Episode 116 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 a rerun episode of the Getting Things Done podcast from Vital Learning. This rerun is one of the most listened to episodes and one of my personal favorites. Without any further ado, here's the rerun of episode 9, The Horizons of Focus. Welcome to episode number 9 of the Getting Things Done podcast from GTD Nordic. I'm here with my friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Hello, Lars.
Lars: I'm happy to be back to do another episode. For those of you new to this podcast, our goal is to help you become a better GTDer so you can be better at clearing your mind, to be better at staying present with whatever you're doing, and to achieve stress-free productivity. And we hope regardless of your GTD experience that you find value in each of these episodes.
Morten: Yes, I hope so too. And today's topic is Horizons of Focus, and we are adding a little element at the end of this recording. So if you want to have some software picks where Lars and I will show you some friction removal tools for remove friction in your everyday workflows, stay tuned. But first, Horizons of Focus. What is Horizons of Focus, Lars? Where does this fit into the GTD methodology?
Lars: So I would describe Horizons of Focus as a way to, you know, natural levels of zooming in and out when we look at your life and work. So we have these 6 various levels of focus that we can, you know, different perspectives to view your life and work in. And to quickly run through them. The bottom level is the ground level. So that's where we would find all of your next actions. That's where we would find your calendar entries as well. Those would be on the ground level. Above that, we have what we call Horizon 1, and that would be your project. So all of your desired outcomes that you have in your life that you have committed to, that would be Horizon 1. Above that is Horizon 2, and that's what we call areas of focus. So those are things you are responsible for responsible for, things you want to maintain at a certain standard. That's what you would put at Horizon 2. And that's again, both if you use GTD across all aspects of your life, then that's both on a personal level and also professionally, of course, where you might know it from your description, job description that you have. Above Horizon 2 is Horizon 3. No surprise there. That's the goals and objectives. So those would be your 1 to 2-year goals, 1 to 2 years into the future. What would you like to achieve in that frame? Horizon 4 is called Vision. That's then 3 to 5 years into the future. Last but not least is Horizon 5, and that's where we would place the purpose and principle. What is the purpose for your company? What is your own personal purpose? What are the principles that you work within both, again, personally and professionally? That is a really quick walkthrough of the Horizons of Focus.
Morten: Yes, and I, I found them a good analogy for this also. You talked about zooming in on areas, and I like the analogy of maps, different maps. If you want to navigate a street at street level, you don't need, you know, the globe, a map of the globe. You need a map of the streets. But at the same time, if you're going somewhere on the globe, it's good to know where am I related to where I'm really going at the end of this journey. And I like this analogy a lot. And Lars, can you elaborate a little bit about how does it tie into the everyday GTD practice? We talk about the two aspects of GTD being control and perspective. How do you achieve control and how do you achieve perspective, would you say?
Lars: Yeah, so previously we have, you know, done episodes for each of the 5 steps, and those are part of establishing control in your life. So those are the 5 steps that you may have heard in previous episodes. And when we then talk about perspective, that's where these horizons of focus show up. So different ways of helping you, you know, get clarity, get an overview, and also to help prioritize what, what should I work on at any given time. That's really where, where these horizons of focus show up. In everyday life.
Morten: Yes. And I've done this, as you well know, and you have also done coaching where this has been in play, where we help clients figure out their horizons of focus. And how to— how will we make this happen is an interesting challenge for many people, because looking at these maps and making them real making their different horizons real will encompass you to write them down somewhere. And so if you want to make and play with this as a GTDer, or if you are wanting to play with this idea of horizons of focus, this model can be, as everything in the GTD methodology, very practical. So if you, for instance, open a Word document or a Google Docs document or any document of any kind really, just somewhere where you can write this down and make 5 distinct titles for your documents or 5 distinct headlines where you start with purpose and principles, values, and then go for vision, goals and objectives, then your areas of focus and accountability and projects. If you make these 5 headlines and, and try to get something on all these levels will give you at least a feeling of more direction than before. And the idea with verbalizing it first for yourself and then writing these things down is that they kind of become more real when you write them down. I don't know, have you experienced that, Lars?
Lars: Yeah, certainly. And I think also Somewhat related to what you're saying, really just try because it took me a while to establish these. One of the key reasons for me not to have written them down was that I was trying to tell myself that these should be accurate and these should be the right stuff that goes on these lists. I didn't want to write anything down that wasn't really true. But really, the world changes so fast, so really just give yourself the freedom to write things down. You can certainly remove them again if they don't fit. But to your point on how they reflect on the world, we see it most frequently in our little household about every 6 months when we review these and see, well, are we heading in the right direction? And it's so interesting to see that even though we don't look at these lists very frequently, it's really— it continues to amaze me how often we are actually heading in that direction or even achieving the things that we are specifying into the future. So that's always fun. A fun exercise.
Morten: Okay. So you do it with your wife?
Lars: Yes. So we do that on pretty much every 6 months. We review these higher horizons together. So around summertime, we do it maybe together or maybe I will go and sit by the sea. That's my tradition to sit there for a few hours, sometimes reviewing my lists and reflecting on them, or sometimes inspired by our Finnish colleague, Jukka. I went there last time with 5 blank pieces of paper and really allowed myself to just write what did I think should go on those lists. And then I compared that to my existing system afterwards. And that was a fun exercise. And then at least around Christmas time, we like to find the best bottle of wine we can find in the basement and then sit down when the kids are sleeping and then go through the lists and see what needs to be updated, see if we're headed in the right direction. Do we need to to add anything or remove anything or just anything. And it's just nice to have, you know, that type of discussion and also certainly have this framework from GTD, these horizons of focus, specific things that we can then talk about because it can really be a challenge to talk about the future because there are really different aspects. Some of these are time-based, some of these are more values and what matters to me. So that I think was difficult in the past. And now with this framework, it's just, it's a great evening. Really.
Morten: And I'm curious because I've done this with clients where we, you know, we work with the client and the spouse and help work this document out. And sometimes it works really well, but if the spouse is not very motivated, it could be difficult doing this because they don't understand really why we need to do this. But your spouse has Your wife has accepted this, I understand, or else you would have a problem. So this leads me up to my question is, what's in it for her? What does this give her, you think?
Lars: Well, I think it gives her an overview, and I think it shows her or shows us that we are heading in the right, or at least in the direction that we both agree on. Let's put it that way. So especially since she returned from maternity leave not too long ago, She's starting her own business. She's working with, you know, actually, I think, 5 different areas of focus, we would call them, in this framework, with different, you know, 5 different companies. So it really is a very complex, complex working life that she has. So she needs GCD to manage all of this. And so the horizons of focus is, you know, as it was for me in the beginning, it was, you know, a bit abstract and I wasn't really planning that far into the future. But now that we do this together and, and she can see where, see where her business is heading. I think she really likes it.
Morten: Yeah. And, and playing into the, your, the idea you, you mentioned that you would not, you don't feel comfortable making this because you're not comfortable making a document for the future because you don't know the future will become. And this is of course true, but, and, and reality changes a lot for old people in in the world, I think, these days. And it will increase. The speed of change is increasing. And therefore, it's so important that you kind of find an anchor in the future. I describe it to myself as my anchor in the future. This is where I want to go in the future. If the future is still what I think it is next week or next year or 5 years, 10 years from now. So my idea for this in my personal life, it's my anchor in the future. And I am not— I don't have any pride or any stakes in it. The anchor stays in the same spot. The anchor can move in the future. I can make changes to this document. I can make changes to what I think the future should hold for me and my spouse and my my family. And, um, and I think that is one of the, the good things about GTD. It allows you to think freely about the future without committing to anything before you decided, well, I put my anchor here now, and that is a good, pretty good place. I feel comfort— comfortable with where it is now, and I can then move towards this. I can— and if the future changes, like Life changes. You marry, maybe you get a divorce, maybe you marry again, maybe you buy a house, maybe you buy a car, maybe you buy a company, maybe the future changes really a lot. And it's very difficult to, to, you know, make sure everything looks the same 6 months from now. So having the flexibility to change this document, and that is actually, you need to change it, you have a look at it and you have to update it Often to make sure you're doing the right things and moving in the right direction and make sure that, you know, your anchor is anchored in the right place now compared to half a year ago or two weeks ago. It's important. So I was thinking about, should we give people a little, you know, how can you make this document practically? What kind of exercises would be good? What do you think, should we do that?
Lars: Yeah, sounds great.
Morten: So on Horizon 5, the purpose, principles, and values, I would, when I do this with clients, I would ask them to make a little mental exercise with me. And if you want, listening to this podcast, you can make the same exercise. You can, let's imagine that we go into the future, and in this future, you actually died. And but before you, you, you died, in good time, right, right now actually, you go to a lawyer and you ask the lawyer to make a party for the people you would like to hear from after you died. And you make a list of these people who would you like to hear from after you died, with the question is, what What was you like? What, what, who, who, who was in this case Lars, for instance? Who, who are you, Lars? What was he like? What was his, you know, attributes? What, what would you like to hear? And the idea with this is that when we then travel into the future, into this party, after-party, after-your-life party, you will then move through the, the, the guests lists, and you will hear from each one of the people you invited to this party. And I have had people telling me, well, I don't care what people think. I don't want— I don't care what people think about me. Well, then you have to make it up. What would you like to think about you after you died? And the idea here is to look for common words. Like, if you're a father, maybe you want to hear that he was a good dad. He took— and then you have to, after that, specify what is a good dad, and we'll come to that. And but under purpose, values, and principles, you write down what principles would you never, you know, what will you never break. Like maybe you don't want to kill. That is an obvious one, hopefully. And but there are other principles like I will never lie, I will try to be honest, those who are more in the gray zone of your life. And these are very important things to write down, because if you break your principles, you will not feel good about your life. But you will not feel good about your life if you don't know what your principles are. So write those down as well as words you would like to look at. Do you have anything? What would you make different? Do you have anything else on this level? Or else you'd like to add?
Lars: No, I think what I would maybe add is to also take this into consideration when you think about your company. So I think that's something that we do in GCD Nordic. And I think that was, you know, coming from a non-GCD company, which I'm sure a lot of listeners are from, it can be— it was not something that I had done before. I had not described the values and the principles for the companies that I worked from before. And I think using this as a framework to discuss the company as as well. It was just an eye-opening experience for me. So I would certainly recommend the listeners to do that as well.
Morten: Yeah, me too. And I've seen that when you do this, and I've done this with clients, help them make this document for their business. And one of the things that is very valuable for people is that you can now show this to prospective employees and tell them, this is where the bus is going. This is where we are going. This is what you can experience if if you, if you say yes to this, this appointment, this job we have, this opening. And, and it makes it like a decision-making tool for, for people too. Does this company have values I like? And do I like where this bus is going? Where do I want to join this journey?
Lars: And, um, yeah, especially with future generations as well. I mean, these are the, the the ones that are graduating right now that are really focusing on purpose and the why part of things. It's really nice to have this clearly established. And as you say, you can— this can really be a tool for showing candidates what this company is all about.
Morten: Yeah, exactly. So when you have decided.
Lars: What you've—.
Morten: What you're, you know, you have some keywords for like honest or good dad or whatever you put on purpose and principles, you have then to go down to the vision. And what I would tell people then, how does it really look when you don't lie? When you always tell the truth, what would that look like? How would I see you not tell, you know? And then it could be, you know, how would I see you being a good dad? How would that look? So like, good dad could be, I take time to my children when they need to talk to me. I put away my phone when they come, when I understand they want to talk to me. I plan time to be with them where we will make activities. And these are then visions for how it would look when you are doing what you want to achieve in the future. And this is really powerful because it kind of takes an abstract, like good dad, what is that really? And then it makes it tangible. And when you are making it tangible, it's like I can see it in front of my eyes. It makes it really powerful. I've seen that change lives. I've seen it change my life in this, you know, how I make, how I plan my day, how I spend my time. This document has helped me to do that. So anything to add on the vision, how to make a vision?
Lars: I certainly agree that it's really nice to be able to describe that. And also when we're at Horizon 4, really allowing yourself to describe the ideal future that you can really envision. Where would— if everything goes well, where would we be? So it's a really nice horizon to look at, I would say.
Morten: Yeah, it is. And it is important to remember when you make this document that this is the future you would like to become or be in. It doesn't have to reflect where you are now. Let's say you don't feel you're a good dad or you don't feel that you're always honest. If these are two principles or values for you, life purpose for you, then if you don't feel, then this will help you get there. Don't write down what is already true, but what is, or what are your aspirations for the future is also good, and then make a vision for that as well. So, okay, now we've written down purpose, principles, and values. We've shown how it will look, sound, and feel like if you make this successfully. And then what are your long-term goals and objectives? What would go there in your mind? What would you write down there?
Lars: So normally that would be your 1 to 2-year goals. And that's for me. So, so where the vision is more, you know, that's obviously it's a lot further into the future, but it's also more uncertain, of course, because the time frame is different. Goals and objectives for me are more concrete. Those are more specific. Directions that I know I'm headed to, or at least it's closer to me, so it feels that it's easier for me to trust that I will get there. So it can be various things for me, different running targets or distances that I would be aiming for, bigger changes that we would do to the summer house, things like that that are slightly more into the future, further ahead than what would land on my projects list.
Morten: Yeah, exactly. To give a practical example here would be like you talk with your, your spouse, we would like to change apartment, we would like to move somewhere, but we're not going to move on that before maybe a year from now. Then write it down just not to lose track of it. It's an idea. And in for the GTD Nordic, it could be we are now Nordic region, as the name implies, we are in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. But the Nordic region is also Finland, sorry, Iceland. So, so we would like to establish us there as well. And this is what we would like to put on the long-term goals for what we would like to achieve. And it's just to keep track of what you don't want to not work on in the future, just to remind you that 1 year from now, maybe we will, 2 years from now, this is what we would like to start and do. So when we've written those down, We come down to Horizon 2, areas of focus and accountability. And if you split that into work and personal life, how would you go about explaining that for, let's say, the work life?
Lars: Yes, so normally with the starting point, and we do that in some seminars as well, is that we would sit down and try to do this as a mind mapping exercise. Create your areas of focus on a personal level and on a professional level. And, and the question would be, what are you responsible for maintaining at certain standards as part of your job, or in the personal sphere, as part of your personal life? So that, that would be the starting point. So that might be you're responsible for sales, you're responsible for some administrative tasks, you're responsible for, you know, business development, uh, what, what it might be. That would all go on that list, and it's something that we could then dive deeper into. So you might have, let's say, 4 to 7 key areas that you're responsible for, and then we might break those down into specific categories, specific people, or other details to help you get that clear picture of what you are maintaining at certain standards.
Morten: Good, good. And what would you say for your personal private life?
Lars: What would you So on that list, I would have specific relationships. I would have my health. I would have the properties that we own, the vehicles, and other things that I want to establish as key areas of focus for me, really. One thing that I have on my list, which probably differs from most people that I've worked with, is to enjoy life. Exactly. It's eye-opening for people when they see that on the list. But for me, it's something important. My father passed away when he was only 63, so I want to be sure that I enjoy life while I can because you never know how long life is. And something like that would perhaps normally go on a higher horizon, but for me, it's important to see on a frequent basis. So that's why I put it as simply an area of focus as well.
Morten: And this is an eye-opener for people, as you mentioned. This is for a lot of people, they don't take time to write down what's important for you for enjoying life. And this, you know, you're around only one time, or as far as science can tell. So make the most of it and make sure you have fun along the way. I know that David Allen used to teach, at least before that, or I remember he said, make a list of fun things to do and make sure that you are, you know, having fun, enjoying life. And for people to put something for have fun in life is, is maybe a little strange for some people, but it is also very liberating because you are then giving yourself as something valuable to do the leeway to have fun. Actually, it's part of being productive. If you don't, and really, if you're not taking time to have fun, you will not really relax. You will not really have, have you make the right progress on things in work and at home if you're not able to relax and have fun. So, so put it down, like, and health also, take time for take care of you. This area of focus is take care of, focus on you. What can I make for, make me happy? How can I make myself enjoying life more? Now this is very often, at least for me, a very, very— I like seeing this because it's kind of, okay, Morten, you work a lot. Yes, I do. And Morten, you must remember to have fun. Yes, I must. So this is good for me. So, okay. Okay, and moving down then to projects and calendar and next actions below that on the ground level, these are covered in the, our, you know, the episodes with the 5 steps of GTD. And I would highly recommend you look at them. But this is, this is where, you know, projects is more than one step. Next actions will not— one next action will not complete something where you write down your desired outcome. And these projects are often birthed from an area of focus or accountability where you recognize, well, this area is not maintained in a good way, or this is what I need to do to make sure that I maintain this area of focus or accountability. And then you go on the ground level is where, what next small steps am I taking to make this project, the side outcome, fulfilled and to become reality. And what I really love with GTD is that there, when you make this, this coherence between what you do in your everyday life and what you will achieve in really long term, like end of life kind of stuff. And it gives you this— if you are only making the 5 steps, you only have control, you're working a lot, you're making a lot of progress, but are you making progress on the the right things, what's valuable for you, what is right for you in your life. And this is where GTD shines, I think. If you have this axis of right sense of focus combined with the axis of control, you're doing more of the right things and leading your life and yourself and your company and maybe even your family into the right direction. So anything to add to this?
Lars: No, I think it's— well, maybe one last thing would be to— I think that it's interesting that with GTD we start from the bottom up. So, so that also aligns with the way we have sorted our episodes, what we started focusing on. And I think a lot of, you know, people that are interested in personal development, they often find that the books out there describe, you know, the long-term vision or what's, what's the plan all the way into the future. And I love the way that GTD starts with where you are right now, and then we, we build things and we clarify things and we give you that overview. So then you can look into the future much more clearly and you understand how much you can you can achieve in a year and how much you can achieve in a week and how much you can then achieve in 5 years and really help you establish that vision. I think that's really a good way to go for most people.
Morten: Yeah, I think so too. You have to clear your head to be able to think high-level thoughts because when you think high-level thoughts like this horizon, so focus is high-level thoughts. I often tell my clients that I'm I'm your Sherpa at this because we're climbing your personal Mount Everest here. It's very little oxygen at this level, and it's difficult to think clearly. But if you clear your head, don't have anything on your mind, write everything down and get it into the GTD system, get that under control, you feel that you can manage this, and then it's time to lift your gaze to what you would like to achieve in life. Create the maps you need to navigate life and get where you want to go. And that brings us into your software pick, clearing your mind. Isn't that so?
Lars: That's right. So my pick for this episode would be Braintoss. And I think many of you probably already know the app. So Braintoss is an app that costs, I think, €2 or €3. It's an app that has one big button and 2 smaller ones, but the key one is the big one, which is a big microphone, a recording button that starts to record what you're saying for up to, I think, 30 seconds. So once you either hit the recording button again or the 30 seconds elapse, then it takes your audio, puts it into an MP3 file, emails that to the email address that you want it to go to. So for most people, that would be their normal email mail inbox. And it's just a nice way to capture in those moments where you're not able to write things down or use any other capture tool. So for me, especially as I'm driving on the road around Denmark, most people get a lot of good ideas as they drive around. So to be able to capture in that state and, oh yeah, that reminds me, I should talk to the client about that, or even the stuff that would go on a vision level or purpose level or goal level. Get all that stuff out as soon as you are made aware of it so you can process it later. So Braintrust for me has been helpful in that area.
Morten: And then also you can also take photos and what else? You can write notes. Yes.
Lars: So it just captures what you give it and gets that to your inbox. And they do have some AI stuff trying to help you. At the time that we record this, it varies how successful it is, I would say. I took a picture of Donald Duck and it gave me the Swedish name Kallanka. As soon as it tries to transcribe the Danish things that I tell it, it— yeah, let's just say it's entertaining.
Morten: It's entertaining. Somebody audiophile is good. So that's exactly so. And Brain Toss is for mobile. And where is it available? Both on Android and— It should be available for both.
Lars: I think they mentioned a while back and it is also available on your watch or at least on my Apple Watch. So I can speak to that. And that's also been very helpful for me.
Morten: Okay, good. And just a little— and the name is then Brain Toss in one word. Brain brain like in your head and toss like in throwaway, BrainToss. And please be mindful that we are not telling you to use this in the car unless you drive safely and in a safe way. I had a few people telling me, you must be, don't tell us about this app if you're not absolutely sure we don't drive into something. And I said, well, it's like operating your car system, you know, your car stereo. It's— you, if you have it in a safe place in the car, you can open the phone and just one tap to start the app. And it should be about the same as switching radio stations on your radio, I think. And my tip software pick of this episode is an app called Text TextExpander. TextExpander is for Mac and PC. It is a little application that runs in the background in your, your Mac or your PC. It's actually also in iPhone, which I don't recommend very well because it's not a good implementation. So, so at least for me, I don't use it there. But for Mac and PC, it will be running in the background and it will do the following. Is that you will make small text snippets. For instance, your, your address or an account number you use a lot or an email address. Like, my email address is morten.ruwik@produktivnotge.no. It's fairly long and I sometimes need to write that. So instead of writing that, I make a keyword for expanding that snippet. But it works this way that if I'm in an anywhere I can write text on my Mac or PC, I can write M and and P for Morten at Productiv Norge, Morten Ruvik at Productiv Norge. It then expands to become the email address. And if I write KADR for Norwegian Konturadresse, it will then expand and and give me the address of the office. And sometimes when you write emails especially, it can remove a lot of friction because you reuse a lot of small and long texts that you don't have to think twice about. This, you make it once, you make it good, you make it really, you know, valuable, and then you can reuse this. I also use it for writing offers to people. Clients who want to, or potential clients who want to have an offer on a full-day seminar, for instance. And it helps a lot and it saves a lot of time and energy. Last month, on one Mac alone, I saved 2.5 hours for one month of using this. At 80, I write around 80 words a minute. So it's, uh, at 80 words a minute, I save, um, 2.5 hours, which is 2.5 hours I can use to something else, like take a nap or take a walk or, or, or, uh, you know, write more offers if that's my, my, um, my inclination. Okay. I think we then come to the end of this episode. Lars, do you agree with me?
Lars: Yeah. Normally we wrap things up by just mentioning to you that you can find more information about GTD and all the work that we do. Go to gtdnordic.com. You can find the Facebook groups, Meetup groups, links to everything. Find us on LinkedIn. And as always, we hope that you find value from these episodes. And if you do, then we would really appreciate if you could drop by iTunes and give us a rating, or perhaps share this with a colleague.
Morten: Okay, good. And we hope you've, as Lars said, get some value out of this and give us thumbs up if you do and drop us a line if you do. So thank you, and until next time, have a great day and stop using your mind as your system.
Lars: Okay, bye-bye.
