37. New Years Resolutions 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'm Morten Røvik and I'm here as always with my good friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen.

Lars: Hi Morten, good to be with you and as always looking forward to sharing some more thoughts on GTD with our listeners. So if you haven't listened or watched this podcast before, the goal for us is to help you learn or become even better GTDers, become more productive, less stressed, get a better overview of all of your commitments. And we hope that you find these episodes valuable regardless of how experienced you are with GTD. And we always— if you want a refresher or learn more about the basics of GTD, we always recommend you go back and listen to episodes 1 through 6. We actually just recently heard from a GTDer who said that they this was now his preferred way of introducing people to the basis of GCD, was to lead them to the first episodes of our podcast. So really happy to hear that.

Morten: Yeah, we are. Well, and this episode is a little special, at least for those of you who are watching this through a video channel, because this is our first attempt at a video recording of the podcast. I'm really— and you're a little giddy about this technology thing, I must admit. And we had a little technical issues before we started, so we prayed to the technology gods to help us with not having pixelation of Lars and dropout of audio. So please be with us. And today's topic is New Year's resolutions, and we have not had the time to discussed this in advance because we were so giddy about the technology. So, let's just dive in, Lars. I have a question for you regarding New Year's resolutions. Are they necessary?

Lars: Well, that's a good question. I think, you know, a lot of people listening to this, watching this, will be BGC Deers, and, you know, we kind of do resolutions all the time. I mean, we set up goals, we most of the time we call them projects. So, so we really try to set these things up throughout the year. So maybe more from the perspective of taking a step back, reflecting, thinking of which new projects you might want to engage in in the new year. That's, that's probably more, I would say, my perspective on New Year's resolutions. So really not something special because we kind of do it all the time. But are there any things that kind of show up now that you maybe had a bit of time off, maybe had some time to spend with the family, friends, things like that? And what might show up and what might be new projects in your world now. I don't know, what would you say, Morten?

Morten: No, I would say, if you ask me if they are necessary, I would say a very concrete and loudly, no, you don't need them. But it depends. If you would like to change something in your life, then a New Year's resolution as such could be beneficial. And my first thinking about this is, I remember starting thinking about this many years ago and about New Year's resolutions and what place do they have in the world. And a lot of people have a lot of bad conscience regarding their New Year's resolutions, especially if you don't manage to fulfill them. And I've looked at this as, well, One of the reasons you fail on your New Year's resolutions is that instead of setting, you know, planning this, first of all, planning this, and then secondly, that if you don't plan or and if you make your resolutions too big, like in 2021, I will want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his, on his height of days. And yeah, maybe, but that's maybe a big goal, you know, maybe too big a goal, you know, too big a habit to change because there is a lot of habits that needs to be changed to do that. But so maybe we should just start talking about which, what kind of New Year's resolutions have you made or have you seen in the wild? What do people tell you, Lars? What do you see?

Lars: Well, I mean, the classics are often, of course, health related. I think that's probably where most people come to New Year's resolutions. I think from a GTD perspective, maybe now is— if you've kind of fallen off the horse a bit, then maybe now is a really good time to get back on. So maybe go back to the basics, start fresh, maybe with even a new system, rebuild it so it works for the coming year, especially in these really unpredictable times. You'll want to have a good clean system that is ready to navigate the changes that will undoubtedly also show up in 2021. We saw how 2020 played out. So yeah, let's be ready for 2021 with a good solid GTD system. So, and from that perspective, I would say really start off easy again, come back to the basics, get that weekly review in your calendar, really stick to it now, hang on to it, empty your head and really try to build that system that that will support you in making 2021 really good.

Morten: Rebuilding your GTD system or getting it to work better for you is of course something we will need to touch upon in this episode, but I just want to also touch on the more traditional New Year's resolutions that people have, non-GTDers have, like stop smoking, start exercising. Eat less salt, change my diet. I don't know if you have any others you've met in the wild?

Lars: No, that sounds like the most common ones here in Denmark as well.

Morten: Yeah, but if you are going to break this down from a GTD perspective, I have some tips that people might find interesting, but I would go back to whatever you want to make changes on. If it is your, you know, your more well-functioning GTD system or better GTD practice, I would go back to the why first. Why do you want to make this change? Why is this important for you? And then ask why enough times until you uncover the core of the truth. If you want to do your GTD system better, I want to do my weekly reviews better. Why? Because then my GTD system will work better. Why would that benefit you? Why is that important? Because if my GTD system works better, I can concentrate on what's important for me right now. Why is that important for you? Because I will be more present in the moment. Why is that important for you? Because then I can feel alive and I feel I am here on the planet. And why is that important? Because that makes me happy to be part of this. And then you go why, why, why until you uncover the real core of your motivation.

Lars: Exactly. Do you agree? Yeah, exactly. And maybe to build on that, the natural planning model would also lead you to start with the why. So that might be an opportunity to bring that back up again.

Morten: Yeah. And I'm sure that you can make a note, Nat, that you will make a note in the show notes to link to the episode. Episode of the Natural Planning Model. So those who would like to go back and look at that, that would be good.

Lars: Noting that down right now.

Morten: Good, good. So, but when you know the why, I would also focus on the wild success, the vision part of, if you use the Natural Planning Model, and then just focus on the why. And sorry, the motivation part. How does it— what's your desired outcome? And if you want to do this, you want to become more healthy, move more to have a better general health by movement, that's something you'd like to do, then imagine yourself as a better fit. What would that help you achieve? How would that look? How would that feel? And then that would be my second step. And my third step is how would you identify a micro habit that you can build and then build on? Does that make sense to you?

Lars: Absolutely. Yeah. And I know that's something that you've been working on as well to look more into that. How do we break it down to make it as easy as possible for you to move forward on these things?

Morten: Yeah. Yeah. I've, and I found that this actually works. I've used it on me and I hear back from from a lot of people that say that this, this way of looking at it actually helps. So if you know the why, and then you might— while success could be like you are, you have mind like water, or a more athletic body, or a lower cholesterol, or lower blood pressure, or whatever you want to change, and stop smoking, you're not smoking anymore, and then imagine that, decide, you know, to, to to find your vital success, your vision for this. And then for breaking it down, either identify something you already are doing and then build on that. For instance, if you want to do your— let's say you want to start on a more regular basis, I want to clean my bathroom because I understand that's not very well handled in my life. How would you go about this? And then the microhabit could be as small as this: make a calendar note.

Lars: For.

Morten: Every Saturday morning or whenever you want to do this and make a calendar appointment with yourself and make this internal agreement. I will fill up a bucket of water, put some soap, put a sponge or a rag inside the bucket, and I will enter the bathroom and see what happens. Because that kind of tricks you, because everybody can— and if you don't want to do anything after that, you can just empty the bucket. But if you come into the bathroom with a bucket of nice-smelling soap water with a sponge or a rag inside for cleaning, then you might want to— I have started now, so why don't I just do something? And then suddenly your bath is cleaned. And then after, when you feel more comfortable with that, you can establish that as a habit. How would you go about doing this with GTD, Lars, if you use the same principles I just outlined? What would you do?

Lars: Well, like you said, one approach could be to go for the calendar thing. And really, I would focus on breaking it down to the, you know, the right next action. So if you do have some New Year's resolutions, whatever they might be, really, you know, you can apply the natural planning model, but at least define that desired outcome, the project for it, define that next action, really try to break that down because it continues to amaze me how at least some people struggle to break it down, myself included sometimes, to the right next action. So if it's not the right next action, it's not small enough, you know, whatever the reason might be, it might be staying standing there, might be looking at me on my list, and never really moving forward on it. So really thinking through how could you make this happen? What, what's the— what's a good small micro habit, maybe my micro next action, to really move, move things forward?

Morten: Yeah, and the reason I'm calling this micro habits and not micro next actions, even though they are micro and next actions, is because you can take a habit and you can build on So for instance, let's say that you want to start exercising on a regular basis. Both you and I have had what used to be called a cognitive preference survey, now called Kairos cognition test. And this Kairos cognition/cognitive preference survey deemed me as a very low mover, which means that I get no joy of movement. My brain does not work better if I move. I can sit still for many hours without any problems. And that is a problem for my health because if I don't move, I will die too early. And I identified health as something I would like to do something about. Some years back, I decided to do something about that. I was fairly overweight. I didn't move at all almost. I worked a lot, but I didn't move a lot. I decided to do something about that. My why is I want better health because I want to live long, and that's in accordance with my Horizons of Focus document. I identified this as an area I would like to know a value for me and a purpose of my life is to live long. Then I broke it down to what is motivation. I pictured myself, I actually made a board. I took a cardboard A3 and I went online and found photos and I'd go in magazines to find photos for helping me. And then I found a very athletic body that I liked. I cut his head off and I imagined me having this body. I never got exactly to that body, but I got into better shape.. And that was my motivation. And then for building this, I decided to do the following, is that I must build a microhabit. And the microhabit was first I had to buy shoes because I didn't have good shoes. So that was the next action on my errands list. And I buy new shoes and I found my— I had some tracksuits, some training clothes. That I managed to find. I decided what to wear, and then I put the shoes and the clothes just on the floor where I put my feet in the morning. And the microhabit was as follows: every day I will put my training clothes on, my training shoes on, and I will walk out of the house and down to the road to pick up the newspaper in the post box. And, and that I did, and that was the only thing I did for 2 weeks. Then suddenly one morning I woke up and I go down there and I saw beautiful sunrise. So I decided to just walk up the road and to see the sunrise because I had better view. And that was really nice. And the next morning it was also a really nice sunrise, so I continued walking and I walked around another bend to have an even better look. And then this kind of like escalated over time because this was my plan after all, what I wanted to trick myself into to start walking. And then for, you know, it took me maybe 2-3 months or so. And then every morning I ran 3 kilometers. I don't run anymore, but I walk on average between 5 and 6 kilometers every day of the week. And that keeps me not very thin and it doesn't make me very athletic, but it helps me for my future, me living long.

Lars: So that's, um, yeah. One thing I wanted to touch on as well is perhaps for people out there that might not have sat down to think about any possible New Year's resolutions and maybe, you know, suggest to sit down and brainstorm a bit. What might they be? Because even though we often have these projects ongoing, There will be times when you, you know, more easily identify these projects. And then maybe, maybe if some of the projects have been on your list for a while, there is actually room for new things, new initiatives to start off on. Then maybe, maybe set us some time to think this through. You know, you could brainstorm just off the top of your head. You could, if you have your horizons of focus written out, then maybe review some of those to see what might show up. Like you just mentioned now, it could come all the way from purpose, some really critical things there. It could be areas of focus where now that you really think about it, there would be some, some nice things to improve for some of those. Well, what might those projects be? And that could be health-related, could be something else, whatever, whatever might, you know, trigger a project. And one thing for me, one thing that I'm focused on now is to be more clear on my vision. I think what I have on my horizon for my vision is It's pretty clear, but I think it could be more detailed. There's room for me to be more clear about where I want to be, where do we want to be with the company, where do I want to be on a personal level with my family as well. Think these things through. So I know right now, I have a gut feeling that it's not detailed enough for me. So I'll be writing that out in more detail. And actually, one thing that just showed up for me as part of my end of year checklist is to clean out the the archive. So I ran through that and I came across my Level 3 seminar materials and that I had to put in there. So I picked that up and I ran through it and then noticed that there were some, some questions relating to the Higher Horizons as well. So I've brought them with me and I'll be looking at those and think those through now to, to really work my way through this, this exercise as well. So if you have that handy, I can highly recommend to maybe, maybe also include that this.

Morten: Year. One of the habits that you have to establish as a routine over time as a GTDer is to do your weekly review. And I know a lot of people have problems with that. And I think it might be valuable for the listeners if we touch upon how you can do that practically. And, you know, in the seminars we talk about You should establish it as a routine over time, build it as a habit, and then it becomes a routine and make it easy to facilitate for yourself. So we talk about— and please feel free to add on this because this is on top of my head— we recommend that you, you find a specific time at a specific day in the week where you can be undisturbed. Where you can— don't have somebody calling on you or knocking on your door. And if that's not possible, then put red tape, barbed wire on your door handle or something to make sure people don't disturb you.

Lars: We just watched Home Alone, so maybe you can do that one with the heated door handle.

Morten: Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. And And the second part of this is to try and make it that you don't interrupt yourself. So instead of— if you— I would highly recommend that you of course have something to write with and on, so that if you start interrupting yourself on this, you would write things down. So I'm looking at this now, but this thought is bugging my brain. Then write that down. And we also say that give yourself some rewards if that makes you happy. Eat something you would like to eat, for instance. Give yourself some reward at the end of this, or during, so that you feel that it might be extra motivation for you. What would extra motivate you? And we also talk about doing this as together with a friend or a colleague who are willing to do that. You know, we have Facebook groups in the Nordic regions you could join. We have meetup.com groups you can join so that you can find a weekly review buddy, as we call it, if you'd like, some person who has— who wants to establish this as a habit as well. And now in the Zoom times, you can have a Zoom meeting together where you have a meeting together where you do your weekly review. You don't talk. While you do this, you just work together. It's a good excuse for setting aside time. But when that is cleared, when you have this, do you have any additional tidbits you would give? Some information, some tips, some tricks that helped you when you start to establish this as a habit?

Lars: I would maybe add two things come to mind. One is to watch out for the get clear step, because that can, if you're not a let's say it was a really busy week. So getting clear, meaning gathering all the loose materials, getting it all into your inbox, getting that inbox to zero, both physically and digitally. Keep an eye on that one because that can really steal the time you set aside. So if you blocked an hour's time, you might find yourself actually spending that whole hour just getting to the bottom of your email inbox. So if that happens to you, then maybe set aside some time the day before in the afternoon to get close to zero. So when you start off with your weekly review, just, you know, just to have a few things that have shown up. Now you can get those into the system so you can move on to getting current and get creative. And the other part I would suggest is to really make it your own. So really add some things in there that you want to see as part of your weekly review and things ideally that you only see as part of your weekly review. So when you really trust it, you are naturally drawn to doing that weekly review, because otherwise you'd miss it. So I have some things on my checklist in there. I have some rewards. I have some questions for myself. I have some, you know, even on them, we're recording this close to the end of the month. So I have some monthly items that I know I have to transition from my weekly review checklist into my active system. So throw some things in there that you will only see then because that at least was a helpful factor for me to make sure that I got my weekly review done, was to know that I actually had to get in there and I wanted to get in there because there was a nice reward at the end as.

Morten: Well. Me too. And then, especially what really helped me, I had a— first of all, have a checklist so that you know where you are and where you left off if you're disturbed. Create a checklist for your weekly review. If you're going to any of the seminars, you will have a checklist for this in your material, either in your Mindmarker app for those of you who are fairly fresh to GTD, it's maybe a year we have this in the seminars, and then, or in the physical material, or digital material will also have this if you did this as an online seminar. But, and then, but create your own version of this. I'm looking at my weekly review checklist now where I have for— because as all people, I struggle maybe more than normal for people because I'm very associative in my brain. It's very difficult to be sequential and this is highly sequential. So, I have to make it as attractive as possible for me. So, I have weekly review done with a lovely feeling afterwards with a smiley face. It's my checklist. And after that, I've changed the order of things. And I really, to get started, I make it really easy for me that my first two items is turn on Do Not Disturb on mobile and Mac. I can do that. I don't have to think about that. That's very easy. Let me do that. And then it's kind of, then I'm started. And then I have a look over my main targets for the year 2020, as we are speaking now, once a month and make a reflection. And I've decided which month is— I understand that this is the first Friday of the month I will look at them. And I can do that. I don't need Brain for that. I kind of like trick myself to get started. What are your tricks? Or do you have any problems like that? Am I the only one?

Lars: No, no, for sure. I have some of the same, and I think mine are, yeah, pretty similar. Turn on Do Not Disturb, go get that good cup of coffee, start that weekly review playlist that I always have, one of the default ones, standard ones in Apple Music. I think it's Nike Run with Headspace. So that playlist is always something that I play, and that just puts me into weekly review mode. So start off nice and simple, and yeah, gather papers, put that into the inbox. I can do that, you know, and then you're out there, you're moving. Moving. And yeah, perhaps you're more easily drawn to the next steps. So certainly relate to.

Morten: That. Okay. Well, I hope that we've given you something, at least for the weekly review, that you might want to use. But the idea is make it yours and establish a habit that can become a routine. And one thing I would highly recommend you to do is to keep a weekly review journal and just somewhere that where you will see it and then you open your journal before you start your weekly review to motivate yourself. Write down what does it feel when you're finished? How does it feel? How do you feel inside? And most people who do this feel that, well, I have overview, I have control, I have a good feeling of Nothing's going to, you know, come and knock me down until next week or next weekly review. I have an overview. And if you write that down, it will motivate you for the next time you want, because you will remember, ah, this is why I'm doing this. I don't know. Would you recommend the same?

Lars: Yeah, if that works for you, then for sure do that. I know at least people that track that they make, that they've done their weekly reviews. So when they look at that list, my sister does that actually, that she has a list of doing her weekly reviews so she can see that she has this chain of completed weekly reviews and you don't want to break that chain. So that's perhaps also a motivational factor to get that weekly review.

Morten: Done. Well, I see for those of my coaching clients that have expressed concern about their ability to do the weekly review on a consistent basis, to remember why they want to do this and remember the good feelings they get after is an extra motivation factor for them.

Lars: So.

Morten: Yeah. Okay, anything else we would like to add on this?

Lars: Well, just two things that I thought to also mention. Coming back to one thing when we talked about brainstorming possible ideas, just also, you know, I think when people are more experienced with GTD, it becomes more easy to also start.

Morten: To really see.

Lars: Other people playing into their personal or professional lives. So perhaps also think this through with people near you. Is this something you want to achieve with them this year? Is this something you want to do for them this year? Prepare for whatever it might be. So perhaps take that perspective when you perhaps brainstorm on possible ideas for what you might want to complete in the new year. And lastly, I want to mention to perhaps also think back to the past year. So look back at your accomplishments. What did you complete this year? Because we had a, we had a great chat with, with David on a Nordic Virtual Meetup, and I'll link to that in the show notes as well. We started that off with a focus on a half-year review, and we ended up talking about a lot of different things, other aspects of GTD. But one of the things that David said that stuck with me was the difference between completing something and acknowledging So as GTDers, at least for myself, we'll be really good at what we do, creating and completing things. But perhaps this time of year is also good to maybe add the acknowledge part. So it's kind of a completed, completed perspective on what we managed to achieve in 2020. And I thought this might be valuable to the listeners, viewers out there to maybe spend a bit of time on as well, both for you know, feeling inspired about what lies ahead, but perhaps also inspiring you to, to do even cooler projects in.

Morten: 2021. Good. Well, um, I think we are at the road's end here. Any, any last, last party?

Lars: No, no, I, I think, you know, we always, we always wrap up these episodes with a quick reminder to, to head on over to GTD Nordic before.

Morten: We do that, before we do that, because Yes, this is a special episode because if you're listening to this in your normal podcast app, good, you will listen, but you can also see this episode. And we should maybe tell people where they can see this if they're listening to it. And maybe we will do this in the future. I will publish this at— and I'm sure you want to publish it somewhere also. And it will probably be published on my newly established channel in YouTube called Morten Røvik Gætede. Morten Røvik Gætede, if you want to go there and have a look there. I'm sure you want to do it at the gtdnordic.dk page, web page. And where else would you like to publish this?

Lars: Yeah, so it'll go out to YouTube as well, and we'll link to it from the gtdnordic.dk page for sure.

Morten: Yeah, okay. Because we don't know if this is one time or more than one time, but I feel maybe more than one time.

Lars: And maybe we need a separate feed as well for a video version. Let's see what we found out. And if you have any thoughts, let us know where you want to find this.

Morten: Yeah. And please, dear viewer/listener, if you want us to do more of this, please let us know if you like this format. And this is without editing. So if we make any bloopers, they are there. And maybe we'll do them live, even stream them on Facebook or stream them on YouTube. We don't know yet. But please let us know what you think of this format with video. Would you like to see us or is audio enough? I know some of you listen to us when you do chores and it's maybe difficult to watch at the same time. Tell us if that's your way of consuming podcasts, or if you prefer seeing us.

Lars: And there was actually just a comment on one of the, the virtual meetups that they were happy to actually see the— put some faces to the, to the, to the audio that they were listening to. So at least some people will, will like this format. So yeah, let us know.

Morten: Okay. Yes.

Lars: And now, Lars, and now, as I was saying, completely different GTD Nordic com. We have links to all the country websites for each of the Nordic countries. From there, we have all the articles, the newsletters, links to the groups on social media, all of our offerings, virtual and physical. So have a look at those and gettingthingsdone.com for those of you outside the Nordics to find your local partners there. So we hope that you found these episodes valuable. We'll see how you can maybe rate the video versions. I don't know if that's just a thumbs up and a subscribe and what else you might be able to do on YouTube. And of course on iTunes, it really helps the discoverability. So any ratings or feedback you can give, that's highly appreciated.

Morten: Well, thank you all for listening or watching and listening. This is the end episode of— for 2020, this is our last episode. So hopefully you enjoyed, and until next time, have a great time. Be safe and be productive.

Lars: Bye-bye. Bye, everyone.