Episode 125 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, as always, Morten Røvik, and as always, I'm here 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 first 6 episodes of the podcast where we go through the basics of GTD, the 5 steps. Today's episode number is number 125, and today's episode is about GTD and digital decluttering. But before we dive into today's topic, we have to take a step back and actually start a slightly different place, even by learning a brand new word. It's a word in Danish, and it's called gigabro. I wish that, you know, it's both with the Danish Rs, which can be hard to pronounce. We even have a letter that we, you probably wouldn't find in your own native alphabet, but you can find it in the, the notes. So a giggebreu is something that is uniquely Danish, apparently, which I did not know. But just a quick recap, it's a— yeah, it's hard to describe, but it's like a teaser poem. It roughly translates to a snowdrop letter. So it's this Danish tradition that we have in the weeks before Easter where children, they will, you know, sit down with, you know, a sheet of paper and they will fold it a number of times. They'll cut it a bit so as they unfold it, it'll have a these nice patterns. And then the letters will be anonymous, but you will sometimes write a small, you know, rhyme in there, and then you will sign a number of dots corresponding to the number of letters in your name. So the trick is that you then send that to someone. Children would send that to their grandparents, for example, and if the grandparents guess who sent the letter. They usually don't try that hard, but if they were to guess, the child would then have to give them an Easter egg, a chocolate Easter egg. Or if they don't guess it, then the grandparents have to give an Easter egg, a chocolate Easter egg to the grandson or daughter.
Morten: So that's— You're about to give someone an Easter egg, I think.
Lars: Let's see. Let's see. And frequently, at least originally, this letter was then accompanied by vinterkakek, which is the— I think they're called snowdrop flowers, which are some of the first flowers of the year. So that's where I think that comes from. So normally, as I said, it would be a letter that you fold out, but instead I found this in my mailbox or in my email— sorry, physical inbox even. So for those of you not on video, this is a forgotten what this is. This is a CD. So this was an audio CD, that compact disc that came in the mail. It says, hey there, Lars, lend me your ear, name that Easter bunny. And then at the bottom left it says, say it out loud on air, oh my. So on that CD was 8 different 8 different songs, 6 versions of this song that I think we'll either merge in or we'll put it in a link I've uploaded so you can listen to it if you want to. These are 6 different songs and 2 bonus tracks. The 6 songs are variations on the same topic, GTD-related songs, fantastic songs, AI-generated, really well made. There are different versions you can— there's a swing edition that will be the first one you listen to, vintage pop, klezmer, gangster, retro wave, hand wrap edition. So some different ones. Uh, it's just, it's just fantastic. Uh, I had so much fun. I'll see if I can include as well the— I took a selfie when I was listening to it on the plane for the first time as I was flying to Madrid because I was so confused and enjoyed it so, so thoroughly. It was really, really, really good. Um, the thing is Yes, yeah, the thing is, so you— I, you know, you have to guess, and my first guess, I was like— I technically, it wasn't a guess, but I think we'll, we'll count it anyway because I was asking Morten, Morten, do you know anything about a CD that was, was sent to me, uh, about a gigabyte? What, what's that? So I think, I think that counts as a guess, which means I only have, have two, but I really have very little to go by. I don't have any dots anywhere here.
Morten: So it can be dots in the maybe 6 songs.
Lars: Yeah. Or I could analyze a song. Yeah. We could go really, really deep. And there are, you know, there are a handful of people that I have in mind. But it's hard. But I have to go for some of the people in the GCD organizing group for the summer camp. So I have to go with Jens or Federer. I have to go with you guys. I hope I'm right, and that means that there's an Easter egg coming. If not, then I guess I'll have to bring an Easter egg or two to the summer camp this year, assuming that it's someone that comes to the summer camp.
Morten: Yeah, exactly. So, so, but, but, but, you know, the, the deduction here, since it is a very Danish tradition, probably it is a Dane. It must be somebody who is in— understand what getting things done is, and then Yeah. You narrow it down. We talked in the pre-show that I suggested you take fingerprints or, you know, collect DNA and send it to 23andMe to try to see if you're related to this person. Have you thought about that? It could be somebody you're related to.
Lars: Let's see. At least in the song, it's mentioned that how my inbox will be overflowing if I don't guess correctly. So I'm kind of nervous now that we have my guess out there.
Morten: Has computer skills.
Lars: At the end of May, and we have the summer camp mid-June. So let's see. But in any case, you know, so much creativity. And again, TCDeers are the nicest people.
Morten: They are. They are. And if you are wanting to have a look at this, check the show notes. I'm sure Lars will include the link to the YouTube version of this so you can listen to it. And see if you can, and if you get any good ideas, send them Lars' way.
Lars: I don't know how that would work, but yeah.
Morten: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And back to today's topic, I guess.
Lars: Yeah. Unless we want to suggest, you know, a quick update from our end that we had the, we're just back as we record this from the GDD Masterclass retreat we had last week. I don't know if you wanted to mention that.
Morten: Yes. Yes. You're absolutely right. I'm just eager to get started with today's topics. So that's me, Mr., uh, what's right in front of me. No, but we just came back from, uh, 3 days in Denmark, um, at a castle, um, where we were having the great privilege to be with the 9 very intelligent GTDers and people who are really wanting to up their game when it comes to getting things done and specifically the Horizons of Focus, which was the focus of this retreat. 9 people plus David Allen and Lars and I spent, well, 3 days, but 2 days of training and reflection and coaching. And the feedbacks were just phenomenal. It's like, happy to say. Yeah. And it is like, I looked at the natural planning model we did where we described wild success and it was ticking all of the boxes. So it's like, we did a good job creating a retreat. So we are now considering doing it again. And it's just a, just brief overview of the thinking is that we will now pre-approve the people who were there this year. And but we would like to have a selection process. We will open up this worldwide, but then where you have to apply to be part of this because we want to make sure that the people that we are saying yes to are fitting with the other people. So that we get a good mix of, of people with the mind at the, at the right place. And, uh, um, that's, that's— so it's going to be an approval process there, but you, you will hear about it here when it becomes true. Anything to add, Loris?
Lars: It was a great— oh, just, it was a lot of fun again. Uh, nicest, nicest people and nice surroundings, and Yes, we did. We aimed for the Horizons of Focus, and we started off every day with a mind sweep. And it's, yeah, everything you would expect from CCD. So yeah, a lot of fun. And, um, yeah, won't be the— won't be the last time.
Morten: Yeah. And all, uh, the participants get to get coached by David Allen and coached by Lars and coached by me. So, um, it is an opportunity to to work on your higher horizons, if you want to get good at that or just haven't done it yet and want but do believe in the power of horizons of focus, that might be a good thing for you. It's going to be sometime in 2026, we believe. More info to follow. Anything else you would like to add, Lars?
Lars: No, let's dive into today's topic, digital decluttering.
Morten: Yes. As the topic suggests, that is that you might have some clutter digitally in your system, on your PC, on your phone, in your files, in your photos, in whatever digital place that you have. And the thing that I decided I wanted to, or I would suggest we started with, and Lars agreed with me, is to start with a natural planning model here.. So if you think that this is something you might want to do, then starting with the natural planning model, a part of Getting Things Done, read the book, read up on it. It is a good thing. We also did an episode about the natural planning model. Lars, would you make a note? Episode number 10. Episode number 10, but link to it as well if you can in the show notes. That makes it easier for people to jump. So, Now, the natural planning model asks you to start with— where is natural? It's like, why on earth would you like to declutter your PC, Mac, phone, tablet, whatnot? So start with the purpose and trying to figure out why would you do that. It might be If you're going to brainstorm, Lars, help me now. Why would you like to declutter? What kind of value would you get from that?
Lars: Well, it's nice and easy to find the things I need, which I really appreciate because that leaves time for many other things that I would like to have time for. Perhaps that could be a starting point.
Morten: Yeah. Finding the things that you need to find when you need to find it without using a lot of time and energy. So if you declutter, it will be easier. And easier means faster, means more productive, means maybe less energy spent on trying to find things and more energy to spend on being happy, which is a good thing. Then I would like to suggest that you look at the standards you'd like to adhere to. So standards could be also interpreted as framework. What is the outer walls of this? Well, I want to declutter my Google Drive, or I want to declutter my photos, or I want to declutter— what do you want to declutter? Just make the outer boundaries of this project that you are about to embark on. And then I would suggest that you look at how wild success, which is step number 2 in the natural planning model, how will it look and feel when successfully What did I write here? Successfully implemented. So, and it is like this. If you want to, well, it could be something like, well, Lars, go first. How would you describe wild success? I have some ideas.
Lars: Make your own natural planning model and throw it to me. I'll have to go. I have the support of the listeners. You saw the comment on my YouTube page. Yeah, throw it to me.
Morten: Okay, I will go first then. I'll throw it back. Okay, so, so while successes I could see it is that I will find my, let's say that I want to declutter my Google Drive, maybe personal one, and could be that I can easily find the files that's important to me and I do not have trash there. I have only things that are either something I like to retain there for archival purposes, or I have action or project support material there, and everything else is not there. And that is, you know, for me, how would it look and feel. And maybe then I can, because I find it important to make it emotional for me to get engaged, so I I would probably say something like, I feel it is easy to find my files and that makes me happy because I don't spend a lot of time digging around in dirt. So anything to add, Lars? Now.
Lars: Maybe. No, that's a nice framing. Again, just making sure that the that the stuff that you keep is stuff that you do want to keep. And I think that lines up with your vision.
Morten: Absolutely. Yeah. So the next step in the natural planning model would be to brainstorm. So brainstorm what do you want in detail to declutter? So you know what you want to clean up. Make sure that whatever, what else could be relevant. For example, would you like to have There are some softwares out there that can help you find duplicates of files. Would you, would you like to start with researching maybe a little bit about those kind of files? Maybe you have some programs that will sort your files by size, so if you want to delete all big files first just to clean up a little, that might be also something you can do during brainstorm. Do you have anything else you would like to, that comes to mind for you?
Lars: No, I think with this, this focus, I think that makes sense to limit ourselves to that.
Morten: Yeah.
Lars: And there are different ways. I mean, if we're going to extend this episode, you know, as we record this in, in May of 2025, and you watch this in May of 2026, it may be that, that AI is already a big part of this can perhaps help you set up a right structure or come up with ways to organize, help you find duplicates, et cetera. So that might also play a part in digital decluttering, looking further into the future.
Morten: Yeah. And then I would, you know, when you are, after you brainstormed, it is a good idea to organize this as a project or sub-project of a main, you know, digital decluttering 2025 finalized. And, or, and then create sub-projects for this. So for example, clean up my desktop on my computer could be one small project. And what I would suggest that you do, if you consider doing this, give yourself a win, quick win, to just feel the positive energy after you've clarified something. So choose something to to start with that is fairly fast and easy and will give you a quick win to finalize. So declutter some part of your life that is helping you to feel that, well done, I did something good, it feels good, let me do the next one. So, or at least plan the next.
Lars: One.
Morten: So when I've done that, I would suggest that you set aside time to do this because it is always something, you know, I will clean up sometime. It is a very easily procrastinated thing. At least it would be for me. Do you agree, Lars? Decluttering is not exactly— it doesn't feel like it is. It is, of course, productive. But it doesn't feel like it is giving a lot of value in the moment. So that is some of the problems we might have for this. At least I would. So I need to make sure, set aside time. That's my procrastination killer, what you call that, weapon, is that I put it in the calendar and I decide I need to focus on this for this amount of time. And because you will need the ability to focus and you need to have the energy to do this. So when we go down to the nitty-gritty, how will you then start? Well, my, my suggestion to you is to use the CLARIFY model. So when you look at either a group of files or individual files, ask yourself, what is it and what does it mean to me? So, and then I would then suggest that you create, um, I will create an acronym now. The acronym is DAD, just for make it easy to remember. DAD, remember DAD. And the DAD is Delete— can I delete it? Uh, A, Archive— can I archive it? Do I need to take care of this? Is this something that's archivable that I would like to retrieve later? Or could need to retrieve later. Or is it "do," which is the last D, "do now or later," which means that it can— a file can become an active project, or it can be something that you would like to do later, which is a "someday maybe." And my last little thing here is that I would recommend you to use my son's word that I use all the time when it comes to Clarify: Seriously, are you going to do something about this? Seriously, are you going to do— do you need to archive this? Seriously, delete is fairly easy because if it doesn't have any future action or value, then of course you should delete it. But it is like the people who need to clean up are probably people like me who is a little bit of a digital hoarder where you, you, you— maybe someday I will need this. Have you ever done that, Lars? Have those sentences? Well, I do. So delete with a hard hand, archive what you need to do, and then do an hour later would be the, the idea. So DAD, delete, archive, do later. So anything to add, Lars? Does that make sense to you?
Lars: No, I think building on, on that, I think, you know, keeping an eye out for, you know, what is referenced, because that is really the, the starting point here, and that we have a structure in how we want to set that up. Projects might be triggered based on the natural planning model. Make sure you also have a good place for project support stuff because you might come across things where I want to have this handy in relation to this project, but I don't want to throw it in the big archive, the big reference folder. So it's lost somewhere on Google Drive. I'm sure you could always find it, but it can perhaps feel nice to have handy. So you might want to have a folder on your desktop or a separate folder structure where you have the information at hand that you need in in relation to a project or a, or a next action. Yeah. And as always, keep the someday, maybe in mind. Make sure that as you go through this, at least that, that might happen to me if I was doing this digital decluttering, I would, oh, that looks good. And oh, there's the manual for the something, something that I have in the closet, the Synology something backup server, whatever it was. And that would be cool to set up again. I could run things and it could do. And yeah, suddenly I would, not be decluttering anymore and then deep diving into annual Google searches, ideas from ChatGPT and connecting and I needed a new switch and yeah.
Morten: And it feels so.
Lars: Productive.
Morten: But it is really a rabbit hole, right?
Lars: So, so be sure to be, yeah, keep, keep that one in mind as well.
Morten: Absolutely. Yeah. I, I do. And it is easy to, to get distracted from this, but it is like Clarify. When you clarify, especially specifically if you are highly associative, it is difficult. Or if you're balanced sequential associative, then you will have problems deciding what is this, because, well, if you are high associative, you will, oh, I can use this for this and maybe this and this, and then suddenly you're doing something completely different. Or you are, if you're balanced, you can end doing a lot of thinking about this. But that, you have the ability to tap into the associative to make associations, but then the sequential part comes in. But that includes this, this, and this, and this, and then you start to talk. The procrastination here is to think about all the steps that needs to get done to get this done, which is, of course, your brain will blow a fuse. Just because of a file I have on my desktop. No, but it is, it is, it is what it is. But, but, but to, to have clear ideas on where something goes helps. So, so if you, if you think about it, like, my acronym DAD is Delete Archive for Reference or Do Something About Now or Later. It's a good way of creating you know, at least for the delete and the archive part, then that would be the easier part. And if you find something you might want to do something about, then that might trigger a next action or a project or something. But someday maybe it's a good place to put it and then do our weekly review later and then really go through each of them and ask, is there some projects now to be added to my project list? Does that make sense?
Lars: Yeah. Yeah.
Morten: Sure. Okay. We talked about different places where you could, and you have some ideas where you could declutter. I talked about the desktop and Google Drive. You have, I'm sure, some other places.
Lars: That you can declutter. Yeah, I set that up yesterday, actually. I went there, went to my part of my family, set up Google Drive synchronization for the desktop, and there was some digital decluttering needed, but we didn't get to get to that part, this person is not a GCDeer. But no, we, yeah, we spoke about a few different things on where would you need to go and do that digital decluttering. Of course, that depends on who you are and where you store stuff and how good you are at each of those locations. But an obvious starting point might be emails. And, you know, as Morten just mentioned, the hoarding of digital stuff, you might need it at some point. That's That's definitely me when it comes to email. So if we go through the, your acronym or, or in, in my case, perhaps the whole Clarify flow. When these emails come in there, I can definitely have a tendency to say, okay, this is certainly not actionable. It's not a someday, maybe it should either be reference or trash. And I look at that and it's easy for me to say reference. It's easy for me just to hit the archive button because I use that single storage space talking about where do we then, how do we then organize it? When it comes to that. And then Morten will have more advanced structures than I will for my system. So since I only have that one big archive folder for all my emails and then search them out when I need it, I think there's a tendency for me to also, then it's, it's easier just to hit that archive shortcut. So that's always something for me. I'm always reminded when you do the GTD trainings and I always say that out loud, I still need to do better at making sure that I don't save stuff that I, that I don't need because, you know, when I then search, unnecessary stuff will, will show up. So that's, that's the email part for me. I don't know, are you, you still good with, with email and, and making sure you delete.
Morten: As needed? Let me see if I can now turn me on back on. Because I, I, I, I want to, oh, what's happening now? I'm sorry, for those who are listening, this is just me trying to get on camera again. And I'm very easily distracted. What did you say again? I just wanted— this is typical. Lars and I are very easily distracted because we have nothing on our mind but what we are focusing on. And if I, for a brief moment, focus on something different than what Lars says, it will just blow past me. So Lars.
Lars: Repeat, please. Kind of feel like you're dragging me into this one. No, what I was saying was emails, reference versus trash, whether you were good at actually storing what you needed to store.
Morten: Yeah, yeah, I think I am. I'm fairly ruthless when it comes to deleting things. I'm just asking myself, do I need to take 'Will this be an important something that I need to get back to?' And 99.9% of the times when I get something, it is nothing I need to keep. It could be something like I have a lengthy discussion in an email thread with a client that will of course be archived at some point, because it might be something I want to get back to. But anything else that is not evidently quickly recognizable as something archivable, it's deleted very fast. And then archive everything so that, you know, anything that I decide to do something about is then pushed into my system and then it's archived. So it's not in my inbox anymore, which is the best practice of getting things done. No, that is emails for me. I've been looking at something that I'm fairly fascinated by. It's If you have been in, in the productivity space for some time, you might have stumbled upon Thiago Forte, who is a well-known productivity person. He created something that's called PARA, P-A-R-A, and it is just for for archive, anything that needs to be archived. And he's— the P and the A and the R and A is something that's, you know, recognizable for people. So if you are going to archive this, you know, create a structure, then I think this might be well worth looking at. So project is— so the first P is project. He defines that as short-term efforts in your work or life that you're working on now. So something you're working on now, like the Decide Outcome project in GTD World, will then go somewhere where you have this. So I've created this without knowing that Tiago had this system, which I'm kind of like, okay, we recognize the same thing. So I create a structure under what I'm working on now, and that is only the active project. So I can see a visual representation in in a— I have a database system called DevonThink that is where I keep most of my things that I'm.
Lars: Working on.
Morten: And when that— but when it's finished, then suddenly it becomes an archival thing. So the project, when it's finished, will go in the last day archive. So you have to have a way to archive away from the active project so you don't need to see all the active projects and the archived projects in one go. When I do coaching with people, or when we do training with people, one thing that I always see is that a lot of people love their folders in their email so that you have like 50 folders with different names and just maybe 5 of them, maybe 10 of them are active. The rest is finished and it becomes digital clutter. So, and the digital clutter in the way that it is mentally pulling on your attention, whether you know it or not. And so, so what I will— don't create mental copies of things that are finished. They are okay to clap yourself on the shoulder, but if you see that, your brain will start remembering what was this about, and it starts digging into it. So get it out, get it into an archive. And then the A in the PARA is Area. So it's long-term responsibilities you want to manage over time, and that might be what we call areas of focus. Or account areas of focus and accountability in the Getting Things Done hierarchy of the horizons of focus. So long-term responsibilities you would like to manage over time. So it could be, for example, you have, you're responsible for paying the taxes or do reports. That's part of your job. But, and you need some action or project support material for that, but the project isn't birthed yet. So it will be, will be created in 6 months to do that. That might be an area. So identify them as areas of responsibility. It could be like accounting, can be, let's say, that you have the responsibility for the cars in the home. Maybe you have, you're responsible for the mortgage. On the house, you want to make sure that, you know, you have the best interest rate. So that might be an area you're responsible for. So anything that you want to— that needs— you need to have pertaining to something that might become a project or will become a project could be in your area. And then, then you have resource. That's the, the, the R. So PAR: resource, topic of interest that may be useful in the future. Let's say I have things here that might— I have an ongoing project that's my— I want to learn Turkish, and I have a lot of material learning Turkish spread over a lot of different platforms. I might want to consolidate that into a resource for learning Turkish. So it could be a resource library that I will visit because I need it to learn Turkish. And then the last, as I mentioned initially, is archive inactive items from other, from the three other categories. So, so if something is archived, it will go into— sorry, if something is in the project area or resource that you don't want to work on now or maybe later, then you put it into your archive. And that makes sense to me.
Lars: Does that make sense to you, Lars? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's, you know, I was thinking about it when we talked about these digital files. And again, the structure is very familiar, I think, to GTDers and makes a lot of sense. So good. Great starting point. Originally with GTD, I think we spoke about having a yearly cleanup of your physical archive. At least that's part of my habits where around Christmas time, just run through all the stuff that's in there, stuff that I don't use anymore. Take that out, throw it out, or, you know, park it somewhere else, at least so it's not part of my active archive. And I think that makes a lot of sense in the digital space as well. But it's, it's more, at least it's been more challenging for me to do, but I have gone through and done it. So do a quick scan in the digital space of their folders that I don't need anymore. And what, what does Andrew refer to as archive? I just call stuff. So not, not unclarified as in the GCD sense normally stuff is used, but, but just, you know, all the folders that I want to have, but I don't want to see them when I navigate and, and click my way through. That goes into stuff. I have the same thing in my list manager, lists that I don't want to see, and my bigger overuse. And then I think the, the, the last perspective on digital files is also that it can be more interesting in how you organize it when it is a, a shared space to, to organize. So this decluttering step, at least I know from coaching clients that have you know, really wanted to simplify and make a nice structure, they got, yeah, held back because this was actually a shared structure across multiple countries. And one country did this way, one country did it this way, and there were sort of challenges in, in that sense as well. So as you go through and try to structure this in, in the way that works for you, make sure you only have the things that you want to see in your, in your digital archives. Perhaps that's an aspect as well that needs to be aligned in how you, how you organize things that are shared with this.
Morten: Yes. The last thing I would like to, to, to just remind people of, I do believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, but we talked about, I created a file naming scheme. And I think we, did we do an episode where we mentioned that? I think we even linked to somewhere. Is that, am I remembering correctly?
Lars: I don't remember that off the top of my head. I do remember us talking about it and having different ways of how to name them. And in the end, probably not that different after all. But I think when we spoke last time, they were different. I don't remember if we had a.
Morten: Whole episode specifically about that. No, I don't think we had a full episode, but I think I mentioned it and that we linked to it somewhere. But one of the things that makes a lot of sense when you're trying to declutter your files is to make sure that you are changing the file names into somewhere that's something that's actually beneficial for you. So, you know, the scan_456k.pdf is not, not very easy to find and understand what it is. But if you change the file name on it, it will be able to— you, or you will be then able to find it again and to also find it in all the other stuff that you might want to do. So my file naming scheme is as follows, and this is just a suggestion. I'm using what's called a TextExpander snippet to create this. If you haven't, Google TextExpanders or go to YouTube and type TextExpander, you will understand what it is. But it is a little piece of software that helps me rename my files easily. So my first suggestion is that you use dates as the first thing you meet in your email— I'm sorry, email— in your file. So change the file to either received or state changed received. So that means that if you receive a document, and that should be the, the, the date. And it should— my suggestion is to do it by year, year, year, dash, month, month, and then dash day, day. So it's like 2005-05-05 for, for the date when it's received. And then what kind of document is it? For example, is it for example, lease for an apartment. Is that a contract? It is an email from someone, so it could be email, contract, etc. And then regarding what, so you might want to say that, well, it's a lease from, for, from our apartment in Street XYZ. And then from or to whom did I send this? So it might be you are the originator, so, but let's say I sent this to Lars. So it will be "To Lars" and then what is the state, the state of the document and that is what, is it a draft, is it a, you know, the final version or is it signed. So for example, let's say Lars and I signed a lease for this apartment then it will be signed and then the initial to the person who signed it or if both then both initials so it will be MRL rh, and it ends on that. And that makes it very easy to find things. So if I want to look at all the, the files that I sent to or received from Lars, I will just write his name in the, in the search bar, and everything that either is sent or received from, from me by Lars, I will find them. Let's say I want to find all the file sent in May 2025, then it will be 20-05 and then enter. And all the documents that has that in the file name will show up. If I want to look at the lease, for example, I can just search for lease and everything that has to do with lease comes up. It makes it so much easier to find, find things. And the reason we are using the, the year, year, also the date First is because if you then do chronologically received, or no, alphabetically, it will— the, the one with the, the, the newest date will be on the top, and you can then scroll down. It will be in chronological order because you sort it by alphabet. Um, I'm sure this is not something you do, Lars.
Lars: Is it? No, not to that level. No, for example, for the coming back to the masterclass retreat that we just did, just looking at the naming here, it just says GTD MCR 2025, then the name of the presentation. So I think that's typically sufficient for me in order to find what I need.
Morten: And it is, of course, whatever whatever is important for you. How do you want to do this? And my suggestion here is just a suggestion, is something I use that makes it easier for me to find the things that I need to find when I need to find it. And doing it this way, you do not need a filing structure. You just save everything in one folder. You could if you wanted to, because you can then basically create smart folders with searches. For example, let's say I want to see everything that has to do with Lars, then I will create a smart folder search saying that I want to show all the files that is pertaining Lars Rothschild Henriksen, and it will show up. It's fantastic. And that can be your project folders for, for active projects. Could be the Masterclass Retreat GTD MCR, could then be in the file name. And everything that has pertaining to that, that's easy to find. So it is different approaches to how.
Lars: To manage your files. Yeah. But I think coming back to what you were saying about email, I think the email is one of the, at least very common ones that we come across, and I'm sure would be for the listeners and viewers out there as well. And trying to simplify that structure is a lot of help. And that's, you know, what you described is also what I try to go through when we have training that we sit down, all right, you have 50 folders or you have 250 folders or you have 1,000 plus, which actually has shown up as well. No, so having those, just drag them down, becoming subfolders of that standard archive folder that we have in Outlook for the most part. Just so you have a simple overview of the folders that you actually want to see. And it's, it's one of those places where, oh, we talk about GCD and the ways of working. Now it gets really practical and you start to move things around and people get, you know, a bit sweaty palms, but, but it really is helpful to get that out of the way and seeing what you need to see. I think I'm more sensitive to this than, than your average person, but everyone just benefits from only seeing what they, they need to see and making sure that that's a nice clear overview of things that then that really helps.
Morten: Yeah, I do agree with you. And I don't think people understand how much mental energy is spent on clutter and how much release they get when they declutter and how much energy arises. Like when you do a get-to in work zero, or no emails in your inbox because you've clarified and organized everything. It doesn't mean everything is done, but it does entail that your work is not in your inbox. That feeling of joy and euphoria is something that's tangible for a lot of people. And the same thing is that why are you keeping all these files? It could be that you feel the fear of missing out. I'm scared to delete something or move something because I'm afraid I can't find it again. And I come across, and I'm sure you do too, a lot of clients that have, when we coach them, we see their desktops, it is full of files. And when I ask them why, and it's like, well, I don't want to miss something. So the desktop is your system. And that is a mind shift for a lot of people that I I can't— to just have one system, which is Getting Things Done recommends you to just have one system where you go to find what you are supposed to do. Then look at your desktop and ask yourself, is that organized the same way as my to-do? And probably it is not. So it is better then to move everything into folders or somewhere away from your desktop and then to, you know, put it into Todoist or some other app that you're— whatever your digital or— well, it probably needs to be digital— list system is. And because if every time you look at a desktop, just ask yourself, look at all the files, and does it make you feel good? And I'm sure that if you look at one of these files, you will find something that you should really have done something about that you haven't done at. And it creates a lot of negative energy or negative emotions when you look at them. Has that ever happened to you, Lars? Have you ever found a file that, crap, sorry, my French, but I really should have done something about that, but I haven't done it yet. Has that happened?
Lars: No, I definitely see that in putting it on the desktop. And I, so I'm downloading a document that I need to do something about. I drag it to the desktop because the desktop folder is synchronized across the different devices that I use, but then it just sits there and looks at me. So I need to, I need to do something about that in some way. And that, that, that certainly does happen. I see two files on my screen right now, and they are good examples of that. Just, you know, support files, tickets that we need to go to, to see a football match. I just need to rename that file and put it in the, in the support folder. And the other is a screenshot for something that I want to post on the community in, in Vital Learning Denmark. It turns out that when I write longer weekly review in my Google Calendar, the image that it automatically picks is some wine bottles and sort of a party mode. So I thought that was beautiful. I had to use that for a.
Morten: Post in there as well. Yeah, sure. Not in the text, there's a buy a bottle of wine to enjoy.
Lars: No, I don't know. I haven't figured out where that came from. From.
Morten: Maybe I'll know for, for next episode. Okay. We've touched upon this, but how would you declutter your photos?
Lars: Yeah, the photos is, is something that, that at least I see from a lot of people that they really should do something about. And again, could be that, you know, as you listen to this episode or watch it, you know, AI has really come, come through and helped with, with this because I think there's a lot of opportunity here to help weed out all the stuff that you actually didn't didn't, didn't want to save. At least I know a couple of people that will tend to almost take pictures all day to kind of remember that, that day by. But for me, this is actually one of the— it's sort of a nice thing to sit down and run through my photos. I, when we do events, we go to, you know, football tournaments and things like that, I'll take a lot of photos for the, for the kids. And just sitting down the next day or whenever I have a moment and sit down with the iPad and run through and, and select the good ones and keep, keep them and remove the rest. For me, this is, you know, this is a fun pastime. So that part, when it comes to digital decluttering, is very easy for me. But I know that's not the case for everyone. I don't know, what about you?
Morten: No, we are fairly alike. So if I have, like, I have a lot of photos I take from an event or I'm doing something, then I go back and then probably later the same day. And it It is an enjoyable thing for me because I like to go back and look at them and then clean them out, the ones that are duplicates, and choose the best ones and just keep the gold. I'm trying to focus on what's gold here, what is capturing the moment, what is, you know, and if I have 10 of the same, you know, the same subjects and the same, then I try to find which one encompasses everything or which 2 maybe encompasses and the rest is just deleted. But if you don't do that, then decluttering is absolutely— because then you declutter on the fly, you know, as first in, first out, like you do it on a regular basis. And, but if you are decluttering on and after the fact, that might be more difficult. But just to be— my suggestion to all that are trying to do something about this, is go for easy, you know, go for the— and when I go for easy, it's like look at the events that you've captured and then ask yourself, do I need all of these photos? And then just scroll through them. I'm a high observer, so I can, if I flip through 5 photos of the same subject, I can then say, okay, this is the best of one, and then I just delete all the others. And then, but it takes a little time to do that. And then, yeah, but it takes, but it is well-spent time because then the photos you're looking at, if you want to present them to someone or show them to your, your family or your work colleagues, and then you can show them just the highlights. They don't need to, you're not the person like I'm born in the 1960s, and when I was young, we used to have slides. I don't know if you remember them. You talk like that all the time. You think so? Yes. Oh, yes. No, but going back to that, I remember very vividly that, you know, that when you come to see some family somewhere, went to see some friends, or that's my parents' friends, that is, and they had slide projectors, which is kind of a machine that shows these slides, and then you have a screen that this is shown on, and you look at all their photos, and yes, and they're having a great time because they were there and they enjoyed it, and then now they can see it again and present it to you, and you're just bored, you're bored, like your skull is going to just explode any second. So don't be that person. Don't be the photo hoarder that shows everything.
Lars: Just show the highlights. I remember when I was in Australia and someone had gone, I think, to visit Greenland. And it was, I think it felt like 2 hours at least. I don't know how long it really was. And it was pictures of icebergs. And then there's another iceberg and then there's another. And of course it was great when they were there. For the rest of us. Exciting. Yeah. After the first 10, then, then maybe that's enough. No, but, but, but when it comes to those photos, also another good reason, at least for me, to clean out the ones that I don't want to keep is the, the memories function. I, I think that's what it's called in English, at least, you know, when, when I use both, both the Google Photos and Apple, and, and they also pick out, right, a year ago you did this, or, you know, 10 years ago you did this, and the stuff that it shows up and makes small videos. I love them. It's a great way for me to be reminded of all the fun stuff that has happened over the years. But I don't want to see the pictures that I don't need or that I don't want to see anymore, right? So, so making sure that the stuff that it actually keeps for you, that you, you know, that it looks through when it creates those memories, I think that's, for me, that's at least a valuable thing to make sure that I'm reminded about the things that I do.
Morten: Want to be reminded about. And if you create like a little video, so you don't have to sift through like 200 photos that you don't need to include in your, you know, creating a video or memory presentation, you can just have the ones that are really good ones. So you don't have— oops, that was the— he blinked and that was not the photo I wanted to show. So, yeah. Okay. As always, we are— we talked before, we will not have enough to talk about. Now we are closing to 55 minutes. So I don't know about you, Lars, but are you ready ready to take us out?
Lars: Almost. No, I think just the digital notes and then just going through that and then, you know, much of what we have spoken about already applies there. But just making sure that you, you know, have a process for that and it could be for decluttering as well if you keep too many things. I think for me, it's easier with the notes. I kind of know what I want to keep and what I want to throw out. Keep a fairly simple structure as well. I I use just, just Apple Notes for that. But, you know, having a process and a way to work that if I have a sales meeting with someone, I have a button that creates a, you know, a blank sheet with a few sort of headlines that I need to fill out as we go through the meeting. It stays in one folder, which is my inbox in my, in my note system. And then that means as long as there's a number next to that folder, there's, that's, that's an inbox for me to clarify and organize, run through and pick out the next actions and then move it out of that inbox. Box. When it comes to agendas, you and I have a check-in meeting later today. I'll take the Morton agenda and I'll drag that over to the inbox and then go through that with my, with the notes as we speak. And then at the end, or maybe tomorrow, I'll go through what we, where we spoke about and drag out my next actions and put you back in the agendas folder so I can, can keep adding to that. So both having to, to go through that, but also have a good, good process around that just makes it all a lot easier. Yeah, indeed. And then the last one I wanted to mention, just, you know, we set the frame to be digital decluttering. Of course, much of this could apply to the physical world as well. And just a reminder to everyone to, you know, pen and paper works fine as well. Don't be scared. And as always, I say this as much to myself as I say to to everyone out there listening, but yesterday I was, we were planning a trip to Norway actually, and going through some different options. When would it be, you know, suitable for our calendars? What about the different prices? Just, you know, having paper nearby and drafting and, oh, we could do this, we could do this. And it just makes it so much easier. I think I will have a tendency normally to say, all right, well, I'm in front of the screen, so let me make a, find a way to do this. Digitally. And, you know, have, have good pen and paper nearby. I even have a fancy new pen here at the, at the office. I have the right paper thanks to, thanks to Dan who's at the MCR. At home, I have a great pen now as well, thanks to Kieran who was also at the, at the MCR. So it's, yeah, having, having that flexibility in choosing the right tool for the task at hand. I think that's, that's the starting point of the last thing that I wanted.
Morten: To mention to going out there. Create notes where you want to create them, but when you create notes, it's of course, if they are not already digital, it might be beneficial to digitize them in some sort. And one thing that just pops into my mind is that I've been using a function on the iPhone a lot lately. So if I want to to— I created a folder just called underscore, and then I have two, one private and one for VL, which the way VL will be my, my, my work Vital Learning inbox. And then I will just tell Siri, hey lady, scan a document, and she will open the camera and she will— I will point it at the document, she will auto-find it, and then I just and then okay, it's okay, it's then, then it's in my either of the— and then I can choose which folder I want to have it in, and normally that would be the work folder. And then I will clarify that later. So just, and where does it belong, does it, where does it belong in my system? And that could be a note on just a paper note that I took, or it can be an invoice, can be a receipt that I need to tend to later, I want to keep. So I'm using that a lot. So just a tip for those of you who are in the Mac system, and you can do it, you can then save it into the iCloud Drive that we all have, that is, you know, Mac users or iPhone users, that you can save it there. That is the best way I found to do it so I don't have to dig through a lot of folders, easily accessible on all my devices, and then I can move move it into the system later. Okay. Now, Lars, art thou ready to take us out?
Lars: I think we, we, we covered everything as always. We hope that this was helpful for you. If you have any questions, it's been a while since we had a listener questions episode. And the reason is that we're not getting as many listener questions as we used to. So if you have any questions out there, be sure to send them to us. Even if it's sort of a, you almost answered this in a previous episode, be sure to send it to us because there may be different perspectives or variations that we can, can add. Uh, so, so be sure to send them to us, um, podcast@weiserlearning.dk, and we.
Morten: Look forward to hearing from you.
Lars: Yes, indeed. Then the reminder that we always do at the wrap-up, which is of course about the GTD Summer Camp. GTD Summer Camp 2025 is the next one coming up. We're really excited about Participants from all over the world again, Europe, North America, Asia, to even from a certain Mr. David Allen as well this year. So it'll be a lot of fun, June 14th to 15th in Denmark. Again, more information at gtdsommercamp.com. That's also where you can sign up. As we record this, we only have a few seats left. So if you were thinking about going, we want you Be sure, be sure to, to go over there and sign up as soon as you know, at least. Go there. Then come, come, come there. Also remind you, we need to align a bit on this one. We also remind you all to head on over to vitallearning.eu because that is where we have the website just covering all of the Nordics plus countries that, that Vital Learning operates in. So have a look around there. There will be information about GTD, links to the different country websites, links to the other things that we teach. Crucial Conversations, Mastering Dialogue, Accountability, Crucial Influence, all that good stuff. Crucial Teams now also. So be sure to head on over there as well. Articles about GCD, newsletters, everything. vitallearning.eu. And if you're outside the Nordics, head on over to cruciallearning.com to find your local partners. Indeed.
Morten: And, uh, until next time, we are past the hour, so I have to quit as quickly. Until next time, stay safe and stay productive.
Lars: Bye-bye, everyone.
Morten: Bye-bye.
