Episode 122 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. Privet, Lars.
Lars: Privet, Morten. 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 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 the audio versions of the first 6 episodes of the podcast where we talk about the basics of GTD, the 5 steps. Today's episode number is number 122 of the podcast, and today's episode, we Yeah, we ended up calling it, I think, Strategies for Getting Your Weekly Review Done, right, Morten?
Morten: Yes, that's true. But before we get going on the episode, you have a reminder for people and some really good news.
Lars: And some news as well. Yeah. So this relates to this year's summer camp, the GTD Summer Camp 2025 in Denmark. Back in December, when we were almost about to open up the sign-up forms, I got an email from Catherine Allen, wife of David Allen, asking where can I sign up for the summer camp. And that was quite a surprise. We did not know that would, would happen, but it turns out that they decided to join us this year. So there will be a lot of GTDers, nice GTDers. You'll learn a lot. It'll be a fantastic weekend, but you will also have a chance to say hi to David. He will be joining us at the summer camp this year. So we're really excited and really thankful that David will join us. And it'll be, you know, even more fun this year. I think it'll be our 5th anniversary and perfect timing that David and Catherine will join us.
Morten: And he's turning 80 this year. So grab him while you can get him. Or hang out if you want. So, and the details, the dates and where to sign up, Lars?
Lars: Gtdsummercamp.Com. That's where to go to find it. It'll be June 14th to 15th.
Morten: Yeah. And we, we do encourage people to arrive on Friday and participate in the pre-summer camp dinner. So if you can do that, that's always a nice. Warm-up for the, the 2 days together.
Lars: I think as of, you know, we're recording this in January, and right now we have about 35 people signed up, and I think 34 have decided to join us Friday. So that'll be June 14th as well. So you get the nice dinner together with everyone, and you get to, you know, start off with a nice evening with all the nice GTDers out there.
Morten: Yeah, and I hope you understand that half of the places' seats have gone already. So don't wait. Get your seat. Seats now. It is sad if you will reach the closed door because we do actually, we do not have, we have 60 seats exactly, I think, or maybe exactly.
Lars: With— Yeah, that's what we have booked so far. And so yeah, 60 seats. And yeah, let's see how it goes. When we announce this with David, let's see if we get some more people to sign up now. It's been pretty quick influx of a lot of familiar names. Let's see how it progresses over the coming months. These signups typically trickle in as we get through the different months and get closer to the summer camp time. But I think perhaps this year it's a good idea, as you say, to sign up as soon as you're able to.
Morten: Yeah, don't wait. Okay, back to strategies for your brain., and the weekly review. If you are, you have something more you would like to say, or can we?
Lars: No, no, I am with you.
Morten: Okay, good. Let's jump right in. So when we talked about, we received an email from, I don't know if he says his full name. Should we call him just Albert Jan, maybe?
Lars: Albert Jan, I think Albert Jan will probably be my closest Dutch impression of how to say his name, which is probably wrong. I'm sorry. Yeah. That's as close as we'll get.
Morten: Yeah. So, but he sent us an email and would you like to read us the email?
Lars: Yeah. Let's go through that because that was sort of the trigger that triggered the focus of this podcast. It came in not too long ago. It says, dear Morten and Lars, I hope this email finds you both well. I've been a longtime listener of your podcast and truly appreciate the insightful discussions you have about productivity, especially when it comes to getting things done. Your perspectives have been incredibly helpful in refining my own approach to managing tasks and staying organized. Happy to hear that. One aspect of GTD I'm struggling with is the weekly review. While I feel great after completing it, it gives me clarity and a sense of control. I often find it difficult to get started. I try to do it Monday morning, first thing, but postpone it a lot and sometimes start on it at the end of the week. Do you have any tips or strategies to make starting the weekly review easier or to make it feel less daunting? I'd love to hear your thoughts or experiences. Thank you for all the work you put into the podcast. It's been a game changer for me. Looking forward to hearing from you. Best regards from Albert-Jan from the Netherlands.
Morten: And these kind of emails is why we continue doing this. So keep those emails coming. So thank you, Albert-Jan, for this. Yeah. And, and I, you know, we both in the pre-show, understood very clearly that this is not a very specific and outside-the-box kind of problem. Everybody struggles with their weekly review. So, Albert-Jan, you are in a very good club. I'm just going to say that. Welcome to the club of people struggling with getting things done weekly review to become part of who you are. So that, as David says, if you don't do it, you will feel like you have dirty underwear on. And, and the way that I phrase this, because when we do this, this time we, we— Lars went into his thinking bubble and I went into mine, and we took notes on, and we ended up with different things to talk about. And I, um, what I decided to talk about when it comes to this is to talk about the more psychological aspects how you can use my little tagline, right, play on the same team as your brain to get your weekly review done. And for those of you who are following us on YouTube, you will see that both Lars and I have now QR codes. So if you scan the QR code on the screen, you can connect with us on LinkedIn, which we would love for you to do. So please try and consider that. The links to our profiles are also in the show notes. Follow us or connect with us. You decide what you would like to do. But to play on the same team as your brain, let's dig into that. Because one of the things that we have as a tool, as trainers and coaches and, you know, trainers, trainers, master trainers, are a tool that we've been using for many years that we still use. It's called Kairos Cognition Survey. And I'm sure Lars will now take a note so that he can link to that in the show notes. Isn't that correct, Lars? No, it is, it is an online survey that you can take and that will cost you $10 to get the detailed report, but I would highly recommend you do that. It's, you know, $10, what's that? Well, for some people it might be a lot, but For most people, I think it is affordable enough. It's like a couple of cups of coffee, maybe. I don't know. Depending on which country you live, it's like, it's half a beer in Norway. Just saying. So the beer is, alcohol is expensive here. But the Kairos measures how your brain prefers to process information. Knowing how it prefers to process information can be helpful when you are trying to get your Getting Things Done weekly review done. I'm just going to take you through some of what you might expect from there and how you can use this information for helping you get the weekly review done. So the first thing it measures is how on the scale between associative and sequential are you. So a sequential thinker is someone who are attracted to sequences, so A, B, C, D, E, F, G, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and prefers information to travel that way and prefers processing information that comes to you that way. Typical examples of people who are highly sequential are lawyers, accountants, assessors, controllers, people who handle a lot of information that has to be sequential, or it makes more sense to you when it's sequential. So if you are an associative, you are more like 1, 2, 3, 4, and then you interrupt yourself with something, A, B, C, D, Bali, beach, beer, hotel. Oh, where was I now? I have to get back. And a lot of the people who are sequential enjoy the weekly review. But I'm guessing, Albert, is that that is not you. I think maybe you are an associative, because if you are an associative, your brain will start interrupt you. Let's say that you are trying to reflect on something, something you need to do, and you have to decide what to do. And that is not an easy thing for associative people because your brain will try to hijack that conversation. Many reasons for that, I'll get back to a couple, but it will try and hijack that internal conversation that's going on in your brain. So, so when you're trying to make a decision, it's going to be harder for you. So one of the strategies that I do recommend people is do it in short spurts. So like try and do 25 minutes and 5 minutes doing nothing, and, or shorter, maybe try with 5 minutes and see how far you get before you get fatigue or your brain hijacks the conversation and runs away with you. And as always, when you're doing a weekly review, always have something to write with and on, or, you know, have your capture tool ready. Because if there is conflicting information that comes up, that reminds me of, then write that down quickly. Lars, I'm going to hand the reins over to you. I'm not hijacking this podcast. But how would you look at, if you look to the observer, listener, mover, observer, reader, talker. So if we start at observer, how would you, how would you think about somebody who's a high observer? How, how would you recommend them doing the weekly review? What, what tips would you give them? And I can try and, you know, add to what you say if I have something extra.
Lars: I think you're probably better off hijacking this because you've worked much more with the Kairos Cognition Test than I have. So I would actually suggest that you go, go, go through your recommendations as approach than me jumping in yet.
Morten: Yeah, well, you know, if you are then, let's say that you are highly associative and you're a high observer, which means that your brain cannot shut off visual information. It's, if you see something, you, it is information that's potentially something you need to do something about. So, so, Observing it brings it— you will learn faster if it's observable, but at the same time it will distract you more. Because you have people who do not see their dirty underwear on the floor, and then you have people who see it the second you drop it there. So if you are the latter, you might be a high observer. So the way that I would recommend you, if you are a high observer, to you know, use that information when you are doing your weekly review is to make what you see as boring as possible. For example, one of my clients, he had a home office where he did his weekly review. He did it and he has a beautiful view outside with birds and maybe, you know, some people walking past, you know, and it was really a beautiful place and a beautiful view. But it was really distracting because when he sees something moving outside behind the screen that he's working on, then that hijacks his brain. So he turned his desk towards a white wall, and he even took down— because he found that he had a painting on that wall that really distracted him, so he took away everything. Cleaned his desk. The first thing he did was clean his desk, remove all the clutter, make sure that you don't have anything visually distracting, and then he started with a white wall. And he was also a high mover, which I can talk about now. High mover is someone who gets information by— the information flies faster in your brain if you stand up and move or walk. So if you ever get up to take a call that's important to you, or you prefer standing when you talk about some difficult topic, then you might be a high mover. And he was also a high mover. So he got a stand, you know, what do you call, stand-sit desk. What do you call that in English? The desk that can move up so you can stand. It's a stand-up desk or sit-down desk.
Lars: Yeah. I think people at least know what it is.
Morten: Okay, okay. So it's a desk with a motor that can go up and go down. Okay, so if anyone knows what that is, send us a comment, put a comment in my channel so I can learn. So in YouTube. So the high mover would be someone who prefers standing when they are doing something high intensive, thinking, that might be something you might want to consider. And if you are a high listener, that's the third thing that we talk about when it comes to the chakras in addition to the associative and sequential. So, high listeners or low listeners. If you're a low listener, you don't hear— your visual information does not flow easily for you. But if you are a high listener, you might, if you are quiet in a room, you might very clearly hear the fan or your AC going, or the neighbor talking in the neighboring office. Anything that is visually, audiovisually cluttering your brain, you should try and escape from. So it might be beneficial for you then to put on a headset if you can't move out of that physical environment, and then maybe even consider putting on some very monotone music that might block out your receptors in your ear or the part of brain, the part of your brain that does that. So when we come to talker and we have something called reader, and you notice if you're a low reader it's difficult for you to read information, but then you really need to slow down your brain when you read something. If you have something that you haven't decided yet but it involves reading, then Set aside time to do that. And it might as well be interesting for you to do the reading in advance so you don't do it when you do your weekly review, because reading might be difficult for you. It takes time. I'm a low reader, so when— if somebody presents me something, I would like to— I'm getting really old school, so I print sometimes when it's— well, if it's important to me, I will. And I really need to parse what's going there. And then I sit down somewhere else, away from my screen, with a highlighter, and then read through and take notes. But to do that in advance so that it can be processed in your brain before you do your Weekly Review, that might be also a good thing to do. And if you're a high talker— high talkers are people who understand problems better when they talk— then sit somewhere where you can talk to yourself. I do that all the time. Well, not all the time, but sometimes. And it's really difficult. I'm trying to do an internal dialogue in my brain about what is this and why is this important and what do I want out of— what's my desired outcome here if this is successful, how I will look at this, what I will do. And then to do that helps me process things. And using these 5 traits or the way that your brain prefers processing, observer, listener, mover, reader, talker, and then associative and sequential, it gives you some insights in how you can play on the same team as your brain to get your weekly review done. Anything to add, Lars, on my.
Lars: Rant? No, it was a good walkthrough. No, I think just from a, you know, personal experience perspective, just just to add in as an example, when I do my weekly review, I love for it to be completely quiet. And it never is. The office is in the city center. So it's, it's, it's never really quiet here. But I have a playlist that I will, that I will listen to, to, to make sure that there's the right amount of information, the right amount of noise to not interrupt me, but also to not let me be interrupted by other audio input. My wife notice this immediately. So if we work at the office together, we get here in the morning, it's quiet out, there's nobody in the streets. I will happily sit here with no music, no sounds, nothing at all. And she will sit here for 5 minutes and be like, can we put on some music? Can we put on something? Because for her, it's just really distracting that there is no sounds. So when it comes to the weekly review, for example, I'll have my Weekly Review playlist. And, you know, she would perhaps prefer to sit in a café with the right amount of background noise and people talking. That works for her. I will sit there and I will try to, not intentionally, but try to listen to every conversation going on. So it will completely distract me from being productive in any way. I never understood how people could be productive in cafés, but yeah, that's where the Kairos comes in. So just wanted to add that as an example of how this might show up in real life.
Morten: Yeah, it is, it is, you know, the Kairos is a very good way of getting to know yourself, getting to know how your brain functions. It's been a game changer for me because I thought I was, you know, when I read things before I did the Kairos many years ago, it was like I felt stupid because I used a lot longer time to read something. And specifically, if I really need to understand what are they talking about, what is What is this? And it took me a long time and I felt a little stupid because of this. But now I understand, well, my brain processes information differently. I have different channels that I'm more open to communications with. But that's also why I have a library of books. I have both physical, paper-based books. I also have ebooks books, but I have my biggest libraries in audiobooks. So when I'm going to learn something or get some information, my brain prefers audio.
Lars: So, yeah.
Morten: Same for me. Yeah. And I, so to, you know, to go somewhere else, go somewhere where your brain can process the information more easily and make sure that Albert-Jan, he talked about it is scheduled on Monday. That might not be the best day for you if you are trying to play on the same team as your brain, maybe you need to move it to another day where you are not interrupted, if you are interrupted by other people or by yourself. And one thing that I've been thinking a lot about is, you know, well, some people don't feel the urgency of doing the weekly review because it doesn't seem urgent. It just feels like a chore. I think Albert John maybe are in that category. But something that might make you reflect better on this could be the information that we do have two parts of the brain that we are trying to call upon more or less at the same time, which is that when you are trying to do a weekly review, your whole brain If you don't have a full overview of everything you have committed to do something about, your full brain, your brain will go for dopamine more than the slow thinking of the weekly review. So it could be that you are a bit dopamine addicted, which most of us are these days with all our phones that dings and, you know, Instagram Reels and whatnot. And, you know, the instant gratification. That you get when you are at, you know, you, you see something that potentially is something you might want to enjoy or that you will enjoy, that has some value to you. But, um, your brain operates on a different level because you need to slow down your brain. David uses the phrase, you need to slow down to speed up. And when you are slowing down, you are, and instead of being in the amygdala, where all your emotions and feelings and traumas are inside your brain, in the, in the stem of your brain. You are calling upon the frontal cortex, which is in, in the front of your head. And the frontal cortex is the thinker, the long-term thinker, the strategist, the, the, the wiser part of you that are not doom-scrolling on Instagram Hey, I'm Morten, I do that sometimes. That happens. I'm not proud of that, but it happens. So, but the commonsensical thinker, the long-term planner lives there. And if you are living in the, what I call the amygdala catching, which means that every time you find something that might be good for you, or you find something on somewhere that you can enjoy, it's kind of catching. And the same idea is that when you do something, you can, hooks, you can mark something as off, done. You mark it off and go ting. This is also kind of the same idea as it's more interesting to do that than to think. But you need to think before you do to make sure you're doing the right things. If not, you're just doing, which is not getting things done at all. So anything to add to that, Lars? Do you have some insights?
Lars: No, that makes sense. That absolutely makes sense. And I think it's a good perspective to keep in mind also, you know, in, you know, the way he describes it, that he knows that, you know, it feels great to complete it. I think that's one of the first steps that people have to get over. So that probably tells us that he's been doing a, you know, GTD for a while now, because that would be a typical starting point. Do people actually understand the value of the weekly review? Because otherwise it will likely never win. When you look at, okay, I could do a weekly review or I could check off these 8 things, right? So he knows the value of it. So then it would be, you know, I would be curious to hear why, why is it that we keep postponing it? You know, it could be like you said, Monday morning could be the wrong place to put it. But he sort of asked for both. How do we make it, you know, starting the weekly review easier or to make it feel less daunting? And I think, you know, some of the strategies that you mentioned will hopefully help him reflect on ways for him how he could could perhaps get started easier with the weekly review.
Morten: One of the things that I would do if I was you, Albert-Jan, is to remind yourself, because you're writing that it feels good after. One of the things that I ask my coaching clients to do is to remember that really good feeling when you're done. And when you have done your weekly review, you feel liberated. I feel now the time is here for me to do stuff because I have everything under control. I have overview. I feel good about me and the work I'm doing. And remember that before you start. Try and recall that emotion. There is some therapy where you are supposed to think about a specific feeling and then do some finger tapping. I don't remember, it's a tongue-fell therapy in Norwegian. I don't know, you know what else? Have you heard about that, Lars?
Lars: That one was difficult. No, don't know that. No. I think I know what you mean, but I don't know the English word.
Morten: For it at least. No, no, no, me neither. But the idea is that you focus on what you want to, the emotion you would like to have, and then you think about that emotion, then you tap somewhere. Like, you can tap a knuckle with your index finger, and then just think about that, keep tapping, think about a good emotion, think about it, think about it, and think about it, and do that, you know, a few times every day. And then when you get to the point where you are going to feel that emotion, just tap, and you will come back to that.
Lars: No, exactly that. And that was actually one of the things that I wrote down as well. You know, since he already recognizes that feeling, the value of the weekly review, why not capture that as you mentioned, and then also perhaps include that as the starting point. It could be, you know, starting the weekly review with a quick reminder of why I'm actually doing this. Well, I'm doing this to achieve the clarity and sense of control as he described it in his email. So that would be a perfect one, or perhaps have it as an affirmation if he uses affirmations. Then I love that feeling of clarity and control that I get from doing a weekly review every Monday morning or whatever it might be. But at least, because he knows the value, then I would definitely look to use that in some way to try to establish this as a habit.
Morten: Yeah. One of the things that he could also do that I think might be beneficial is to, when you've done it, you will celebrate the win. I suggest that you make it even stronger emotions. So if you stop, as the last stop on your, or last item on your checklist for weekly review should be celebrate that I've done it. And look through what you've done and then think about how did this make me feel? And just emphasize that. And maybe even do your, you know, Your little therapy here so that you remind you of that. And I have tried that out with some of my clients, not for weekly review, but they had other issues that they would like to work on, and that's used the tapping and then, you know, connecting the tapping with the good emotions that they want to have when other things happen. But to celebrate the wins and then do a little victory dance. I highly recommend that, the little, especially if you're a high mover, you will connect the good emotions with just a little, and then if you are in a place where you actually can do that without your colleagues looking at you, looking to what happened with him or her now. And one of the things that I we did not touch upon is that, you know, do it scheduled, which is going somewhere else. Might be that the office or wherever you are doing this is not the right place. Could be that you need to hide more, even hide more from your visual or audiovisual inputs. And it might be very beneficial to do a buddy tag team, team up with someone who is doing Getting Things Done And another little plug for the, the, the summer camp is that we always try to team people up. If you want to have a GTD weekly review buddy, you can. So that we have people, I think we mentioned this on previous podcasts as well, who are doing, you know, a GTD friend of mine are doing, and a summer camp participant, he's doing his weekly review with his American weekly review buddy. And that is inspiring. They are meeting every week to do their weekly review together. So, and just to be accountable to someone else than yourself. So kind of like, okay, I have a meeting with my buddy Bob, Bob the weekly review buddy. And then I know that when I have my meeting with Bob, I show up like any other meeting. But the only difference is we will not talk. We will just do our weekly reviews. Together. You can do it on Teams, you can do it on Zoom, you can do it on Google Meet, or you can do it physically. If you're in the same company, you might want to do it physically together. Get into a meeting room, you know, get a reserved meeting room for you and your buddy Bob, and set aside an hour and do your weekly review together. I think that's very powerful, the accountability part, because if you don't feel like it, he will feel like it. At least you will both think that the other people, the other person is motivated, and that helps. Helps even though you're not, either of you might not be, but don't tell that. Don't tell, just do it. Yeah. So, well, anything to add, Lars, to the buddy system?
Lars: Yeah, well, definitely the buddy part is a good idea. That was also one of the things that I had noted down perhaps to look into. Is there someone nearby? Could be a colleague, could be a friend, someone you could actually do the weekly review with together. Like you said, it really is a help for many people. I think we also, when we did the live stream on YouTube last year, when I think everyone had that sense of, you know, all right, we're all doing this, we're all sitting down, everyone's focused and walking through the steps of the weekly review. It really helps to do it together with.
Morten: Someone. And we are going to do that again in the weekly guided weekly review. So just want to give you a heads up that that's going to happen. We don't know exactly when yet, but, and if you think that is a good idea, you might want to drop us a comment on the YouTube channel or give us a like or send us an email.
Lars: At— Have you forgotten?
Morten: No, no, I'm just giving you a ball. It's podcast@virtuallearning.dk, but I'm trying to just throw you a curveball. podcast@gcdnordic.dk. What?
Lars: You know.
Morten: No, I know I've been having problems with that previously, but not anymore. I tried to throw you a curveball, but you totally lost that ball. But it is podcast@ytolearning.dk or comment or, you know, whatever you would like to communicate with us. If you connect to Lars on LinkedIn by using the QR code, you can. And send him a message there if you'd like to do the weekly review, or maybe me with my QR code. So now we are promoting connect with us on LinkedIn.
Lars: Feeling very pluggy today, Morten.
Morten: Yeah, I am. No, but it is, it is, it's all in the best interest of you, the, the watcher or listener. The reason I'm doing this because we are helping. If you are on LinkedIn, if you're more or less active, you check it every now and then. And you like some of the things that Lars and I do, you follow us or connect with us, you will see GTD-related things in your LinkedIn feed. We share things that have value for you, and LinkedIn has a very good translation function. And we just recently shared that we have crossed 500,000 downloads on this podcast, which is— we should probably celebrate somewhat. We celebrated. No, but it is, it is for us, you know, milestone, but it is important for you as well to, you know, to celebrate what you are doing and get your weekly review done. So I don't know, anything to add, Loris?
Lars: Yeah, no, I so, so haven't really spoken much about how I would, would approach this, and we already covered some of the tips. I think if I were, you know, I'd be curious to hear more about the reasons behind all of this because we'll, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll give our best tips and ideas based on the information that we get. But I would be curious to hear, so why is it postponed? What takes its place? Because that is, you know, a very common challenge for many people out there that they try to do the weekly review, but something came in the way. And I'm just, I would love to hear, or at least for Abhijan just to sit back and reflect. What is it that shows up? Is it external interruptions? Because people can have a tendency to think that. But it might also be internal interruptions that, you know, all right, I'm just going to send this email. Oh, now 3 new emails came in. And now I'm going to, you know, just answer them. And then I have to get this done. And now I have to get to a meeting. And then that weekly review never happened. So I'd be, you know, first I'd be on the hunt for what is happening, what is getting in the way, because it could be We're trying to cure something that isn't actually the, the reason, because the question is, how do we make starting the weekly review easier or make it feel less daunting? But it could be something else that, that is actually behind all of this. And, and, you know, one of the most common things I think is that people get stuck when they get started is to, you know, empty their inboxes and they have set aside an hour and they spend that whole hour actually just emptying inboxes and never getting to the good parts of actually reviewing your system. Getting clear, getting creative, that get current part. They get stuck in get clear and then they move on and keep doing things like you mentioned in the beginning that we just check things off as opposed to doing the right things instead. But I was thinking, you know, some of the challenges that I've come across, at least for myself as well, you know, it can be hard for me at least to stop doing and start thinking, switching from that different mode as.
Morten: You, as you, I know exactly what you mean.
Lars: Exactly. And it can feel wrong because there are, I'm very diligent about how many things I put on my list now, and there are not many things on my list, but it still feels like, should I stop and just look at my list as opposed to actually checking things off? That kind of feeling can really interrupt my motivation. Motivation to do a weekly review. So that could perhaps be one thing to look out for. There's one line in the GTD seminar, the Level 1 seminar, where David says everything on your list is either attracting or repulsing you psychologically. There is no neutral territory. And I can really recognize that both from the list of my lists or the contents of my list. You know, if there are lists that are too long, I just don't want to go through them. It's just overwhelming. For the most part, my next actions, that, that, that part can be fine. But I remember back when my someday maybe list was just a mile long, one note section with just, okay, so there was too many things. Hey, let me subdivide them. Or maybe I should cross some things off that list because there are so many ideas and I'm never going to get them done. So maybe I should just cross them off and make it easier. One thing that has been a challenge for me has been projects. I've tried a lot of different ways to review them and really stop and think, you know, same challenge in stop doing and start thinking. I've had my list in, you know, in Remember the Milk and Outlook and OneNote and Todoist and Reminders now. And I've tried to extract them and put them on, you know, other formats. I have had them in a presentation format that I would walk through and just have one project per page in the presentation, really try to stop my brain from processing and just stop and think, just focus on that project. In the end, what helped me was to limit the amount of information on my projects list. But yeah, I'm really trying to work on that and see if that's a challenge. Which one? There were so many.
Morten: No, the last one where you have too much on your projects list.
Lars: You like to limit. Yeah, so limiting the amount of active projects that I actually, you know, set that I start And so also really try to be diligent about how much information or how much, how many projects do I want to have running? Recognizing that so much of my daily life shows up ad hoc from different areas of focus. So having too many projects moving at one, any one part will be too much of a challenge.
Morten: Yeah. I'm thinking that you're onto something. One of the things that I would recommend my I coaching clients is always have an, you know, on hold or a pause list where you have a list where you drag your next actions and projects that are not active right now to create a balance so that you're not overwhelmed but attracted to your projects list as well. So you're not, you know, only the really the active projects are on your desired outcomes list or the project list. So, yeah, I think so too. So making sure that you, because specifically if you are, and I'm just reminded of, well, now I will write that down because I have two thoughts at the same time. Let me write the one down. So, got it. So no, but when you have too much to look at, I'm sorry, I.
Lars: Just have to pause here. I love that we just stopped talking in the middle of the podcast to capture something that could not be more GTD perfect.
Morten: Sorry.
Lars: Thank you for your patience out there, but we just have to capture those things. You, you understand us and we appreciate that.
Morten: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it is GTD, so we are not playing GTD. We, we teach people GTD and And we do it. So even in a podcast, so that's how unpolished our podcast is. So, but getting back to the weekly review is that when you are on pause and, you know, that, and then for those of you who are not familiar with the on pause or the on hold list, it is just a list where you can drag your next actions and your desired outcomes when they are not active. Active. So if you're waiting for something or it's just too much to do, you can look at your active projects list and then look at what can wait 1 week or 2, and then just drag that out of your list. And you will look at it and you'll be more like in the seminar video where you talk— where we talk about, or David talk about this, either attract you or repel you. It is a kitty cat and a skunk, I think, is the Either you want to pet it or you want to remove yourself from it. And if you look at your next actions lists or your projects list and go, then it's good to know that you can move it out of your sight and say, well, not now. If it's too much, it's overwhelming, not now, it's a good idea to move them. I am also reminded of my son's thought. He taught me when he was around 13 years old, and he says, seriously, Dad, are you going to do that? And so that I just remind you about the seriously. So if you put things on your list, even on your someday maybe, are you seriously going to consider that every weekly review? Is it so important for you? If so, keep it. If not, not, delete it or put it somewhere else. And like, when hell freezes over list, I don't know, whatever list you want to, you know, just to get it out of your face, because your list is supposed to be attractive. If they're not attracting you, you're not doing it correctly. So back to what I wrote down is that sometimes I do what I call a brief weekly review or a short weekly review. So instead of doing a deep one where I go through all the lists. I sometimes, I don't, I just go through the active lists of projects and next actions and waiting for, and that's what I look, I'm looking at. That, that will take me maybe 30, 40 minutes to go through. But when I finished, I feel overview. But not all, every week I have to go through the on hold and, and definitely not the someday maybe, because someday maybe is something I maybe I want to I had to incubate it a little. So, and to get into the habit of breaking the barrier between your daunting feeling of the weekly review by doing, telling yourself, I will just do a short one this time. And your brain will go, oh, really? Thank you. Let's get going.
Lars: Yeah. No, and I definitely recognize that as one of the things that I noted down tips as well, either chunking it up like you mentioned earlier, could be Pomodoro, however you want to slice that, if that can be helpful for you. Or just, you know, one thing that works for me is that I have a monthly weekly review checklist. So step 1 would be to have your own checklist. I highly recommend that. Make your own checklist that could include some attractive stuff on there. Just, you know, if it's hard to get started, why not, you know, get started with some easy stuff, some attractive active stuff. Get that good coffee, put on some good music, whatever works for you. I have a— I think if you search on Apple Music, if you have Apple Music, if you search for GCD Weekly Review, you'll find my playlist in there. What works for me, add your own steps, add a reward at the end, like you said, Morten, whatever, whatever works too, whatever triggers that for you. And then that, when I do a weekly review once a month, obviously I'll do the monthly one, but all of the other ones in between, I will have that feeling, it's just a small, it's just a little weekly review. That one's easy. So again, how you, the perspective and how you compare that, that works well for me as well.
Morten: Yeah. I just want to add to that, the checklist part of what we just talked about is that some things that I've been recommending my clients to try out to lower the barrier is to go paper. For your checklist. So you make it digitally and then print it. Like you can use Apple Notes or just Word or wherever, OneNote to create that checklist, but print it and have it beside you because then you are, you can physically, you don't have to look at your screen. You don't have to jump, Alt+Tab to the right program to see where am I now. You can see it very physically and print it and then have it beside you when you're doing your weekly review. First part of the first item on the checklist, print checklist, and then refill coffee on the way back from the printer. And, uh, you know, grab a croissant or a muffin in the cafeteria. Let's get going. I don't know, whatever, whatever makes it work for you. But yeah, just getting back to that, play on the same team as your brain. You know, think strategically how you can use your knowledge about your brain. And then I think also that when we mentioned the Kairos Cognition Survey, it is a very good tool to understand how your brain works and how it processes information. And it will give you some ideas on some things that you might want to try out. Yeah. It feels like we are at the end of this one.
Lars: Almost. No, so it's the one thing that I wanted to mention as well was one thing that I'm trying out now. I'm continually tweaking my daily review or my daily checklists, and one of the things that I am including now is to just run a quick scan through my calendar and my lists, as we recommend now with the Level 1 seminar, which, you know, I would previously have reserved for the weekly review and running through everything. But now with the shortened list that I have, it's not an overwhelming task to actually just quickly run through it. And that I think also helps me because then it is easier to do the weekly review because I'm, I'm used to already seeing them there. So again, perhaps I'm the kind of person who would benefit from doing a weekly review twice or this kind of light review in the morning. So to keep an eye out for what, what might work for you? Is it again coming back to what is the reason that we're not looking into this? Are the lists not attracting you? Are the lists too long? Are the lists too unfamiliar? So there's too much thinking going on. Are they unclear because you haven't clarified them properly? So many different reasons can, can, can show up. So, so, so do keep an eye out for that. As for the timing, you already touched on that, Morten. We talk about this in the Level 1 seminar as well. Try out some different times, see what works for you. I would aim to see if you could have sort of a fixed time, but again, if you don't think Monday morning is the right time for you, then try out some different times. Try, you know, Wednesday, try Friday, try Sunday evening, whatever works for you, and see if we can then make that into a habit. And then I think the last part— no, just one thing that I want to share. I don't think I shared this on the podcast yet. I actually gave ChatGPT my My weekly review checklist. And I said, okay, now walk me through it. Okay. And it walked me through it step by step. All right. What's my first step? Well, that's this one. Okay. I'm done with that. Then it gave me the next one and it added a few tips after each of them. You know, this is my list of email inboxes or list of inboxes that I need to go through. All right. I'll go through each one of them. It's not going to work as an accountability partner, but it was actually, you know, kind of a fun experiment and seeing how it might might walk you, walk you through the different steps. Yeah. And lastly, you know, the— I think you also already touched on this a bit, but, you know, don't try to make it perfect. That was certainly an obstacle for me, is, all right, well, if I do a weekly review and I have, you know, there are 11 steps standard, and then I have my own steps, and time is running short, and I have, do I have those, you know, all these other things to get done? And yeah, then I wouldn't do it. So, you know, rather a small weekly review instead better than none at all, for sure. That would be the last tip, I think, for me to add.
Morten: Give yourself some slack. Don't try to beat yourself up on it when you don't do it perfectly, because it doesn't need to be perfect. You just have to be good enough for your brain to let go of the things that, you know, incessant thinking about things that are not done, or you are worried are not going to get done in the right time or in the right manner,, you know, that level of perfection you need. So, and try and lower the standards a little just to get yourself started. You can, you know, up the standards if you want later.
Lars: So, yeah, that makes sense. And again, if you're more curious about, I think, both Kairos and also more details in how these customized lists might work, we spoke about this in episode 84 where we actually talked a bit about Kairos as well, talked about the weekly review. So, I think these, there might be some more information for you to go through there, Albert-Jan. And thanks for the question. It triggered a whole episode. Really appreciate it. For those of you who have questions out there, as Morten already mentioned, podcast@vitallearning.dk will reach both of our inboxes.
Morten: It will, it will. And we will discuss them and then maybe we will bundle them and do a few together or like now with Albert Jan's good question, we did a full episode on just one question. But it is an important one. So I hope that you've enjoyed it, dear listener and viewer. And follow us on LinkedIn. I'm just.
Lars: Reminding you. How do they do that, Morten?
Morten: Is there a keyword? They will, they will, you will go into the, if you're listening, you will go to the show notes and look at the show notes and there are links to both Lars and my profile or use the QR code on the screen for Lars now and later. Yeah, Lars is now pointing on it. I will point on mine. It's there and connect with us. So, well. Are we now ready to be taken out by our eminent Loris, who is.
Lars: The outtaker of our— and I will continue the, the pluggy mood, which is to plug the GTD Summer Camp. We already mentioned it in the beginning, but as always, we're really excited about this. Again, we are seeing participants from all over the world, different countries in Europe, North America, Asia too. I really hope to see you there, June 14th to 15th in Denmark once again. gtdsummercamp.com. We have two different tickets this year, as Morten already mentioned. We have the joining us Friday ticket where you get to, you know, to hang out and have fun on the Friday evening and meet some of the participants there. Or you can join us on Saturday where the actual summer camp starts. Two different tickets. Go to gtdsummercamp.com to learn more. And then the other plug that I am in charge of is to always remind you about vitallearning.eu because that is where you will find links to the different country websites. You can learn more about what we do, about Getting Things Done, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Influence, all of that good stuff. vitallearning.eu. If you are outside the Nordics, plus then head on over to cruciallearning.com to find your local partners.
Morten: Yes. And to gettingthingsdone.com for finding local partners and learn about coaching in the US and Canada. So now it's my solemn duty to do as I always do, to tell us the same words that I've been doing since, I think, episode 4 or 5, something.
Lars: I don't know.
Morten: It's been around for a while. Yeah, it's been around for a while. So until next time, please stay safe and stay productive. Bye-bye.
