38. Why I didn’t quit GTD with Jukka Backman

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 still here with my friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Nonny Lars.

Lars: Hi, Morten. Good to be back with you and looking forward to sharing another episode of GTD Nordic podcast with our listeners. If you have not listened to this podcast before, we hope to help you become even better GTDers or learn GTD by listening to these episodes, helping you become more productive, getting a better overview of all your commitments, and be better at staying present with whatever you're engaged in, both at home and at work. And we hope that you find these episodes valuable regardless of how experienced you are with GTD. And we always like to refer you back to episodes 1 through 6 if you're looking to learn more about the basics. About GTD.

Morten: Yes, and this episode is an interview episode where you have interviewed Jukka Bachmann.

Lars: That's correct, yeah. So this episode was recorded because we were talking about a recent article in The New Yorker which claimed that GTD wasn't needed because organizations should really manage the work rather than the individuals. And as GTD practitioners, partners, we, we of course see a constant growth of GTDers out there. So both from a numbers perspective but also from our experience, this didn't really make makes a lot of sense. Organizations can certainly be better at structuring work with their employees, but GTD is absolutely needed on an individual basis to manage and do all this stuff. So articles like this, these, they come up from time to time, and there are some common misconceptions across them. They don't understand GTD or misunderstand parts, sometimes intentionally, perhaps to promote their own field. So we thought it would be useful to equip our listeners with some standard perspective to keep in mind when you come across news like, like these from, from colleagues or blogs, news sites, whatever it might be. So I invited Juca to join us for a talk about these, and that's today's episode. And now our special guest. I'm here with Juca Bachmann, partner and managing director of GTD in Finland. Juca, welcome to the GTD Nordic podcast.

C: Thanks, Lars. Thanks for having me.

Lars: Could you please tell the listeners a bit more about who you are and what you do?

C: So I'm Jukka Backman. I train and coach GTD in Finland. I originally stumbled upon GTD in, I think, 2002, completely by accident. And long story very short, I became certified GTD trainer in 2007. 2015 or 2016, I can't remember. And a couple of years ago, started my training in becoming a GTD coach.

Lars: Very cool. And I've invited you today because a topic came up that you were very passionate about. I believe it was triggered by the article in The New Yorker called The Rise and Fall of Getting Things Done by Cal Newport. So we wanted to talk a bit about this and similar opinions, articles, etc., where they sort of missed the mark on GTD. In one way or another. And it really came back to more like, you know, why I didn't quit GTD. I think that was what you came up with as sort of a working title for this episode. Some people out there are really struggling to make GTD work. And instead of learning how to apply the process, they'll say that GTD doesn't work. But for us, obviously, it does work. So we wanted to walk through some of these misconceptions. Is that a fair summary of where this came from?

C: That sounds about right.

Lars: Yeah. All right. Before we dive into this topic, I'll start us off with a completely unrelated personal question that I just have to get out of the way so I can stay present with our current conversation. Is it true that Finnish PhD students receive a sword and a top hat when they graduate?

C: Oh yeah, they do. They actually do.

Lars: How awesome is that?

C: You don't get those in Denmark.

Lars: You know, it's clear that if I should ever aim for a PhD, I'll have to I'll see how I can get one in Finland. That is, that is really awesome.

C: Yeah, that's— I don't know why that is, probably because we're not a monarchy, so we don't have a knighthood anywhere. So it's nice to grant swords somewhere.

Lars: So now with that exceptional piece of trivia out of the way, we'll go back to the original topic. In our email exchange, you know, several common misconceptions came up. So we, like I said, we thought we'd walk through them one at a time. First of all, you know, the rise and fall of Getting Things Done in the New Yorker. I thought maybe it'd be worthwhile if you could maybe recap it for the GCDers out there that didn't come across it, what it's about and where you saw some, maybe some of the misconceptions that we originally talked about.

C: So basically the article, which was written by Cal Newport, had a, in my opinion, somewhat misleading title, The Rise and Fall of Getting Things Done. The article, it's a fairly good article in itself, talking about people's problems with productivity in general, but missing the mark on the subject, meaning that it doesn't actually address Getting Things Done as a methodology per se.

Lars: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So what if we were to highlight some specific parts of it, or how it in general misunderstood GTD, or where it went wrong? What would you, what would you focus on? There?

C: I think the biggest problem with bringing up GTD in this context is that it gives the impression that there's something inherently wrong in Getting Things Done, that it for some reason does not work, that it's past its prime, or, or the world has changed so much that the principles of the methodology do not apply any longer. Whereas I've seen, and I'm sure you as well, we haven't seen anything that would imply something like that happening.

Lars: Yeah, exactly. And I do remember, so before we started recording, I also just reread the article. And it's interesting to see how, you know, he focuses in on an issue that is present out there, meaning that it can be a challenge to be, you know, productive on a on a personal level with all the challenges that comes in an organization with the amount of emails, meetings, and all that stuff. But that's really where GTD helps people, not that it takes anything away from GTD at all, just supports them in managing their life in organizations. And his point about organizations can do much better in actually helping their workers be more productive. They can be very productive with GTD and even more so with an organization that understands the principles, can actually help them them working this way.

C: I would have to agree, yes.

Lars: And he also, you know, he states that, you know, how to manage this. I underlined a few of these things. It must be connected to a system that we can study, analyze, and improve. So he doesn't really say that you don't need GTD. He says that it does not, you know, it's not enough to stand on its own. And we would, of course, disagree with him there. But it's just, it's a system to support you in all of this. And I think in the end, what he is trying to suggest is to have a more shared approach to managing all the tasks so we don't overload individuals or people with, with too much work. But that really again comes back to a project list. So having a clear project list with all the stuff that you know is going on that you can maybe share with people. And I think we're starting to see that in, in several organizations. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's an art to create the shared project list. But it's, you know, it can be really helpful where people are starting using things like Planner, for example, Microsoft Planner, to get that shared overview. It does not mean that you don't need still a projects list. You just need to take those onto your own list and figure out the next actions on those. That's still how you get to move things, things forward. Or at least that's what I would say if, if people were asking me about the article. I don't know if that resonates with you.

C: It resonates completely. And I think that especially after the beginning of the pandemic, people have been looking for tools that would allow them to see how their team, which is now working remotely, is doing under the given workload that they have at the moment. And that's actually something that most people have been missing. They, they can't present to their team leader that these are the items I'm working on now. So they have to come up something really quickly instead of just going through the project list. And I know that some people would like to see some kind of metrics there so that there would be something that they could measure people's workload per se. But as long as we are not robots, meaning that we are humans, that we are dealing with items that humans deal with, it's actually really hard to create that metric. So You would have to rely on that, what you have at the moment. And I think the projects list is actually the best meter for capturing all the workload you have at the moment.

Lars: Yeah, and reversing that, probably if the workload was able to be measured in such a direct way, that work would probably be taken over by robots already. You know, if it was able to change in that way. It probably would be the case. I also noted from the article that, you know, he talks about Merlin Mann, how he used the systems in the, you know, starting in, I think, 2003 or 2004, maybe started to use it, went away from it in 2011. But then later on, the article says that Merlin Mann, he doesn't use the full GTD system, but he remains a fan of David Allen. And it's just that he really uses just GCD for a different world now. So it's not that he does not use GCD, it's just that he has a different job now with very fixed timelines. He does his podcast, he does, you know, he just needs it for grocery lists and some more longer-term thinking. He still empties his brain, he still has his inbox zero. So it really was, I think, a case of, you know, some headline writer that wanted to grab everyone's attention, at least in the GCD world, certainly managed to do that. And I think also Cal Newport, on his blog, he really clarified, and I'm quoting here now, "It's not, however, really about David Allen's productivity system, which longtime readers and listeners know I really admire. It's instead about a deeper question that I hadn't heard discussed much before: why do we leave office workers to figure out on their own how to get things done?" So yeah, I think really in the end, we are still very much aligned in how GTD could support people in this, and really maybe the headline was more sensationalistic than it really had to be. We also, as you know, as we talked further about this, a few common threads came up that you were kind enough to summarize, and I thought we could walk through them and clarify as we go along. The first one was what you refer to as a misunderstanding based on non-official information or lack of study. Could you maybe elaborate on that?

C: Certainly. So this is something that if I think about the first few years when I started to use GTD, I initially, when I started, I didn't read the book. I relied solely on information that was available online, specifically a manual that some fan of GTD had written for the Palm PDA, how to get things done on your Palm PDA.

Lars: You're dating yourself on this. Yeah, I guess.

C: Everyone knows what's a Palm PDA. Yeah, so way before smartphones. And so basically the way I started out without any kind of official information led to some misunderstandings. And later on when I got the book, I think a year or two after I had started to implement the basics, I had lots of really deep, I would say, facepalming moments with the book as I understood that the things that I had felt weren't actually really working for me were just my misunderstandings of what someone else had written about GTD. So when I got to the real source, most of the problems faded away and but even more so when I deepened my understanding of the methodology.

Lars: And I think this was on one of the other bullet points that you mentioned was most free or unofficial information is biased, as these are usually personal tweaks that might work for the individual but usually not applicable elsewhere. So I think that's probably closely related to what you just said.

C: Yeah, and back to that point even, If we go back to the article or the naming of the article, Kalle's article, that stating that GTD somehow doesn't work. If you want to promote your articles, if you want to promote your upcoming book or your upcoming training or something like that, if it's not GTD but you want to get attention, it's nice to bring up GTD. Because you will get attention with that framing. Somehow contradicted that GTD does not work.

Lars: And I can certainly relate to this one with finding information from others. And also really when we talk to the people that attend the courses, because there will be, you know, often there are people that are actually GTDers that will attend the Fundamentals course and they will often say that they struggle to share GTD with others. And I would I would guess that some of our listeners here as well have recognized that. And for me, one of the issues there was that, you know, just like you stated, you were sharing your own practice with GTD, not the principles, the 5 steps on how to manage your workflow. So that really, you know, scares away some people, confuses some people. They don't see how to apply it in their world because the lists that you use are not the same that someone else would use. So yeah, that's That resonates certainly with me as well. One of your other bullet points was looking for alternatives when, in quotes, getting organized wasn't achieved with, in parentheses, misunderstood GTD or some particular software.

C: Yeah, well, coming back to the POM PDA, which I just mentioned, When I got the Palm PDA, I got it for a very certain purpose. I was going to get organized because I was overwhelmed at my work and I was looking for ways to alleviate that stress or burden of juggling too many balls. And I thought that when I'll get the new bright shiny gadget that somehow is going to get me organized and that will solve all my problems. And surprise, it didn't. But finding GTD was more or less the solution. And this is actually something that we might actually get from seminar participants too, that They've, there are lots of applications, lots of different kinds of tools that you can use GTD with. And if you haven't bumped into GTD yet and you are going to get organized, you simply have to look online and you will find lots of different programs that will help you get organized. But usually if you don't have any, if you don't have any kind of methodology behind how you are going to get organized, you are just going to end up with huge piles of digital clutter.

Lars: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I was, as we record this podcast, I was on another podcast yesterday talking about this, and he had asked me previously to send him over some of the most common questions that I would be getting. And the first one I sent him was, well, which app should I download? So it really is that, that is where people often start. And then, you know, struggling to organize something that you don't know what it is, then we always already have found the first step that you're missing from GTD. Another one you mentioned was replacing GTD with something else is not the solution. If you haven't bothered to learn properly, you know, reread the book or things like that, the same problem will carry over to, you know, other alternatives like 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

C: Yeah, that's true. I think that When I initially contacted our common friend Morten from Norway with the idea of becoming a certified GTD trainer, he invited me to participate in a GTD— now I can't find the English word, I only know the Finnish translation— fundamentals. Yeah, GTD fundamentals seminar. Of course, lots of the stuff that I came to learn at that seminar was something I already knew, but what really struck me was the simplicity. And I realized, just as you were saying earlier, that when you are presenting what you use yourself to others and and people try to copy exactly what you do, that does not necessarily work. And so that I found really thrilling in the seminar, that we are presenting the real bare-bones version which actually works anywhere. You just need to apply it to your own reality. And if there's something missing from that bare-bones installation, then you are not going to solve that problem with finding another solution. For example, if I think that if there's one step that I was struggling with still after over 10 years of using GTD before participating on the Fundamentals course, that was clarifying. And I see that that's the same problem with most of the people who have come across GDD before coming to the trainings or coachings, they might have a good system in place, they know how to capture, but they usually just transfer the stuff they've captured into their system without clarifying it really intentionally and systematically. And so clarifying was something that I found that this is the one cogwheel that I really need to get going in my own system before it's up and running the way I want it to be. And if I felt that there was some— there was something that I was struggling with the system, that must have been clarifying as an individual step. And then if—.

Lars: Now, if I take.

C: A random seminar participant who has been trying to implement GTD on their own and they've come up with some problem that does not work for them at that point, they might have looked for other alternatives or solutions online and maybe taking bits or pieces of other methodologies and trying to bring them over to GTD to replace that some part of GTD they really hadn't understood yet.

Lars: Yep. And I can certainly relate to the challenges that people, or maybe not challenge, maybe I would want to reverse that, maybe that people really appreciate the clarify step once they start to get it, once they start to break down their, you know, they have these big, you know, huge projects on their list, what's the next action? And that really helps them a lot. So more and more I see that people really appreciating to learn that step. So I can certainly recognize that as well. So I think overall, it's, you know, safe to say that we both agree that GTD really, you know, is comprehensive. But other practices can certainly also add to your use of GTD. And as we were just talking about, you know, walking through this topic in the podcast, one of the things that came up for you was this intentional journaling, I think you called it. Perhaps you could maybe explain a bit more about this and maybe share some tips.

C: Okay, so this was actually something I got from outside GTD. There's nothing inherently bad in being interested in personal productivity. And if you have GTD down, there's no problem in seeing whether there are other practices that can elevate you even further or add something to your existing practice. And this is actually something I got from Getting Results the Agile Way. And unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the writer at the moment, but it's a fabulous book. It has some productivity principles. And this is what I mentioned about intentional journaling, was that You kind of, you can set the tone for the upcoming weeks via journaling. So, so you decide maybe on one thing on your profession. What would I like to be true at the end of this week professionally? Something in your personal life. What would I like to be true at the end of the week regarding my personal life? And maybe something relating to your family life. Doesn't really matter what areas you select there. You could just have one thing there. But at the end of the week, you then, when you preferably, if you're a GTDer, you do your weekly review, you could actually reflect back on that idea. Were there things that were assisting me in getting that which I wanted to be true at the end of the week, or were there things that weren't working for me? Is there something that I could improve on so that that the next week would be better in regards to this item or question.

Lars: And I'm guessing since you hang on to this practice that it really has made a difference for you.

C: Yeah, I would have to say that that's something that I've been using myself for years. And I would— how I would describe it, it's like constant improvement. On my own practices. So if there are own practices I would like to improve on, then reflecting with these questions actually has helped, mainly because I've paired it up with GTD in a sense that if I find that there's something that is not working, I will capture it, I will clarify it, and I will bring it to my system so that I know that I will systematically I try to improve my own practices by identifying these things that aren't working or are working, and then celebrating the ones that do work.

Lars: Yeah. No, and that really, I think, demonstrates well that, you know, you can add a lot to your own GTD practice by being inspired by other things. Like you said, it's, you know, probably a lot of you listeners out there are really, you know, into productivity and getting input from other, you know, books or principles that can certainly add to your own practice, I think from my own personal perspective, you know, other books that help you think through higher horizons, for example. That's something that we in the book mainly have outlined, but for you to figure out what's out there, there's a lot of good input that you can find from so many other different books. So just to make that clear as well. All right, I hope this was valuable for the listeners out there, just some more, you know, insights on this. And thank you so much for your time, Jukka. Great insights on this topic, really appreciate it.

C: Thank you, it was a pleasure.

Morten: Well, well, well, that was an interesting take from Jukka and, and yourself on the why I didn't quit GTD part and about the misconceptions about GTD around the world. Any finishing comment or late comment for this, Lars?

Lars: Well, as expected, a lot of good thoughts from, from Jukka, which resonated well with me, especially the part about sharing GTD. I think in most cases, well-intentioned attempts to share GTD with others, but they, they tend to explain how they do or fail to do GTD, as opposed to sharing the process and allowing themselves to implement GTD. And we see that all the time also, you know, even for, for people implementing themselves personally. So, so we'll have seasoned GTDers showing up in seminars in Denmark, but there's always something that they still benefit from when we take a step back, zoom out, and introduce them in the fundamentals course to the 5 steps. So hopefully this triggered some, some good thoughts for, for you, the, the listeners out there. And if so, we always like to hear from you. You can reach us at GTD— sorry, podcast@gtdnordic.dk.

Morten: Yes, good. And will you take us out, Loris, with the last finishing thoughts?

Lars: Yes, we always wrap up with a reminder for you to head on over to gtdnordic.com to, to learn more. On that site, you will find links to the country websites for each of the Nordic countries, and from there you can find a lot of articles about GTD. You can find links to the newsletter, social media groups, meetup groups all that good stuff. And of course, also the different offerings in each of the countries, seminars, speeches, and coaching, both physical and virtual. And if you're outside the Nordics, we recommend you head on over to gettingthingsdone.com to find your local partners. And lastly, as always, we really hope that you find these episodes valuable. If you do, we really appreciate it when you can perhaps share the podcast with a colleague or rate us on iTunes. It really helps the discoverability of the podcast and hopefully helps even more people find GTD and learn and gain the benefits of it.

Morten: Well, thank you for listening. And until next time, stay safe and stay productive.

Lars: Bye-bye. Bye, everyone.