39. Getting your morning routines on cruise control 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 Morten Røvik, and I'm here as always with my friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Merhaba, Lars.

Lars: Hi, Morten. Good to be back once again and looking forward to doing this, this episode with you. If you have not listened to our podcast before, the goal for us is to help you learn GTD or become even better better GTDers, become more productive, less stressed, hopefully get a better overview of all your commitments so you can be better at staying present with whatever you're engaged in. And as always, we hope that you find these episodes valuable regardless of how experienced you are with GTD. And if you are new to GTD or would like a refresher, we recommend you go back and listen to episodes 1 through 6 of the podcast. They're still always— they seem to always stick in the top 10. So I think it's good that we always keep reminding people about this because it seems to lead a lot a lot of people back to the refreshers. So I wanted to mention that as well.

Morten: Yes. And today's episode is about morning routines and how to get your morning routines or mornings under cruise control. And in the pre-show, we talked a little about this and how we will attack this. And you tell me that, well, I don't think about this because it just kind of happens. But I insisted we should do something about this because as many of you might know that both Lars and I are entrepreneurs and been freelancers for a long time, worked for ourselves. And it is then when you are in this situation, a necessity to have routines to get things done or you don't get paid.

Lars: Which is— Don't send any invoices.

Morten: Yeah, don't send in any invoices and you— Many of you might find yourself in the home office environment and thinking that, well, I feel a little bit like an entrepreneur now because I don't have a boss who tells me I have to be in at 8, and I don't have a bus to catch, and I have to decide what to focus on myself. I don't have anyone who tells me this. It might be beneficial for you. This is at least how I see it. Let's see what we can get out of this. Um, let's talk a little bit about expectations. If you have expectations, like if you have a, you know, a colleague or someone who expects you get up at some certain point, um, that is what forces you into a routine at some point. But if you don't have this, how can you mold your own routines? How can you repeat them so that they become routine and habits becoming routines.

Lars: And like we spoke about in the beginning, it really depends on where you're coming from and your motivation. Like you said, there will be, your average workday previously might have been to get to the office by 8:00, and that was sort of easy. That was the motivation, the standards, probably the habits for you as well at those times. And now perhaps things are different and reestablishing or finding out new habits or what might work for you now that you perhaps are working from home at this time.

Morten: I realize that this is about becoming your own master and you are your own worst master if you don't have some routines, if you don't build them. So I would say on a big picture level that routines are there to support you not to think. Like, most people I know at least have a routine where they will go into the, you know, the toilet in the morning after getting up, and they have a certain set of habits they built that become routines. You know, they maybe they go to the toilet first and then they wash their hands, maybe, hopefully, and they, and maybe they brush their teeth, or I don't know what, what are your, your routines, but these are the things that are on cruise control. But what happens when you don't have expectations to get up? Would you say it is important that you anyway get up at the same time or at a fixed time? Would you call that a routine you would recommend, Lars?

Lars: For me, it is for sure. It's something that I, all the Quantified Self stuff, something that I've been playing around with for a long time. Most recently, I I started tracking my sleep more with my Apple Watch, installed a separate app for that to track and get some more feedback on how my sleep was, how did I do, maybe try to see and find some patterns in this. And then one of the key things that I have noticed and what they also mentioned from that app was to really see if you could stick to specific times when you go to bed and when you get up. And for me, I find that Well, I tend to always just wake up by myself. It's not something that I was born doing at all. I'm a type B person, I guess you would say, at least in Danish, by nature. But I worked for a long time in Copenhagen where I had to get up at 5 in the morning, and that kind of stuck with me. So I naturally wake up between 5 and 6 now by myself and start off my day that way. Get up, go in there, put the watch on the charger, and then head off to the bathroom for a shower.

Morten: But I'm sure that there's a couple of listeners curious on what kind of app you use. Will you reveal that, what the name of the app is?

Lars: And I was worried that you might ask me, and now I will pretend to just talk slowly while I find out that it's called SleepWatch.

Morten: SleepWatch, okay. For those of you who have an Apple Watch, that might be an interesting.

Lars: Yeah, so just playing around with it. I haven't done for a long time. It's just a free version, but I find it fun right now, and it's interesting to see what it comes up with.

Morten: Yeah, I also for a long time used— I didn't use an Apple Watch for this, but before we had, you know, Fitbit and the other fitness trackers. Some of them have this feature, and I find it very interesting that you, for being productive, sleeping sleeping well is very important. If you don't sleep, you don't, you know, your brain cannot restitute and you wake up tired. So to find good sleep routines is important. That makes your morning routine so much easier because you're not really super tired. You are fairly okay, hopefully.

Lars: Sleeping, exercise, diet, all that stuff is really critical to your productivity for sure.

Morten: Yeah, and this is what we might want to look at later. Maybe we should look at fitness in a GTD perspective. That might be an interesting topic.

Lars: Let us know. Yeah.

Morten: Exactly. So if you think we should talk about that, tell us at— what was the address again?

Lars: Podcast@Gtdnordic.Dk. And it's always in the show notes.

Morten: Yeah, okay, good. No, but if you sleep okay and you are on track, getting up at the same time in the weekdays I found very beneficial to have. And I used to be the one who woke up without an alarm, but now I've automated half of my house, so when my alarm goes off at my my mobile, I can just stop and it will light the whole house with light and start the coffee. So that's kind of why the reason why I have this now. Sometimes I wake up a little before, so I use the alarm watch just for that.

Lars: Yeah. No, I always get up. I'm always the first one to get up in my family. And most often the boys will have found their way into the bedroom as well. So I can't have any lights or anything going off there. And that's also why the Apple Watch is really helpful for me, because it'll just buzz my wrist to make sure that I get up. So, okay, okay, that's part of the reason for me to use it as well. And it's also, you know, so when I get dressed, it's always in the dark. So I'm always, you know, wondering during the day, what did I actually put on? It's sort of a surprise during the day. That's what I managed to find in there.

Morten: That's funny. Yeah, well, this makes it interesting, you know, mix it up. What did I put on today? Does it fit the task of today? But to get up, and I don't know if you do that as a routine, many people eat something in the morning. They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. At least they say that in the health authorities here in Norway. Myself, I stopped eating breakfast because I start listening to my stomach and it tells me, ah, you're not hungry, why do you eat? And then, but I'm then very wary of when I start getting hungry because then I will eat immediately if I feel some hunger. So do you eat any breakfast in the morning?

Lars: Yeah, we certainly do. So I will, I can, I don't have a checklist coming back to the GTD perspective, but I might as well because it really is the same morning regardless of whether it's It's basically the same whether it's weekdays or weekends. I will get up at the same time. I'll do the same thing, get the coffee machine running. I'll create scrambled eggs for my wife and I and then get the oatmeal for the kids. Make sure to— most days we'll enjoy a cup of coffee while the boys are playing a bit and then head off to the office, perhaps dropping the boys off at the daycare center on the way.

Morten: And because you do still have an office office.

Lars: Yes, I do.

Morten: I'm having a home office, so my morning is fairly close to yours. After getting up, I am— for those of you who can watch this, you see I have a beard, but I shave every day, which means under my chin you don't see hair. I have hair on my neck. So I shave every morning. I have a routine where I go and get my— because I still read and enjoy my paper newspapers. I am that kind of guy. But, and then I have about 45 minutes with a slow breakfast with my wife. She always makes fresh fruit and vegetable juice every morning. And coffee. Yeah, so that's our breakfast. And when I get closer to 8, I will tell her and me, I am going to the office now. It's kind of like shifting gears. I don't know, do you just, you know, you physically shift locations, but if you work from home, do you do something similar and tell yourself, now I go to the office? Or.

Lars: Yeah, I wouldn't probably express it directly because they would also be heading out the door. So I would be anyway on my own and heading into the heading into the office if I were working from home.

Morten: But I think it is, if you work from home and find that it is difficult to make a distinction between work and private life, I find it, and I've read also several articles about the same topic, is that it's good to make a distinction, telling yourself, now I go to work, this is my work time, because If you don't have this as a routine and, you know, you might be finding yourself in lack of motivation and end up on your sofa with Netflix instead after a little while because I didn't make the decision that I am actually going to work now.

Lars: And getting dressed for work as well, even though you're working from home, getting into that work outfit can really make a difference.

Morten: Yeah. And I also know every morning when I go to the office, even at home, I put on my shirt if I am going to see a client or do a podcast with you, and I will always put on a shirt for the occasion. And then I feel more like business. I'm, you know, now I'm at the office, I will make something. That is also part of my morning routine. And then one GTD morning routine, I'm, you know, I must admit that I struggled for a long time before it kind actually stuck with me, but that is to always start with checking my calendar first when I get into the office. I open my Mac and I, instead of going diving into emails, which many people do, which is really a no-no, which I also struggled for a while to do, I have, I open the calendar first. I guess you do the same?

Lars: Yeah, so I actually have the way I've done it again to minimize any need for brainpower in the morning because that's not always there. I have a series of 8 applications that I actually open right away. So they're in the next to the Finder. They're just sequentially down there. So no thinking needed, just, just opening all of them. And one of them will be the email client, but I'll quickly hit the minimize button to get it out of the way. But just so I know that it's part of the part of the check that I do in the morning.

Morten: And my computer is always on. I restart it every 2 weeks or something. So all the programs I need is, you know, when I shut down— we'll come to that after— when, you know, I'm closing my office hours, I close all the programs I don't use. But as a part of my— I am system shutdown. But I always start in my calendar. And I also, because I don't— yeah, I think you use the Mail app in your Mac, I guess, or do.

Lars: You use—.

Morten: Chrome for— okay, for Gmail, because I, I use something, a plugin there called Inbox When Ready, which automatically hides my inbox. I have to physically go and then click for and open to see the emails. It don't even show me how many emails I gotten that's unread, which is a lifesaver because I'm so curious. If you show me I have something like I read something, I have something unread, I will want to go, oh, what is Yes.

Lars: I think a lot of people can recognize that. I just, uh, I had a coaching client on Tuesday where we both agreed that we both had that same kind of need to check it. So we, um, we, we, he was actually also using a Gmail in, in the Chrome browser. So we installed, uh, we talked about Inbox from Ready and also the Boomerang plugin to, um, to do the same kind of thing, hide the new email so you don't, don't see Yeah, and.

Morten: That'S, that's a lifesaver for not being pulled into this. And there's a possibility for you to, if you are in Outlook, many people are, to go into Alternatives under Files. And I think you can then go for Advanced and then click Start Outlook in. Normally that's the Inbox, but then you can choose Calendar instead, so that when you start your Outlook, you don't go into your Calendar. Sorry, don't go into your emails, but it starts in your calendar mode. That kind of gives you the right. And the idea for this is to get the overview of what you will do today. You know, what have I committed to do today for me or for others? And then I would look at my list, my GTD lists in OmniFocus to see what can I do if I have some spare time, you know, that I've flagged as interesting, or I just go through the context lists depending on if I made some work the day before. I can tag it as for today if I have some time, this is what I want to focus on. And then if I want, I can start reading emails. But many people, myself included, I don't read— I try not to Let me rephrase that. Be absolutely honest is to try not to read emails for the first maybe 45 minutes of the day. And the reason for this is that everybody else is reading emails. And if you reply to them and they find that, oh, I have an additional question to you, they will then— you will start, you know, having ping pong email with people. So, and at the same time, the first 45 minutes of my day, I'm very fresh in my brain, is fresh. I do the heavy lifting. Mentally then.

Lars: And that's the balance that I still also really focused on trying to maintain because it is so easy to, you know, use all that, you know, once the coffee starts to kick in and you have all that good brainpower to not waste it on thinking things through that you don't need that kind of brainpower for. So maybe spend it on some more creative brain-heavy tasks and then open up email later.

Morten: Because if you are, I would say, like most people, even if you're, what you call, a bee human, or.

Lars: A.

Morten: Bee-Manesque, you wake up at night when everybody else goes to sleep. This is 95% of the people, at least I met, have more energy in the morning until noon, maybe 1, start to wane, maybe before, and where I have the most mental horsepower to do the difficult tasks, do the heavy mental lifting. But then if I decide not to do that, I will do the clarifying, organized emails at that point, because then that's done for the day or at least for the morning.. And I don't have to, and I have inbox zero and I feel good. Everything is under control. Nothing's going to jump me in a dark alley, as David Allen would say. Or they can, but, and my 4,000 emails is not 4,000, it's zero.

Lars: Emails. Yeah, sounds good. No, so for me, I, like I said, I open those 8 applications actually, one being my list manager, one being my email, one for calendar. Then I have different capture tools that I like to check in on. I sometimes use the Notes app for taking notes, talk to Siri for reminders, or the Memos app. So those are a quick check to see if there should be anything in there that I need to deal with. For the most time, it's just that they open, I see that they're empty or nothing to do about them, and then close them again. And then also I open a browser window and I have one folder called Check in the Morning, which I right-click to open. It opens, I think, 8 different tabs. And that's where I then make sure to check things like the CRM, for example, to see if there's anything in there with a due date for me today. Look into any ad campaigns that we have running, see that there are— there's nothing for me to deal with there. That's also where I check the news. Coming back to you mentioning the physical paper, I don't do that and actually don't spend too much time on the news, but I do like to check in also to see if there are any sort of things in the news that are relevant from a GTD perspective to perhaps there was some kind of stuff to comment on in the media, for example, from a TTD perspective that I might want to engage.

Morten: In. And just to go back for just 10 seconds or maybe 30 seconds about physical newspapers. The reason I'm still on— I have them is because— or I have one. It's the newspaper I used to write in. Oftenbussen in Norway. And this is— the reason I have this is because it's totally distraction-free. Yeah, you know, there is no notification, there is no inclination to open a web browser or, you know, to go and read something else. And it's fairly focused, and that helps me read. So that's the only reason why, because I'm so easily distracted. Actually, yeah, they are at least some healthy morning routines that help me not get drifted out, of course.

Lars: Yeah, and I like paper. I mean, looking here in my inbox, I have a list as well, or a note that I wrote when talking to a client earlier today. So it's not that I'm against these, the physical ones, physical formats.

Morten: And secondary reason for why is that I have, I'm sure I'm not alone in this, at least I hope not. Of excessive reading of news. If you get in, we have had the pandemic and Trump in the US and everything there with the Congress and everything, you kind of, it's easy to get wrapped up and don't get out of that news cycle. Something new is happening all the time and it's kind of terrifying and fascinating at the same time. You might have problems with this.

Lars: Okay. I used to be a news addict back in the day with Google Reader, you could actually see your stats in there. And I clearly remember that I had, I skimmed more than 10,000 headlines a month, and then read some of them, of course, as well. So obviously, that would take a lot of time, a lot of information for my brain, that would likely also impact other abilities. So, so I am, we try to stay, stay a bit off that way. We're often the last people, my wife and I are the last people to find out about the different news.

Morten: Yeah. Well, I've been down that dark alley. It's kind of consuming. So trying to get back to the morning routines again. So if you, we established sleep is good and to have, trying to establish a habit that gets you into work mode. When you go to the home office or the office office. And, and the reason why we should do this, as far as I see, is that you want to get everything so much under cruise control that it kind of becomes a routine. And when it becomes a routine, you don't have to think, and you can reserve that thinking for something that gives you value. Because, you know, clarify and organize things in GTD is all about making decisions. We all know that that can be hard. We all have had those emails where you have to think, what is this really? What does it mean to me? Do I need to do something about it? Should I do something about it? Is it so important and so urgent that I should let it sneak into queue? All these decisions you have to make, and doing that when you have the most brain power reserved for that and don't use that when you have, "Oh, should I get out of bed today?" or "Should I have cereals or toast?" And I'm going to tell you something about— because decision is what you should not have. Decision-making in the morning is what you would like to make the decision in advance so that when you get to the morning, you don't have to think, you just do. This is kind of like you've organized, clarified, organized what you should do, and then it's kind of like just engage in the morning and very GTD-esque. And I.

Lars: Will, I will, I don't know, it's maybe even a good idea that I'm actually finding my clothes in the dark because that means I'm not able to think about it.

Morten: Exactly. So, but you are set for surprise later on that day, maybe. But I haven't cleared this with my stepdaughter, but I think I can do this without she's feeling bad, but she has really— sometimes she can't make decisions. And like, she will come into the kitchen in the morning and she gets hung up on coffee or tea today. And I mean, really, she stops and she can't make that decision and it frustrates her. So I've I talked to her about this and we decided that all these small decisions, she should identify them first. First, what decisions do you need to make? And then make them the day before. Because if I asked her, well, tomorrow morning, what do you want, coffee or tea? I want coffee. Now decision is made. Tomorrow morning you will make.

Lars: Coffee.

Morten: Kind of. And all the other small decisions she had to do. I remember very clearly we did this last summer. And she was smiling the morning after, and she was very happy with the decisions that were already made.

Lars: Yeah, that sounds very, very associative.

Morten: Yeah, exactly.

Lars: She's very creative. We see that, you know, I'm sure you have as well. And it's some of the things that just keeps on being so interesting when the more people we coach and work with, it's just so interesting to see how different people's brains just work with the information that they are provided. And, you know, there are different people that in my life where I know if I, if I ask them a question to make a decision, can sometimes be a challenge. So sometimes it's, if I ask a question, I get more information and maybe a question back instead, rather than a decision. Exactly. So you learn to work with that and figure out different strategies for how to handle that. And coming back to your, your, your example there, I'm sure that the listeners can recognize that there are things in their life where they might get stuck, maybe not to that extent, or maybe not all the time, but really trying to set up habits to avoid that. That's really, it's really valuable. One thing that I wanted to get back to was the use of the calendar in the morning. One thing that I have noted from both myself and clients as well is to keep an eye on those things in your calendar that require preparation. So it's not only that you see the calendar, oh, that's great, I have a meeting with Morten at 1 o'clock, but that you actually also think them through and say, OK, do I need to read anything, prepare anything, draft anything, you know, draft an agenda, whatever it might be. But making sure that you actually get that done, because I clearly remember one client that would get up in the morning, see that he had 5 meetings, but he had, you know, 2 hours until the next meeting, so he could check emails and start working on his lists. And then he would be behind the rest of the day because they were almost back to back, and he would not have time to get prepared. So keeping that in mind as well might be a good tip for the GCDAers out there.

Morten: Yeah. And also, you know, one thing that I've been very adamant about from my own part here is in the last maybe 2, 3 years, I've been more careful with having air around my appointments. So when I make an appointment with someone, I make sure that there is air between them. So I have time for preparation.. And also the note-taking after. So I have, I always take notes during, it's like I take notes now while we talk or before the pre-meeting we did, I take some notes. But if, and, but sometimes I have to do something about those notes. Maybe I've captured a next action for me. Maybe I have, I want to scan this and put it into my system because I have a note-taking system in Evernote. I put it in there.. And that takes 5, 10 minutes maybe after, and I can't then just go from one meeting into the next one. I have to have some gaps.

Lars: I do the exact same thing. I will never book two meetings back to back because, you know, like when we have, for example, virtual coaching, sit there, I'll take notes as well during the meeting. But at the end, I will want to just, you know, maybe go out and get a fresh cup of coffee and then just type out what some more details, what I might want to remember, what I might want to follow up on. I also sometimes maybe also at the same time scan through them for any actions that I want to get in my system already, or too many things that I can do right away to follow up with them. That time between meetings is so critical.

Morten: So, exactly. And take a mini break just for, you know, change the air in your brain. You know, all the books I've read about restitution and productivity and the level of mental energy that you need is, you know, it's better, easier if you take what we call active breaks where you don't do any thinking. For me, that can include going out on the veranda, opening, you know, we have a glass veranda, opening the door, just stand there and get some fresh air and look out for a few minutes, just to let my thoughts wander. And then go kiss my wife and then go back and work.

Lars: And I'm ready. Those deliberate breaks, that's also something that I'm working on right now. It sounds stupid to say that I'm working on it, but as you know, we had a coaching call a while back where I mentioned this as well, that it's something that I am working on to make sure that my energy levels are optimal during the workday, but are also optimal when I get home to my wife and kids. So taking that big picture into account, then that 20-minute walk might be the.

Morten: Right thing to to do. Yeah. And, you know, that's as we say, when you do your weekly review, a little weekly review is better than none. And if you don't have time for 20-minute walk, it's just go outside for 5 minutes, walk around the block and, you know, walk across the street, get another perspective, smell the air, trying to anchor yourself in reality, just be, which is very difficult for some people. But the more better you get with GTD, the less things tend to bug you. Exactly. And you will be more present and you will be more easier to just be here right now. Okay, on that note, I think we've ended this. We are actually in the— we passed 30 minutes with this. And I think we did a good episode for this. And your skepticism that we couldn't find anything to talk about is brought to shame, Mr. Hendrickson. We can always talk for sure. Give us a topic and we will not have problems, I'm sure. But will you take us out as normal?

Lars: Sure. Yes. So we always wrap up these episodes. A quick reminder for you all to head on over to gtdnordic.com, have a look around there, find the country websites for each of the Nordic countries for the GTD partners in this area. For each of those sites, you can find all of the information that we have there, articles on GTD, links to the newsletter, groups on social media, where countries from each of those different Nordic countries will discuss GTD practices, tools, systems, etc. And of course, you can find all of our offerings on there as well. Speeches, coaching, seminars, physical and virtual. And for those of you outside the Nordics, gettingthingsdone.com is the place to start your GTD journey. And as always, we really hope that you find these episodes valuable. And if you do, we always really appreciate when you share the podcast with a colleague or rate us on iTunes. It really helps discoverability of the podcast.

Morten: Yes, I heard just yesterday of a listener who gave us a 5-star rating because he liked it so much. And if you do, please do the same thing. And something that I thought of mentioning at the end here is that Loris and I have decided to make GTD Coaching Cafe, where we will give you free coaching, live streamed live on Facebook. So if you go for the Nordic region Facebook pages GTD Nordic, FI, SE, DK, and Productive Nordic. And so far are those we have connected. You will be able to follow the stream.

Lars: There.

Morten: Will also be— I'm building a calendar. Maybe you can link to that in the show notes. I don't know how well it links. Does it link well in the show notes? Because it's a long URL. Because I built a calendar where you can, you know, subscribe to the calendar and you will be notified notified when we start. Oh, nice. Yeah, and that's been updated for the full year, so now you know when we will talk. But in this cafe, we want to give you something, um, give you back for all the, the love and care that you, the listeners, and all the GTD practitioners around the world give us. And we want to help you to get better at GTD, and not just listening to us, but have your issues raised and maybe resolved, at least help you master GTD a little better. That's how we— what we do. So, um, thank you for listening, and until next time, stay safe and stay productive. And hopefully we'll see you in— or here you will hear us in a couple of weeks. Take care, bye-bye.