4. Step 3 in GTD: Organize

Transcript

Automatically transcribed and lightly edited. Timestamps omitted for readability.

Morten: Welcome to episode number 4 of the Getting Things Done podcast from the GTD Nordic. I'm Morten, and I'm here with my friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Hello, Lars.

Lars: Hi, Morten. Happy to be here again and really looking forward to looking into this next topic.

Morten: And what is our next topic?

Lars: Well, that would be the third of the five steps that we have started to cover in this podcast. So that would be the organize step.

Morten: Okay, maybe you will do like you did the last episode, give us a bird's-eye overview of the five steps so we can see how this ties together with all the others.

Lars: Sure, so this would be the third of the five steps, and if we go back a bit, then we start off with the first step, which is to capture. So capture everything that that has your attention, placing it specific places where you know you will get back to it at a later stage and process your way, way through that list. And then how do you do that? Well, you do that with steps 2 and 3, clarify, which is the second step that we covered in the previous episode. And then you organize, which is the third step that we will then cover in this episode. And that means to, to place the things where, where they make sense to you, where they, where they according to what they mean to you. The fourth step is to reflect, and that means to take a step back and gain the overview to make smarter decisions, to understand what you are currently engaged in. And step 5 is then actually to engage, to get things done or to do these things. And that means to choose in a good way what to work on at any given time.

Morten: Great. So can you give us a little bird's-eye overview of the step we are covering today? Organize. Why, why is it necessary to at all organize?

Lars: Well, maybe it's worth reiterating what you also highlighted in the last episode, Morten, which is that we don't want to organize before we have clarified. So we really want to make sure that we make the the decision about each item that has shown up in our world before we try to place them in these specific places. And then again, it's also important to do the organizing thing so you don't, for example, have to rethink the next action each time. That you're able to define the next action and then store it in the place that makes sense to you. So for example, if we're talking about a next action to do at the computer, then you might want to place that at a next action list that you could then pick up when you're at the computer.

Morten: Great. So we have a few different lists that we can park our decisions on. We define them as actionable and non-actionable. If you start with the latter where we say no at the clarify stage, what are some typical places non-actionable items could fit in?

Lars: Yeah, so that lines up again with the clarify flow that we spoke about last time. And the first option there was to throw things out. That obviously means to throw things out. So, that can be both in the physical world, or you can recycle if that's possible. And if we're in the digital world, then the delete button can be used. And I rarely meet people with, you know, a well-worn delete button. People really tend to save a lot of things, but it really is a good option to make sure that you're not storing things that you don't want to actually ever pick up again.

Morten: So you meet packrats here too. I see.

Lars: Exactly. And I see it in myself as well that I also tended to save a lot of these things. And it, you know, it doesn't impact you as much, you know, if you're on Gmail, for example, then you have a lot of storage. But it is a challenge to, you know, when you need to search something out, you really get a lot of search results with content that you just don't need. So it really is to help your future self to get it out of the way if you don't need it.

Morten: Yeah, so if I decide I don't delete the thing because it's, well, I can't delete it, what's the next place where I need to go?

Lars: Well, the next option was to reference it, to archive it. So that again applies to both the physical and the digital world. So in the physical world, it could again be my vacuum cleaner manual example from last time that I want to store in my archive. And however you want to set that up is really up to you. Just make it something that you actually want to work with. So make it quick, easy to use. I normally mention that we like to see these things gone within 60 seconds from, you know, they're sitting in your hand until they are in your archive with its own nicely done demo label or whatever your label of choice might be, that it's in there within 60 seconds. So you don't end up doing these these archive piles on your desk.

Morten: Yeah, these stacks of AHA.

Lars: Exactly. And then in the digital world, I don't know what you normally use, Morten.

Morten: No, I use a combination of files on the computer in a folder structure. And that's logical to me. I spent quite a lot of time the last few years trying to hash out a folder system that actually makes sense and a file naming system that also makes sense. And I've been thinking a lot about this and I've found some good things and it will take us too long to go into depth with this. And there is a— there might be a book about this in the future, about the simple book about files and folders. The idea, at least with the files and folders, is to build a structure that makes sense to you so that you can find your stuff later on. That's the whole idea about organize. If you don't know where your socks go, where do your socks go? They go everywhere. You will— when you find that you want to have a pair of socks, you may not want to— you may not find them because they're all over the place. So make a folder structure that makes sense to you. And I also use for, for other reference material, that is what I will call project or action support, I would use Evernote. This is my, my choice for, for reference system for actionable or action support stuff. So Lars, how do you do your the digital stuff, how do you organize them?

Lars: Yeah, that sounds familiar to what you just mentioned. So I have my folder structures that I'm comfortable with. I have Evernote that I use for some things, and I also like to use OneNote for some other things. So there are some things where I prefer the way you navigate in OneNote, and that really the two are, in my view, getting very close to how they navigate. There used to be a difference with Evernote and their notebooks now, they're relatively close with the various sections and notes in OneNote corresponding to notes and stacks in Evernote, I would say. And then of course I have some emails as well. So a lot, a huge email archive across various email accounts. That's certainly also an archive, digital archive that I use a lot.

Morten: Yeah, me too. And what I think is important for you, just one hot item tip for archiving or referencing stuff, is that when you get a file from— let's say you have a file, it's a scanned PDF you received of a contract, you would like to take care of this, make sure you find it again, it's archive-worthy or reference-worthy. Then you would then take this file, you will maybe want to put it in a folder. And normally when you scan things, they come to you on, or you receive something from a colleague or external source, it could be scan0048x.pdf. And that does not make sense at all, does not make, the meaning does not match this at all. So I would suggest that you do a naming convention on this for— be nice to the future you— is to download the file to your computer and rename it something that makes sense to you. For instance, receipts, Airship vacuum cleaner 2018, and If you remember vacuum cleaner and Elche, which is the shop, or receipt vacuum cleaner, or just vacuum cleaner, you can find this file fairly fast no matter what system you used to file in. And if you add maybe not only 2018 but also the date of today you buy this, it makes it a lot easier to find the stuff after, after the fact. So the idea with organizing things in files and folders and digital files and physical is to make it easy to, to refine whatever you need to refine. If it is the user manual of your computer or a receipt or a contract you signed, it's just make it easy on yourself and for the future you to make the future you having a an easy job finding it. And that's organizing in the reference part in a nutshell. So, but now, now when that we have put things in files and folder for reference, but what happens if I can't reference it? I need maybe some potential future action on this.

Lars: Yeah, so the last option was that is it is actually something you want to do something about. It is actionable, but not right now. It's not the right time of year, you don't have the resources, you don't have the right people in the department, whatever the reason might be. This is something that ends up in the someday maybe category, and that's what we have in the organized steps. So in clarifying, we talk about incubating, or rotpudding in Danish and Norwegian version of that. They end up in the someday maybe lists, or perhaps a date-specific reminder of when you want to review this again. So, so for me, these lists were, as I also mentioned last time, these were really important to me that you tend to, once you start becoming better at GTD, you tend to get a lot of ideas. You get a lot of ideas. That also means that there will be more good ideas in there. And really having a place to store all those good ideas has been really valuable to me to make sure that, you know, once we get through this busy season of the year, then we can, can start some to do some new cool marketing stuff. Well, then make sure that you have captured those, those really cool marketing ideas so that when you have the time, you're ready to, to pick them up. They're ready for you to just grab and run with.

Morten: Great. And where would you put this physically? Where would you organize this? What, what kind of lists, digital and paper?

Lars: So for me, they are all digital in this case. So they would end up in my, in my list manager where I would review them either on a or weekly basis or more infrequently depending on if it's items that I know I will not be working on. So for example, as we record this, we're in December of 2018. I have a number of projects that I could do on my summer house, but right now is not the right time. It's really the time to park those and I don't need to review those every week to see if I want to do them.

Morten: And they can also go as a calendar reminder for future. So if you, let's say that you want to in In May, you want to see a reminder of buying your Christmas vacation on Bali next year. That could be early enough to see that, and you can park it on the calendar as well, not only on the list for be reviewed. So, okay, so now we've gone down the no arm of Clarify and put things where they belong. If we now are looking at the actionable items you need to do, where do they go? Because when you decide, yes, I need to do something about it, you have potential project with desired outcomes, and you might— you at least have a next action for this. And less than 2 minutes, things, they fly out. They don't land anywhere unless they don't— if they don't spawn another next action after you're taking that call, maybe you have another next action. But on the first time, if you do this 2 minutes, it's gone, it's out of your hair. And then what happens if you delegate things to someone? How do you handle that?

Lars: Yeah, so if you, if you have something and the next action is actually with someone else, then you want to send that on to them and perhaps capture that you want to follow up with them in case you don't hear back from them. So I'm sure all the listeners can recognize that, you Sometimes you engage with, let's say, a department as part of your sales process, for example, where they are really, really busy and they're struggling to find time. And you know that there's a chance that they won't get back to you. What will really help for that is this waiting for list. So we want to track that, you know, you've asked for review or you've asked for feedback on a proposal, what the case might be, and then you're waiting for them to come back to you. So this would be a separate list. In your system where you track these, that you're waiting for feedback. You're waiting for Thomas to get back to you to review the customer proposal. And you want to also note down a date. So you want to note down the date when you sent it or when you want to follow up with that person. That's actually one of the things that helped me a lot with gaining control of my inbox and really trusting that I had the complete overview and felt comfortable with all this was to set up this waiting for system. I don't know how you use it, Morten.

Morten: Yeah, I use it similarly. It's when I send something to someone that I either delegate or ask for something, could be just a simple email to someone. If it is important to me that the person gets back to me, I would make a waiting for. I would not make it elsewise because I think if it is your, if I send an email to you and it's in your interest to send, to answer this and I don't you know, it's not in my interest for you to reply, I will then say, well, hey, Lars, this is your responsibility. Pick it or don't, I don't care. But if I decide, yes, I want to keep track of this, of course, I want to make sure it doesn't slip. I need to park it on my lists for waiting for, have I heard back from who about what, and, and that time when I decided to— this is, I will give one week. If I don't hear in one week, I will then ping, ping the person back. So, so now we've moved up from more than 2 minutes or less than 2 minutes actions, delegated actions, and now we come to the defer category of things. We've said yes, but we need to do it ourselves. We can't give it to someone else, takes more than 2 minutes. Where do they go then, Lars?

Lars: Well, then you have two options. So the first option, or so if the next action has to happen on a specific time or a specific day, then we want to capture that in the calendar. So we don't want to overload the calendar with all the 'I would like to do that,' and, you know, 'It would be great if we on Wednesday could do that.' We really want to just put the things in there that has to happen, because at least a lot of people that I meet that try to plan their day, they really recognize that, you know, it's It's simply not possible. There's so much unplanned work that shows up during a specific day that you often end up, okay, we said we were going to do that Wednesday, I'll do it Thursday. And then Thursday comes and another batch of new unplanned work shows up and then, oh, we can postpone it to next week. And then really that is not helpful for you. That is not, you know, that's additional work that there is an inner voice within you that will tell you that, oh, you're failing at planning. It's how can you not make this happen? So really try to put the things in the calendar that has to happen. And let's say the next action is that we have a meeting to go over the marketing plans. Well, if that next action is a meeting that we do online or physically, then I put that in my calendar. And another option could be that, you know, we want to check in. I want to give you a call on Friday. I don't know when I want to give you that call, but it has to happen on Friday because you're gone for 3 weeks after that. Then I put that as an all-day event in my in my calendar. So that would be the two different ways of using the calendar for that.

Morten: Good, good. And we are talking about calendar and lists, and it might be good to give people an overview of what— does this have to be digital calendars? Could they be paper-based? Could the list be paper-based as well?

Lars: Yes, so whatever works for you is really what it comes down to. So you can have your paper calendar, you can have your digital calendar, you can have your list lists on paper, you can have your lists digitally, or you can actually have a mixture of whatever works for you. I know, at least here in Denmark, I see more and more people, and it's still the vast majority is digital, but I see more and more people at least experimenting with paper and actually appreciating the way paper works for them, that it helps them not to be distracted too much. It helps them maintain their focus. Is what I'm hearing. But I am personally, I am all in on the digital side. What about you?

Morten: Yeah, I'm all in on the digital side for my lists. I use an app and I'm sure we'll make a special episode at some point where we try to cover the most used GTD apps for list management. And until then, you must be in suspense because I'm not going to tell you what I use. What I can tell you is tell the listeners is that we talk about what is the best— there's a common question, what is the best list manager I can use? I get this question, I wouldn't say every seminar I do, but it's very close to everyone. They will ask me, what do you use? And then I have to clarify to them or tell them very clearly that, well, it's not about what you lists, what app you use, or what kind of system you use for your lists. It's that you actually use the list that's most important. And you have to use it wisely. You have to use it according to the GTD methodology. Because I think it is the Germans who says it in English. This doesn't make a lot of sense, but I've heard they say this, that a fool with a tool is still a fool. Which means that if you don't know how to use a tool, you will be a fool.. And it's like, I think David Allen said something that you don't become a carpenter by buying a hammer or something of that effect. And the idea about this is that when you choose a tool, it's not very important which tool, but you have to know how to use it. And when you get to become a good carpenter, you will probably like to have a good hammer, but just start simple is my first advice. Start simple. Don't overcomplicate things. Start on paper if you like. It's, it's all about the thinking process and parking the results in an appropriate category so you find them after. And if that's paper, way cool. If it is digital, way cool. I don't care. You should find a system that works for you, the system that you are attracted to, and you should find something that you like. And will continue using.

Lars: That's my two cents. Fully agree. And I would echo the same thing. Then I really, it also depends on what you normally are attracted to. So, I'm an engineer by my education as a graduate engineer. So, I like my lists, but I also know from other people that, you know, some people need to be able to scribble a bit on the side. Well, then maybe see if you can find a tool that works for that, or maybe you prefer you know, Kanban boards, vertical boards where you can place your things, well then maybe you should find some kind of tool that supports you in that. Or if you prefer mind maps, then maybe we again need to find the different tools for that. So it really is, we all, you know, like to set things up differently and perhaps even differently across different ways depending on how you want to think about these things or how you want to see them. So it really is something that you want to work with, but certainly start off simple and see what works for you.

Morten: That's good. And then now that we've emptied our heads in capture, we clarified what these things mean, all the emails that come to us, everything that you captured throughout today, and you clarified it, and now you organized it into a system that will lead us to our next episode, which is.

Lars: What? So the next episode would be Reflect. So now we have built our system using the Capture way to get all the stuff out, to clarify and organize, get everything in there. And now we have a system that we can now review. And one of the key parts of Reflect, or what we most often talk about in that aspect, is the weekly review. So I'm sure we'll dive into that next time.

Morten: Yeah, and this is absolutely a key habit of the Getting Things Done methodology. So if you're trying to be good at GTD, GTD, then you must listen to the next episode because it's really key to your stress-free productivity. So can you take us through the regular rigmarole saying goodbye, Loris?

Lars: Sure. So just for those of you listening, if you want to learn more, where can you find more information, articles, etc., about GTD, a lot of free stuff? Well, go to gtdnordic.com and you can find where we the websites for each of the companies in the different countries here in the Nordics. And you can find our Facebook pages, our LinkedIn pages, Meetup groups, all the good stuff, newsletters on each of them. And as we also mentioned last time, we hope that you find these episodes valuable. And if you do, we'd really appreciate if you can share the podcast with a colleague or rate the podcast on iTunes.

Morten: Yes, and if you have any questions to us or think that we— there are some topics we should cover that you are especially interested in, or if you just get value from these episodes, please send us an email to Lars or me. You will find us at gtddenordic.com, just a couple of clicks away, and ask us. We would love to hear from you, and if we give you value, give us a ping. I would love to hear from you. Okay, thank you, Lars, for today, and looking forward to the next episode.

Lars: Thanks, Morten. Bye, everyone.

Morten: Bye-bye.