34. Listener questions: Choosing the right things to work on, biggest successes/failures with GTD®

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 am still Morten Røvik and still here with my friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Hello, Lars.

Lars: Hi, Morten. Good to be with you and looking forward to sharing some more thoughts on GTD with our listeners. If you haven't listened to this podcast before, the goal for us is to help you learn or become even better GTDers, becoming more productive, get a better overview of all your commitments, and be better at staying present with whatever you're engaged in, both at work and at home. And we really hope that you find these episodes valuable regardless of how experienced you are with GTD. And if you're looking for a refresher or learning the basics of GTD, then we recommend you go back and listen to the first episodes, episodes 1 through 6, where we cover the 5 steps.

Morten: Indeed, we do recommend that. And today's episode is listeners' questions, and we've had quite a few listeners sending us questions before and now. So this is one of my favorite topics we can discuss because it's people feel, I have a need, I don't understand, and I need to ask questions. This is good because then we can help you, the individual, to get better. So keep them flowing. And Lars, what is our first question for today?

Lars: Sure. Yeah, thanks. It's great to get these questions. So please do keep them flowing. Our first question is from Erwin Laville from France. I'm sure I'm not pronouncing that as you would in France, but that's the best I could do. And Erwin says, hi, I'm from France and I want to say thank you for your podcast. I enjoy listening to it every week and I can't wait until the next episode. Great, Erwin. Thanks a lot. He says, I want to know if it's possible to talk about tasks that I want/must do but can't right now because of date or time, other task, or maybe I don't want to. Do you put these kinds of tasks inside the someday/maybe list even if you have to do them, if you must do them, or do you put them in a tickler system or calendar? Thank you for your help and for the podcast. Have a great summer, Erwin. What would you respond to, Erwin?

Morten: I would paraphrase David Allen, said it depends. Well, my first thoughts are here that when he says, is it possible to talk about tasks that I want/must do but I can't do right now because of date/time, then I would say date and time, that would indicate you want and must do them in the future, or that it doesn't have as high priority right now because other tasks get in its way. Those two are fairly straightforward. That would either be a tickler file, or in the calendar, or in my Someday/Maybe, or in my project on pause. What would you say to him?

Lars: Yeah, I would probably say something similar. Really be very clear on the clarification of whatever had shown up in his life, for his inbox. Really be clear on that step because if it's something that I must do but can't right now, it could also sound like it's just the nature of where he is and he does not have the time right now, but it's still something that he has to do. And if it's something active that you are acting on, then I would also be sure to keep it on his lists or maybe even in his calendar. If it has to take place on a specific date or time. So it really comes back to being very clear for me on the clarification step, figuring out what it is and whether it's actionable or not.

Morten: Yeah, and it could be that we mentioned this before, and for some people that might come as a surprise that you can actually invent something and put into GTD as long as it doesn't break the ground principles. Of GTD that you don't have to have, you know, that there are two opposite sides of what I call active and inactive is that active projects is projects that you are, they are projects you work on right now. And then you have the someday list or someday maybe list where you do someday when time comes, cows start to fly or something, I don't know, you will do them. But you can make an in-between between this because they are very far apart because if you must do them, Then it would be something that will be active later for sure. Then that could be a project on hold. I know I will, I must make this and it's on hold right now. I don't do it right now, but it's best to park it. So, but I got a little hung up in the thing he said that the tasks that I want/must do, but I can't do right now because I don't want to. And that sounds very much like procrastination to me, or genuine dislike of something. So what I would suggest for him is that he will be very good at defining next actions so that I don't want to— maybe because of procrastination, you don't know how to get started. If you know the very first next action where you have everything you need, that will help you get started. But if you don't want to do it still because it has some kind of yuck factor, maybe you should change your job or your life. I don't know.

Lars: But really, for me, I finished a virtual seminar earlier today. Me too. And I always look at or try to check in with the participants, curious to hear what were the most— what did they most appreciate about it? What steps did they think that they would be most valuable to them. And a few of them said the clarify step. And then I always like to hear that because it really shows that, you know, they recognize that there is a complexity in their world, making that decision and not falling into procrastination traps. And, you know, some of these people, I know them, they have very nice titles, big jobs, but they're struggling with procrastination just like the rest of us. So being good at that clarifying step, finding that next action, if you're not But if you don't want to do it, then yeah, like you said, what did you do then? Then maybe there really is some other next action that could go on their list. So just something to check in on as well when you're kind of stuck on a task.

Morten: Yes, I do agree. I hope that we've answered your question well, and if not, write it right back to us and ask again.

Lars: Yes, please do. Let's head on to the second question. The second question is from Andy Jewell. And I'll go through his list because I think— or his email, because I think there is a lot of good details in here. First of all, he says, hi guys, thank you so much for your podcast. I really get a lot out of the discussion and extensive experience you bring to the topics and questions around GTD. It's one of my favorite podcasts. My only suggestion for improvement would be to record more podcasts. Great, Angie. Thanks. Happy to hear that. He goes on to say, I especially enjoy when you answer questions because it gives me some insights into the way others are using and improving their GTD process. I'm not new to GTD, but I have a couple of struggles in my process, and one is that, that may seem simple but isn't that clear to me, is the engage or action step, particularly with respects to contexts. My understanding from the original book and most of what I hear is that the pool of activities that you might work on at any given time is any task from your next actions list. What you choose is mostly informed by your context and your instinct as to what you should do next. Does that mean that I shouldn't actually create a daily to-do list but rather choose in the moment? So when I take that approach, I have to stop and conduct an on-the-fly review to find out what's the best task to work on, and that feels slow and awkward. But on the other hand, if I make a to-do list at the beginning of the day, sometimes my day interferes and at the end of the day I haven't done anything on that list. If I roll those over to the next day, they just seem to keep rolling and then my system feels stale and pointless. What is the proper balance between planning my to-dos and choosing my to-dos by context? Looking forward to your next show. Hope you and your team are staying safe and healthy. Andy?

Morten: Yeah, and again, it depends. It's my first reaction. I think maybe one of the key questions here, what is the proper balance between planning my to-dos and choosing my to-dos by context? And it depends. What I do personally is that in the morning I look through my day, I see if I have In my calendar, I look at my calendar first and look at what time slots do I have that is not planned that I can do planned work or do unplanned work or planned work. This is what I would call a gut feeling decision. If I understand I have a lot of backlog on email, maybe I will define my work, do my my Clarify and Organize step. But if I want to engage with my lists, I feel this is what I need to do in the morning. I would look at what time and then maybe pick a couple of the most important ones I could do today and just mark them with wherever you can mark them with a marker pen, not a tick, so you find it again, or flag if you have that in your software so that you can easily find them again. But I think that the best idea here is to keep a light grip on that commitment because as he indicates, the thing changes and it should be easy for you to just let go of that and then put it back in the pile. And then if what I call reality happens, because reality has a nasty habit of getting into your your way of working. Suddenly something happens, you have to change your priorities. So what do you think, Merce? What is your take on this?

Lars: Well, I think it depends is a good place to start. I think when we start setting up people with these context-based lists, again, back to the virtual seminar earlier throughout this week, they were also— a few of them were questioning how that could work for them. And obviously we go through them one by one, those steps. So when we got to step 5, they had more of a clear idea of why we would organize by these contexts based on the limiting criteria. But I think he pretty well describes the challenge of trying to prioritize ahead of time in his second statement where he says, if I try to make that to-do list at the beginning of the day, then unplanned work shows up, I have to roll it over to the next day. So that's, you know, taking that step ahead. Do that with caution. Like, like you say, you know, there may be some critical tasks that you should be getting to as soon as you possibly can. And if you can flag them in some way to make sure that they get the right amount of attention, then that might be the right way to go. But I always really try to see if we can, you know, actually pick up the list and choose from that list. And what I found interesting was that he said that it feels slow and awkward. So what I'm wondering about is if he might missing either the right lists for him or if the weekly review is not done weekly. Maybe let's put it that way, because if it's not clear what would be the right thing to do, then I'm wondering if the lists might be long or it might be that there are too many things in play at any given time. So it's difficult to choose because I would, as I think I mentioned last time as well, I actually really appreciate that, you know, I can, can get to choose from my, my list Sorry, Siri decided to chime in on that one. I really appreciate that I can actually pick from that list instead. So it actually feels great for me to be able to make that choice in the moment as opposed to having Smartlass last week or yesterday setting a prioritized list for me to work from like a slave to that guy. So yeah, maybe, you know, have a look at those lists, see if it's the right lists for you. Andy, and also make sure you have that good thorough weekly review so you have sort of more of a maybe a clear gut feeling on what would be the right thing to work on.

Morten: Yeah, and what also strikes me now is that when you do the limiting criteria, you start with context, then you take time, then you take your mental resources, and then your priorities— what gives me the most value to start now and work on. And if you start with priorities with the SMART Loris or SMART Morton or SMART Andy, it was Andy, wasn't it? Yeah. So it makes it, you know, you jump the hurdle of your, you know, what if you choose something to put up, put something on your list that you want to do today on your shortlist that takes more time than you actually have tomorrow when tomorrow starts and you end up with a higher energy level than you really have, then you are you have to have a light grip on this and say, well, I have to renegotiate this quickly and not, I don't have time, I don't have energy to do this. And light grip is something I would talk about to him. And another thing is that I'm on the beta program for a software now, which is kind of interesting, which is trying to help you focus on the most important things. And I tried it out. It's an iPhone app and it's a Chrome extension that you install in your Chrome browser, and it helps you not drift from— it's Hold, like in H-O-L-D, like hold your attention. And it also, for those of you who are really having wandering minds, and when you start working, wander off and do other things than you decided to do, you can set a number of tasks you would like to do today. In the Hold app, either in the Chrome or on your phone, and then you said, "I would like to spend 25 minutes or an hour," or how long you want to spend on it, and then it will stop you go to Facebook, it will stop you go to whatever app— sorry, websites you would like to go to when you are getting a little bored. And I think that is an interesting one. It's called Hold. It's going to be released sometime this winter, I think. But I don't know if that's interesting, but that's also a way to make a shortlist. And yeah, write it with pencil, I think it's a good idea. So you can just erase it if you didn't get to it. I don't know if that makes sense.

Lars: Yeah, no, it does. It does make sense. And there may be some tricks like that as well, blocking your inbox if that's actually what's stealing your time, or maybe blocking websites that you know will start to steal your time if you're not aware, or whatever helps you out. And apps can certainly help with that way. So I hope, Andy, we got through your question, or at least gave you some tips on how to deal with that and pick the right thing. And like Morten said to Erwan earlier as well, be sure to let us know by email if you have any additional thoughts or how that made sense to you. The third and last question is from Michael in Denmark. Michael Dreyhus, I will say a mix of Danish and English. He posed several questions in his email, but I wanted to just pick out one of them for now. There were mainly sort of topics or recommendations for what we might discuss. And one of them was successes, big failures, and how to get back on track.

Morten: What would you— He poses one explicitly to me. Have you had big failures with your system, Morten? Yes, all the time.

Lars: That is my notes that I would ask you. So don't take that too personally.

Morten: Okay. Well, okay. So that's your note, but you're absolutely on the mark. If I think back when I started with GTD back in 2006, I think two main things is that I tried to take my old me, the old systematic approach, or more or less systematic approach I used before and merge it with GTD. I take the new teachings and merge it with my old habits. And that did not work. It is like GTD because I tried to, for instance, I was addicted to dates, due dates, really bad habit. Of due dates, but you get a notification when you can't do something about it in a meeting or something. That is really not good. So that is one of my biggest failures, is I took my old habits and bad habits mainly and tried to merge them with GTD. So if you— this is one of the things I really, really would recommend you not do. And the other big failure that I can remember was that I didn't clearly divide between or separate actionable and non-actionable things. For instance, I would use— I would try two different systems. I would try to keep both my reference material and my next actions in a kind of blurred system in Evernote. I started with Evernote a little at a time, and it was not clear edges on what was reference and what was actionable. So I had to read through my reference to see if there are some actionable items there. I didn't extract them and then convert them to next actions and put them into my active system. So that is also a big fail. When I understood what I had been doing and rectified that, that was a big relief. You have something I need to do something about and something just for reading if I want to, or background material I might need for a project in the future. What is your big failure, Lars, that you can remember?

Lars: Well, yeah, I also just, you know, reflected a bit on this, and I don't know what the biggest failure would be. And as I was thinking through it, I think, you know, much of it is really not failures as much of the learning experience of, you know, implementing GTD and correcting as you go along, kind of what you were saying. And when it comes back to getting back on track, well, you know, that's falling back to basics, like you also said. And I think you actually mentioned that last time as well, pre-show, that, you know, we make these tweaks, we make these adaptations, and then when we sort of feel that we're getting a bit off track, then falling back to the basics is really the way to go. But if I were to highlight something, I think for me was being more clear in my projects and next actions. I think, like we mentioned before, the clarify step, I was not very clear clear in that. I had a tendency to, you know, things were moving fast and I had to move fast, so I would just write something on the list. I would just write budget. I would, you know, maybe skip the clarify step and just, you know, put some stuff on that list because I know what that means. I know what that means. I don't have to, you know, I don't have to think that through and write that down, you know, next action. Who needs that? I know what the next action is when I look at it. So really being better at that, I.

Morten: Think that was— Let's go back to that. How did that really translate if you go back to that? That, that, because I think a lot of people do that still.

Lars: Yeah, so, so looking through that list and making that decision, what's the right thing for me to do? I mean, picking up that list, I would have to, you know, think all of those things through again, clarify each and every one of them, figuring out what's the next action, especially email. And that's probably the, the second thing I would highlight is, you know, I had a, a long time where I would, you know, the I would simply use the emails as a reminder for the next action. I would not capture the next action. So simply having that action folder, dragging that email over there, really good, really quick at getting to inbox zero. But looking at that action folder, that action folder was just full of emails. They were actionable, that part was clear, but what was the next action? That was something that I had to figure out each and every single time. I had to figure out what was right to work on, right? So it really was it had saved me some time. I didn't have to look at all the emails that I didn't have to do anything about. But on the other hand, it really was a lot of mental horsepower wasted on rethinking all of the stuff that was in that action folder.

Morten: And thinking is harder than you could, you know, than one should think. But no, but it is really like this. And this is where some of the underlying principle of GTD, underlying principles of GTD helps you is that you will think one time about something if you decide you want to do something about it and then decide what's the next action and park your desired outcome somewhere. And instead of rethinking and looking at it, it's like, what is that word in English for when you have a cow and she she vomits up and eats again her food. Regurgitation, I think it is in English, where you eat the same food several times. And this idea that you should rethink and rethink, and you will rethink when you try to find something, and that is such a waste of your mental energy because Thinking is hard. It takes a lot of mental energy to think and to make decisions takes mental energy. Instead of doing that over and over again, do it one time, just one, and then decide. I think that is really vital for getting your win as a GTDer with more productivity. You will have more energy and more time on your hands to do the for the important stuff.

Lars: Yeah. So if any of you are stuck like, like I was, you know, really go out there and figure out, see if you could find some tools that work for you where you can then easily integrate your email and action management more, more easily together. At least for me, that was, made it, you know, a lot more attractive for me to do it when there was a nice easy way for me to just have an email, hit that button, write the next action, and then hit enter, and then we were, we're ready to go. Archive the email onto the next one. That really made a big difference for me. So make sure that it's an easy way for you to get those over there as well. And also the other part of Michael's question was the successes. What would you say have been the biggest success that you had as part of your GTD practice, or that you maybe have worked with other people who implemented GTD?

Morten: Well, I don't think it is one big success. It's more like many small successes that have led to— I clearly remember when starting with Jidduji, when I started emptying my head and I felt it was possible to think again. Fresh air blows through your brain and you feel, "Oh, it feels great." You feel you are on top of things. And then the second would be when I started nailing the weekly review, becoming actually weekly and not biweekly or triweekly or whenever I felt I felt really bad about my commitments. That is also a big win, big success. I think those two to start, getting things out of my head and clarify and organize them into a system and then review that system on a regular basis, give me a lot of success. It's helped me to— If I didn't have GTD, I wouldn't be where we are today. We wouldn't be here today, you and me. And because GTD helped me to clarify that really I wanted to work with GTD, I want to help people with getting good at this because it's changing the world. And back in 20— you know, it started in 2009, but in 2012 when I signed a contract with David Allen Academy to start learning this on and teaching this more professionally, and that was GTD who made this. And I remember very clearly, this is maybe the biggest successes, I remember I was clearly thinking to myself, David Allen cannot refuse me to get this to Norway because he gave me this idea. He gave me GTD. He must accept this. So, thank you, David, for giving us GTD. And I think, yeah, many big successes. What's been your biggest success or successes, Lars?

Lars: Well, I would pretty much echo what you As you said, you know, it really is constant. I could not, you know, run this business without GTD. So that's exactly what I had noted in my notes as well, while also at the same time being the father and husband that I want to be and also get my runs in there and all that, that there really is a balance in all of the activities going on in my life. Even though there's a lot of stuff going on, that I can stay present with all the things that I'm engaged in. But I think if I were to highlight one specific time in my life, it was— and I may have mentioned this on the podcast before— but back in 2012, 2013, my father was diagnosed with brain cancer. And there was a lot of things that I had to take over as well. He was— it came as a surprise, and he was very active and had different businesses ongoing. So those were businesses that I had to step in and take over and make sure that they were handle while at the same time, you know, staying on top of my work as an IT consultant and be present with him and help him and his wife in that time. And that really was, you know, a lifesaver for me. And I know a lot of GTDers have similar stories with— there was just a specific time in their life where they really figured out that, you know, they weren't sure looking back, how would they have managed this without having the tools for that? So it really made that period, tough as it was for sure, more bearable for me and also supported everyone around him. So that's probably the biggest one that I would highlight.

Morten: Yeah, me too. This is— I've heard similar stories many times and I've had my— when I lost my mother a few years back and I had to handle this on behalf of the family and I handled at least the practicalities around this. And it is, you know, if you are in a big life-changing event happens to you, it's good not to have to remember the two milks on the way home or sign the contracts. All the small mundane things that you need to do to keep your boat afloat, if you so— and this is truly helpful in a situation like this. And it gives you— you have maybe stronger emotions around something when you are a GTD because you can allow yourself to have them. I think that because the emails you should reply and all your commitments are still in your brain if you don't put them somewhere else, but if you take them out of there, you can allow yourself to be wrapped up in whatever you feel in the moment. And it could be sorrow or it can be happiness. I think that's one of the— When we look at why people say, "I'm more happy with GTD," how many percent? 80-something percent says that they are more happy with GTD. Is that they have the mental bandwidth to be happy. I'm married to my beautiful wife and I'm in love with her still. We've been married for not much more than a year, but still, to be in love and to enjoy love and to have emotion, positive and negative emotions, emotions also is good. I feel I live a fuller life with GTD.

Lars: Yeah, maybe that's a good way to say it. Yeah. So thank you to Michael as well from Denmark. I hope we gave some good feedback to the notes or the email that you sent us. And thank you to all 3 listeners for the questions. Thank you also to Andy. Thank you to Erwan as well. Great questions. And for those of you who might have any more questions, be sure to let us know. The email is right there for you in the show notes.

Morten: And you will mention it at the end of the— when we take us out also, which we are getting close to now. So any final comments, Lars, or are you ready to take us out?

Lars: Well, one thing that I wanted to mention just to say thank you to our listeners and how much we appreciate that you listen along. There are a lot of great podcasts out there, a lot of things you could be spending your time on, but you chose to listen to us and we really truly appreciate that. Indeed. So, so thank you very much. Yeah, really.

Morten: Indeed. And we have more, more 5 stars on iTunes than any other podcast about GTD.

Lars: Oh, really?

Morten: I think at least in Norway. So keep, keep, keep them stars coming, people.

Lars: You make us happy. Thank you. Thank you for those as well. And as usual, we wrap up this episode. If you're in the Nordics, we recommend you head on over to gtdnordic.com where you will find links to the country websites for each of the Nordic countries. And on those websites, you can find articles about GTD. Links to the newsletters, social media groups where natives from each of those countries discuss GTD. And of course, you can find all of our offerings regarding speeches, coaches, and seminars, both virtual and physical. Um, and like I said, we always like to hear from you, so feedback, ideas for future episodes, questions, whatever you want to tell us, let us know by email: podcast@gtdnordic.dk.

Morten: Good. Thank you so much for listening and thanks for your questions. Keep them coming and we will write— sorry, we will answer your question maybe next time. Well, maybe not next time, but next time after that, maybe. I don't know. We try to mix them up so it's not always listener questions, but write us and we will answer your questions for sure.

Lars: We are good at capturing and organizing these things.

Morten: We are dead serious about that. So, so thank you so much for, for listening, and stay safe and stay productive until next time. Bye-bye.