6. Step 5 in GTD: Engage

Transcript

Automatically transcribed and lightly edited. Timestamps omitted for readability.

Morten: Hi and welcome to number 6 of the Getting Things Done podcast from the GTD Nordic. I'm here with my friend and colleague Lars Sjorskjild Hendriksen. Hello, Lars.

Lars: Hi, Morten. Happy to be here for the last of the 5 steps episodes.

Morten: Yeah, me too. This is where the shovel hits the ground, where the work is done. This is an interesting and one of the most important things that you can do to make sure you make the most meaningful work. You must know what is important for you. You need to know, figure out where am I, How much time do I have? How much mental energy? And so forth. But we will dive into the nooks and crannies of this. But Lars, could you give me an overview of what is the engage step?

Lars: Yeah, sure. So maybe just to recap for those of you who haven't listened before, if you're new to this, our goal is really to support you in using the GTD methodology to clear your mind, to stay present with whatever you're doing to achieve stress-free productivity. And we hope to help you and that you find these episodes valuable regardless of your experience. And especially this last of the 5 steps, I think, is one of the really— obviously they're all critical, but this is really important, as you were also hinting at, Morten. So this step is about figuring out what to do, what makes sense to do, and also different perspectives on your work. What types of work do you actually engage in? What type type of work should you engage in at any, at any given time, and how do you prioritize, etc. So really, really an interesting step to dive into.

Morten: Yes, it is. Yes, it is. So we've captured everything that has our attention in a place where we trust, and we trust our practice to do this. We will get an empty head. Then when we have an empty head, we need to clarify on a regular basis at least we recommend every 24 hours as a minimum, anything that's come to you in your inboxes that you captured. Clarify what it means to you and if you need to do something about it, if anything, and then park the result of this on your lists. We call that organize. And then when you've organized things into a list, you need to reflect on your total overview of your commitments to make sure you're on the right track doing the right things. You do this as often as you need, but at least once a week to make sure things stay out of your head. And now when we come to engage, you need to make sure you make meaningful progress on the most important things. Because if you don't do meaningful progress on them, you will not feel comfortable and things will start moving to your head again. So keep your head clear, present, and problem-solving and creative is what we want to achieve with with the Getting Things Done methodology, and to make sure that your head is as empty as it needs to be to be the most creative in the moment. So what are the first things we will look at when we have our lists? When I decided to do anything and I want to work off my lists, what is the first things I will look at, Lars?

Lars: Well, you're hitting on what we call the limiting criteria, and the first thing for you to take into consideration when picking a right next action to do is, well, where, where am I? What could I actually do at this time? So that's what we call the, the context. And if you remember back to the episode about organizing, then, then you may remember that we talked about having the right list to place these next actions on. So they are typically based on where you are physically, or if you have any specific tools or any people's attention available to you. So the context could be you're at the office, you're at a computer, you're at the summer house, you are in a staff meeting, you have your boss's attention, whatever it might be. That's the, that's the context. The second step would then be, well, how much time do I have available? What makes sense for me to work on? So I've picked up the appropriate lists. What could I actually make progress on now? Okay, I have, let's say, 45 minutes until my next meeting. Well, that, that eliminates some of the options that might take, take more time. And the last one is your resources, as you also hinted at in the beginning, Morten. So how can I choose what's, what's right to do for me? Well, taking your, your energy, for example, energy levels into consideration, there are things that make sense for you to do at given times during the day. For me, it's things like writing an article, coming up with the idea for an article. I can do that when I'm toast because my mind will just wander and come up with interesting ideas. But actually sitting down and focusing on writing a good article, well, that has to happen on a specific, specific time of the day. Otherwise, I know the article will be— well, will not be the right standard.

Morten: Exactly. The last part here is that when you first know What can I do where I am and given the tools I have? And then how much time do I have given to make this happen? Then the mental energy is, you know, critical. I remember once one of the first seminars I gave back in 2012, 2013, I think I did this. There was a managing director coming up to me after the seminar saying, Morten, this was great, and especially this about mental resources, because see, He always before picked the most important things to work at, you know, what has this, you know, the most value for him to solve. And sometimes he was tossed and he tried to, for instance, make a PowerPoint for presentation for his board in the company he works. And he did that at night and he used long time making a crappy PowerPoint presentation. He told me, I can make a much better one if I waited. To the following morning where I have the mental energy to make a good one in 1 hour. So make sure you take your mental resources into consideration and make sure you pick something that's appropriate. So now we know where we are, we know what options we have based on where we are and the tools we have, you know, how much time, you know, how much we have for making this, and then we have how much mental resources do we have. So what's next for picking?

Lars: Well, just to add to that resources tip, that's something that I'm continually working on myself, and I can certainly recognize what your managing director referred to, always trying to push yourself to work on the most important stuff. And I can recognize that also from participants in Denmark that they come up to me and they see these and they see that it makes sense. And they can also recognize that, well, I always just try to organize by most important, but really learning to work with these, you know, the resources that you have available. That really helps your productivity and also how you feel about your work and how you feel about your day. It makes it more fun that you have the right task for the right time. But as you said, now what if we have more options left? What if there's something more we can do? We've now taken context, time, resources into consideration. Well, then we come to priority. And when we talk about priorities in GTD, we talk about the horizons of focus. So, so these are various, I would call them levels of zoom that you can zoom in on your life. How detailed are we looking at right now? And to, to quickly run through them, there are 6 different horizons of focus. Starting at the bottom, we have the ground level, and that's where you find your next actions, your calendar events. Over that we have Horizon 1, which are your projects. So your projects are all the multi-step outcomes that you are committed to, to working on up to a timeline of, I think, 12 months is the usual time for projects. Above that we have Horizon 2, which are your areas of focus, or areas of focus and accountability, I think we used to call them as well. So things you are responsible for, or things you have your focus on. So that, that is both for your personal life and also for your work. So what does your job description say? What do you have your attention on at home that you want to maintain at a certain, certain standard? Above that you have Horizon 3, so those are goals and objectives, and that means that we are now looking slightly further into the future, maybe 1 or 2 years. What are you trying to achieve in that time frame? And similarly Horizon 4, which is Vision. Now we're 3 to 5 years into the future, and I'm not trying to, to plan too detailed here, but if everything works out really well, what do you want to make happen in, in 3 to 5 years? And last but not least, Horizon 5 is where you find your purpose and principle. What is your own, or what are your own purpose and principles, and also for your company? So these all guide you in, in making that decision. So how do you use these, or is there anything you would add to those Horizon to Focus models?

Morten: No, nothing but making sure that when, you know, this model is just a model for helping you understand what is valuable for you in your life. What do you cherish in life? What is important to you to make sure that when you make priority decision, you make them by purpose and values, not by littlest and loudest. And the more you are in, in contact with what's important for you on a really long-term basis. Like, this is what purpose is your life? Where are you? Where do you want your company to be in 100 years if it's still alive? You know, these are important and good questions to ask yourself. And they can be good guidelines for when both when you pick what you need to do, but also when you go for the clarify step. If you know what's important to you, it's easier to say no to things that's not important to you. But this Horizons of Focus would, I guess, be a chapter in the future podcast where we will dive into them. This is very, very interesting. I like this. This is one of my favorite things of the GTD methodology, but it is for a future episode to dive into. But when we have understand what's important to us, we can use that as the last limiting criteria. If you know where you are, what you have of tools, you know what time you have, what mental resources we have, and then you will are stuck with a value or a proposition where you would have to decide. Let's say you have 5 things. What is the most important things to move on? What will give you best pay off right now. And then to understand what's valuable for you will make that decision easier. So then, but before we actually come to this, it's, um, before we go to, to actually do what we call planned work, which is very important, and that you actually pick something to work on, we need to talk about the threefold nature of, of work. This is very basic, but it is actually 3. You can divide your day into 3 parts, no matter how long or how short your day is when you work. What are these 3 parts you can divide it into, Lars?

Lars: Yeah, so there are 3 types of work, and the first one is planned, as you say. So this is working from your lists. This is working, you know, attending the meetings that you have in your calendar. Those are the types of planned work. Planned work. And then all of us experienced unplanned work. So things that show up, you know, customers calling you, colleagues walking over to your desk asking you to help with various things. That's the unplanned work. And the last part is to define your work. So that means processing your inboxes, updating your system, getting it all in there so you can make the most or the right choice when you, you know, sit down to do your planned work. So when I sit down to do my work, I will, for example, check my calendar to see when is my next appointment. And then I will dive into either planned work or perhaps defining work. So getting to the bottom of inbox or working from my lists. And I find that, you know, giving people this perspective on their work, it helps with a lot of things. But one thing that it helps with for many that I meet is that they tend to say that they are driven by their inbox. That's how their day unfolds. So they will literally pick up whatever shows up in their inbox and run with it. And that's not what we recommend. And we, you know, this has been a methodology that's been in place for many years. But I think especially now with the way that people often live by their inbox, I think this perspective is really becoming even more valuable.

Morten: Yeah. Just to reflect on the fact that you actually have a choice. To not only read email, but you can then read email and define your work out of emails instead of being driven by the email, just start working on it. The GTD methodology helps you to go from reactive to proactive. You have to set aside time to define your work. This is knowledge worker 101. This is the normal— this is how it's done. If you don't define your work, you will only you will only be driven by the latest and loudest, and you will not be able to be proactive. So set aside time to define your work so you can do some planned work after. You put things in your calendar, you put things on the next actions list, and then you will use the limiting criteria to help you pick what to do. And then lately— sorry, latest— you will then be able to make good decisions on what unplanned work you should let invade yourself. And it is, you know, when I talk to people about this, there are two very powerful forces at play in the knowledge worker's universe today. One is the ability and the necessity of concentration. If you don't have concentration over a long time as a knowledge worker, Sometimes that is absolutely necessary to have. If you don't have your ability to focus over time, you will not be able to create lasting and good long value. You will not be able to create something that has lasting value. And the other force that is at play is the necessity to communicate with all the other people. You really, you must have information flowing, you need to talk to your colleagues, you need to know what's What's the status of this project? What's happening here? How are we doing? You know, this is also absolutely necessary to make sure you make meaningful progress. But these forces are fighting. Your ability to concentrate is at all play and in all this fight for communication with others. Others need your attention, but you must make sure that you give the right attention to the right people at the right time. To make sure you make the right work. If you're always interrupted by others, you will not do the right work. That's at least my experience. If you want to make sure you make the right work, you must set aside time to do concentrated work as well. Anything to add to this?

Lars: No, that makes total sense. What I see often also is people working, and it really is different for so many other people that we meet, but a lot of people are in open floor open offices, and trying to manage this, having this open-door policy being available to your direct reports or colleagues while at the same time being able to focus on your work and being able to shut the door. This balance can really be tricky. And also, you know, what's the culture like? What are the definitions that you, or the boundaries or the principles that you work within? You know, can people just walk over and ask? Some companies have those, you know, traffic lights on their on their screen so you can signal red, green, or, uh, or yellow, and whether you're available or not. There are really many different variations to this, and how people manage it really, really depends on the, on, on the culture, I find.

Morten: Yes, yes, exactly. And I, I think that if you're looking for, uh, what I call healthy culture, and, you know, for, for knowledge workers who want to create value, is where you— there is room for make make this balance that you have the room and the understanding by the leaders, your bosses at the office, that you actually need to concentrate to create something that has value. And it is, if you sneak away into a meeting room to work, it is not because you're lazy, but you want to make good, long-lasting work, work of high value for the company. And if this is not your workplace, maybe you should take— talk to your boss, or maybe find another job. I don't know. But it is, if you want to create lasting value, you need concentration. If you don't have concentration and it's always destroyed by communication, then maybe you're not doing your job and maybe you're not making the most meaningful progress on the most important things. So just saying.

Lars: Yeah, and it really, you know, there are many different solutions to how to manage this. I also find that, for example, agenda lists are really helpful for people in open offices. So they don't, you know, as soon as something shows up on their radar, the next action is to check with their colleagues. Then they don't just run over and check, but they put it on a list and then, you know, they run on with the go to the next task. And again, if something shows up for that colleague, then instead Instead of interrupting, they place that on the list. And, you know, as soon as people see how beneficial this can be in an open office, it really makes a big difference that they, instead of interrupting each other so many times during the day, perhaps we can just, you know, quickly after lunch run through the list and then we can go back to working. That really helps.

Morten: Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So, so is this, you know, with defining work Then doing planned work and then ad hoc work, this balance between these three, is this— I'm alluding to something I know you know the answer to, of course. Is this universal? Is it the same for all kinds of work or is it different?

Lars: No. So to answer your question, no, this is something that we look into, for example, in the seminar. So we look into, well, what's your Distribution, what can you expect from your work? What is the actual situation in your work? How much time do you spend on planned work? How much time do you spend on unplanned work? How much time do you spend defining your work? And it really varies from position to position, whether, you know, well, the examples we normally use is obviously a receptionist will have a lot of unplanned work, and that's really their job. Contrasting that to a software developer, which would be doing a lot of planned work, hopefully a big list that they they can work from. And lastly, perhaps a project manager would have more of a balanced profile, but mainly doing defining work. So really trying to get to the bottom of everything, plan everything so they can manage their project. What I would say in general is that what I find in Denmark is most people, they write their current distribution, and then after that they will write their ideally if I could change something about my work. Still being realistic, they would write down the percentages for that. And what often happens is that the amount of unplanned work is the thing that they are looking to bring down. So there's too many things showing up and how can we do that? Well, then that's something we can dive into on a personal level.

Morten: Yeah, exactly. So to sum up all of this, What are the 3 main headlines we have to look at to make sure that you choose at any point in time what is the most important things to do and trusting that choice? What does that depend on?

Lars: So that would be the limiting criteria, context where you're at, what tools or people are available. Second would be time, and third would be resources. That's if there are any additional options after that. Then the horizons of focus come into play, helping you make a priority decision on what to, what to work on right now. What's the most meaningful thing to work on? And the other thing was what we just discussed, the threefold nature of work and whether you're doing, engaging in unplanned work or planned work or defining your work. And I think one of the things that was fun to me, at least, to take a step back and reflect was to really see how the next actions, how easy they are to work with, the power of the next actions. It's when I met GTD for the first time, I didn't really understand how much value there was in finding these next actions. And when you start engaging, starting to do work, you know, you really see that work becomes so much easier. You know, you would perhaps have Budget 2019 or 2020 on your list. That's impossible to do. But asking Tom for the budget numbers for last year, I can, I can do that. That's easy. That's, that's nice planned work.

Morten: Exactly. Okay, um, I think that sums it up for us today. Um, would you take us to the closing notes, Lars, so we can say goodbye?

Lars: Yeah, so to find more information about what we just talked about, about GTD in the Nordics, the website to go to is gtdnordic.com where you will find links to all of the country websites and on those you can find your way to the various, you know, more information that we provide with more articles on GTD, links to our seminars, links to the various communities that we have with meetups on the various platforms, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. And as we like to mention, you know, if you gain value from this, then please do share them with a colleague or rate us on iTunes. We really appreciate that.

Morten: Okay, thank you, Lars, and thank you, listener, for listening to us. We hope that you find this valuable, and I hope to hear you— not hear you, that you will listen to us next time. So until next time, have a productive day and week and weeks, and good luck with learning GTD.

Lars: Thanks for listening, everyone. Bye-bye.