22. How to evaluate your own GTD practice

Transcript

Automatically transcribed and lightly edited. Timestamps omitted for readability.

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

Lars: Hi, Morten. Happy to be back once again for another episode of our podcast. And if you are new to this podcast, our goal is to really help you become a better GTDer, understand more deeply the methodology, and then of course, experience the benefits of GTD to better stay present with whatever you're doing, achieve stress-free productivity. And we really hope that you find these episodes valuable regardless of your experience with GTD. And if you want a refresher, or if you're listening for the first time, you haven't heard about GTD before, and then you can go back and listen to the first episodes. Episodes 1 through 6 cover the basics of GTD.

Morten: Yeah, that's highly recommended. And Today's topic for this podcast episode is how can you measure how productive you are and how can you measure how good at GTD you are? Is that correct?

Lars: Yeah, and it's a really interesting topic. As you progress with GTD, as GTDers know, there's always another level. There are always areas of GTD where you fall off a bit or you maybe adapt it to fit your ways of working, the methodology, and then maybe at some point you divert maybe too much and start to maybe over-organize. So it's always good to reflect on your practice. Where can you become a better GTDer? And that's part of what we'll talk about today.

Morten: Indeed, indeed. We are going to talk about two different ways you can measure or try and measure your productivity and your GTD-esque productivity approach. One is what we call the GTDQ or the GTD test. And for trying to understand how this works is that with this first test we talk about, we are trying to measure your emotions towards how productive do you feel you are. That is, how much control do you have in your everyday life of all the things that life hurdles towards you and how much perspective do you have on where you are going? And Lars, when you took that test the first time, I remember my result was not very good, but how was yours? Do you remember?

Lars: I'm not sure I exactly remember where I landed, but I'm pretty sure it also wasn't in the ideal scenario where I would want to be, at least that's for sure. But What you're referring to is the GTDQ test, and it's really an interesting perspective, a nice easy way to get a quick overview of where you might find areas of improvement opportunities, let's put it that way. So you can end up in 4 quadrants where you can imagine the axes are what you just mentioned, Morten, having things under control, and the y-axis being the perspective axis. And then you can fit in one of the 4 quadrants depending on what your answers are in each of the 18 questions that are part of the GTDQ test.

Morten: Exactly. And, and you will then be put into a matrix that is 4 by 4. We will have your, your level of control and perspective put in one of, in the matrix. And just to be clear about this, this is nothing, it doesn't measure your actual productivity. It's measuring how you feel about how productive you are, or more precisely how much control you perceive you have and how much perspective you have. And just to fill this in a little, if you talk about the control aspect in GTD, we have some really, you know, some tools for giving you control. And those are the 5 steps. Can you, uh, just take us through just briefly these 5 steps that will give you control?

Lars: Mm-hmm. Yeah, certainly. So, so those are the 5 steps that I actually referred to in the beginning, uh, that we walk through in the initial episodes. But the quick overview is, is first of all to capture all the stuff that has your attention, identify what shows up in your world and which channels you want to, um, maintain under control, what you need to, to maintain under control. Uh, so identify those inboxes. Step 2 is clarifying, meaning making a decision about each item that shows up in your world, and then organizing being once you've made that decision as part of step 2, then you can set up your system to support you in getting that overview, getting things under control. The fourth step is then to reflect, take a step back and getting that overview, giving yourself time to making sure you have the right system to work from. And the last step is engaging. So that is deciding what you need to work on at any given given time.

Morten: So if you follow these steps, that will give you an overview of everything. You have a desired outcome on making something different in the world. You want to change something that's not what you would like it to be. Anything from buy cat food to, as David Allen would say, to put a man on the moon. Man on the moon successfully landed. And all the next actions driving those desired outcomes to fulfillment at some point in time that are either placed on a calendar or on a list. So that will give you control. But if you only have control and no perspective, that means that you will do a lot, preferably very, very much, maybe so much that you have to work overtime because you don't know what is the most correct thing to do at any time because you haven't looked at your perspective. And if we go to the top, Lars, can you take us from top and down from, and in the horizons of focus, which is the perspective model?

Lars: Exactly. So the perspective is really about the horizons of focus and the highest horizon being purpose and principles. So what are the most important things for you? What is, What is guiding you? What are the— yeah, what is your purpose? What is the purpose of the business? That is the highest horizon, Horizon 5. Then Horizon 4 is the vision, giving you— so if you were living that purpose, what would the world look like? That is what goes into Horizon 4. And if we then break that down, well then, what if we look at your goals 1 to 2 years into the future, that Horizon 3? What do we find there, both again at a personal level and at a professional level? Below that is Horizon #2. That's the areas of focus and accountability. So what are you responsible for maintaining at certain standards? What do you have your attention on? What are you focused on maintaining at specific levels in, in your life? Below that, Horizon #1, the projects, probably the area that many of you are already very familiar with. What are the desired outcomes that you're working on at any given time, usually within a time frame of up to 12 months, so requiring multiple steps? And the last one, ground level is the next actions and they go on your next actions list or in the calendar. All that, you know, immediate stuff that is the lowest of the horizons of focus.

Morten: Exactly. And together they give you a matrix where you will be placing yourself if you take this GTD test or the GTDQ. And it will then give you an idea of where do you feel you are. Do you have enough control for everything that's hurtled towards you? And do you really know where you are going? Do you have an idea of where your life— you want your life to be going, your career, everything? And this is interesting in many parts because many of the clients we work with as coaches, we— I don't know if you noticed, Loris, I'm sure you have— that many of them have.

Lars: A.

Morten: High degree of perspective, but not so much control. They have an idea where they are going, but they don't know exactly how to get there. And then sometimes you meet people who are more in the victim, low control, low perspective quadrant, where you have little or no idea where you're going and you have little or no control. And then that is the recipe for how to make sure you can't breathe. You feel bad about your work and you have no idea if what you're doing is the right thing. So to have both control and perspective is good. But do you see the same, Lars, when you coach clients?

Lars: Yeah, that's certainly the same picture that I see here in Denmark. Mostly visionary people that have— I'm sorry about that. Siri decided to join in on our conversation. Even though she was on do not disturb. Apparently she wasn't paying attention to that. Sorry about that. So the— no, we certainly see that as many are visionary. So they are really focused on the long-term goals, where they're heading, but things that, you know, the place that they're currently at is kind of burning. And they may or may not be paying attention to that. They may be sort of used to things just burning around them, but they are so laser-focused on the future that they feel they're okay. So getting things under control is really a great place to start for them. And when we start coaching, as you know, Martin, the first thing we do is to draw this diagram up and explain these control and perspective axes to people and plot people in there to see where they fit in. And what I found really valuable was when I first tried this out, I don't remember where I landed, but I do remember the PDF that I got sent to me with some recommendations for how to improve. Where are you currently now? What can you do to get to a better place? And that was really valuable. And we will include in the show notes links to this test so you can try it. It's available in at least in Danish and Norwegian and of course in English as well on gtd.com. So I'll be sure to include that in the show notes.

Morten: Good, good. And I would highly recommend you, our listeners, to try that out and see where you are. It will give you an idea. And if you ever come come and ask for coaching, it will give us an idea where you are at and how we can help you. And, but we have another, for those of you, another test for those of you who are considering yourself GTDers, who has been doing GTD for a while or has read the book and tried to implement things. And if you ever wonder if you have any, you know, holes in your practice, we have another assessment you can take that's called the Practitioner Competency Assessment. Can you say something about that, Lars?

Lars: Yeah, that's a really, really cool PDF that we will make available as well to the listeners of the GTD Nordic podcast. It's a list of 3 or 4 pages with questions, specific aspects of GTD that, that you can sort of evaluate your own competency towards. And it's a really good picture of, you know, if you want to try trying to figure out where am I heading. So this is more detailed than the GTDQ test that you may have already tried before. This really gives you a good picture of where you can improve your GTD practice. So I'm really a big, big fan of this and excited to make this available to the listeners.

Morten: Yeah, me too, me too. And this is what we do use when we coach people one-on-one. It's a way to uncover where you have the holes in your understanding of the methodology. And for that, it's highly valuable and it will uncover where you have strengths and where you have more growth area, if you may. And I look at that on a regular basis myself to see if I have any— do I need to refine something, or am I still on track for this? And so that, that is some of the questions. Why don't we just run people through some of the questions we, we have there?

Lars: Yeah, sure. So, so maybe first worth mentioning that you evaluate yourself from, from 0 to 5 on each of the questions, meaning 0, I've not I haven't started to use this aspect of GTD yet, all the way up to I demonstrate excellent competency, as it is written in the PDF. And just to take the first one on the list, I have completed a full mind sweep and I quickly and easily do them as needed. So managing that first initial step of capturing all the stuff that has your attention, how well are you doing on that one? And I certainly remember this, taking this, this part of the test as well, becoming a trainer and starting to work professionally with GTD. Seeing those scores, I really should go back actually now that I think about it and see how, how I scored myself previously and, uh, and, and where I still think I can, can improve today. Because, um, much of this is, is natural ways of working, and, and as always, there are, are places where, where I can improve.

Morten: Indeed, indeed. And, um, one of the things that I see that, um, where people fail in, in, in GTD is that I clarify next actions on all my work and commitments. This is also under the foundation section in page 1 of this PDF. This is where people are supposed to clarify and organize things, asking themselves the questions, and go back to episode number 3 and 4 to listen to clarify and organize, because people are not They're taking unclear things and instead of deciding what it means to them and what and if they need to do anything about it, and then park the unclear things on their lists or calendars to do them. And then wondering, why doesn't GTD work for me? Because when I look at my list, I'm confused. This is one big thing, at least I see in both my seminars and also in my coaching. People fail for this. Do you see the same, Lars?

Lars: Yeah, certainly, certainly. This is really a classical challenge, making sure that you transform and translate all the stuff that shows up and get that into your system. That's certainly a challenge for many people. One that I, looking through the list, one that, you know, reminds me of how I've tweaked my system over the years, this is the one I have set up and used customized categories for my next actions list as applicable. So adapting the system to to your needs. This is a critical aspect of becoming a good GCD-er and having the right list to support you in making that next action decision. And for me, you know, this, I think maybe a couple of weeks ago was the last time that I again tweaked a bit, and actually maybe even more frequently than that because we're recording this as the coronavirus is really making an impact on the world. So adding a list, I think you may have even mentioned it last time, Morten, having an after-corona list. You know, things, things like that set up. So really adapting the system to suit your needs at any given time. This is a great one for me to reflect on whether, whether I can improve my system.

Morten: Indeed, indeed. Then I regularly recalibrate my project inventory, and also I also review my areas of focus and my areas of accountability now that we are Suddenly a lot of us work from home, some have children, some have not, and then you have to really look at, am I doing the right things now? Do I focus on the right things to get most of what I want out of life and my work? And if you don't do that on a regular basis, you don't look at this, you, you will be forced by nature after some time to, to do it, because if you don't, you will be things will start moving to your mind again. You don't feel comfortable. You don't feel comfortable about your choices. But yeah, this is, this is, I like this. It will uncover, it's very detailed. It's, as you said, 4 pages where the last page is kind of interesting where you can look at what David Allen Company and David Allen Academy calls the 5 I's. Learning GTD goes through 5 steps, 5 paths of GTD mastery. And the first I is information. I have enough information to engage. I, I've, I've received information. And then you could go to the second is instruction. I understand how to do it if I wanted to. So at this stage, you have enough information, and if you wanted to act on it, you could. Then you come to the third I, which is Installation. I have a working structure with real content in it, which means that you start building your system and you start using it. And then you come for Implementation. I'm utilizing key components consistently. That's you look at your system, you put things in there, you take them off as finished. You are, you're on the path of GTD where you are actually using your system. And then integration, which is the fifth eye. I am focused on the results my trusted system is allowing me to produce, which is what we all want to be, where you have a high degree of perspective where you're going and a high degree of control so that you can maneuver life in a stress-free, even in these corona times, stress-free environment. I just want to pause for one second. I'm not saying that corona is going to be any easier for you. But you will have to focus less on the mundane things. If you start worrying about Corona, if you start— maybe some person that is close to you or you yourself get sick, and it's a lot of worry that we don't need to have in our lives. One of the worries is cat food and sign that contract and don't forget to call Bob. All of these mundane things can be parked in your system and then your brain can be if you need to really work on something, you can really work on something important without all the details and all the mundane small "I must not forgets," without them moving into your brain and take up your mental bandwidth. So can you take us through the— now we've seen the five eyes and then we have three, what you call, levels, if you May, that you can travel through the Five Eyes with, can you?

Lars: Yeah, exactly. So, so in, in the, in that page 4 of the PDF, you'll find 3 sort of categories or groupings of your experience, how well you're, you're doing GTD. And the first one is the foundation. There are a couple of lines about each of those, and we use this in the Level 2 seminars so people that attend that can, can get a better understanding of where they are in their own implementation of GTD. So the foundation, meaning that you have the basics, basics of day-to-day under control, your processing outcomes, next actions, you have a good solid system that you're working on. And, you know, depending on your experience with each of these, you would identify as one of the 5 I's. So this would give you an idea of where you could improve with, with your system. The next one is the totally integrated system, and that's where we zoom out a bit. So you have the week-to-week weak control. Instead, you regularly recalibrate your project inventory, the one you just mentioned before, Morten, from the, the pages above as well. So that's, that's more of a zoomed out. And then the last one is the dynamic orientation, so your ability to navigate change exactly in times like these, like you have the ability to execute on, on any outcome. And this one was for me one of the best parts of the the Level 2 seminars, really getting that clear picture of, hmm, there are actually, when I look at it from this perspective, so maybe I had used the other pages before, scored myself, found some areas where I could improve. This gave me a sort of bigger picture view on where I could improve. And one of the things that I found interesting was that you might be scoring, you know, most people would probably be scoring high in the foundation part if you are in a Level 2 seminar because you have the basics under control, or at least to a a certain extent. And then the other parts is where you could improve. But, you know, from the experience from the Level 2 seminars is really that you can actually have it the other way around, that you have the foundation less under control and you feel more able to navigate. And you can also have sort of a Pac-Man version where you're high on the foundation stuff, your dynamic orientation is good, but you don't really feel that you have this integrated system where you can you can really zoom out and you have control week to week. So it's a very interesting perspective and I really hope the listeners will go in there and evaluate themselves on where they think they fit in.

Morten: Yeah, and I think we might open up for people to, if you want to, you fill this in and you can send it to us if you want. If you want to have some advice on what you can do to get get better at GTD. And I hope we don't open up for a flood wave of people sending us email, but if you do, we will try and answer your questions on email. Maybe even if you on anonymous basis discuss your results with our listeners in a future episode, but at least for giving you some help now to try and figure out where you are. So if you take the GDD test, the GDDQ, the first evaluation we talked about, and/or you take this as well, then send it to us. We will free of charge give you our best two cents worth of what you can do to improve. In these current times, we must take care of each other. Feel free to send us something here for if we can help you. That would be great. If, and if we can give you something, you can move you on your ladder of becoming a GTDR ninja, please feel free. We haven't discussed this. I see Lars is smiling now, so.

Lars: No, I'm happy. I fully agree. No, no, you know, in these times, certainly we want to support as many people as we possibly can. And if we can help anyone based on this, you know, go in there, try the GTDQ test, get that PDF so you get some tips on where to go, but certainly also use this. And yeah, happy to, to have a look at any results where people might have questions. Certainly.

Morten: And what's our email address for that?

Lars: Podcast@Gtdnordic.Dk. And I think we have it in the show notes at least. So you'll find it there where you can reach us.

Morten: Yeah. So if you send it there, both Lars and I will see it and whoever grabs it posted first will be the one who answers your question. Send them in if you have questions on how you can improve your practice and system for GTD. And that pretty much ends this episode, doesn't it, Lars?

Lars: It does, yeah. I hope this was valuable. You know, like we said in the beginning, understanding where you are in your GTD practice, where you can improve, is really, really valuable. Knowing where you are and and what you might have parked for now because you're improving other areas, then knowing where you'll be heading in the future is really good. So hopefully this will be beneficial. And to find more information, as usual, gtdnordic.com. You'll find links to all the country websites in the Nordics where we have the different Facebook groups, newsletters, articles, meetups, find us on LinkedIn, all that stuff. And outside the Nordic, go to gettingthingsdone.com and find the franchisees through the website. There. And as usual, we really hope you find these episodes valuable. And if you do, if you could rate us on iTunes, share it with a colleague, that really helps us out. So thanks for that.

Morten: Yeah, well, thank you for listening and stay safe and stay productive until next time we drop an episode in your favorite podcast listening device. Take care. Bye-bye.

Lars: Bye, everyone.