13. GTD for Families

Transcript

Automatically transcribed and lightly edited. Timestamps omitted for readability.

Morten: Welcome to another episode of the Getting Things Done podcast from DT Nordic. I'm Morten Røvik, and I'm here with my friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Hi, Lars.

Lars: Hi, Morten. Good to be with you again and looking forward to doing another episode of our podcast. For those of you new to this, our goal with this podcast is to dive into different aspects of the Getting Things Done methodology to help you become more present with your work and life. And we really hope that you find these episodes valuable, regardless of whether you're really experienced GTDers or new to this methodology. And if you're new to it, we can highly recommend that you go back and listen through episodes 1 to 6 to learn about the basics of GTD.

Morten: Yes, and we highly recommend you do that. 1 to 6 is the way to go to start to get a grasp of this methodology, and it will help you to understand what we're talking about in the episodes to follow. And today's topic of our podcast is GTD for families. And when we do this, or when I do my seminars and I talk to people about that, well, you can use GTD in your family, people go, what? Why would I do that? And then I ask them, do you have complex family life? Do you have, you know, are you alone? Then you maybe don't need it. But if you have a family of 2 or more, maybe you need a little coordination of activities. Who does what when? And one of the things that I think maybe people don't realize is that we live very complex lives. So, to make sure that we don't slip on our commitments, it's good to coordinate and help each other. So, you have also looked into this for your family as I've done for mine, or is that true?

Lars: Absolutely, absolutely. So, like you say, this is the normal reaction, and I think this is also where I started, where I was applying the methodology and the framework to the business that I was in at the time. As soon as you really understand how well this then helps you with your business life, then you start to recognize, oh, well, maybe it would also make sense to actually gain more control at home as well to make sure that we capture everything. And I can certainly recommend or understand that reaction when you start to hear about systems at home. But really, it has been such a big help. And one of the things that I often think back to when we start talking about GCD at home is I had one seminar I mentioned that I had an agenda list. So for those of you familiar with GCD, you know that we have agenda lists where we, you know, for the stuff that we need to talk to specific people about. And I mentioned that I had an agenda list for my wife. And literally one lady almost fell off her chair when I mentioned that. She really had a very, very strong reaction to that. But when we spoke further about it, she also recognized that it certainly made sense to have that. Otherwise, it would be, you know, banging around in your head. Obviously, it makes sense to put that on the list as well.

Morten: The thing about GTD is that it's a holistic model for capturing everything that has your attention that you might want to do something about, not just work but also your private personal life. It would make sense for you when you're getting things done, starting to get it under your belt, to expand it to your personal life as well. So I remember when I did this, I started out in my family with this. At the time, I was married to my ex-wife. Now I'm married to my former wife. What will you call that? My existing wife? Current wife? No, but we had my son. He was Maybe he was 8, 9 years old when I started trying to help him to clear his room every now and then because, you know, as children you play and your room is a mess after. And to make sure that he cleaned his room or just cleared his room from all his toys and stuff, once a week we told him, we made a set of rules, if you may, how he should handle this. And we had one big plastic box, transparent, where it says Daniel's inbox. And this works like this, is that he was allowed to make a mess the whole week, but on Saturdays he needed to clear up and not to overload his brain with too much to think about. You know, if you look at all your stuff in a pile on everywhere and you go, 'Oh, I don't want to do this. Give me some TV. I'm hungry,' something. I made the following test with him is that he will be able to make a mess the whole week and then he will then take everything once a week on Saturday and put everything that's not in its place in his inbox. And then I made a simple set of rules where I told him, well, You need to pick up one-on-one thing on Saturday. Everything goes into the box and you just take one-on-one thing and you ask, where does this belong? And for instance, he had a box with all these toy cars that was labeled toy cars, so he knew where that goes. And it was one-on-one thing. This wasn't overwhelming. And that was some of the magic of this is that he actually managed to clear his room every Saturday. And people, if you try this, beware that don't go for perfection. This is, you know, we are humans. So if you can't maintain this over time, or if you feel that it's not done perfectly, it's okay. Just lower your shoulders a little for this. But try it out if you have a child you want to try and structure up a little. Have you tried any like this? I know you have two boys, Lars. Maybe they're too young for this.

Lars: They are, but just reflecting on what you said now, and we spoke a bit about it before we started recording this episode. This was also a tactic shared at the GTD Summit. And I remember speaking to two S&Ds, husband and wife, that were both in attendance. And one of the recommendations was exactly to have one huge box called inbox for all the toys, gather all that stuff, and then take it one by one like you just said. Spread that out. And at some point during day one, that was one of the key things that they took with them from that summit that they really would benefit a lot. They knew that. But you're absolutely right. My kids are too small to have their own inboxes for now. At the time of this recording, they are 1 and 4 years old. But at least the 3-year-old, we taught him, and to some extent, he picked it up that if a toy ran out of batteries, he knew where to go and put it in dad's inbox because magically a couple of days later, there would be new batteries in that time frame. So that actually worked for them. But you're right, they probably have to be a bit older. I spoke recently with one of the Danish CCDers who mentioned that her son just got an Inbox. You know, he was— I think he was 9 now as well. And I was a bit surprised that there was actually so much going on in his life as well, but he clearly needed it. She said, you know, he was trying to go to sleep and every night at least 2 or 3 things popped up that he he then had the tools to capture and put that in the inbox. So for him, it worked very well. But for me, it's more that we, both my wife and I, have our separate inboxes. That was really a good thing to get set up. We tried initially, as I'm sure many listeners have tried as well, to just, you know, we'll have an inbox because I was a GTDer and she started to do the practices as well. But as we soon found out, and I'm sure most people listening as well if they've tried it, that it did not work out. With just one inbox. We need one for each, and now we're really happy to use it, and we use it as a way to collaborate as well in the business of family life. Information coming from the kindergarten that when— if she's picked them up and she got a note, she read through it, she wants to make sure that I got it, so she dumps it in my inbox, or there's a note with reminders, or Right now, I'm thinking what I've put in her inbox and there's an article that is coming online soon on our website. I always ask her to review it as well to get her perspective on it. So that's in there, a printout now with a Post-it to ask her what does she think. So we use it a lot in our life as well.

Morten: Yeah. One of the things that I've implemented before when my life was a little bit more complex is also the joint weekly reviews where we look at the calendars, what's upcoming, what did we do before, make sure that we are in sync and that nothing slips. That's, you know, I thought you were going to this parent meeting or, you know, who's driving here. When. And all of these things are really good practices for making sure that you don't— there is friction enough in everyday life, if not adding extra friction between spouses by who has this, who's responsible for this, who takes this. And if you can get that part somewhere and discuss it and make sure nothing slips, and that's valuable time. I think we spent 15, maybe 20 minutes a week just to walk through the calendar and look at what's showed up on our radar since the last time we spoke. And this has been really valuable then and also after. So, I highly recommend that if you have a spouse. You have the need of coordination, then just set aside 15 minutes to see what happens. Look at your calendars. That works. It does, doesn't it?

Lars: Yes, and I can certainly highly recommend to steal that idea from Morten because I did a while back when we first connected about GTD. One of the things I stole from Morten was this joint weekly review, and now that we have We have young kids. This has certainly grown in value and importance for us to do. So we have a fixed slot. I don't think we're as quick as you are. We probably take a bit more time, but also, you know, try to use it to catch up because we both have very busy lives. And of course, we're interested in learning about what the other person is doing, how it's going. We both have our own businesses. So a lot of activities and interesting stuff going on. And in daily life, we don't always get to catch up on that. So part of the review that we do is, of course, the calendar that you already mentioned, you know, as a starting point, you know, who's picking up the kids, who's dropping them off at the daycare or at the kindergarten, that basic stuff, but also what's coming up. Do we have any birthdays that we need to attend to? Who's picking up the birthday present? We also run through the agenda list that I mentioned earlier, just different stuff that shows up that we need to discuss and figure out what we what we want to do. And also an important part for us is the list of projects that we have ongoing at home. So right now we have a renovation of the bathroom that we are planning to do and a lot of moving parts in that project. So we want to catch up on that, see how we're doing. Are we moving forward? Do we need to start planning things? Go buy that new sink or whatever the next action could be. A lot of projects are really going on and to make sure that we're moving forward and in a way that suits the busy lives that we lead. That's an important part of the review, the joint review as well.

Morten: Exactly, exactly. Just to make sure you don't— nothing slips through the cracks. And one of the things that I've used with success earlier is that I have— my son and I, we have A tradition we've done since he was really small is that we go for one week of holiday, only him and I, because it was the boys' holiday. And one of the aspects of GTD I've used with him there is, and also in fairness with my ex-wife also when we go for holidays, is that we looked at what would wild success look like? In this vacation? Where, if really we had a good time, what happened then? What would it look like? And my son would, would, uh, his first inclination is ice cream.

Lars: So he put ice— that's a good.

Morten: Starting point— a lot of ice cream. So we put that on the, on the wild success list. And, uh, and we, you know, that if you, if you'd used, um, the wild success, the side outcome model for, for planning things, that your children and will feel also part of the decision and they will feel better about whatever you choose. If you just choose something, maybe they'll feel, especially when they get a little older, maybe they'll feel like, "Oh, I'm not heard." And this is helpful to avoid that. So, have you done that with your wife, used the desired outcome model?

Lars: Yes. So, we've played around with the natural planning model for different trips that we have gone on. Again, the kids are small, but the oldest is 4, so I'm sure he would put ice cream on there as well. That wouldn't be a challenge to get him to sign off on that one. Now, another aspect where we've used it, or yeah, both jointly actually, and also on a personal level for me is Horizon 2 areas of focus. That's where the kids show up as well in my GTD system and my wife as well. So that's the Horizon 2 for those of you who are already TTDRs. So we have a list of areas that we want to maintain at certain standards. And one of those areas that are critically important, and again, some people can probably hesitate to put them on there, but put their family on there, their relationships in that area of focus. Once people start doing that, my experience is that they really. It's a really critical map for them to be able to check in maybe once a month to see that they are on the right track, that they have enough focus, that they are spending enough time or the right amount of time considering all the other activities that they have going on at the moment. So in practice for me, when we set that up or when I review that list, I have a couple of notes for each of the people.. So my wife and my two kids, for example, but also other family members, my sister, my mom, different aspects that I want to make sure that we have, that I have the right amount of focus on. So for example, for my oldest, it's things like, you know, how are things going in the kindergarten? How is he developing his different skills, learning to, you know, play with numbers and letters, things like that. Screen time, is certainly also on that list. He's actually doing really well in that area. He's not very iPad-focused, but as soon as he gets it, you know, we can certainly see that he likes to hang on to that one. So trying to make sure that we don't fall into those parenting traps that can easily, you know, standards that can slip away. And really the same for the youngest as well, that he's just, you know, there's not a lot that I have focused on, but just be present, have fun, play with him. That's basically what it is. And for my wife, work, her friends, all the activities, is there anything that I need to do to help her enjoy life? Really, that's what it comes.

Morten: Down to. One thing that I've found also very highly important is that when I went into another relationship recently, or not very recently, a year and a half ago, I decided to share my Horizons of Focus with my wife. And she, I shared her my life purpose. Why am I on the planet? Great. What is my values and what are my principles? And this has been quite fundamental for us because now she understands where I am going, where I want my life to be going, and she can tell, oh, does that compare to where I think I am going? It's like you put the name on the bus, and if— can we make a joint bus that covers both our needs for what we think our lives should be in the future? And this has been a very good conversation. We've had many conversations about this, and we are, you know, we see that we are in harmony on this, and that helps a lot for the future. And I think that's, but that's, you know, it's not very easy to map your own horizons of focus. It can take a long time and to get to know you, the inner you. Why are you on the planet at all? What's your values? What's your principles? But when you When you have that mapped out, it makes it easier for you to communicate that with anyone around you. We have this for the GTD Nordic work. We have the same, we share the same values, the same principles, and we think we have the same purpose. And that helps us move in the same direction. And that helps. Have you tried that with your spouse, Lars?

Lars: It is so, so valuable to do. And I think all the way down down from the basics of who manages what in also the standards in your, you know, who does what when it comes to the house, who keeps an eye on the different standards, all the way up to, you know, purpose, like you mentioned. It's been a really valuable exercise for us in order to align those higher horizons to make sure that we're heading in the right direction, to make sure that we're going in the right direction together, but also that we can support each other's visions in where we want to be and, and align those to, to the extent that is needed. Um, so for us, we do that, um, every 6 months or every 12 months, at least around the Christmas time is always a good time to, to open the good bottle of wine and bring out the, the higher horizons. Um, at least that's what, uh, what we do at home. Um, and for those of you out there where you are the GTD-er of the family and, and others are Of course, at least in my experience, it can be a challenge for some people to bring out lists and start talking about the future. But once you start just looking at, okay, well, if we talk about, you know, 3 to 5 years into the future, where do you want to be? And that conversation can actually easily take place regardless of whether you're a GTDer or not. So it helps, I think, as a framework for facilitating initiating that, that conversation. And it's, um, you know, it's not actually that scary once you start to.

Morten: Just dive into it. Yeah. And you and I, both Lars, we have better halves who accept and acknowledge GTD as something good. And I understand that not all GTDers are at such a place because, um, you know, it's a lonely place to be the GTDer of the family and, you know, to convince the others. I think it's How to become a prophet in your own town is very difficult. I think that's a quoting from the Bible. If you think you have something, maybe you just camouflage it and say, let's talk about what's important for you for the next 3 to 5 years. Don't use any language. If you have a spouse who's not— who don't want to receive this, this message. So that might be a good idea. So the only thing I don't think we've covered— now we're going all the way up to the top, and I think maybe for the closing, maybe we could go down to something as simple as shared calendars. How, how you manage your shared calendars, Lars? And my— the way I've done it before is that I've done, we use a separate cloud service for the home calendars where we would have, I would have on my personal calendars, all will have their own personal calendars that nobody else sees but me and respectively. And then we had calendars that helped, that was showing information that the others need to be informed about. Like my son needed to go to the dentist, my wife had a group meeting at the night, I traveled for some work-related stuff that they needed to know I was not there. And that went on the— we used iCloud for this. And then when, of course, we had our— the adults had their work calendars as well. So it's kind of 3 levels here. It's personal, joint for the family so we can inform each other, and personal but in work. So you don't show your work calendar if not necessary.

Lars: So how do you do this, Lars? Yeah, it's always an interesting topic, and it was actually just discussed on the masterminds group that we have here in Denmark. How do you manage your calendars? And it's fun to see so many many different ways that people do this and how complex they need their setup to be because some people can certainly manage with a single or a calendar for each adult in the family and some people tend to build a more complex structure because that supports the way that they do things. And for us, I simply went in and we set up Google Calendars for everyone. Even my 1-year-old has— don't tell Google, I guess. But he has a calendar as well in there. And, you know, there is basically nothing in his calendar, of course. But if he's, you know, he's staying at grandma's house for the night, probably more the older one, then we put that in his calendar. And it's just because it would take up space in my calendar and that might conflict with other things. So it just made it easier for me to get an overview if he had his own calendar. And Google allows you to create more calendars as an individual. So we could have just done that. But there were ways that just made it more easy for us to have separate calendars. Both of us have write access to that calendar. Both of us can see it. So we just write things in there when he has a playdate with a friend. And we can make sure that when we then do the joint weekly review, that we catch those things and make sure that we align who picks them up who drops him off, you know, all that stuff when he goes to a— he had recently a couple of birthdays that he wanted to go to. So even at that age, for us, it made sense to just set that up. And we also share a lot of the work calendar stuff as well. And even my wife, just to add a bit more complexity, she has different jobs with different calendars. So the IT guy in me had a chance plans to look into how we can synchronize from Outlook to Gmail and make sure that we get the.

Morten: Overview that we need. Yeah. Good. Good. Because you would like to have ideally a map that you can add layers of complexity to when needed. So normally if you're at your work, maybe you will only see your work calendar, but when you come home, you would like to see your work and maybe your personal calendar. And maybe when you're planning, you want to see everybody's calendar. So it's layers of complexity. You have to add to see the big picture here. It's a map of the future that you planned and that is coming towards you. Okay, Loris, we digged into this and we are at 25 minutes now or something like that. And I think maybe, do you have anything to add?

Lars: No, I think we covered everything. Just to sum it all up, GTD can really, really be a valuable resource from a family perspective. Both you as an individual participating in that family, but also aligning on the higher horizons, big picture stuff. It's a really valuable tool, helped us both a lot, and we hope that it helps you out there too.

Morten: And if you're wondering what Lars talked about in the masterclass, this is a Facebook group for Danes or people who speak Danish. I'm sure you will except someone from English-speaking countries as well, but mainly for Danes.

Lars: And we have people with the various countries of origin in there as well, some more people from the Nordics for sure and from Germany as well. So yeah, feel free to join us and you can find all that stuff if you go to gcnenordic.com. We have links to everything in there, we have the different articles that we've written about GTD, links to the different groups, Facebook, LinkedIn, newsletter, seminars, all the good stuff. gtdnordic.com will guide you to the different Nordic websites for each of the GTD activities in, in those countries.

Morten: Yeah, and just to plug also the Norwegian GTD Facebook group, go there, there's discussions there also.

Lars: So Yeah, yeah, certainly, certainly, certainly. Um, so to, to, to, um, yeah, get towards the end of the podcast, we always mention that we, uh, we really hope that you find these episodes valuable. This, this topic today, of course, hopefully that can be helpful with regards to GTD for Families. And if you get value from these, then we really appreciate if you share the podcast with a colleague or rate us on iTunes.

Morten: Yeah, and if you have any comments on what we talked about, any ideas you would like to share with us, something we didn't mention, send us an email. And I would— I think we have one rating at iTunes at the moment, so if you want to rate us and, you know, tell people why you would like them, you know, if you like what we do, please go to iTunes and rate us and give people a heads up on what they will receive if they if they listen to our podcast. So thank you for listening, and until next time, have a great day and weekend, weeks, and be productive.

Lars: Thanks everyone. Bye-bye.