51. Renewing Your GTD Practices After The Pandemic

Transcript

Automatically transcribed and lightly edited. Timestamps omitted for readability.

Morten: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Getting Things Done podcast from GTD Nordic. I'm Morten Røvik, and I'm here as always with my friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Hello, Lars.

Lars: Hi, Morten. Good to be back with you once again, and once again looking forward to sharing some more thoughts on GTD with our listeners and yours. For those of you who have not listened to our podcast before or watched it, our goal is to support you in improving your GTD practice or learning GTD, becoming better GTDers and more experiencing the benefits of GTD and becoming more productive, less stressed, and being better at staying present with whatever you're doing. And we hope that you find these episodes valuable regardless of your experience with GTD. And as always, If you're looking for a refresher on the best practices for the 5 steps, or, you know, just get an introduction to what we are talking about here, the first 6 episodes of this podcast is where you'll find that.

Morten: Great. We are having an episode today that we called Renewing Your GTD Practices After the Pandemic. And when you listen to this, it's probably going to be after what we call summer here in Scandinavia, of course, it's in July. July/August. And we are just going to mention that briefly, that we just have two years, a two-year anniversary for our podcast. That was in late May. And hurrah for us!

Lars: Yay! Thanks everyone for listening. Our birthday was indeed on May 29th in 2019. So we passed the two-year mark at the time of this recording.

Morten: Yeah, and I checked last night just out of curiosity that we have around 118,000 downloads now, which is super. Very excited about everybody listening to us, and that's— thank you for doing that. Yeah, and thank you for all the feedback we get because we get a lot of feedback from people. And maybe we should do a feedback episode because people are just— have that as a regular one. So I don't know. We've received some emails. I don't know if you just start with that. You have a lot of emails. Can you find them quickly, Mr. Roscoe Hendrickson?

Lars: Maybe I can. Let me see what I can dig up.

Morten: Throwing you curveballs here now.

Lars: Yes, exactly. One that came to mind and one that I just dug up now was from Anca living in Bucharest, Romania, just thanking us for the different episodes helped her tremendously in her methodology and better implementing it in her life, keeping her on track with the weekly review. She said it has literally, literally improved my life perspective 100%. So, and she appreciated the accents. So I wrote back to her, thanks, because I don't think we're going to be able to change those. And yeah, please continue doing the podcast. We definitely will.

Morten: Thank you for writing us. This is, you know, when people do that and encourage us to continue, that helps us. So if you want to, you know, help with our motivation, because we understand that not only are people listening, but it's giving them value. So if you have value of this podcast that we are— you're listening to now, please send us an email at podcast@gtdnordic.dk. That is podcast@gtdnordic.dk.

Lars: And you'll find it in the show notes.

Morten: And you will find it in the show notes as well. But normally when we mention this is at the end, maybe people will skip that end because it's kind of like a transport. Never, never, no, because then, then they will, they will not hear our Easter eggs, you know.

Lars: Exactly.

Morten: So, okay, well, renewing your GTD practices after the pandemic. So, um, When the pandemic is over, the idea is then that your GTD practices will change a little. Maybe what projects can you move from? The first thing that comes to my mind is that if you use the someday/maybe for post-pandemic things, that might be an idea to look at. And first and foremost, I would suggest that people— this is my, you know, on top of my head would be to start a weekly review, but do it a post-pandemic review. Try and look at the weekly review as, you know, changing everything, being flexible or whatever you put on your list and see has that changed since now the pandemic is over, what you need to focus on. So how would you attack this, Loris, with If you did a thorough post-pandemic weekly review, what would it be the first thing you looked at?

Lars: Yeah. And maybe just take a step back to how we came to making this the episode title. It's just that I know from many coaching clients here in Denmark that they really experience now a shift at this time. So in Denmark at the time of this recording, things are opening up a bit again. And it really clearly has made an impact on both the GTD systems and the GTD practices. So taking a step back and looking at that, and I think, you know, the review of the projects list, the project inventory is, you know, something that we would do on a weekly basis as part of the weekly review. But taking the different perspective, like you said, and looking at how, you know, are these still active projects in my world? Because Likely some things are changing now, have changed, will change in the near future that you might already know about. So that evaluation of the project status, it says, you know, it's still valid, all things considered. Maybe 5 new projects just landed on your desk. Should this then go on hold on Sunday, maybe be delegated to someone else? So taking that perspective when you run through your projects list and thinking that through with just a slightly different or maybe expanded mindset, I think that's, that's probably a really good, good starting point to look at it from that perspective.

Morten: And since the world is opening up again—.

Lars: We hope. Let's see at the time of this, when we release this recording, and things are different in different parts of the world, but fingers crossed, yes.

Morten: If the world is opening up at your end of the world, in your reality, then then you will have suddenly some context you haven't been using for a while, like the physical office may be back in play. Maybe you go back there, maybe not. You know, maybe people— there's been a lot of discussion here in Norway, and I'm sure in Denmark as well, on the nature of the— sorry, the nature of the future office. Is it going to be— do we need an office? And And if so, how often do we need to go there? And it's because suddenly a lot of people found the benefits of the home office. And now we are kind of used to that. So I'm sure a lot of people, especially maybe those of us who are a little introverted, loved the home office because and maybe hated it if you didn't manage the technology, because the technology can make you just as vulnerable to interruptions as anything else physically can do. So, but if you manage that and have less interactions with your colleagues, you get more of the right stuff done because the interactions— sorry, the interruptions were less. Yeah, exactly. But when it starts opening up, so maybe you will then put back, you know, the physical office at office. As when you are physically there, that might happen. I don't know about the rest of the world, but our end of the world, almost anything has been shut down. You know, for the longest time, we were not able to go shopping where we wanted to go shopping. If you want to buy something, everything was closed. You have to be what we call click and collect. You buy online and you collect it outside the shop. Have you had the same thing in Denmark? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so then maybe your errands list, like I have an errands list that's called Claus Olsen, which is my favorite gadget shop here. They have everything, I think, and maybe not the high-tech, but a lot of, you know, mid-tech things. So I put that, that might be reactivated. And put back so that you have more context lists for that. So a question would be, what context list do you need to activate or, you know, reactivate or make new that needs— that was not there before the pandemic or during?

Lars: And, and as always, it's, it's always, um, interesting to reflect on whether you have the right lists, how easy it is for you to find the right things to work on at any given time, and especially in times of change like these. Just like you said, there will be, will be a lot of changes. I imagine, like you said, yeah, the office list is coming back. It was interesting for me reflecting back now on my system where some things would normally go on an errands list had previously gone to the at computer list to buy online, and then maybe the errands list to stop by and pick it up. So, so there will likely be some, some changes there as well. And yeah, the, the The things to do at the office, things around the office, just the way that things are opening up will likely impact your system. And again, reflecting on whether you have the right lists for the things that you are engaged in, this is probably a good time now to look through that list, that list of lists.

Morten: Yeah, and I know that a lot of GTDers around the world have had, you know, special lists for when the pandemic is over for projects that you want to do. I just talked to a coaching client this morning and she told me that they are now planning to go back to the office. She's head of that coordination there that has to do with the national healthcare corona regulations where you can't be with all the people would be 58 people at the office, they could be 19. And how do they handle who's not there at what point of time, who can be there and which days? And, you know, there's a big coordination there. But that was on a— that would be on a list for— if you get that idea, we need to plan that, then it should be on a project on hold until it's ready to be activated. Bit and then move to project active.

Lars: So I think I've seen that a lot as well with, you know, the impact of the pandemic has had such, you know, a lot of projects have sprung from that in the administration work, in handling changes, handling new processes. So that's perhaps good advice as well to reflect on whether there's something in your life that has shown up that hasn't been captured as projects that are preparing to return to the office, for example. Is there anything you need to do, any new process that has to be, you know, taking into account things that you have to do to get to the office, get those tests planned if you have to show up with negative tests, things like that could also significantly impact your system. And thinking back through the coaching clients that I've worked with virtually now over the past year now, it really is, you know, there have been a lot of projects that have shown up simply to replan, reschedule, handle all those changes. So be sure to be on the lookout for those as well when you you refresh your system.

Morten: Exactly. So we've covered looking at your project on hold someday, maybe looking at your context. What else should be considered, do you think?

Lars: One thing that I've noticed also is the calendar. The calendar has really changed for a lot of people. Again, coming back to the office in some cases will have made some changes in your calendar. Meetings that are going on that you now have to attend physically where you might be able to attend virtually previously. And maybe some things are starting up again. New projects will be kicked off because now you can, can sit down and be together again. So things will start to open up and maybe that'll require some, some more meetings. So be sure to, to hang on to your calendar. I think some of the good aspects of learning to work from home has also been to experience just how, how life, working life can be different with the good and bad that comes with that. And then be sure to hang on to the good parts, especially when it comes to the calendar, because there are You know, keeping those free blocks of time, if you're one of the people that have a really full calendar, keeping that, that room in your calendar to work on your planned projects, that, that is really, I think, critical. And it's something that can easily be lost if you're in, in an organization where, where that can happen. Keeping room for that, maybe keeping room for more unplanned work, be sure to leave room for that because again, with the uncertain times, then maybe you need a bit more room And this can be a significant chunk of the day. If you have a lot of unplanned work, be sure to have time for that unplanned work, because otherwise this might impact your defining work, meaning clarifying and organizing your inboxes, and then that'll start to, to slow the system down. So really, I would say really keep an eye on that calendar. It can be, you know, that coming back, let's see if we can hang on to the good aspects of how the calendar looked before, if it looked better in these working from home days. What's your experience with the calendar?

Morten: Well, I have a lot of experience with my calendar, but post-pandemic, well, the coaching client I mentioned, she also made me very happy because back in 2013, I think it was, I did my first seminar in this. This is a big Norwegian multinational or they're in several countries organization and big company. And I talked to them about why are the default in your Outlook calendar always an hour for your meetings? And because the devil in the default is that because if you are physically meeting people, that is, you know, that you can, it's short, maybe shorter from your home office to your toilet than in your office to the toilet. And there are less distractions maybe on the route going there and coming back. So that to have a default 1-hour meeting so that you have 1 hour and then the next one is just in the, nip that in the bud. Makes it impossible for you to go to the toilet, pick up a cup of coffee and just refresh your memory or just write, take some extra notes, identify your next actions from that meeting you just were in and get ready for the next one. So she told me that they now have default, when you try to make a meeting 1 hour, it will then jump back and be 50 minutes. And then if you try to do it half an hour, it will be 20 minutes. So actually it's the system, the default is taken into account that you can't, it's not possible to be in two different spaces at the same time. So, and that is one reflection I'm thinking that you might want to do that, or you might do what I do is that when I have, I have automatically, you know, automatic booking of my calendar. So if coaching clients want to meet me or we want to schedule something a little off, like if Lars wants to, well, you can see my calendar, so that's very easy for you. But if you were an external person who wanted to get a meeting with me, you can pick that in a calendar. And that calendar is suited that way that I need at least 45 minutes from the last meeting to the next meeting before I accept. Yep. So that means if you want to make a meeting with me that starts on the hour, it will be at least 1 hour between that meeting and my next meeting. Yeah. And then from the next meeting to the next one is also 1 hour, which makes it possible for me to, you know, finish my notes, you know, capture my next actions, you know, archive my notes if I need to do that. And I have also some time to process email in between there before the next meeting starts. So I think that to set aside enough time for reflection might be, if you want to have a New Year's resolution, call it post-pandemic resolution, is reflect more. Set aside time to think more. Don't be so hung up in doing, because if you get hung up in doing, you don't know if you are doing the right things if you don't take the time to reflect.

Lars: And that change in the calendar, I know it has had a significant impact in some organizations that I'm aware of. I recently attended a seminar with a Danish company that has implemented a 4-day work week, so taking Fridays off, making that a part of the weekend. One of the things that they had done was exactly that, to really cut down on meetings, saying they can take 20 minutes, and then in exceptional cases, we'll go to 40 or 45 45, but, but really, really cut them down wherever they could. And obviously, that's, you know, they could do that in their line of work. And so it's not for everyone, but it was an interesting recommendation. And I saw it from another major Danish company that I worked with a while back, where one of the participants came, actually from, I think, yeah, so somewhere in Asia, they were in Denmark attending some other things and were able to attend the GCD training. They had actually done that change in Outlook saying that, you know, it's going to be 50 minutes instead of an hour. So there were 10 minutes. The reason for it was less about what we talk about and more from a health and safety concern that they actually had people that would be running around, falling over, hurting themselves when they ran from meeting, one meeting to the next. Crazy as it sounds, that's where that actually came from, from them, that now they all had these 50-minute meetings because they were really trying to take good care of their workers. From that perspective. Well, yeah, an interesting perspective on that.

Morten: Yeah, and I think some, some Norwegians would do the same, or Scandinavian people would do the same, that it will run to get to a meeting. But I think that it's more likely that they'll be too late for a meeting.

Lars: It could also be the case.

Morten: I don't know if you've heard that expression, and I don't know if this is an international expression, but the academic 15 minutes.

Lars: Yeah, at least it's in Denmark as well.

Morten: Yeah, yeah. So, so if you're in academia, you are notoriously usually 50 minutes late. Yeah.

Lars: So we're kind of taught that from the university.

Morten: I think maybe this is an urban myth, I hope. Let's pretend it is. But it is that they actually have a concept for explaining why people are late. It's because they don't care. Yeah. I need to get my coffee. I need to go to the toilet. I'm late. Okay. So what? So for the people who are so what, it might be a good idea to have that, you know, the system where you don't have to do the so what because you will be on time because you have that 10 minutes that you need.

Lars: And I've had, I don't remember where it came from, whether it was someone who told me or read it somewhere, but I once read that if you're on time for a meeting, you're late. In the sense that your mind is just not, has not settled and is ready for the next thing. If you haven't had a chance to just look at the meeting, look at the agenda, look at your notes, whatever you needed to do to prepare, it might be the case that even being on time is too late. Other than that, I think reflecting on the tools that you have, whether you need anything new, for example, inboxes, maybe if you had your inbox at home, Maybe you have in-transit inbox, you maybe have the read-in folder from the GTD seminars. Maybe you need to refresh your inbox at the office as well. Or maybe different tools. Maybe now that you will be driving to the office again, maybe you need to look into different capture tools, audio capture tools, so you can maybe safely while you are on the go, making sure that you have that set up and have that in your practice. Yeah. And Morten, for those listening, is showing the GTD Capture Wallet, capturewallet.com. That's also a helpful friend when capturing. Yeah.

Morten: And one other friend that I get a lot of good feedback on is the— and this is— we don't get paid for this, the Capture Wallet is actually— wallet.com is a webshop we run from Productive Nerd Gear. But the Brain Toss, Brain Toss, like a brain and then T-O-S-S. In one word, Braintoss, is a capture tool that lives on your mobile or your smartwatch if it's supported like an Apple Watch. And it's like two taps and send a message to yourself. And a lot of my coaching clients come back to me and say that this really helps me get things out of my head. You're out walking, you suddenly remember something. If you take your phone up with one hand, you take off the, the You open it up, you tap one tap, you say what you need to say, and then you tap to send, and voilà, it's gone. It's in your email inbox with a transcription of what you said, and if the system misunderstands you, you have the fallback of an MP3 file of what you said and an audio file of what you said. And they also like the possibility of, like, when you're, let's say you're in the attic looking for something, then you find your old skiing shoes and you remember, I need to get a new pair. How do you remember that? Well, you open Braintoss, you open the camera and you take just one photo and then close it. It will appear in your inbox, which is for a lot of people to have that flexibility because most people do carry their mobile phones everywhere. So that's just a good good alternative to anything else that you can put on your phone, at least. My only pet peeve about using digital tools is, and this you might want to post-pandemic reflect on, is that if you're like me, you're easily distracted when you open your phones. You have a lot of red dots, badges saying that you have so-and-so, you lost this, and your fear of missing out will pull you into that. You might forget what you're supposed to do. Yeah, yeah, but there are ways around that as well as like removing all the badges, saying that I will not have badges, I will not have notifications, or just put, put the, the apps that you want a notification on, on page number 2. So when you open your phone, you will not see them when you want to capture because I'm so easily distracted. I can't, I can't. Yeah.

Lars: And some of them on the capture tools. I used Braintoss for a while as well. Today I used just the Memos app on my watch, especially when it comes to, you know, bigger things that I want to get out of my head. There will typically be a limitation on these capture tools like Braintoss and others, where the Memos app, I can just go on and on and on and just keep keep talking because it is, you know, if I, if I look at the recordings that I've done over the past couple of weeks, you know, many of them are about 10 to 20 seconds, but there's also one that, you know, a minute 15, a minute and a half, just bigger things that I want to make sure I give myself the context to really fully grasp the idea that I had at the time when I recorded it. So it'll be, you know, cool ideas for company collaborations or seminar ideas or some bigger things that don't necessarily fit into a 15-second time slot or whatever it might be on that device.

Morten: Yeah, Mentos is also longer. I don't know if there is a limit at all.

Lars: Okay, there used to be. They might have changed that.

Morten: Okay, well, I will look into that and see if it is, but I don't think it is. And.

Lars: Also, well, while you're checking, maybe a check of the higher horizons would be in place. Perhaps you already have some different practices regarding this, that you do this at set times around the year. I think at least the areas of focus would be fun to look at at this time, making sure that they're up to date. Areas of focus and accountability that you are, you know, things that you're responsible for might, you know, wake up once again. So I think might have been put on hold, things that you needed to arrange around the office. You know, let's say it was a, you know, a social gathering Friday after work, for example, that you were in charge of making happen. That's obviously been on hold for a while. Maybe now that can take place. So you need to pick up that one. And perhaps the Areas of Focus and Accountability Horizon 2 would be helpful, a helpful list to run through Absolutely.

Morten: And like for some of us, the pandemic has made it difficult for us to be social with our families, especially the elder ones, because we want to protect them. And now that we look at your— like I look at my areas of focus as son, of course, I am understanding that the world has changed and we can do more things together now. And maybe we should do set aside some time to do that. And to lift it up and just to recalibrate, go to the top. If you have your horizons of focus, go to the purpose, values, and principles and look at, has that changed? How that changed a little? If you haven't looked at that for a while, go back and look at it. Because it's definitely, I'm sure that's, maybe, I'm not sure, but I know that the pandemic has changed me a little. My focus, what I think is important in the world. It's actually been more— what I thought was important before has been even more important now. Some of the things I thought were important are not so important now. Before, you think that, oh, yeah, you have these ideas that are not just self-serving, maybe, ideas. Now you understand that those ideas are not part of your core values. So reconnect with your core values. It's important to make sure that you're on the right route, you make the right decisions after the pandemic.

Lars: Yeah, and I can certainly recognize that as typical human behavior. Once you lose access to something or something that you can't do, you suddenly maybe realize the value more clearly. So I can certainly recognize that from that perspective, that something has changed, something has been more made more clear, I think, in this past year, maybe more.

Morten: And I think that a lot of people, and this is my general idea of what I've found when I talk to people, or I have this general feeling more, and I would like to have your input, is that people during Corona has been understanding more the Thank you, Siri, for waking up. I was not talking to you. No, I was thinking that the people are, this is my thinking, please give me feedback, because I think that people have found that the values that they have, the joy they found in physical objects, like a new car or something like that might not be— and the big home or something, that might be not as important as the human aspects, my family, my close friends, the people I care about. How much more? Because I think that they have become even bigger. If you still can bear being with your loved ones, you have been going through the war together and you've been knitted closer to the people you're close to, hopefully. And that value perspective might have changed that the physical objects that you might think would be important for you are not so valuable anymore. I don't know. What's your input on this, Lars?

Lars: Yeah, it could be. Hopefully, in some cases, I guess it would be the case. At least for me, I have definitely seen the— The change, the clearest example in my case is my grandfather who lives in Norway outside of Oslo that we definitely want to come visit, but we just have not been able to do that for so long. So that's certainly an area of focus and, you know, values for me that are clearly impacted by this, the restrictions that take place in these times. Definitely.

Morten: And now he will be receiving visits, hopefully.

Lars: Yes, hopefully soon we can go there. I hope that that's the case soon. Okay.

Morten: Do you have something to add, Lars, to this?

Lars: I think we covered what was originally the intent of this, just to hopefully give listeners and viewers some inspiration on how they can reflect on their system, their practices, see how that might be impacted by the changing times that we've all experienced over the last year. So hopefully this has been helpful to think those things through. And again, like Morten said in the beginning, if you have any input, if there's something that showed up on your radar after listening to this, then be sure to send us an email. We love hearing from you.

Morten: Yeah, we do. So will you take us out, Lars?

Lars: I will certainly do that.

Morten: And please pay attention. He has something very important to say.

Lars: Very important. Don't fast forward. Don't skip. No, we always wrap up with reminding you to head on over to gtdnordic.com. That's where you find the country websites for all of the Nordic countries. And on those websites, you can find all of our offerings, all of the articles about GTD and so much more regarding our both courses, seminars, the speeches, the coaching, both physical and virtual. So we hope you'll head on over there. We always like to remind you that if you are in the US or Canada, you can head on over to vitalsmarts.com and gtdfocus.com is where you will find coaches in that region. And for everyone else, gettingthingsdone.com is where you go to find your local partners to help you really learn GCD. And as always, we really hope that you find these episodes valuable. We have a lot of fun making them, reflecting on the topics and, and sharing our thoughts with you. And if you appreciate these episodes, then it really helps us if you Perhaps share it with a colleague or a friend that might benefit from GCD. We hope you do that.

Morten: And a 5-star rating on iTunes is never wrong. Okay, maybe a little review, that helps discoverability for us. Yeah, well, thank you for listening. Thank you, Loris, always good to be with you. And, um, people, stay safe and stay productive until next time. Bye-bye.

Lars: Bye everyone.