31. Interview with GTD® Master Trainer Todd Brown

Transcript

Automatically transcribed and lightly edited. Timestamps omitted for readability.

Morten: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Getting Things Done podcast from GTD Nordic. I'm here as always with my friend and colleague, Mr. Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Hello, Lars.

Lars: Hello, Mr. Morten Røvik. Happy to be back and really looking forward to sharing this special episode with our listeners. If this is your first time listening to our podcast, our goal is to support you in using GTD to get the most out of the methodology so you can become even better at doing the right things at the right time, staying present with whatever you're engaged with. And we really hope that you find these episodes valuable regardless of how experienced you are with GTD. And if you want a refresher or learn more about the basics of GTD, we recommend you go back and listen to episodes 1 through 6, where we cover the 5 steps. And today, we have an interview with a very special guest, a very special GTDer. Isn't that right, Morten?

Morten: Yes, that is absolutely right. We have Todd Brown, a longtime friend of mine and a GTDer and the managing partner of Next Action Associates in the UK and Ireland. And aside of being one of the nicest persons I know in this world, he's also really good at GTD and he's a master trainer for the UK and Ireland and he has some interesting things to hopefully to say about GTD and that you will be interested as a listener to learn some more depths of what you can do with GTD in your life. So without further ado.

C: And now our special guest.

Morten: Today, I'm really pleased to have a longtime friend of mine, Todd Brown, also the managing partner of Next Action Associates in the UK and Ireland with us. I'm super happy to have him. He's a GTD extraordinaire and a long-time master trainer, maybe the longest-time master trainer in Europe, in European continent. So welcome to the podcast, Mr. Brown. How are you?

C: Uh, I'm very well, Morten. Great, great to be with you again. Great to, great to get a chance to talk to you, well, both personally and, and about our, uh, our GTD story. Very, very happy to be part of the podcast with you.

Morten: Yeah, thank you. And, um, could you tell us a little about yourself? Like, where do you live? Family interests? Um, I said UK and Ireland. For those keen listeners who have an ear that can drum through the Norwegian Scandinavian accents of mine, will devise that you are not originally from UK or, or Ireland.

C: So that's quite right.

Morten: So yeah.

C: Originally, you're well spotted. Originally, I grew up in the States. I'm originally from Michigan, from a town called Ann Arbor, which is primarily known as the home of the University of Michigan. I lived in New York for a bunch of years before I moved to the UK. And I moved to the UK in 1999. And in that year, my goal was to stay for 2 years. And after now 21 years, almost 21 years, I'm still in the UK. So apparently, I've become a European by choice, as it were.

Morten: Yeah, good. And you live in London, don't you?

C: I live just outside of London. Yeah, I live in a town called Reading, which is to the west of London, about a half an hour train ride in.

Morten: Can you tell us a little about your family situation, your interests? What do you do when you're not doing GTD or teach GTD?

C: Sure. So, let's see. My wife Deborah is a COO with a charitable organization in London. Our son Will, who is just about to turn 25 years old, works for Cisco these days and is in a sales role with them. And yeah, my own What I kind of do outside of doing GTD is that I have a real passion for music. I play the bass in various jazz ensembles. As a matter of fact, just last night here in London, I had a gig.

Morten: Cool.

C: That was really fun with a little jazz trio that I play with from time to time. Wonderful, wonderful experience. Outside of that, I'm a very keen skier, love to sail, very keen reader. I keep myself reasonably busy, I suppose, when I'm not involved in helping people to understand and implement GTD.

Morten: Good. Could you tell us how did you find GTD or how did GTD find you?

C: Yeah, that's a really interesting question. Which way around was it? A big part of my professional career was at a big American firm, Morgan Stanley, a big financial institution. And I had just started a role in London for Morgan Stanley. This was in 2005. And it was day 2 of this new role. So I'm doing the kinds of things you do on day 2. I'm making sure I've got all my software installed on my PC. I'm learning where the I'm learning where the office supplies are kept, how do I get lunch, the kinds of things that you do meeting the team. And I remember as I was installing this one bit of software, I remember seeing a link for a video of a guy named David Allen. I clicked on the link and I watched the video. And it was about a 2-minute video that was David Allen doing a GTD seminar. And as I watched the video, what occurred to me was this is really interesting. I think this is quite unique. And just to give it a little bit of context, at the time I was running a European team for Morgan Stanley, a small European team. So I had about 12 people that worked for me in various cities in Europe and I was the head of learning for the IT division for for Europe. So, and having had a lot of experience in learning and development, I brought, I think, a healthy skepticism to anything new in the learning space, right? So my initial reaction when I saw this video of David Allen was not, oh, this is the answer to all of my questions, this is everything I need. My sense was really more just this really does strike me as a unique take, as I say, on something that I know is important. So David was talking about the things that we talk about in GTD. How do I keep my head clear? How do I make sure I'm not distracted by things that are not what I'm focused on at the moment? How can I be sure as I make my way through my day that I am focused on the things which are optimally important for me at the moment, whether they're the tactical urgent things that won't take very long but need doing, or they're the longer-term things that I'm moving toward trying to make happen in the long term? How do I use the tools I have to best effect? So all of those things were things that David was talking about. And what was interesting as well for me was the way he was talking about those things was not in the kind of way that an awful lot of, I think an awful lot of, let's call it time management approaches were expressed. A time management class and we used to teach them at Morgan Stanley. We had folks come in and teach them before I learned about GTD. It was pretty straightforward stuff. It was every day make an ABC 123 priority list, make sure you've got that available to you. And sort of that's the end of the seminar. Thank you for coming. Whereas David's approach seemed to be much more comprehensive, much more much more reflective of what I perceived to be the complexity of my own life. And I didn't think I was special. I knew everybody's lives were complex. The number of things they were trying to balance, personal and professional, strategic and tactical, working with all the various tools. I knew I wasn't particularly special in all of that. So, the solution on offer seemed to reflect and have the amount of complexity, not too much complexity, but the amount of complexity that would be appropriate to deal with those kinds of issues. So that's how I, first, that's how I originally got exposed to GTD.

Morten: And what have you found personally to become, to be the biggest wins you've had with GTD on a personal level?

C: Yeah, it's a really interesting one. I think a lot about the fact that— let me talk philosophical first and then I'll talk real tactical. So on a philosophical level, what I would say is David Allen talks a lot about the ultimate goal of GTD. He says these days, David Allen says Getting Things Done is not about getting things done. It's about being appropriately engaged with whatever is in your world. And I think about that a lot because that is what GTD enables for me. Things don't get too much attention or too little attention. I don't have the sense that things are neglected, important things are neglected. I feel like as I make my way through my day, I do strike the right balance between all of the various things that I could focus on. So that's on the more philosophical level. I suppose on the more tactical level, my own sense of contentment, I think is a good word, about the fact that I feel like the commitments that I have, right? And the word commitment I use in the broadest possible sense, right? So I have a commitment to be with you on this podcast this morning. I have a commitment to call a client a bit later today. I have a commitment to arrange a seminar program for one of our clients. So those are all commitments. And because I have a good system and I have good ways of working, those commitments are all externalized. And that gives me huge freedom, really, to engage with the world in a way that feels like, again, things aren't slipping through the cracks. To use David Allen's phrase, you can only feel good about what you're not doing if you know what you're not doing. I got a pretty good sense right now and at any time what I'm not doing.

Morten: Good, good. And if you're going to lift your gaze to the listeners we have on the podcast, where would you recommend someone who just heard about GTD to start? Where would you start? Which— where would you start in the methodology?

C: Yeah, I guess I would— the first question I would ask somebody who was asking that question would be, how do you like to learn? Some people like to learn the theory first. Some people are readers. Some people are experiential learners and they would prefer to sort of learn by doing. So sort of start with that question. For the readers out there, David Allen's first book, the English title Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. It sold over 2 million copies worldwide and there's a reason. It really, I think, is— let's face it, a book on productivity could be pretty dry if it's not done well. And yet David, I think what David really did in that, in his first book, is to provide us with the information about the the whys and the whats of GTD. You know, what do we recommend and why? And he does it in a way that's quite— in some ways quite playful, quite inspiring. There's a light touch when there needs to be a light touch. So yeah, I mean, if someone's a high reader, as we say, that is they like to learn by reading, then I'd say that's not a bad place to start. I do have to say it's pretty rare— I'd go further. It's vanishingly rare that somebody says, "Okay, I've read the book and I've implemented a GTD system which I'm completely happy with." For most people, the book is a great starting place in terms of getting them to the point where they understand it theoretically and they understand the sort of core ideas. But then, at our public seminars and our businesses in the UK and in the German-speaking in Ireland. In those public seminars, what we find is that an awful lot of people are people who've read the book and then they say, "And I got so far and then I just really felt like I needed some help in getting it actually implemented." So that might be— they might want to follow the book up with getting in touch with your firm or with us depending on where they are in the world. So, and then, you know, the other things I guess I would say is, you know, a lot of— there's an awful lot of material on the internet. Our websites, you know, I'm sure your website, the David Allen Company's website, provides you with lots of overview information, a lot of testimonial information about getting things done. And those are also good resources. You know, you'll find, again, if you're not a big reader, you prefer to listen, or watch some videos or things, then you'll probably find some resources there that would be of more help. So yeah, I mean, overall, I guess what I'd say is that GTD is so popular and so successful over time that the number of things— I'm sorry, the types of resources that are out there is incredibly varied. And you're very likely to be able to find something that meets your needs. And actually, that said, let me say one more quick thing by way of by way of caution, because GTD is so popular and so successful, there are also a very large number of people out there who say, "Yes, I do GTD," and they don't really. They're not affiliated with The David Allen Company. They're not trained or certified by The David Allen Company in the way that you are and that I am. And so as a result of that, I think people need to be a little bit careful that they're dealing with trusted sources and all of this. Yes, I've seen some real— I've seen some real, as the Brits would say, I've seen some real dog's dinners when it comes to the, uh, the quality of some of the things that are out there in the, in the, in the, in the quote GTD unquote world.

Morten: Yeah, we are actually— Lars and I are getting a, uh, you know, we have an episode coming up where we call it Getting Things Wrong About GTD. We're going to tell all the misconceptions about GTD. Thanks for pointing that out, that there are sources out there you should not trust, or people who have misunderstood GTD. My personal experience is also that when people take their old system and then try to make a hybrid of GTD, where they don't adhere to the pillars of GTD, if you may, you know, GTD is a framework for thinking about your commitments, be appropriately engaged with whatever you do. And if you break one of the pillars, you will also break the holistic model this really is. Yeah, great. Thank you. Good. We are still having some time left. I would like to ask you a couple of questions about because your business in the UK you do with your business partner at Lamont. And you also are involved in Next Action Partners in Germany. Can you tell us a little about these two companies, what you do, what you offer the public?

C: Sure. So you're quite right. Over 11 years ago now, Ed Lamont, after I left Morgan Stanley, formed Next Action Associates in the teeth of the last recession, as I like to say. We ran that business for about 5 years, not quite 6 years I guess. In that time, one of the bizarre coincidences— I'm American by birth, Ed is Canadian by birth. One of the bizarre coincidences that we found out was that we both spoke German. First off, North Americans pretty rarely take up German as a language anyway unless they have some sort of familial connection with Germany, which I had none. And yet here we are and both he and I spoke German. So anyway, one of the things that we did fairly early on was we started to explore doing work in Germany and started originally to, as we say, to suitcase the training, right? So in other words, we would go to Germany and we would do seminars in Germany. We realized pretty quickly that that was not going to scale and so about 6 years ago, I was on the hunt for a joint venture partner in essence and I found a company that was— still is based in Bonn called Sid Partners. The principal of that company, a guy named Detlef Trapp. Detlef is one of the now shareholders in Next Action Partners. Our CEO in that business is Sabri Erjugit. Sabri is ex-Mercedes-Benz, very long CV of senior strategic roles, business management roles, and he's done a tremendous job of building that business. So at this point, yeah, between Next Action Associates and Next Action Partners, we cover 5 countries in Europe. So the UK, Ireland for Next Action Associates, and Germany, Austria, and Switzerland for Next Action Partners. The services that we provide are more or less the certified services that all of the associates— sorry, all of the franchisees provide. So it's seminars, it's coaching, support for people who are interested in understanding and implementing GTD, whether it's at an individual level or whether it's at a more sort of team or organizational level.

Morten: And how many, if you are going to make a guesstimate, I guess it would be, how many lives have you impacted? How many people have attended your courses in the UK, Ireland, and Next Action Partners countries?

C: Yeah, it's— I mean, between the two companies, it's in the tens of thousands. To be quite honest, I don't have that number at my fingertips, but you know, we— in any given week, right, between the two businesses, you probably got, let's call it, 4 or 5 seminars going on, in many cases multi-day seminars going on that are 20 people, something like that. And on top of that, of course, we'll be doing coaching, one-on-one coaching for executives or for more senior people generally across the piece as well. So yeah, I don't have that number to hand, but it's a big number.

Morten: If you're going to be a little philosophical and Looking into the future, we are in the middle of a pandemic. We see, the world sees a lot of problems at the moment on various levels, mentally, physically, economically. What would your dream be for, what role can GTD play in getting us out of this, you think?

C: Yeah, I think it's a really—.

Lars: On.

C: The one hand, you're absolutely right. It's a very challenging time, a very difficult time for a lot of people. And don't get me wrong, we've absolutely had our challenges as well in our business and certainly as we work with our clients and try to help them make sense of all of this. But I think what's What's important about the work that we do, and one of the things that I believe very strongly is that we all, no matter who we are, should be doing important work, right? That's key. I think that GTD in the current reality gives us the opportunity to understand, reflect on, and optimize how we work. Because for an awful lot of people, how they work has changed dramatically in the last 6 months. Some people 6 months ago didn't really have much experience of working from home at all. All of a sudden, the water cooler conversations aren't happening and interactions with people are primarily or solely on Zoom or on Microsoft Teams or whatever they're using, WebEx, whatever they're using for their video conferencing. So people's— there's been an awful lot of change. And again, one of the things I think that GTD enables in those kinds of situations is the kind of reflection that's helpful on, am I really thinking about my work in helpful ways, adapting the way that I work to this new reality? And adapting the toolset that I have and how I use it to the new reality. One of the things we put out a message to our mailing list last week talking about some of the things that we can help people with around helping them adapt to the new reality, right? And it has had an incredible response. I mean, it's one of the most We've had more responses, I think, from that little marketing message than from anything for many, many, many months, possibly years. So people seem to be hungry for this. They seem to be hungry for the chance to say, "I need to understand." A lot of people are saying, in effect, "I feel like I'm at sea. I feel like I'm not in control of things. I feel like I'm just being bounced around, buffeted around by what's going on in the world." And I'd really, really— I would like to get a sense of control back, please. And that's what GTD is all about. In GTD, the two most important things we talk about are control and perspective. And those are things that I think people in the current reality are lacking, and that's why I think the work that we do is particularly relevant right now.

Morten: Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. And you had the Next Action Associates. Created a survey about GTD and working from home. Isn't that right? And can you give us just a brief synopsis of what you found?

C: Sure. I mean, I think what was interesting for me about the survey was a couple of things. It was the first thing that was— let me just talk about the biggest surprise. Okay. I think the biggest surprise for me was how many people preferred working from home.

Morten: 78% something, I think.

C: Hold on, I'm going to get the exact number in front of me. 73% prefer working from home, which I thought was really, really, really interesting. You know, the other headline results from the survey that I think were quite interesting. 72% of respondents said that they needed to adapt to new ways of working in their new reality. So this goes back, I suppose, to my previous point about the fact that what we do is really relevant. So that wasn't so much of a surprise, but it was sort of— it was very reassuring for me that the work that we're doing is helpful. And then we also asked a bunch of questions in the survey about how it was primarily targeted at people who have experience of GTD. That was the goal of it really, was to understand how GTD is helping, if it is, in this new reality. And again, I'm just picking one more line item here. 76% of all respondents say that GTD helps to effectively track all of their commitments in the new reality., right? So they're saying, yeah, this is really helpful in that, in that, in that sense. Um, a little more anecdote.

Morten: Yeah, I just want to, you know, that, you know, if we, if it's— we believe the people who do GTD, that GTDers are among the most productive people in the world. You get more done on the right stuff. And, and they say that, say, give us these numbers. The most productive people in the world says I get more done at home than in the office. I'm more productive. That should be an awakening to a lot of business owners in the world and that they actually need to learn GTD to really embrace this change fast and most efficient. I'm sorry, I broke you off.

C: Just continue. It's a great point. And I think to echo what you just said, If you look around the world at the number of companies who are saying, in effect, our staff will be working from home for the foreseeable future. I was talking yesterday to someone from, without any names, one of the very largest high-tech companies in the world, very successful company. And she was saying that their staff has basically been told that they will not be doing anything in terms of face-to-face training until at least July of next year. So there's an awful lot of, you know, there's an awful lot of, I think, acknowledgement of the reality, you know, that we're going to be working from home for quite a while now. And again, to your point, GTD gives us the opportunity to understand those changes in the ways that we need to work and to optimize our ways of working and our tool sets. To that new reality.

Morten: Good. Yeah, I totally, totally agree with you, of course. Um, to, to end this off, I would like to ask you for an app tip. Productivity apps are— we don't talk list managers, but apps that help you move faster through the world. Um, I think you have one lined up.

C: I, I do. We talked about this a little bit before you hit record. I, I think, you know, it's— this one is, uh, For those of the folks who are listening to the podcast who aren't all that familiar with GTD, one of the things that we talk about is the fact that because of the way that our brains are wired, they're not great at holding on to details. So as we say, the one non-negotiable about GTD is let's get things out of our heads. I've got a great little app that helps me to do that. So it's a company, a little app that comes from a company in the Netherlands. The app is called Braintoss.. And I think from memory, the European, certainly in the German, I think one of my clients looked it up in the German App Store and it was €2. So it's not hugely expensive. And it is an absolutely wonderful little app that simply allows me, you know, it's on my phone, right? So if I'm walking around and something occurs to me that I need to talk to you about or something that I need to, you know, talk to my wife about or something I need to email somebody about or something I need to look up on the web, I can very quickly either in text form, in voice form, or in image form— I can take a picture of things— I can get that information into my inbox. So it's tremendously— in some ways it's elegantly simple and in my experience hugely powerful. I've had it for many, many years now and I probably use it I don't know, on the average day, anywhere between 6 and 10 times on the average day just to capture random things that occur to me. So yeah, Brain Toss, highly, highly recommended.

Morten: Okay, thank you. Thank you. And for our listeners who would like to— and by the way, if you're okay with this, I will ask Lars to link this survey we talked about to the show notes.

C: Is that okay for you? Sorry?

Morten: To the show notes so that the listeners, if they wanted to see this survey, they can just click the link in their podcast app. Okay, good. And where can the listeners find you and your associates around the world? Websites, phone number? I don't know, maybe not phone number.

C: But websites at least. Sure. Well, so our Well, I guess the first thing I would say is if you're looking for us in particular because you're either based in the UK or Ireland or you're based in the German-speaking world, you can find us on— in the German-speaking world, it's next-action.de and in the UK and Ireland, it's next-action.co.uk. More generally, I suppose, if you're, you know, if you're in some far-flung some far-flung corner of the world that is not covered by you, Morton, or by us, then what you might want to do is have a look at the Getting Things Done. So if you go to gettingthingsdone.com and just look for— on that website, you'll find a list of the international partners for each one of the geographies and just click on your country and you'll be pointed in the right direction. I don't think every country in the world is quite covered, but But certainly, the majority of countries in the world are covered. So you're very likely to find a local partner who is certified to the same standards that you and I are, uses the same materials, localized, of course, for language. But yeah, that I think is a.

Morten: Great resource for people too. I do agree. I think the last number was 73 countries is where you can get GTD delivered.

C: So that's, that doesn't sound wrong to me.

Morten: That sounds about right. So, well, thank you so much for attending our podcast, Todd. It was great talking to you again, and, um, thank you for your insights and, um, information about what you think is important for people. And, uh, until next time we speak, have a great day. Thank you so much for attending.

C: Pleasure.

Lars: Thank you. Great interview. Todd is a great guy, like you said, really experienced GTDers. Always some, some good insights from him, so I thought this was really fun to hear.

Morten: Me too. I'm, you know, Todd has by, by maybe by far in Europe the most experienced trainer, so he really has some good insights. So I hope that was valuable for you, the listener. Well, Lars, will you take us out?

Lars: Sure. As always, we wrap up these podcast episodes with letting you know where to go to learn more, and that is gtdnordic.com. So from that website, you will find all of the Nordic websites in each of the countries where you can find more articles about GTD, links to our newsletters. We have all the groups on social media where we collaborate and share tips and tricks with other GTDers, and of course, our different offerings on courses, speeches, and coaching. Especially the virtual ones are really taking off these days. So have a look at that if you want to learn more about GTD that way. And of course, if you're outside the Nordics, then gettingthingsdone.com is the place to go to learn more and find your local partner. And as usual, we really hope that you find these episodes valuable. And if you do, we really appreciate when you go in and rate us on iTunes. It really helps the discoverability of the podcast and help more people learn about GTD. So thanks to those of you who do that.

Morten: Yes. Please do. We need that. Thank you. And until next time, stay safe and stay productive.

C: Bye-bye, everybody. Bye-bye.