Episode 120 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 as always, and as always, I'm here with my good friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen.
Lars: Morten, good to see you as always, and good to be with our listeners and viewers out there. We always start off with a quick reminder of the purpose of this 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're 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 120, and today's episode number is more about projects and also a bit about a stress test that Morten has made.
Morten: Yes, yes, indeed. So let's keep the stress test to the, to last. That's my suggestion. But more on projects. We had some project questions that's been hanging from listeners and Lars has been adding to them. So should we just dive in, Lars?
Lars: You have all the questions. Yeah, so this is sort of a mixed— it's, it's, should we call this an interview with listener questions? Because it kind of is, but it also isn't. So it's sort of a hybrid in between some questions that were following on.
Morten: Hybrid more about projects, yes.
Lars: Yes, exactly. Some, some came from Gregory with a previous episode not too long ago that we released, but there were some additional questions and some more had come up. And I also added my own, like you said. So it's kind of a mix on that that I thought would be fun to revisit and sort of riff off in this episode. So the first question on the list was to talk more about the differences between the Crucial Learning version of when we, you know, clarify and when we should record a desired outcome on the projects list, perhaps comparing that to the, you know, old Level 1 seminar or Level 2, or perhaps the book definition and how we did that. And we talked a bit about, you know, some of the differences in the Clarify workflow, and that was Episode 94 where we talked about— that was the Clarify clarified episode, which I still refer to quite a lot. But I thought this was interesting as well, just, you know, focus specifically on the project side of things and how that has changed in how we teach it. Does that make sense?
Morten: It makes sense.
Lars: Is the question clear? Yes, good.
Morten: Yes, it is. So why don't you lay out the land? What is the difference that you've found, Lars? And let's talk about what does that mean.
Lars: Yeah, so what we spoke about back then, there were some changes in the wording on whether something was actionable. The question, what is it, which is a part of standard GTD in the book, is actually not in the material that we teach when we teach people that are new to GTD, the ways of working and getting things under control. And we have, more importantly for this question specifically, is that there isn't the last question of, is there a project associated with this? So are there any more steps after this? So once you've found the next action on something that is actionable, takes longer than 2 minutes, you're the right person to do it. Is there any sort of finish line after that that we need to record? And, and we used to ask people to record it for, for everything that had more than one step. That was sort of the, the starting point originally. And, and then in the, if I remember correctly, in the level 2 seminar, we would, we would adjust and allow sort of Well, if you sort of see that these are next actions that are, you know, just after each other or sort of directly linked in some easy way, then we can have a more pragmatic approach to whether we want to add it to the list. And then today we have the Crucial Learning version where we actually even don't have it in, in step 2 in the clarify flow. When we teach it, we mention to people, yes, we know that there might be subsequent next actions that we are going to take. But we'll get back to those in step 3. And then there's a really nice video with Justin Hale where he describes that he wants to receive the passport in the mail. So for him, it's helpful. And it's more described as, I think, a table of contents of your goals. And that is sort of mixing the GTD terminology a bit, but I still like it in the way that it's sort of more flexible in the way that it allows you to register and add projects when you feel it's helpful for you. I think that's sort of the phrasing or perspective that we, that we introduce people. So did I leave anything out?
Morten: Not that I could hear. But I would like to comment, of course. No, I just want to say to people who are new to GTD, Getting Things Done is not religion.— it's not like dogmas and such. But what we are discussing now is the different ways of teaching this that we have done in the past and what we are doing now. And what does the book say, which is— if something is the scripture here, it is the book, even though there is not religion. So, and I just want to to let people know that, okay, so Getting Things Done is about creating stress-free productivity for you so that you can relax and be present in your life. And however you achieve that is up to you. But there are some best practices on how to achieve it, which we are teaching in the courses and which is in the book. So just for not painting a very strict picture here, because it's not. And the practice of GTD has to be adapted to you as a person and your personality. And as David Allen would say, that he broke all the parts of Getting Things Done down in the, as big a chunk as he could. He can go a lot more granular, but he did not because he wanted to make it easy. For you to understand. So, but how would you address the difference, Lars? What is your opinion on this? Because it's, this is actually not shown up on my radar as something that I find, you know, difficult or problematic in any way.
Lars: No, no, I agree. But it is, I've heard from other GTDers as well. I think at the summer camp this year too, where people have, you know, noted difference and the flexibility. And we discussed a bit about the number of projects, for example, where this sort of gives you some more flexibility as to not feel pressure, for the lack of— for lack of a better word, to— that you must have all projects defined. So this is more of a flexible approach in the sense that you can add that project if you feel it's helpful for you. And I do like that. I think there's a lot of value to the complete projects list. It's, you know, it's almost, you know, one of Absolutely. Of level 2, right? So it is, it is, yeah, there's certainly a balance here. I think when I was looking at the question and reflecting on it before we started, I came to the conclusion that I actually, I think it's better because it is easier to get started. And the easier it is to get started. Yeah, that's really what it comes back to for me that, you know, we want to get people started and we want to, you know, taste that list of next actions. And I, you know, I just did as we record this. I just came home from Greenland delivering seminars there, and I had people, you know, between the first and the second day coming up to me and saying, you know, I sat down, I looked at the list last night, and I felt relief. And, you know, we didn't— when we walked through it, you know, people say, oh, this is a new way of working, a lot of lists. And, you know, as we know, that are common concerns when you start with GTD. But that feeling of just, okay, well, the list of next actions, I can work with this. I can see that it will make things easier for me to get done. So I think taking that perspective, it is a good way to, to do it. That being said, I, as a trainer, I am then more aware of whether the attendees will gain more value from the seminar if I dive a bit more deeply into the, the projects part. And I will, I will do that for most people, but not everyone because it depends on what they need and their GTD system and then how their daily life is put, put together. And, you know, the seminar in Greenland, we had a lot of different people in different backgrounds, and some people had very full calendars and some people didn't, and some people were very project-based with 80-90% of their next actions having projects, and some had only 10 or 20. So it was very, you know, mixed, mixed group. So for them, I would still, you know, highlight and focus a bit more on the projects. And we also do that on the implementation setup where I describe that. So, so that is how I would do it. But I think that in summary, I do think this is actually a better way to get started with, you see. So that was my take. Well, what do you think?
Morten: No, well, to be honest with you, I think that's, you know, not honest, but to be, to reflect on the way that we do it is that we have in Norway not delivered, you know, a standalone GTD course for as long as I can remember. We always bundle it with, with a workshop in some kind of tool like Microsoft To Do, Calendar, Outlook. And when we, you know, bundle it, we will intertwine the workshop with the course so that when you are doing capture in the course, you capture it into, for example, then To Do. And then when you clarify and organize, we clarify and organize directly into to do. And one of the things I found very beneficial is that, you know, teaching people how to connect next actions with, with the projects that they have. And I emphasize quite clearly that if you want to get to the stress-free productivity where you can leave everything in your system, not worry about them, it is paramount that over time that you identify all the projects that you have. You don't have to do it perfectly the first time, you just have to get started. But know that the connection between what we call doing with done, so that you know I'm doing next actions to achieve my desired outcome, done. So what does done look like and what does doing look like? So to find doing and done is important. Because if you forget that you have something called done, this, the desired outcome, the project name, if you don't have that written down or you forget about it, you can forget about the project totally. And that might be not good for you. What is your take on that.
Lars: Lars? Yeah. So, so, um, no, we do it the same way when it comes to teaching people GTD in that we always spend 2 days together. I think the very first the seminar that we did with the new version, now the Crucial Learning version, it was delivered as a 1-day, but other than that, it's been 2 days and we really try to stick to that because it does add a lot of value to have that time together. I am more flexible. I think this comes back, and this was actually one of the questions, so maybe we'll dive into that now, was, you know, the ways to organize your projects, whether should they be, you know, a single list of, you know, projects and next actions, or should they be linked by tags, or should it be grouped together in the way that you do in OmniFocus or Todoist, or different ways of organizing them. And it sounds like you still focus on having a tag link in Todo Reminder. So what would be the most common one?
Morten: No, well, what I teach people is that it is a good idea to have a connection between your desired outcome/project with your next actions and using a hashtag defined by the, you know, the project name so that I will then take a keyword from the project name. Let's say that you need to, and this is something I actually use, so the cabin painted before the 2025 season. And so if you have a cabin, you want to get it painted, then maybe the keyword could be cabin or painted or cabin 25. You decide how you want to achieve that or to create that link. But when that's created, you create that, you just write it with a hashtag. You know, what is that called? That's, what's the name in English? The hash? Is it called hash?
Lars: Well, you create a hashtag when you add that in front of whatever word.
Morten: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so, so, so this, this character or plus whatever you find your, your, the name of your project to be, and then just mention that either in the notes field of, of either, for example, you can use it in Agenda 4 in the notes field.. So then you're reminded that this person has something to do with this project, or just as a next action, or in waiting for, or whatever list you're using. If you then click that tag, it will then open and sort so that you get all the tags in one place. So you can see I have a desired outcome, it's this, and then I have the next action, then I have a waiting for, and I have an agenda for, for example.
Lars: And that works across both Reminders and To Do. It's kind of the same way to do it, right?
Morten: Yeah, exactly. So Apple Reminders and Microsoft To Do has the same way of doing this. There's some minor differences, but both work the same way. And the reason that is a good idea and not hiding the, you know, having the next actions under the project is of course that you will have different contexts you will want to create, do your next actions. Like you have an errand, you have the phone to to take, you need to set up a meeting, that might be 3 different contexts that you will then have to look into all the projects to find the next actions for that, to create a to-do, to-do them. Instead, you bundle them together based on where you are and what you need, which is the definition of a context, either physical where you need to be or something you need to, for, in, in like a tool to do the task. And if you then group them under projects, you will not be able to find them. It's there, you have to dig them out. And if you're a little tired, you probably will go to your dark playground, aka Facebook, aka online newspaper, aka Instagram somewhere instead of doing what you should be doing. So, but if you have This is my pet peeve here, is if you have identified in your head more or less that you have a project, not writing it down is that you then you have to revisit it. It's like we talk about the regurgitation of cows, that you regurgitate thoughts. If you have an idea about something, why don't you write it down, your desired outcome, instead of revisiting it several times? I have to do something about the car and I didn't write you down. And then you come back into the car again and you're reminded, oh, I didn't write you down. When you get out, you forget. So write it down while you're smart. So I don't know, does that make sense, Lars?
Lars: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, we, I'm always, you know, a bit concerned on how much we ask people to do when they start with GCD. And that would perhaps be the other perspective as to what we would want people to write down. But that being said, you know, for the longest time, for 5 years or something, we, we had people in Denmark, we would set people up in Todoist and the normal way to do it would be to create context as labels and we would add the projects and then we would write the next action in that in quotes project folder and then add the, the label of computer or office or calls or whatever it might be. So that was somewhat the same. Yeah. Yeah. But, but today it's, it's I leave it more up to people to do what they want to do. I always show the link, the hashtag link, but I don't tell them whether they should add that or not. Most recently, the way we did it, I think most people didn't do it, and those people that really needed to have that more bigger overview, we actually came up with a Microsoft Teams— sorry, Planner solution where they would have a more joint overview. Of their things. So I'm happy still and also in my own personal system with just a single list of next actions, you know, split into the different contexts that we are used to and then a separate projects list without any links. I think actually if I were to set it up with using hashtags, I would probably set it up with #computer and #calls and hashtag, you know, that and then have smart lists to set it up as opposed to coming up with project links. But, you know, there are so many ways to do it and like you.
Morten: Said earlier, whatever works better for people. Yeah, the only reason that I'm recommending people to do what I just told you about is because I know it is, as so far I have my experiences, it is the part, what do you call it, the path of least resistance, but at the same time you get a fully fledged GTD system out of this. And of course you can experiment, of course you can do different things. As David Allen would say, that, you know, when he wrote the book, he wrote the complete manual. He didn't want to leave anything out that he learned about Getting Things Done. So, he wrote the book. And there is even more layers to GTD than what's in the book. But, because if not, it will be twice as thick. If you write all the layers you have of that on, you are, Well, it's a psychological onion where you can peel layers for layers and find meaning in why does he say what he says and why does he want this. And it is getting things done is when I coach people, I don't know if you use the same phrase, but I told them it's not about perfection, but direction. So getting things done is about little, you know, if your direction is I want to get a little bit better at this every day, that's more of a goal than saying I need to be be perfect before I can be satisfied. Because you are going to get better at this. Lars and I, I just want to say, Lars and I have been at this for a long time, both of us. And we are not finished. We are still experimenting. We are still trying out things. We will get back to what I did as a test before, a little later in this podcast. But we are still experimenting. So I just want to say that, okay, try what works for you, but know that The way that David Allen has set it up is giving you the flexibility to do what you want. As long as you adhere within these best practices, you will get the best results. If you don't adhere to the best practices, you will not get the best result. You will get a result which is not maybe good, but you decide. Yeah, it's not.
Lars: Religion again. Yes. All right, I think we, I think we covered the first two questions now. The third question would then be for the more advanced GTDers. How would you then complete your projects list if it is not complete? So I'm guessing you have a few ideas, Morten, where you would go looking. How would you answer? Or should I go first this time?
Morten: And I'm not sure if I understand the question.
Lars: Can you repeat it? How to complete your projects list if.
Morten: It is not complete already. Of course. Aha. Yeah. It's what we would call a level 2 question. Because it is, and it is a little tricky one, but it is, as I see it, it's— if you don't have the full overview of everything you have committed yourself to, or want to do something about, or have a worry about, it will stay in your head. And the reason we are writing everything down is because we don't want to use the head as that system for remembering everything. So if you have a, you know, a squeaky car and need to do something about it, why don't you write that squeaky car down somewhere? It could be on a someday/maybe. You don't have to do something about it, or worry list if you want. Just get it out of your head so you can see it later. And the more complete your projects list becomes, the emptier your head becomes and the more present in the moment you become. So what do you think, Lars?
Lars: Does that make sense? No, no, I think that absolutely makes sense. As for sort of specific places to go looking, like you said, that's really the Level 2 seminar part of what we do there. And, you know, looking at your next actions, do they all, do you have all the projects related to them or are there actually more next actions there? Take a walk around the house. I think that was one of the things I have on my yearly checklist. You know, start at one corner, finish at the other. And I think it was Meg Edwards that said that at one point. That was— that'll surely add some things to your projects list.
Morten: If you do it with your spouse, guaranteed to be.
Lars: Adding something. Yes. You know, like we talked about, I think, in the Level 2 seminar, look for stuff that annoys you, look for that you think could be better, processes, procedures, things like that. And of course, keep looking going forward. We didn't, you know, on day one, you don't start with a complete projects list, right? It comes up over time and it's built over time. I think the place that helped me the most was again to establish that horizon two of areas of focus and accountability and getting that set up because that was then Still, I don't know if it's my favorite horizon, but, but it really— perhaps it is because it is such a nice lens to put on your, you know, personal life and work life and, and, and spotting the things that aren't where you want them to be. And that's, you know, that's how those projects show up. And a lot of them will go to the someday maybe list, but just having them captured like we spoke about it. So yeah, I think the areas of focus was a big help for me in that perspective.
Morten: Yeah. And a lot of ghosts in that cabinet if you haven't looked in it. So open that cabinet, look inside and catalog what's inside there and then ask yourself, is everything really here now? So that you can get an overview because all your areas of responsibility and focus is potentially places where you will find projects suddenly. You look at them and you go, hmm. I haven't maintained that area of responsibility at the standards I would like to. What can I do with that? What kind of project can I, you know, can I create that will fulfill? So I close that cognitive gap between what's not and what needs to be with a project.
Lars: So indeed. Do you still just follow up question? I think we have both in previous GCD Live, GCD systems. We have organized our projects by area of focus. I don't do that anymore. Just a personal professional.
Morten: What do you do? I don't do it either. I did it before in OmniFocus, but it became what David would call productivity pornography for me because it's Of course, it maps things out in a good way, but I've decided then, as we did on the summer camp, we did a presentation of Simplify Your GTD System, is that I moved all the areas of focus and accountability to separate lists so I can see them. And that works a lot better for me than to have them in my list system. Every time you look at something, like a basic example is if you have thousands of emails in your inbox, even though you have a lot of crap in your inbox, you have a lot of newsletters and CC mail coming to your inbox that you really don't need to see unless you need to see it. And then all of these will end inside your system if you made it too convoluted and complex, it will take a small piece of your attention and run away with it. You see something that's not finished or it's not current, and it's kind of like, it's like, you know, it's like we talked about the Getting Things Done system as a menu. If you have a system where you have 200 items of things you might want to eat on a restaurant menu, you will run away from that restaurant and go into McDonald's because that's, you know, I can follow, I can see pictures and I can, I know what I want. Yes, I want a Coke and a menu of some sort. Which is, imagine that your GTD system should be as as easy as possible for you to read and, you know, use. And it should not steal the attention away from everything that's not done yet.
Lars: Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Which brings us on to the next question. So looking at these projects and the phrasing, best strategies for phrasing a project's desired outcome? What do you recommend? Yeah.
Morten: Or any sort of perspectives to take? Well, we have, to go back to the basics, is that you should have a verb in both the desired outcome and the next action. And my suggestion to my clients is often try and write that as past tense so that you write it as it is finished already, because then it's easier for a brain to close the gap. If you don't know what done looks like, it's difficult for your brain to close that gap with next actions. So use a verb, use it in past tense, and write it as what does done look like. And if that done look like is a little complex, you might want to write the summary in there as a desired outcome, as a project name, and then elaborate in the notes field so that you can elaborate more on the details there. What needs to be, to create this a successful outcome. So when this is finished, what is true? Yeah.
Lars: Any, anything you want to add? No, that was pretty much what I was going to say. That was really nice. No, I really like that. No, I, you know, the present versus past. I think that's, that's something good to keep in mind. Describe when you could cross it off your list. I think that's, that's very much also what I, what I've focus on. And then that being said, I did check my own list and it's actually present tense. So I actually have it in present tense. Yeah. I'm wondering if I want it, I prefer it this way, but at least it's a reflection for me. Now the other thing I would just, you know, sometimes I mention for people because how detailed should your projects list be? Should you have sort of that high-level summary like you just described or should these be separate parallel projects that you can move on at the same time And just, just reflect on that and also reflect on what is actually your desired outcome. Is it to, I think, what do we speak about? We spoke about, you know, is it to onboard the new employee, new employee onboarded, or is it new employee integrated in the company culture? And of course the different finish lines, you know, describe and drive different numbers of next actions. So just, you know, reflect, not, not saying one is better than the other or more correct, but just at least define what you're looking to do so that the next actions that you take actually bring you to where you want to be. I think that that's what it comes back to.
Morten: Yeah. And, and just to reflecting on that, what you just said is that, you know, that some projects are, you know, when one part of a project stops, then another part starts. Like you've, you've, uh, signed a contract, an employee has, uh, is, uh, starting on Monday, but that doesn't finish the job. The onboarding process will continue. So one of the things that I've recommended clients to do is to create a folder where we can call it like, you can call it quarterly goals, or you can call it whatever year goals if you want. So all employees onboarded, and then create a list inside that to create is to tell yourself, what do I need to remember when I onboard a new person? What is my responsibilities and when do I hand it off to others? And just to create that so that when you have another project as, you know, new developer onboarded or hired, then when that hire is finished, then it should more or less automatically trigger the next part of a project. You can then either change the name of the project or create a fully completed new one because we like ticking things off that's done. At least.
Lars: I do. Ding!
Morten: That's, that is a good thing. Um, but to have that overview, like a template on how you will do things so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you, you do something, that might be beneficial. I don't know, what do you think, Lars?
Lars: Yeah, no, absolutely. I really like those, those reflections. And again, it's good to visit that. And also perhaps good to share with people who are, you know, haven't reflected on this for a while, or perhaps haven't come across it yet in their GTD journey, that, you know, these are good questions to keep in mind when you— because again, taking that perspective that the projects list is really, really valuable to have with you, then a well-defined projects list is of course essential. Otherwise, it doesn't really help. I'm reminded about a project that I just redefined actually, because I noticed on my most recent weekly review that I had a project to announce a GTD Masterclass retreat 2025 on my list. And then I reflected on, well, we have actually announced that in the most recent episode of the podcast. So we might want to announce that again or just note that again. If you're curious, Morten and I have planned a weekend with David Allen, with the author of Getting Things Done. We'll be in Denmark on a, uh, at a very nice location. I think we mentioned last time that we are looking to see if we can find a part of a castle to, uh, to meet at in Denmark. And, um, so if you want to get on that list, uh, we'll look, still looking for the weekend and the final venue. Once that is out, then we will let everyone know. Thanks to those who have already written to us. Uh, and if you're curious, be sure to let us know podcast@visalearning.dk, then we will add you to that, that list.
Morten: Yes, and it is worth mentioning that this retreat weekend is going to be exclusive. With that, I mean, it's not going to be cheap. I'm sorry. We are looking at VIP transport and that you should feel like you are.
Lars: The king or queen. Going to your castle. Yeah. Yes.
Morten: Going to Lars' castle in Denmark. Yes, sure. We don't have that. We only have one. That's where our king lives.
Lars: And they are all mine. Yeah, of course. All right. Bonus question before we get to your experiment. There was a bonus question. I spoke to Gregory. We mentioned in the previous episode who also supplied some of the questions for today. And he actually had a question that I wanted to include for today as well, which was specifically for you. How do you handle soft deadlines versus hard ones? Stuff you have to do on a day versus stuff you want to be reminded about, might want to do at a given day. And I think you have previously shared how you do it today, Morten, and then this was sort of a follow-up, I think, on how you do it, whether you've changed it or— yeah, so it was specifically for you, which I thought we could sneak in today as as well. Okay.
Morten: No, the way that I personally, and I'm not saying that the way I do it is the correct way because it's just my GTD way, is that if I have a soft deadline that I, or even a hard deadline that I want to be reminded of on a regular basis, like let's say that because when I do my weekly review, I go one week back and two, three, four weeks maybe. If I want to make sure I'm not missing something. If I'm more than 3-4 weeks into the future, I might create what I call a tickler with a repeat. And that tickler shows up in the My Day view or the Today view of my Apple Reminders. And when it does show up, I can then just be aware that, okay, tickler, there's a deadline coming towards me. I need to look at this at some point. I need to start activating it. So that's a kind of like a soft reminder of a deadline. And I can tick it off, and next week at the same time it will come up, or in 2-week intervals. I have one that's— I have something that I have to do with my car. I have a tickler that I need to do one time every year, but I need to be It is just my mileage for my insurance that I need to make sure that I'm not passing that threshold. Because if I do and there's an accident, I might have to pay a lot extra. So I just want to be mindful of that. And that every month I'm looking, how is your kilometers coming along, Morten, to make sure that I don't forget that. So that's my soft deadlines. My hard deadlines I would have in my calendar.. And maybe with a tickler if it's far into the future, just to make sure that I'm not forgetting that some big thing is coming towards me that's a hard deadline. And I would have that either as— most likely it will be just a full day event that I will look at in the calendar, or even if I just want to make sure that I'm not missing this, I would I can put it in the calendar on a specific time just to make sure that I'm not missing this. It's like, don't forget, I need to— you know, we talk about getting things done, it's like putting something in front of your door and where you're reminded of it when you need to get reminded of it, not before but not too late, but exactly when you need. And that's what I'm trying to create for myself by using this system. How do you use it, Lars? This is Now I answered.
Lars: Now you, yeah, I hope, uh, no, no, as, as I got that question, I wanted to pass it on to you. I was reminded that if I remember correctly, you once had your setup in OmniFocus so that stuff with dates on in OmniFocus was actually also a hard deadline. Uh, but, but I think it sounds like we have much of the same approach. Um, I have my soft deadlines in Reminders with my dates on there, and that goes for, for tickler stuff as well. Um, I am a bit more careful with not adding too many dates because that is something that I'm very good at. So I'm, yeah, I'm slowing, slowing down on, on that one. Also on my someday maybe list— sorry, not someday maybe, but on my waiting for list, I've actually only added dates on stuff where I specifically, oh, I have to follow up— or not have to, but, you know, remind me about this on Monday. Otherwise I'll see it in my weekly review on Friday. Yeah, yeah. So previously I would add dates to, to all them just as a way to have those, those dates in there. But I found now that I'm just more, I'm getting older, I think. I'm just adding, you know, when, when should I, well, I send it at this day and then when I do the weekly review, let's, let's see if I want to follow up. It's a bit more of an easy approach, but it works better for me because again, I have the tendency to add too many dates. So this is a way for me to scale that back. So from what I understood, I think we have somewhat the same approach.
Morten: Yeah. And then for me, then, you know, as you mentioned also, the soft deadlines is things I would like to get done today, but I will not die if they're not done. If I feel like really it's important and urgent, it will go on my calendar. Everything that's important but not urgent that I would like to do today, it will go on the today view of reminders. Deadline, but it is, it is defined in my brain as something I can move if there is no, if it then suddenly I, it's getting a little too close to my deadline deadline, I will then drag it onto the calendar and say, now, Morten, now. Yeah. Now you need to.
Lars: Get it done. All right. Well, I think that was actually the last question that I had gathered for this one to geek out a bit more about these, these projects. Hope it was helpful. Thanks, Gregory again for adding some input here. And to everyone out there listening, hopefully this was helpful. If you have any questions, be sure to send them to us. We are, I think we are fairly low on questions right now. So if you have any thoughts about GCD, something you'd want us to pick up, then be sure to send us an email, podcast@adviceandlearning.dk. But before we go out, before we leave, Morten's experiment on a— Yes. Not so good GCD system, the stress test. We teased it in the beginning.
Morten: Yeah, no, I can bleep myself. What I've done is I created a, it starts with S, H, and T, practice and system. So I've been abusing my Getting Things Done system and I've been abusing my Getting Things Done practice. And why on earth would I do that? The things we don't do for you, our listeners, and I do it for my coaching clients as well, is just to feel what people who don't do GTD feel. So, and you know that when you get, you know, good at getting things done, it doesn't mean that you're perfect, but probably your getting things done system is somewhat better functioning than it was when you were not very good. And, but when you get good, you forget that you have a system and systematic approach and you forget what people around you feel. And I think that this is not for me specifically because I work with clients all the time who really need the help that I can give them. But I'm thinking about this as from the perspective of, if you are good at getting things done, if you forget that you actually have a system, you don't have the empathy for the people around you who don't have a system and systematic approach. So, what I did is I threw myself out of control to feel how that feels. And that didn't feel good. Not at all. I'm so sorry, people, but it feels really awful for me. And David would call it, you know, that if you don't do your weekly review, you will feel like you have dirty underwear and if you don't capture or your system is— so just be specific. What I did is I overloaded my system. I re-enabled notifications on my phone so that I got distracted. So the ping, ping, ping, like, oh, there's another Instagram. What is that? I'm curious. Let me see what that is. And, you know, all the things that you can do to distract yourself and create overwhelm. I did. And I did this first and foremost to remember how it feels, how it felt for me before, and how it will feel if I don't do my GTD. And I think for those of you who get Getting Things Done, it could be an exercise you can try. Just start with overload yourself with notifications, see what that does to you. And feel. Let your body feel what you're doing. That would be my recommendation. And then have empathy for the people around you. Buy the "Teams: Getting Things Done with Others" book and read it and help people around you get things done. Yeah, that was my, just my stress test. I decided I want to stress myself out to feel how it feels.
Lars: So any comments, Lars? No, that sounds horrible. Thanks for testing for us. Yeah. If anyone out there listening have tried something similar, be sure to let us know. No, but I think you're touching on something that is important, which is as.
Morten: GTDers.
Lars: If you are— well, let's maybe just put it into my own personal perspective. I think when I came across GTD first, it was both of a, you know, desire to be more productive, also to be less stressed and be better at disconnecting when leaving work. But the productivity perspective, being in my 20s and very much focused on career, there were times when I would be pushing too hard. There would be, you know, I'm not impatient by nature, or I think maybe I am impatient by nature. Perhaps it came with my GTD practice. But for example, coming back to that waiting for list, how quickly do you then follow up with people? I was reminded of a scenario scenario, let's call it a scenario. When I did my master trainer certification in Crucial Conversations a few months back, because they were asking for an example of a downward spiral, meaning that you did something that then made someone else do something that made you do something, and then, you know, got worse and worse and worse. And that was, you know, what I thought of was a scenario in my IT days where I would, you know, I was looking for, you know, a specific deadline for someone. And I would email them and they would email me back and I would email them again and it would just, you know, be that ping-pong quickly, quickly more stern emails or, you know, it wasn't caps lock emails but we were pretty close. So that kind of, you know, sympathy for others that might not have the same system and setup and processes behind them to move things forward. I think that's a good reminder based.
Morten: On your little stress test. Yes, yes. Well, I hope that me reminding you that you do actually have a system out there, that if you have a GTD system, so don't forget the value it has and talk to other people about it and talk to them. And I think that is the end.
Lars: Of this episode, Lars, is it? I think so. And we always remind people, but before.
Morten: We go Before we go, I just wanted to remind you that we would like, both Lars and I would like you to connect with us on LinkedIn. So if you want to connect with us, send us a message or just connect. And if you connect and you click the, I think it's the three dots and connect with a message, then just mention GTD and voilà, we are hooked up. And the reason you should do that is is twofold. One is that you will find interesting material, hopefully, about Getting Things Done in your feed from Lars and me. And the second is that you actually help us. So if you connect with us and you find a post, we give value, and you click a like or share with your, your, your peers in your network, you raise the awareness of Getting Things Done with people around us. Lars and I are on a quest. The quest is to, as many people in this world, learn Getting Things Done and have the stress-free productivity life that both Lars and I have. We would like a lot of people to embrace that, and that's why we make this podcast for you for free. We share the good news about that it is actually an alternative to stress and overwhelm. It's called Getting Things Done, and it's possible to learn. You don't have to be even a lot, you don't have to be intelligent. Just look at me. I don't find myself very intelligent, but I still get it. So, and actually, I can share this. And if you want to connect with us and help share this, please do.
Lars: And now, Lars, you can take us out. I will try. I will try with a quick reminder for you to head on over to learn more about the summer camp. And you do that at gtdsummercamp.com. That is where you'll find more information about the GTD Summer Camp taking place in 2025. It'll be in June, it'll be in Denmark, just as we have been doing in previous years. And really looking forward to seeing you there. People from all over the world. A great weekend, I'm spending time working with different perspectives on GCD, hopefully leaving the weekend inspired after having a lot of fun with a lot of interesting and nice GCDers from around the world. We also remind you to head on over to vitallearning.eu. Now that you anyway opened your browser, you open up a new tab, go to vitallearning.eu, find your way to the local country websites in Norway, Denmark, wherever you want to go in the Nordics, plus learn more about how we can help in your Help your colleagues, help your, whoever needs assistance with the different things that we teach today: Getting Things Done, Crucial Conversations, and more. So go in there and have a look in the Nordics Plus, www.masalearning.eu. Anywhere outside of those countries, head on over to cruciallearning.com to find your local partners.
Morten: Yes, and one little thing that we didn't mention before is that we are starting a webinar series. That is free, and it's about the 5 different skills that we teach people. Getting Things Done is one of them, and we call that #NordicWebinars. And feel free to follow Lars and me on LinkedIn again, because then you will have information about that, and you can get information about the skills that you need to succeed in life and work. And I will hope to see you there.
Lars: It's going to be— that really is a good, that really is a good, good reason to, to connect or follow or whatever you prefer. We have these set up now, I think with a month in between each. Everyone from the Nordics+ will participate and share on, on different perspectives that are, you know, they're really cool and I'm really looking forward to them.
Morten: So hopefully you'll join us there as well. Yeah, so Nordic webinars, stay tuned. On LinkedIn or elsewhere where we can find you. It's going to be in the, in the, if you are in one of the Nordic countries, you might find it in a newsletter if you're subscribed to that. But if not, follow us on LinkedIn and listen to this podcast. I'm sure we're going to drop some dates as well. Okay. Yes. Okay. Until next time, people, stay safe and stay productive.
Lars: Bye-bye.
