44. 46 productive minutes – interview with Justin Hale from Vitalsmarts

Transcript

Automatically transcribed and lightly edited. Timestamps omitted for readability.

Morten: Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Getting Things Done podcast. I am Morten Røvik, and I'm here as always with my long-term friend and partner in crime, Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Hello, Lars.

Lars: Hi, Morten. Good to hear a new intro from you. No, no, no trying to come up with a new.

Morten: Intro.

Lars: Good to be back with you and with our special guest today as well. Looking forward to recording this episode with you both. If you have not listened to our podcast before, our goal is to help you in learning GTD or becoming an even better GTDer, help you get the benefits of GTD, becoming more productive, less stressed, and better at staying present with whatever you're engaged in. And we hope that you find these episodes valuable regardless of how experienced you are with GTD. And if you're looking for a refresher or learn more about the basics of GTD, we always recommend you go back and listen to episodes 1 through 6 about the 5 steps in GTD.

Morten: Yes, and today's episode is an interview episode with none other than Mr. Justin Hale from VitalSmarts in the US. And I know, Lars, you have— you're dying to ask him some questions. Maybe you should just dive into it. By the way, welcome, Justin.

Lars: Yes, exactly.

C: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with the two of you. Thank you.

Lars: Yeah, happy to have you. And thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Let's start off easy, I think, with, yeah, if you could share a bit more with the listeners about who you are and what you do.

C: Of course. As you mentioned, my name is Justin Hale. Based here in the United States. And, I have for the past 13 years been primarily a trainer working with small groups and executive teams training them on high-leverage skills that will have a dramatic impact on their results and on their team culture. And, for a number of years, I was training some of VitalSmarts key courses like Crucial Conversations and Influencer and some others. And then, I was introduced to David Allen and partnered— VitalSmarts partnered with David Allen and I had a chance to really dive into the content and it became my one true love outside of my family, I'll say that. It became my— I really just came to love the content, live the content, benefit from it. So, I worked as the lead training designer on creating the VitalSmarts version of the Getting Things Done training program and have since started a channel called One Productive Minute where I share— like you, I share many of these wonderful GTD practices in small bits each day on social media. And so now, I'm one of the lead training designers here at VitalSmarts and I get to create great learning experiences and help people. Change their lives.

Morten: Great. Can I just ask a question? Because do you train your own trainers in the US?

C: We do. We do. So we do quite a bit of train the trainer and help a lot of our clients learn to train our courses in their own organizations. Yes.

Morten: Cool. Lars.

Lars: Well, feel free to pick from the list as well, Morten. No, I'm curious to learn more about, first of all, your own GTD practice, Justin, in in how you apply GTD in your own life. I'm guessing you use it at work, you use it at home as well. What does GTD look like for you?

C: Yeah. Well, and let me also share too a little bit of the journey of how I came to use GTD, because one of the things that I love now that I know GTD so well, I see each of the steps and the value and the relationship and the connections. But my, my initial use of GTD came with one stop along the way, which is around those clarifying skills and that decision model that really gives you some perspective about, okay, when I'm making a decision about something, what does it mean to me? And it was actually a colleague, a coworker, and this must have been maybe 7 or 8 years ago, long before I knew who David Allen was. I had a coworker who for her own professional development went to the GTD course, came back, and during a team meeting was asked to just give a short 10-minute overview of what she learned so the team could know, you know, which— and one of the things she shared was this visual of this Clarify Decision Model and the process you go through. Is it actionable? Is it not? And so she shared that and a light just went off in my brain and I thought, I need that in the way that I manage my email. And so I took that image of the item coming in and is it an action, is it not, and file reference. I had that whole image and I put it next to my my monitor, and every time I processed my inbox, I used that as my model. And I knew nothing else about GTD. I don't know if I ever heard the statement, "Your mind is for having ideas, not for holding ideas." But I had this specific model and it transformed my ability to more efficiently and completely get through my inbox. And so I was just responding quicker. I was on top. I was in control. So then when when I finally got to meet David and really dove in and tried to become an expert in the content, I already had an experience that had really given me a personal testimony, you could say, of the importance of these skills. So, now in my life, my GTD practices weave through everything I do. But, it's also very simple. It's not very fancy. I wake up in the morning. The first thing I do is I look at my calendar and then I look at my lists. I look at the key things that I want to do for today. I make a plan, a short to-do list of things that I— next actions I want to take. And then if I don't need to do anything right then, I clean up my inbox and I do that very quickly so that I have a clear deck. And then the world is my oyster. I can do so many things and have a clear mind and a focus on those key next actions I've chosen for the day. That's really how I do my daily practice. It's all about, for me, it's getting a clean inventory of things and then making choices. And so for me, it's very straightforward. That's a simplified version of how I think about my day.

Lars: And is that then applied both at home and at work, or is it just for work? Because I see, you know, we see quite a difference between how people implement it, where they typically start off at work, and as people progress with it and become better GTDers, they tend to also let it to really cover all of their commitments, whether personal or professional.

C: Yeah, I made a decision early on that I wanted to have all of it into one system. And I tell people that that's not the best practice. It is an option, and it's an option that I've chosen that I found is most helpful for me. So I like to keep it all in one inventory. I use OmniFocus to manage all my projects and my next actions, which is a great application. There are many that I believe would do similarly well for me. But, but yes, I keep it all in one. I have a few lists that are more home-related. You know, I have an at-home list, I have an at-Christina list— Christina's my wife— things I want to talk with her about. Errands could be work-related, but they're mostly personally related. But all of those lists sit in one place, and the reason for me personally I've chosen to do that is because my mind doesn't separate the two. I find that when I'm doing work, I have thoughts of home-related things. When I'm at home, I have thoughts of work-related things. And it's simpler for me, at least, to have capture tools I use for everything and lists I use for everything. So I found that to be most helpful in my life.

Lars: And I'm curious, now that you mentioned you have the @Christina list, because I have a list for my, my wife as well. And I've noted that, you know, I've also been doing this for a number of years now, and I, and I don't always share that fact because especially in an introduction to GTD, people would sometimes get a bit scared saying, what, you have a list for your wife? And I'm wondering if there might be any cultural differences in how we would normally do things in the Nordics and whether things might be different in the US, or would you maybe not already share that fact?

C: I agree. That's a good point. I always give a caveat there. This is not a list of things that I want, I would like my wife to do. That would be a problem.

Morten: And you have things on your list that your wife wants you to do.

C: That is correct. That is correct. There is a long list of those. But I think that what I, you know, sometimes I get some people who will say, well, Justin, that seems a little odd. If you really cared about your wife, then you'd remember the things that you want to talk with her about. And I like to make the point to say, we all have great intentions. We all want to remember our best friend's birthday. I want to remember that my wife asked me to pick up milk at the store. And yet, no matter how good my intentions are, my capabilities are limited. So, I use this list to set myself up for success because I do love my wife and I do want to remember my friend's birthday. And I want to do those things so badly that I won't leave it up to my mind. To have the responsibility. There's this wonderful story. One of my close colleagues, I was teaching her GTD. She went through the training for the first time with me. Afterwards, she just is a colleague who works just down the hall. We sat down, and I said, "How can I help you continue to use these things you learned in the training?" She said she was trying some things, and she shared this wonderful example about she was actually suffering from a very sad cancer, and she was doing treatment and going through chemotherapy, and thankfully it was going very well and she was very successful. She shared with me that every week she would go to her doctor's office to do her therapy, and there was a woman who sat at the desk who was very friendly and would always welcome her. And for my friend, this woman at the front desk was sort of a ray of sunshine. During a very sad time in her life. And one day she showed up to the doctor's office and the woman wasn't at the desk. And instead there was a short— there was a short little note and a picture of this woman that explained she'd gotten in a car accident and she was in the hospital. And it explained that she was in critical condition and it gave contact information if people wanted to send flowers or, or send a nice note. And my, my colleague said, before GTD, I would have had great intentions and I would have said to myself, I ought to send her a note. I ought to send a gift. I ought to send her a note because I cared about this person. And she said, I realized in that moment because what I had just learned in GTD, I'm not going to leave this up to my mind. Yes, my intentions are great, but I'm not going to leave it up to chance. So she said, I took a picture of the little image that had the address and the phone number and the email. I took a picture of it. I emailed it to myself.. And then I knew I would not forget it because it was now in a place that I would be reminded later. And for me, that was such a powerful example to your question about do we have these lists with our family and is that okay? And she just said, Justin, my ability to capture allows me to meet my intentions with my actual execution. What I want to do, who I want to be, I can now be that person. I can now do those things. Because I've learned to capture. And I think her story has really been a good example for me of what I'm trying to do.

Morten: Yeah, I'm reminded of the old— I don't know, I don't think it is a proverb, but it's a saying, I think, that there's a road to a specific place that's paved with good intentions, but if it's paved with actions, it leads to the opposite place, I think, or something. I'm always messing up allegories, I'm.

Lars: Sorry. Well, at least, you know, I certainly also recognize this nostalgia. And sometimes I feel it myself that I really, you know, would be nice to just remember all these things. I hear it also from, you know, seminar participants and say, well, my wife, she remembers all that kind of stuff. So she doesn't need this. But it really is, you know, to be present with my wife. That's why I do it. It's not that I don't want to have a, you know, I don't really want to have a list, but the list enables me to be present with her. And that's the most important thing. So I can understand where where people are coming from. But recognizing your brain's ability to capture these things is just, yeah, we need a system for that. But I think we all three agree on that one. So the next thing I wanted to check with you was this, the use of GTD in your role. How have you implemented this in your teams? We always like to ask about this because it's always interesting to hear how, you know, people may differ in how they implement it and use it as a team.

C: Yeah.

Morten: Yeah.

C: I think that for me, one of the things I've discovered in my role and what I do at work— for a number of years, I was a manager and I had a team. Now I'm an individual contributor with lots of extra projects. For me, project planning and deciding on the next action is absolutely essential. I've got to the place now where for me, my key best practices because so much of my work is, Justin, we need to revamp this training program, or we need to create a new training guide or participant learner guide. We need you to take on this new podcast or this new article. We need you to do this, this white paper, this write-up. And so it's very project-heavy, and I have really grasped onto the idea that David Allen likes to say, you don't actually do a project. And so in my role, that is a clear thing for me that I always do. Whenever I get a task, I'll capture it. When I get back to my desk or when I'm out of that meeting, I'll step back and say, is this a project? Are there multiple steps I need to do in order to achieve this outcome? And then I'll create that project with a nice clear name. If there's a date, great, I'll put it. If there's not, then I'll leave it as is until I find out a date. I'll put that project there and I'll decide what's the next action I need to take. Then I like to try to brainstorm any other next actions I anticipate in the future. I like to capture those and just try to get them there. I find that helps me. I'm trying to paint a picture of what that road will look like for myself. I can get a little clarity. I know that I don't see every single step along the way just yet, but I can sort of see the path and see where it leads. That gives me some vision. Then I go ahead and put that next action on there. For me, it's very, very straightforward, but there's a lot coming into my life. For me, it is all about my GTD habits. It's not about my tools. When I first learned GTD, when I came to the course, I was using a Word document. Every Monday, I printed out a one-page Word document and I carried it around the office with me. I would write things on it. Then on Friday, I would update the Word document and reprint it for the next week. And so I came, and when I finished with the seminar, I still was using a Word document. And yet— but it was organized a little differently, and I had some lists organized by context, and I had some projects down below. And then it was about 3 months later that I graduated to Google Docs, which is just a Word document in the cloud, right? It's not very fancy, it's not high-tech, But I did that because my habits were still in their infancy. I think that that is something for me even as someone who is a heavy GTD practitioner who teaches this content. For me, it's all still about my habits. It doesn't matter how fancy or how technical my tool is. It was after about 3 months after that, so it had been 6 months since I had gone through the course, and I was in the process of developing the VitalSmarts GTD course. I was needing to really use this stuff.. It wasn't until 6 months after that I finally said, okay, my habits are so consistent. They're not perfect, but they are so consistent. I think that I would benefit from a more automated tool. And that was my decision right there. That would help me in my role. To your question, would I benefit from a more automated tool? Would it help my habits accelerate? And so I started using OmniFocus, which is a nice tool. I like it quite a bit. But I've looked at so many other tools and I could probably use any of them and get similar results because in my view, 95% of my success in my role is about my habits. It's about what.

Morten: I do. Our colleagues in Germany say something like, "A fool with a tool is still a fool." That's right. So, and I don't know if I'm paraphrasing David here. I think I am when I say that, you know. Having a hammer doesn't make you a carpenter.

C: That's right. Yeah, I think that's very true. The number of people I've worked with who say, "Oh, I learned a little bit of GTD and I'm using this tool. Will you help me understand how I'm misusing it?" They open up the tool and I see one of their lists and it is vague. It is unclear. It is— and I say, The problem isn't your tool. You're not going to like this answer, but the problem isn't your tool. The problem is, is you haven't clarified any of this stuff. And believe me, if it was clearer and more specific and next action language, you wouldn't need my help.

Morten: No. And this is what we talk about in the podcast often, is that people skip the clarify step and drag unclear things from their mind dumps and emails. Onto their lists and then they look at their list and they're repulsed by it. And then they ask, why doesn't GTD work for me? And then we kind of like go, duh, sorry. You have to work at it. You have to clarify what it means to use, park the reminders or whatever you need, wherever you need to see it when you need to see it.

Lars: Good. But clarifying is hard. It takes mental brainpower too.

C: That's so true. It's like a muscle. It's a habit. I think that it's something you have to break through at first. Even there are times for me when I look at my inbox and I say, "Oh, I don't know if I want to do this right now because—" Maybe you shouldn't. Yeah. Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe you're not in a place where you want to do it. Sometimes I think people have gone the easy route though where they confuse categorizing their emails with actually clarifying and making decisions. So they feel like— they'll say to me, Justin, I found a very efficient way to process my email, but I don't feel my stress levels lowering, and I feel like I'm missing just as many things. And I ask them to describe, and I find that all they're doing is taking each email and just dropping it in a different folder. That's not the same thing as making decisions. So sooner or later, at some point, to your point, Morten, when you're ready, you've got to go into each of those and read them and make decisions. For me, I feel like there's a threshold. It's kind of like exercising. At first At first, you don't want to do it, and after 5 minutes, you're very grateful that you started running or you started playing that sport. For me, it's sort of like I just need to— I'm just going to read the first email and make a decision, and then it becomes fun. Once I've gotten through that first email and I get going, I get on a roll. I like to tell people humans in motion tend to stay in motion, right? It's just getting moving that's very difficult.

Morten: Just a comment to my point of maybe you shouldn't clarify. If you're tired or if you're mentally wasted, don't try and clarify. Clarify is my clear advice to people, because if you try to clarify when you don't have the mental energy, you will cut corners. And if you cut corners, you will make, you know, not very clear next actions for the future you, who will be then disappointed with you, who says, hmm, why you don't help me here? You make problems, not help. That's right. Stupid old me who was tired trying to make next actions. This is, by the way, I said my quote from Todd Brown in the UK. He says that I try to make good next actions so the future me will be happy with me. That's right. I love that.

C: I like that quote. It's like how we eat late at night too. It's the exact same thing that you in the morning wakes up and says, oh, why did I eat cake at 10 PM while I was watching Netflix? Why didn't I just go to sleep? It's the same thing with GTD. Take care of the future selves. I think that's a great point.

Lars: But it's so interesting that you mentioned the categorization of emails because, well, earlier this week I did a virtual Outlook workshop and one of the participants there had attended an Outlook workshop before where they had taught people to, you know, how to move things into different boxes. And then I think they had been suggested to use the Eisenhower matrix, urgent, important, all that. And when we talked more about this and talked more about clarifying, he had some good habits already moving them into the right list, but the clarifications, that was really what he was missing. So now he was really excited to get moving on that inbox again, because now he could see how things could be moving forward from that perspective. So if we zoom out a bit, how, what's been the biggest win when it comes to GTD for you? How has it impacted your working life overall?

C: Over time? Yeah, I'll give two big wins. From a personal standpoint, it's been focus. I think that the sense that because my inventory of next actions is so complete, it's so clean, it's so clear, it goes back to what you said, Warren. The me now takes care of the me in the future so much that me in the future, I come down here to the basement with my four— I have four little children. I have a 7-year-old, a 6-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 2-year-old. As you can as you can imagine, I have a need for focus. I have a need for presence. When I have 2 or 3 children all at once saying, "Daddy, Daddy, listen. Hey, Daddy, I want to tell you something, Daddy," I have a need for a clear mind. I have a need to be so focused on what they're saying, and especially when my 2-year-old— she's almost 2— when she talks and she doesn't speak very— she doesn't know a lot of words. She doesn't speak English or any— she speaks some language. I'm not sure what language it is. I have a need to really focus in on what she's saying. And more than me understanding what she's saying is that she can see me listening. And I really— I heard someone once say, and I really love this, they said, when you're in a communication with another person, it's not the other person telling you their concerns that builds the relationship. It's the other person watching you listen that builds the relationship. And my ability to have a clear mind determines my ability to be able to focus and listen to you. And so that's the first part. The first big, big win, Lars, to your question, at home is my ability to be able to not have things hanging over my head. In my work life, I would say the big win is efficiency, my ability to be able to— I had a funny moment about 3 years ago where I was talking to my vice president and she and I together had developed the VitalSmarts GTD training course. And she said, "I don't know how to say this to you, Justin, but I feel like I don't have enough to do." And she's like, "I don't want to tell our CEO that." And I kind of laughed. I laughed and I said, "Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you said that because I've been having that feeling recently and I don't understand it because I know when I look at my projects, I have more than I had last year, and yet for some reason, I feel like I don't have as much to do." And so, on a phone call with David and Catherine Allen, she brought this up and David just laughed out loud. You've hit that moment. You've hit that moment where you're so in control and that your habits are so strong that you're feeling— like my friend likes to say, you're the hammer, not the nail in your productivity life. For me, that's been the benefit in my work life is I feel complete control. Now, sometimes enough comes in that I start to feel like the boat's rocking. But the benefit is that I can feel that because I feel like I'm in such control. I know when I'm getting out of sync at all. And so, those have been the huge— to your question, Lars, those have been the huge benefits in my life. And actually, I'll just share a short message, a short example that's been helpful. So, I was in the middle of developing the Vital Smarts GTD training program. We were right in the middle of it and my wife was pregnant with our our third child, and she started to go into labor very early. Her water broke at 22 weeks. Baby's supposed to go generally until 40 weeks. This is very dangerous. We went to the hospital and the doctors gave us some very scary news, and they said, if she delivers the baby in the next week or two, unfortunately, we don't think the baby will survive. It was an incredibly dramatic moment for our family. Wow. And within a week or two, the doctor said, we'd like you to be admitted to the hospital, and we'd like you to stay here until you have the baby. And so overnight, I was a single father with two little boys. I had a 3-year-old and a 2-year-old, and my wife was now in the hospital. And I was in the middle of trying to develop a training program about getting things done. And it was very, it was very dramatic. And so a lot of people would say, well, I need to set that aside so I can focus on my family. But instead, I doubled down.. I doubled down. I did 2 weekly reviews. I immediately sat down with my wife in the hospital. I said, "Help me understand everything." She had chosen to stay at home, so she wasn't working. I said, "Tell me everything you do every day." I made lists. I had projects. I had checklists for each day of what she did, how she did it. I said to myself, "I can either let this overwhelm me because it's going to be emotionally difficult, or I can try to use what I'm in the middle of learning and developing." I just doubled down on my habits. My wife, thankfully, was able to stay. She stayed in the hospital until the baby was 30 weeks, and we had our son. Then, he was very premature. He was in the neonatal intensive care unit for 80 days. Even though after my wife had the baby, she came home and we had our child, in the hospital for 80 days. That came as a project. I don't mean that insensitively, but it did. It had lots of actions, and it had lots of— things we needed to do. And I can honestly look back at that situation and say an overwhelming situation didn't overwhelm our family. And I know that so much of it was because of GTD, my ability to be able to use those things so that when I went to the hospital daily with my two children, I could be there. I could be present. I could help them. And I still had a job. I was able to renegotiate many of my commitments. I was able to decline many of my commitments. Because I knew what my commitments were. So that's a long answer, Lars, to your question, but I had to share. For me, that's been the most impactful benefit in my life, and I'll never forget it.

Morten: Well, thank you for sharing that. We hear the same stories in the same family of emotional, you know, big emotional events in your life that's been rocking, really rocking your insides, but you are in control of of the situation and you can be present even when you have overwhelming many things to do, but you are still there. Lars and I both have stories similar to you, not as dramatically.

Lars: With children, but— Yeah. And with other trainers as well. No, exactly. I was just going to echo that, that really is, that's really where GCD shows up and to help manage those really complex situations. And then going really from one end of the spectrum to the other, really going down to the, the practical basics, looking at your system from a tools perspective. You already mentioned OmniFocus. Some people listening to this are always interested in hearing, so what else do you use? Lists? You make lists in other places, reference systems, support material, what else?

C: Capture tools? Yes. What would you perhaps highlight? So I found that one of the big habits— I'll start with the capture piece— was I found it helpful to email myself. I liked doing that as a way to capture an idea. But I also found that it took me— I was capturing things so often that it took me more time than I wanted. I had to put— that I was sending to myself, I had to put a subject line in, and it was taking 90 seconds. And I thought this should take about 15 seconds when I want to capture something.. So I found an app that I really enjoy called Note to Self, and it's a simple shortcut that emails you. So I'll even show it to you here. And I think so, it's an app.

Lars: Called Note to Self.

C: I don't know if you can see it. We'll see here. It's right there. Note to Self. It's the blue one. Note to Self. It's right next to OmniFocus.

Morten: For those of you who are not.

C: On YouTube now, Justin is showing us mobile shortcuts.. But in essence, I'll describe it for those that are listening to the podcast. All it is is a blank digital document. I open up the app and it's just blank. It's connected to my email inbox. All I do is type anything into it and I push send and it automatically emails me. Now some people may say, what's the benefit of that? It actually cuts my capture time in half or more. I'm able to open the app and type "buy milk" or "do this or that" and then just press send and it's done. I know it's in my email inbox. I found Note to Self to be a very efficient way to capture ideas. I am very simple. I don't have a lot of tools. Anything I want to capture, I put in Note to Self and it emails me. Then I process my email multiple times a day and clarify. I use OmniFocus to manage my lists. I have a single calendar that I use for everything. And so, for me, I've chosen personal preference. Personal preference, I like to simplify. I like to get down to as few tools as possible and allow all of those things coming into my world to funnel down into just a few key places. So, if I receive a text and I need to do something about it, I'll copy that text and note to self. Hands me a note and I'm in the office, I'll take a picture of it, email it to myself. At the end of a meeting and someone did a nice brainstorm on a whiteboard, I'll take a picture, note to self, I'll email it to myself just very quickly. For me, it's note to self and it's OmniFocus, and that's really it. Of course, I have my calendar. But between OmniFocus and my calendar, that's my entire system. For me, I like that because— everyone needs to do what works for them, but for me, what works really well is simplicity.. And so people might look at me and say, wow, Justin, I don't know if I could do what you do. And I'd say, it's actually very simple. I have a place where I keep lists and I have an email inbox and I have a calendar that's probably similar to most people. It's, it's, and so those are the tools that have been most helpful for me. And I think that simplicity has.

Lars: Allowed me to be successful there. Mm-hmm. Yeah, good point. Good point. And we also, we always have to ask when we have GTDers on to, if there are any, you know, any new tricks or anything that you have, any tweaks that you've added to your, now we know, simple system? Any tweaks that you've made that you'd maybe share as a tip for some.

C: People to try out?

Lars: Sure.

C: So for me, one of the, I mean, there's a couple of quick tips that I've found to be helpful, which is there are some tasks that I find that I have no idea how long it's going to take me until I get into it, but I know it's going to take longer than 2 minutes. But there are some tasks that are going to take me maybe 7 to 10 minutes, and I've done them many, many times, so I know they're going to take me that long. I will often put on the front end of that next action the estimated time it will take me. I don't do that with all of my next actions because I don't want to set myself up for failure. I don't want to tell myself this is going to take 6 minutes and then it consistently is taking me 30 minutes. I'm going to stop trusting those labels. I don't use those labels all the time. I use them carefully. But I find that to be helpful because I don't always have 30 minutes. Sometimes I only have 9 minutes. So if I only have 9 minutes, I don't want to spend that 9 minutes trying to figure out what can I do. Even if I have a really good list of next actions, it still might take me 3 or 4 minutes to decide what I can do in 9 minutes. I don't want to waste 3 or 4 minutes. So if I have good labels on a handful of items that aren't going to take an hour but I know pretty well how long they're going to take because I've done those actions before, I can very quickly find those items.

Morten: Items.

C: That's a tip that's been helpful for me. I think that another thing that's been really helpful for me is specificity in my next actions, but also I try to— when I have a next action, I try to put any supporting information on that next action that will be helpful for me. The rule for me is what if I made the next action so specific that I never had to reference the original email ever again? Now, that may not work for everyone, but for me, that's a helpful rule because I want to be able to, when it's time to work, do no thinking. I just want to look at the next action and read. And sometimes it's long. Sometimes it will say, "Write the first draft of article. Needs to be 500 words. Focus it on email processing and return it to Ryan by April 5th." When I can see that, it only takes me 5 seconds to read it. I get it and I literally can.

Morten: Just open up a Word document and just start going. And you made the former you made a good decision for the future you to execute on the next action. Yeah, that's right. I have a bad example of not doing that this morning because I, you know, you think you will remember the details, but duh, you do not. So write them down. Silly.

Lars: So thank you for reminding me. All right. Good ones. And last question on my end, what.

C: Is next for you with GTD?

Morten: Yeah.

C: Yeah. Good question. Well, I've been really trying to build up a following on this One Productive Minute. The idea is I would like to find, continue to find ways to make GTD very consumable for people. I know that when someone can fully grasp the methodology, methodology of capture, clarify, organize, reflect, and engage, they'll get a massive benefit. But I find that sometimes when people first look at that, they get intimidated and they worry that they have to do it all to benefit. I'm trying to help people take little tidbits, little pieces, and benefit from the 2-minute rule. I could teach them the 2-minute rule in 60 seconds or even just benefit from the little nuggets that exist within the methodology. Methodology and get them to benefit from those little bits so that then they get hungry to want more and then they start to take on more elements of that methodology. The One Productive Minute is just a way— all it really is is taking little tiny pieces of GTD and sort of, I like to say, dripping value on people each day. It's just little drips. All of my tips you can learn in 60 seconds and they're all GTD tips. Whether it's a little image that might say something like— the other day I put a little one that said, "Consider putting something you don't want to forget next to your keys." We talk a lot about that. Do other things like that so that you don't have to remember. People immediately related to that, and it was a tip. It was an actionable tip they could literally do that day. So, for me, I'm continuing to try to say, "How do we move beyond the theory, which is important, and continue to get into the practicality in day-to-day life?" I think as people adopt those small things, they begin to see the benefits of now that I've done one little tidbit, what's the next, what's the next? Over time, their benefit grows as their adoption grows. So, for me, it's really building up the one productive minute following and trying to find new ways to help people come to use and love GTD.

Morten: That's a big thing for me right now. Good. Thank you. And I must admit that inspired by you, my colleague in Sweden, Martin Hogan, and David's 2-minute tips for turbulent times, I've also made my 1-minute VGTD series.

Lars: Which I'm releasing now.

Morten: And I'll be recording some next week as well. Yeah. So we think the same. In the same way, because GTD is a holistic model where every part plays its part and together it works better than separate. But like the 2-minute rule you mentioned, that's been transformational for a lot of people and give them a kind of the first dip the toe into GTD and feel how.

Lars: Nice that water feels. That's right. Perhaps this is also a good tip for people that, you know, are GTD practitioners out there. They want to share this with their colleague, but might be facing the problem that they're maybe sharing too much. So for picking those small kinds of tips, that's perhaps something to help them also share GTD.

Morten: And help colleagues out as well.

Lars: Have you reached the end of your questions, Lars? I have. That was number 8 on my list.

Morten: Which That was the last one. Okay, so I won't take a lot of your time, Justin, but I just want to go a little to the business part of GTD and so that we can look at the US versus the world. And because for those of you who don't know that this, that Justin is responsible for the GTD training in the United States and Canada, is that correct? That's correct. So if you want to have GTD training Justin is your man. And VitalSmart is your company if you're in the US and Canada. And as I mentioned in the pre-meeting, sorry, pre-recording of this is that we have a lot of listeners to our podcast in the US. Did you check, Lars? On the top of my head is nearly 40,000 of our— just reached 100,000 downloads. We are very happy for this. Thank you, everybody who's listening. But so if you are from the US, Justin is the man to go to. And I also know that Whitelistsmarks is in Europe, but not with GTD. What do you have to offer the European counterparts that is not GTD?

C: What can we help people with? That's right. We have a number of partners in Europe that are training and coaching on some of our other skill sets. Our most commonly known skill set is called Crucial Conversations, so we teach people the skills for handling high-stakes disagreements. You want to learn the skills to be able to speak up more effectively, or we have another skill set called Crucial Accountability, which is if I'm a manager, how do I better hold performance conversations? How do I have— a performance review conversation that actually improves the relationship. We have a skill set called Influencer, which is for leaders around how to drive change within organizations and cultures. Our newest program over the last 18 months is called The Power of Habit. We partnered with the author of the book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, and we created a training program called The Power of Habit. Habit, which is all about how to develop those habits that drive change. It's a great complement to the GTD skill set. We have a number of clients who are doing those together and find that to be very valuable. So vitalsmarts.com is a great place to.

Morten: Go to learn about those. Good. And you are present where? Do you have— it's not Europe because we have listeners all around the world. So where can they find this?

C: Vitalsmarts.com or find subsidiaries around the world? Yeah, that's right. So, if you go to vitalsmarts.com, we have a link there where you can find VitalSmarts licensees in different countries. And so, you can find a local licensee if you're interested in any of those solutions. I'm located in Utah in the United States, but we have international licensees in dozens of regions across the world. And so, yes, on our website would.

Morten: Be a great place to a look. Okay, well, thank you so much. We are going to go for a landing now, I think, and Lars will take us out in a minute. But I'm happy to have you, and I just want to say that my belief is that G2 Gears are the nicest people on the planet, and you haven't proved me wrong. Thank you for attending, Justin. This has been a blast. Very good to hear from you and your insights about GTD and your practice and your stories. Thank you so much for making this episode with us.

C: It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. And I feel very connected because of our shared love for this content and its goal, which is helping all of.

Morten: Us just be our better selves. So thank you.

Lars: Yeah.

Morten: And I don't know, this is not on our special questions list, but I'm just— because you seem like a happy person.

C: Do you think GTD has made you a happier person? I think it has. I think because it's helped me to be able to gain some focus and clarity on what makes me happy, and it's allowed me to say no to the things that were not making me happy.

Morten: So I think so. I think so. Our colleagues, by the way, in the UK has done some surveys that's shown between 71 and 82% of the people attending GTD seminars are happier after. So, good.

Lars: Well, Lars, will you take us out? Yes. And also, thanks for mine, Justin. A lot of fun to have you on. A lot of good, good thoughts on GTD and your practice. We always wrap up these episodes with a quick reminder to head on over to gtdnordic.com, where you can find links to all the country websites for each of the Nordic countries to learn more about GTD. You'll find the newsletters, articles, all of our offerings, physical and virtual groups on social media where natives from each of those countries discuss GTD. And today I'll update the outro as well to include that. Of course, if you're in the US or Canada looking for GTD courses, head on over to vitalsmarts.com. And for everyone else, gettingthingsdone.com is where you can find your local partners. And as always, we really hope that you find these episodes valuable. And if you We always appreciate a rating on iTunes. It really helps the discoverability of the.

Morten: Podcast and, yeah, help other people learn GTD. And at the very end, a little shout out to the GTD community or the subreddit of GTD in reddit.com. That is really a good place to go. A lot of people engaging in, in GTD and they are generally really nice people too. So if you're looking for help internationally, you don't have a local partner, you don't have a local community, reddit.com, find GTD, the subreddit there. And thank you all for the, the love that I have felt in the reddit.com community for people supporting our podcast. So if you're listening to this and you found us on Reddit, thank you for listening. So, okay, great. We are now at the end. I will say, as I always do, thank you so much for listening. And until next time, stay safe and stay productive.

Lars: Bye-bye, everybody.

C: Bye-bye.

Morten: Bye-bye.