course, new ones will just show up, and I made inbox zero that much more difficult to get to. So why not just unsubscribe from the newsletter, you might say. Well, what about my wish to actually make good food, my dream of a beautiful garden, my dream of running far? Will these dreams just be banished to someday, maybe to never again see the day light of day? At least with the email, I get a sort of regularly occurring reminder with my dreams and hopes. How can I get my someday, maybe list to be a place where I can go for inspiration? Should I create a mood board for everything on my someday, maybe list? How, how frequently should I revisit this someday, maybe list? Should you perhaps be better at having a good and bad email and only, only managing with the bad one? But then you end up perhaps like Lars in the episode about checklists where he forgot to check an inbox. Yes, I know, put it on a checklist, but is it that simple and complex? I think I'll round off here. Come to think of it, perhaps I should check if you already have an episode about someday, maybe. Thanks again for a great podcast. From Kim. I just thought that was fantastic. Um, yeah, really, really appreciated that email.
Morten: Yeah, me too. It reminds me of our, our good friend and colleague in, in Finland, Jukka Bachmann. He kind of like processes as he writes, so it's kind of like, I write this down and it releases a lot of thoughts on, on my behalf and reflections. So thank you, Kim. While you were writing, sorry, reading, I took a lot of notes and if you don't mind, I'd like to go first. And my first thinking is that because the, you know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, that's something, you know, it is. So the problem with, you know, the hell in GTD would be to overwhelm yourself. You feel, you know, you're missing out on a lot of stuff when are supposed to do something and you don't have control and you don't have overview. And that overview could come with, you know, what am I putting on my plate? What do I put on my someday maybe? And I think all seasoned GTGers at some point filled up their someday maybes with a lot of things. And you looked at it and kind of like a fuse closed your brain and you did something different when you looked at that. So if you feel overwhelmed by something, maybe it's, you know, a good idea to take a trip up to Himalaya, your own little Himalaya mountain in the horizon of focus where you find what is my purpose, what's my values, what's my principles that I will not break, and then how does my vision for my life look? Because I think that the good intentions are, you know, we are, I think, and this is my personal opinion, I would love to hear what you think, Lars, but I think that we have infinite opportunities. You can do almost anything, anytime now in this world. And a lot of people love the freedom GTD gives you to be You know, the all-inclusive, let me just add on to my lists and I'm creative and crazy and I put it on my lists and that's cool. That's good. But if you then don't clarify and organize what it means to you and then just drag it down to someday, maybe without some reflection, then maybe you're putting something in your system that you're not going to commit to do ever. So that is check off with your horizons of focus. Make sure that whatever lands on your lists, you can capture it without, you know, just capture it. But when you come to clarify and organize where it should go, use your bullshit filter. You heard me talk about bullshit filter a lot of times. I told you when my son was 13, he taught his father a word that I'm using. Today is like, seriously, am I ever going to do something about this? Or it just says, is it a good intention? Because if your system is bogged down with too much without, you know, that you seriously never will look at again, then you are overwhelming yourself. So Lars, what do you think about this?
Lars: Or am I on the right track? I think that makes total sense. And like you said, I think most people have tried this, that it's easy to just build up that big list of things you might want to do at some point, just not right now. And pruning that list, I think, is just so critical. For me, I think, reflecting on my journey, not sure if I'm just making this up as we go along, but I certainly had that really long list. That really long list then made me not attracted to that list, just like Kim was saying, which I I'm reading from his email between the lines. I think that's just, you know, the graveyard of good ideas for him. And it felt like that for me as well, partly because the list was just so enormous that I would just not have the energy to go through it after, you know, at the end of a weekly review, running through that enormous list just did not work. The next step for me was to sort of distinguish it a bit. So having a summary, maybe perhaps based on areas of focus, perhaps a summary maybe based on you know, revisit weekly, revisit monthly, revisit yearly. I think that sort of tweak helped me a lot because there were things that I was seeing on a weekly basis as part of the weekly review that I really did not need to see as part of a weekly review. So that helped me out as well. I think in the end, the better suggestion is probably also related to what you were saying, which is to to be more, more precise about what you actually put on that list because it is so easy to put on things on that list. And, you know, when you clarify and organize something, I look at something, yeah, I might wanna do that at some point and just throw it on the list and move on. And that's when the list grows really long. So having perhaps part of your weekly review as removing some things from that someday, maybe list, if you, if you want, that would probably be a good practice for, for a lot of people. And lastly, you know, I made, was it a year ago now, a bit more than a year ago, the switch from Todoist to Reminders. And as part of that transition from one system to another, I really went through and removed a lot of stuff and have not missed it at all. I really removed a lot. You know, that's part of the benefit of moving from one system to another is that you get to revisit everything and really, you know, reflect on perhaps to the level that you should be doing as part of the weekly review., but this sort of an extra one and yeah, really got to weed out a lot of stuff in there. And now it's, you know, a very simple list that I can certainly manage and run through and have organized in a way that I'm happy to run through it as part of the weekly review. And yeah, some someday maybes are actually becoming active again once you start to actually really work that list.
Morten: Yeah, I do wholeheartedly agree with you. One of the things that I just wanted to quote David Allen. He said a list would either attract you or repel you, or, you know, either you will be attracted to it or it will, you know, push you away, or you will push the list away. And if you look at your someday maybe and it's kind of like makes you, you know, once makes you want to throw up, then maybe it's a good idea to clean out the craft. And I just want to remind everybody is that when you are saying no to something, you're automatically saying yes to something else. So to remind you that something that's on your list that you someday maybe are going to do something about, and that if that is never going to happen, that is taking up some space in your brain when you look at it on your weekly review. And if that is really something you would like to do, really, really? And not just a, you know, a random idea that you thought, oh, that would be cool someday when the hell freezes over and the cows start flying and the moon becomes a green cheese. I'd want to do this. And if it is one of those, maybe just delete it and clean up, reflect and have a second look at your lists and then feel, am I feeling good about this? Am I feeling comfortable about what I'm saying yes to? If you are, well, well done, continue. But if you're not, stop.
Lars: That's my 2 cents. No, and it's, it really is good advice. And again, you know, the starting point is always, you know, I reflect back on, on the coaching question as well for me, what's on your mind and how can we get it off it? There will be some things there and perhaps there is I don't know whether it's sort of a GTD experience thing or it's just an age thing where it just gets, gets easier. I think both you and David reflect on that as well. Just get older, things get much easier. That might be, might be part of it as well. But, but at least it does seem to me to become easier over time to be more realistic about what I want to see on that someday/maybe list. So, so perhaps there is an experience and just, you know, comfortableness perhaps on, on with what we decide to put on that list and what we just.
Morten: Decide to throw out. And I'm just reflecting just 2 seconds back to the getting old part. Yes, I'm getting older. So are you. So are we all. Every second we are still here, we are older. But what I found that when I started reflecting on my life, You know, I am using my, my memento mori calendar, understanding how many, you know, how long time I basically have left on this planet. And I want to make sure I'm using that time at the best possible way and not waste my time on just crap. Then you have to really understand your essence of focus. You understand what's important for you. And when you do that, you know, the exercise of Identifying your horizons of focus, which I highly recommend. We have an episode on that, and I'm sure that when I talk, Lars will find that episode number. At least I.
Lars: Hope so.
Morten: So, yes, he will. So, but to map out your horizons of focus makes it easier for you to make decisions in your everyday life. Use your values to prioritize. It makes it easier for you. And, and as you get older, at least as I got more, I think it is both older and more mature in my GTD, I found that letting go of the things that doesn't fit or doesn't sit or doesn't feel right and give me, you know, give me joy in my life, that's on my someday maybe list. It, it goes very fast out the door. And just make sure that you are focusing, use your brainpower to, you know, the GTD tagline is freedom-focused GTD. So freedom to focus on whatever you want. And GTD gives you the freedom to do that. And if you feel that your system is bogging you down so you don't have the freedom to focus on whatever you want, then you're not doing it right. You have to clear out your lists.
Lars: Again, my 2 cents. And your, the answer to your question was episode number 9. That's when we spoke about the horizons of focus. But of course we touch on that pretty frequently. We also talk about, you know, using DTD horizons of focus for companies, for example. We talk about that in episode 53. So there's a lot of episodes, I think, where we, where we touch on this. So. Yeah, like you said, good information to work with, good framework to spend some time with.
Morten: And that is a good part of GTD that a lot of people— and it's not the place where you should start your GTD practice, you know, the horizons of focus. I think I can count on one hand of the almost 200 coaching clients that I've had since I started that, where we started with horizon focus. A fairly recent one where we started, but we started first on trying to identify a system. And after a while, I had some tingly bells going off saying that we are not doing this correctly. This person does not get excited about getting things done. So we have to start with motivation, which is often found in the harassments of focus. So, but most people do start with creating their system, establishing, you know, the calendar and the list system where they want to have their next actions and decide outcomes and all the rest of the good things of getting things done. And, but when that is established, when you are feeling that you are filling it up with the next actions and decide outcomes and you feel good about that, then you free up your brain to start lifting your gaze to the horizon. So focus trying to identify, hey, why am I, why am I on the planet? What do I want to achieve? What's my values? What's my principles? What's my vision for how, when I live my life, how is, how is it looking? And am I doing that now or would I do it in the future? So it is a very powerful model. And, but A most likely must come.
Lars: Before B. Yeah, no, I completely agree. I think where I have tweaked my approach slightly over the years when it comes to especially coaching clients is how good do you then have to be at the basics before the higher horizons start to surface? Because sometimes, at least for me, when we spoke about this, and certainly I'm with you that we start off with the control aspect and then we look at perspective, start off with the 5 steps before we go for the horizons of focus. But how good people have to get. I'm working with someone, I think a week from today, and we've started off with the basics. There is much more we could be working on next week. But I think we will actually zoom out a bit and start to work on the, the areas of focus and accountability because that will then clarify some things. I think that is where we will find some more time for him. Coming back to that primary focus of mine these days, finding some more time for him because I know that is what he needs as well. He needs time for other things. So we will go to the higher horizons, just, just areas of focus and accountability. That will— predicting the future is hard, but I'm predicting that will then lead to a discussion with other partners and people around him, how to spend their time, what should, who should do what, and which will then open up some more time for us to then go back and perhaps tweak some, some more of the basics. That's my guess at least. So sort of a balance in that, but completely agree, starting off with control and then start to look up.
Morten: Correct. I do agree. And this cleaning process, if you want to clean your someday maybes out, it will give you a reward. The reward being that you feel lighter after because you've taken some hard decisions on what should ever get your attention. And it helps you become more in, I wouldn't call it more liking your system. I was going to say more in love with your system, but I understand.
Lars: That.
Morten: Might be a bit over the top. But it is, your list system becomes a very good companion of you. You will have a very good friend in your list because your friend is your brain outside your brain that will remember everything that you don't need to. I had a coaching client this morning, He asked me, what are you doing on Thursday? And I said, I have no idea. I can look at my calendar, I will know. But until then, I know everything is under control. I don't have to remember what's going to happen. If it's under control, I can forget it. And if you look at your desired outcome, sorry, your someday maybes, if your someday maybes are too many, you are not feeling good about that at all. And they've They will, you will resist looking at that list because it's kind of like it's mentally mugging you. It'll hit you in the face and say, don't look at me, look somewhere else. And I think that if you're doing your weekly review regularly and do it with the bullshit filter and seriously, am I ever going to look at this again? And then clean up, it will be a cleansing process that will feel good. It feels like you've cleaned out your garage and you walk in there and you feel, things have changed now. I feel better about this. What do you think, Lars? Am I on to something?
Lars: I think that will open up the, that in the end, he will actually activate some of them. Exactly. Ideally, right? So it will, in the end, Kim will be great at cooking. He'll have a beautiful front yard and he will be running very fast. I think that's going to happen. I have faith in you, Kit.
Morten: You'll get there. Yes, so do I. So good luck with that and write us back if we gave you something and if something changed in your world. Well, I think we are at the end of this episode. You have, of course, something you would like to say. How are we doing on the summer camp, by the way?
Lars: How many attendees have First off, just a quick thank you to Christian, to Griet, to Kim. Hope this was helpful. And yeah, keep those questions coming. podcast@vitallearning.dk. I almost said, I almost said the wrong one. podcast@vitallearning.dk. Keep them coming. We love having these questions coming in and, you know, be sure to send them if something, some something shows up, shows up for you. And now to your question, Morten, which was, I think, so how are we doing on signups for the summer camp? There are 13 seats left, so that means that we have 47 people that have signed up already. So it'll be a lot of fun. Again, people from, from all over the world— Europe, North America, South America, Asia. So we hope to see you there as well, June 15th to 16th in Denmark. Um, want to learn more? Head on over to gcdsummercamp.com. You can read a bit more about the program now, and you can also sign up, of course. So be sure to do that if you have thought about it and weren't really sure whether you're going. Uh, we are closing in on the last available seats for this year.
Morten: So gcdsummercamp.com. Yeah, be there or be square or something. Or something. Morten uses, uses, what do you call it, words you don't know the.
Lars: Meaning of. What we do know something about is getting things done, crucial conversations, and many more things. And to learn more about that, you head on over to vitallearning.eu because that is where you'll find more information about this. You'll find links to each of the country websites in the Nordics plus where you can learn much more about the speeches, the seminars, the coaching we deliver there. If you are outside the Nordics, head on over to cruciallearning.com to find your local partners.
Morten: Indeed. And until next time, stay safe and stay productive. Bye-bye. Bye everyone. The prioritization becomes easier because you're prioritizing— prioritizing— prioritizing— wow. Whoa, priority. Tell me, tell me, Lars, you prioritize using your values. Yeah, thank you.
