60. Great meetings with GTD

Transcript

Automatically transcribed and lightly edited. Timestamps omitted for readability.

Morten: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Getting Things Done podcast from GTD Nordic. I am still Morten Røvik and I'm still here with my good friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Salve Lars. Hi Morten.

Lars: As you say that, it sounds like we're just always sitting here. Always recording.

Morten: I'm still here with— You don't do anything else.

Lars: We just sit here in front of the screen.

Morten: That's all we do.

Lars: Good to see you. Good to see you as always. And, and looking forward to recording another episode for our listeners and viewers out there. The purpose of the podcast is to help you learn GTD or become even better GTDers. So we hope that this episode supports you in that. And if it does, we'd love to hear from you. If you're new to GTD, we always recommend you go back and listen to episodes 1 through 6 to get an introduction to the basics of GTD. And this is episode 60 of the podcast. And today we'll be talking about a great topic that I am sure will be very useful for our listeners and viewers out there.

Morten: Yes, indeed. And this is, you dubbed this episode, Great Meetings with GTD. And I'm sure that before GTD and maybe even after GTD, well, everybody around you don't have GTD, then you have been in not so good great meetings, I guess. So. Maybe we should have a visit into our memories of meetings we've been to just to give the contrast, or maybe what's normal for a lot of people out there. So do you have any horrific stories, or at least stories from your pre-GTD days?

Lars: Yeah. So the one that most clearly comes to mind as you ask that question is I was working as a consultant with a company on a very challenging project.. And there was this meeting culture that, and I think there's a law about this as well, that things tend to take up the amount of time that we set aside for it. And there was this, and I don't know if that came in with me or whether that was already there, but we had a pretty clear agenda. So that part was okay. But then let's say we were 6, 8, 10 people maybe gathered. We sat down, we went through the agenda, we were done after 40 minutes. And then there would be this tendency from the meeting leader to say, okay, so what else should we talk about? Who has something to discuss? And it would just, I would sit there and I was like, I know I have my list. I know we want to get going with, we're on a very tight schedule.

Morten: Yes, it really was.

Lars: It really was. And that, and it also tended to, since it was a stressful project, it tended to open up some very heavy discussions at the end. So while maybe the first 40 minutes, let's say they were really productive and actually was a great meeting, then the last 20 just absolutely killed it and left you with so little energy for the rest of the day. So that's the one that most clearly stands out to me. I don't know, what about you?

Morten: No, well, one of the, you know, I categorize horrific meetings. It's like we have one we call, you know, where you know agenda meetings where you've always had this meeting. Just at some point it had a point, but not anymore. So you meet and you talk and you exchange, and maybe exchange some information, but that could be replaced by an email. And people are there because of old habits. And we also have the meetings where you are supposed to do something, but there is no clear agenda so that you are confused. Confused on what you should talk about. And as you say, that does anyone have something we need to talk about, and then kind of open up a can of worms. Um, no, and this, it is, um, you know, um, and then we have the, what we call in Norwegian, I don't know if this word exists in, in English at all, maybe in Danish, kofferslabras. Does that make sense at all?

Lars: I, I just love the word in itself. I'll have to look it up.

Morten: Yeah, but it is, it is a maybe a little old word, but it is when you are sitting with your friends and drink coffee and eat cake and talk, which is social and nice. But if you are supposed to have a meeting with some, you know, sensible topics, it doesn't make sense to just eat cake and coffee, which is not bad, but maybe not in a meeting where you're supposed to do something. And I'm not saying you should not eat coffee and eat cake in a meeting, but you know. So one of the things that I've been using a lot of time reflecting on before and also now is that I have a thesis that I've used as, what do I call it, this kind of like a reasoning for creating a workshop. For what we call good meetings or great meetings. And then the thesis is as follows. Let me read it to you. When the meeting culture solidifies, it displaces common sense. And what does that mean? Well, when you are having a meeting culture that solidifies, it becomes solid, it becomes stuck, it becomes structure. It replaces or displaces common sense. So the more you have structure in a company where you have old meetings, the more you have to reintroduce common sense by asking critical questions like, why am I here? What is the agenda? What is the purpose of this meeting? Why are we having this meeting? Which is all very good Getting Things Done questions. And like, why? Why are we having this meeting? So that's one of the things that I've been using, spending my time on, in the last few years, giving workshops in these topics to help organizations, departments, and companies change their meeting culture. And that is a— it takes a long time, and it takes diligence, and it takes, you know, focus from the people at all levels to change the meeting culture, because culture will eat any strategy any day, as you know. So, so to change the culture It takes one, you need to wake up. What are we doing here? Which is a good question. And I'm sure that there are GTDers out there who are trying to wake up their meetings or their departments or companies to the fact that we are using a lot of time on things that are not, you know, not, not good for— it doesn't help us. It's— we're just meeting because structure has struck. So, so one of the things I do when I start this is try and attack it with some common sense. Let me see if I can do that now as well by, by, by, um, showing some statistics. I won't show, but I will read some statistics for you. This is from an article in Inc.com from January 2019, and it is, it says, it has some statistics that I picked from that I liked. And this comes also from doodle.com, which are a company who are making it easier to make meeting invitations between people. So they are very important, you know, in thinking, making effective meetings. So some of the statistics says that 44% says that badly organized meetings means that I don't have enough time to do the rest of my work. And I think that is 44% is probably pretty average everywhere, because people that I talk to go to meetings where they don't understand what I'm, what am I doing there, and, and, and what is my purpose here, and why are we doing it at all. And then 43% says that unclear agendas leads to confusion, You know, if you make an agenda, for goodness' sake, make it clear so people understand what is this, and they can also use time for preparations here. And badly organized meetings also leads to loss of focus on projects. So if your meeting is not good, you are not talking about the projects as they should be addressed. You're talking about a lot of other stuff. You'll get derailed. I don't know, have you ever been in a meeting where that has been derailed by some comments. Some person says something and suddenly you talk about something different, which might be good but might not. And it is the— I will come back to that, to the meeting leader's responsibility in a meeting. And then, well, and 31% says that there are irrelevant participants in the meetings that are lowering the the progress of the meeting so that people are there who are not relevant and then start opening their mouth and then suddenly you are derailed or at least you're not moving as fast as you could. And then what, which is really this last one is 26%, this is important because it handles the media, the relations between a client and a supplier of some service. So if you are a supplier of some service to a client, If you don't have good meetings with your clients, it says ineffective processes in meetings weakens the relationship between supplier and client, which means that every fourth meeting that you have with a client is not, you know, an effective meeting. So do, do something about that for goodness sake. And There are some differences between the, you know, the countries here. So the, let me see, find a lost time as, because of bad meetings. In Germany, it's actually the highest number is 74%. People said I lost time because of bad meetings. In the UK, 72%, and the USA wins here with 68%, only 68%. Which is, by the way, 68, 74, doesn't matter. It should be zero, or at least as close to zero as possible. Yeah, I'm not saying that we should not always— and I want to say that when I talk about this, because a lot of people will then think, oh, he needs just— he will be really strict and we should not have any fun in the meetings. No, I'm not saying that. But we should have effective meeting, and then we can have enjoyable meetings, but we should stay on topic. We should not drift. We should, you know, make effective meetings. So, and then my last statistics for today to, to talk about this is, um, what does it cost to have bad meetings? And there is, um, this is a Norwegian who is— his name is Taddeus Ström. He writes for, um, in the Dagens Nyhemsliv, one of the premier business newspapers in, in Norway. He says that 11 billion Norwegian kroner is squandered away because of bad meetings. 11 billion. And this is Norwegian kroner, and we are a small nation. And then, you know, we are maybe 5 million people. So maybe this is, uh, one— for easy sake, $1.1 billion. And then how many people are there in the US compared to Norway, or in Denmark compared to Norway? You're twice our size, are you not?

Lars: No, no, we're about the same.

Morten: It's the same.

Lars: Okay, so 11, I think. So if the US is 300 million, then times 60, right?

Morten: So yeah, yeah, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. So, so not to waste time and money, we need to talk about what can— how can you recognize a great meeting? So, so I have some talking points there, and we can walk through them, and you can give me your comments if you want. So I recognize that these topics as— or sorry, these items as important for understanding if you're in a good meeting or not. So the first point I've written down here is everybody understands what our desired outcome with this meeting is. Does that make sense? Absolutely. And we understand what the meeting should result in. Is it, you know, what is our decisions? It should, or when we are there, are we going to result in decisions and next actions, or are we just going to discuss things? And then we have everybody comes on time, which has actually become better now that we are in Zoom land or in, you know, Teams land. I think, I don't know why, but I feel that there's less people coming, you know, 5 minutes late into a meeting now than when it was physical meetings. And I don't know exactly why. Maybe they meet a colleague that starts talking to them and they don't have the guts or whatever they need to say that, hey, dude, I'm on a meeting.

Lars: I think you might also underestimate that you have to, you know, do that walk and you just want to get that last email sent and you can maybe quickly get there and it's easier just to You know, you're sitting at the screen, the reminder is there, I'll snooze it for 5 minutes and then.

Morten: I'll join just on time. Yeah. So everybody comes on time and only the ones who need to participate in the meeting are participating. There's no dead meat. So the meeting has a clear agenda. So it's clear what you are going to talk about and it's been publicized to people in good time before the meeting, so you can prepare for a meeting. So the meeting is ending on time or before, and that people are not multitasking in the meeting. Have you seen multitasking in meetings? Never happened.

Lars: So I remember that for myself as well, clearly. And that actually, as part of my— when I started with GCD, there were just some, you know, there was a certain speed that you get used to, and sometimes the dialogue would go on for a bit too long, and there might be some topics that weren't directly relevant to you. So as I was taking my meeting notes, I might hit the Alt+Tab and switch over to Outlook and maybe just keep typing, but the typing was not meeting notes but perhaps an email instead.

Morten: Yeah, it might have happened. Yeah, I'm going to at some point create at my YouTube channel, Morten Røvik Gette Dea, for those of you who want to subscribe. Shameless plug there. But I'm going to create a video about multitasking. I'm going to do the multitasking test. But before I, I'm going to do the Theo Kompanholla from the Banechains that you know so well. And, but I'm going to do, but when I did my research for creating that, you know, I started creating a draft of the script. And I realized that there is a lot of YouTube videos about multitasking, which are really good. You should try and do just to search for multitasking test, I think I did. And if you do that, and don't do it now, don't do it now, Lars, don't do it now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, but the idea with this, what I've seen several of them, they have are playing some audio in the background. Which simulates somebody talks. And there is a, you know, a story they are telling in the background. And then you are supposed to read at the same time a different story. And then they will come back and ask you questions about the audio story. And the problem is that you don't get any of them correct. You know, you're starting mixing them and you're starting to— And so, but examples like people are on their phone, doing something with their phone in a meeting or they are switching to Outlook, you know, responding to email, that is, you can please, if you're, well, if you're a client, I will accept this, but if you're not, I will tell you, please pack your things and get out of my meeting because I don't want you there because you're not here, you can just leave. This is, and I'm thinking that this is a really bad culture accepting this. So if you're listening to this and get angry at me, send me an email and explain to me why it's important for you to multitask, because I'm telling you, you are not there. You're not there in— if you're trying to listen to what the meeting is about, at the same time, you're not there in either of the things. So you're writing a crappy email and you're not listening to what people are saying. So why you don't get a choice? Just make a choice of one and stick with that.

Lars: So, okay. But I recognize that as well for myself in the way that I work. I love listening to podcasts and having that podcast play. I might have that, you know, playing when I drive to the office and I'll put in my AirPods and I'll listen to it as I walk to the office into the building and settle in. And as soon as I start to work, the podcast might still be playing. And I just clearly note that I'll start to get cross-eyed because I'm writing something, I'm reading something, I'm listening to something. My brain discuss. No, no, something wrong.

Morten: Just does not work. Yeah, well, I'm not saying that, but for— I totally understand people who can, you know, I'm not saying you should do this in meetings, but you can listen to music while you do work. That's possible because then it quiets your, you know, your distractive brain. It helps me to focus at some times, especially when I need to get some really heavy duty sequential work done because my brain don't like that. He will try and escape. So, but it helps kind of blocks that channel for me if I listen to music. But, but to do that, and of course you should not listen to music in a meeting because that will be.

Lars: Highly distracting for people.

Morten: Today's recommendation from Morten. Don't make this. I'm not doing that. But to be, to be in a, in a in a meeting trying to multitask. And, uh, but I also listen to podcasts when I'm doing something physical that is— especially if it's a little boring, like housework, you know, you know, taking out the dishes from the dishwasher or vacuum or shovel snow or whatnot. That is boring work, and I like to fill that boring work with something that I find interesting. So, so I'm, I'm using that. But in a meeting, no.

Lars: No, don't do that. I do that all the time as well. Also to make it more interesting to go for that run or get that housework done. And also when it comes to listening to music, I find that if it's, you know, if something that I know really well, some old music that I listened to when I was younger, it's much easier to put on. If it's more new music, I'm more easily distracted by it, then it has to be music without words. So I have a couple of playlists that I always go to. There's this Headspace playlist on on Apple Music. And also there is one at Nike Run, Mindful Run or something like that. That both of those are without any spoken word or singing. So that really just, that works really well.

Morten: For me. If we now then shift gear for a little to, for people to start reflecting over meetings that they are in. So you can start categorizing the meetings that you are, you know, on average. And I suggest you then start to write a list, which is we always recommend, write it down. Make a header for each of the meetings that you are part of and ask yourself, what is the purpose of those meetings? And if you find a meeting that you don't really understand the purpose of, that is a good indication you should have a talk with the people who invite you to that meeting. Or if you are the one who inviting people to that meeting, stop. So it could be for planning.

Lars: Or.

Morten: For, for, you know, what we call sharing of status on the project so that you can plan and continue, you know. So where are we at now so we can get coherence between the different people working on the project. It could be a meeting for information sharing, so you're just sharing information that some people are understanding where are we at in the total. And it could also be what we call just social meetings, which is okay, okay, cake. Somebody has, you know, birthday and then just eat the cake. So, but take a note of which meeting you're in, and if you find them effective, what is What is the purpose of the meeting? If that's unclear, find out how. And then the second question is, are the meetings of the right length? When you decided, well, these meetings do have a purpose and I do want to attend them, but then are they at the right length? Are they too short, too long? Normally they will be too long. Maybe you should shorten them. And there is one thing that I would like to mention to people, I know I do it myself, but I don't like that idea that all meetings should be on the hour, 1 hour or 2 hours or 3 hours. That makes no sense to me. So if there's some way that— and it is a way to do that on the server side of Exchange, for those of you who are on Exchange, that you can set the meeting, the normal, the default meeting time to be 50 minutes, for instance. So, you have 10 minutes to go visit the toilet, grab another cup of coffee, and maybe even read the agenda for the next meeting, so that you can, you know, so that makes a lot more sense. Have you seen that in the wild? Some people are using that?

Lars: Yeah, and you can do that yourself as well. So, in more recent versions of Outlook, you can go in there and set that standard yourself. And I've seen this as a company standard, as well that they did this on the server side. But for them, that actually came from the perspective of health and safety. So I think the added benefit, of course, is that you do have time between those meetings, especially in the physical world where they need to walk from one meeting to the next. And they actually had people that injured themselves running from one meeting to the next. So that was actually— that was the story I was told, that this, you know, this was the reason that they they made that change was to make sure that they actually had time to move from one meeting to the next in a safe way. So, yeah, I've certainly seen that in several companies.

Morten: I'm guessing the same for you. Yeah, I have. So, but to do that company-wise or department-wise, you know, make a decision on this. Our meetings are 50 minutes long, or, you know, so that you at least have 10 minutes before the next meeting. And I'm going to challenge you because a lot of the meetings that I attend and that we see that are physical, people are sitting down. Is this the best form of the meeting? Could it be a stand-up meeting? I've attended a few of those and they tend to get very effective. These are often meetings where you will make decisions on things and it is a lot easier to make the decision standing up. Up because then you are forced because you want to sit down. It's hard standing up for a long time for a lot of people and you want to sit down and the effectiveness of the meetings tend to get better. I don't know, have you tried that before? Have you seen that in the wild?

Lars: No, we didn't do it much back in my day, but that was also because much of it was already, you know, back as a consultant, much of it was already online.. And so you would just be standing there at your desk just as I'm standing up right now when we record this podcast or when I have other meetings. So the simple, you know, it's just a normal way for me to do a meeting. So I know it works well for me that I can stand up and move a bit. And also my webcam is actually on the wall behind us, behind the screen. So if I sit down, it will just look weird. I don't know if I'm even in the screen if I don't stand up. So it's just, you know, it's built into a meeting.

Morten: For me. Okay, good. Well, but to stand up, or even as I would suggest, walking meetings, you know, Steve Jobs was famous for his walking meetings that some people actually are releasing mental energy, creativity, and problem-solving capability by moving. They are high movers. We mentioned the Kairos Cognition test before in one of the episodes, and the Kairos Cognition is one of the things, you know, that test reveals if you have a tendency to be a high mover, then maybe you will even get more intelligent when you stand up. So to stand or walk could be an alternative to sit down, and especially for the more informal meeting with a few, not so many people, maybe 2, 3 people walking, that could be a good alternative. And you get a little, you know, exercise as well, which is never bad. Yeah, you get your steps in. So, um, but let's, let's change gear a little and talk about how does, you know, not good meeting culture affect a meeting. Let's look at, for instance, when the meeting— the desired outcome of the meeting or the agenda is unclear. What does that lead to? Now, this is kind of like, you know, that I don't have to tell you, but it leads to frustration and demotivation. Why am I here really? What are we supposed to achieve here? All these questions will happen and demotivation is never good. So ask questions. Why am I here? What are we supposed to do here really? And it also gives— sorry.

Lars: Yeah, no, I was just going to say it's also really hard to finish a meeting early if you don't know.

Morten: When you would be done. Yeah, exactly. So good. So, and it leads also to the— when, if you don't have a clear, decided outcome and an agenda, it slows down the progress of projects. And because you don't ask questions like, who is responsible for this? When are things supposed to be finished? What are we supposed to achieve here, really? You don't ask these questions. So if you are late to a meeting, okay, the ones who are not late, they feel they're, you know, they are wasting their time. And it's, it's if some person are allowed to be late. We've been there. I've been there. Some boss always are late or some person has the, the feeling that I am superior to this meeting culture, so I come when I want or I'm 5, 10 minutes late and that's not my fault. It's not my fault. There is some other external reason why I'm always late. And what is happening? I'm sorry if I'm pointing at you there, listener or viewer, who feel that, yes, this is me. And then I'm sorry, but we don't accept this. Because if somebody is allowed to be late, then it increases the feeling that it is okay for me also to be late. So you get a bad culture. Are, you know, increasing in, in multitude. A lot of other people are not on time then. And then if all are not present that should be present, decisions are not taken. So if you understand that you have a meeting where the decision makers or decision maker is not in the room, and then cancel the meeting. Because you will not make a decision then. This will be a wasteful time. And if somebody is invited to the meeting who really don't understand what their purpose are there, then they will be not there mentally. They will move out to the meeting, do something else because this is not relevant for me. And then you will have the feeling of I have better things to do than stay here.

Lars: Might interrupt the meeting as well, you know, showing up and adding different perspectives that aren't relevant, or, you know, taking the discussion to, to another point which.

Morten: Really wasn't the purpose of the meeting. Yeah. So, um, I have a few pointers that you might want to note down there, listener, is that you might want to— when you are planning a meeting, you can ask these questions to yourself. First question is Why do we have this meeting? So what is the desired outcome for this meeting, or what are we trying to achieve with this kind of meetings? So if you're trying to make a meeting series that is going to continue, why are you doing this? And maybe you need to make sure that you are, you know, thinking about how long does it need to be to achieve ROI. And when you are there, please write down what is decided and look at the focus at the decide outcome. What are the decide outcomes for the things we decided? Who is responsible for filling that, fulfilling that decide outcome? And what's the next action if that's relevant? So that ever— and what is the deadline for when it should be finished? So if you ask these 4 questions, you will be able to to create a dynamic meeting where you have some meeting notes. You write them down and then that will be on the agenda, somewhere on the agenda for the next meeting. So the next meeting you will call, everybody will know what am I responsible delivering on in this. So it makes it easier. Any comments here?

Lars: Do you have some No, that's just the only thing I'm thinking that might be of interest for people listening is also, well, two things. First of all, the perspective of being a meeting participant. So that was sort of a meeting leader perspective. And I do see a lot.

Morten: We are coming there in my notes.

Lars: Yeah. Okay. So I won't skip ahead on that one.

Morten: No, so, but, and when you have, when you have decided, uh, sorry, you've written down your, your, um, referendum of your, or your meeting notes, and then start the next meeting by walking through the, the meeting notes. So then we come to your personal meeting habits. Um, those are important for you and the other people, that you have good meeting habits. And the first one you need to have is prepare for the meeting. Don't just run into a meeting and expect things to be handed to you, especially if there are things you should prepare for. Read through the meeting notes, check if you have responsibility of some of the meetings, there's some notes, and then make a, you know, make a note of what is the status so that you can go into the meeting and, and sound intelligent about the things that you've actually committed to do something about. Always bring something to write on and with. Make sure that you have a place to take notes. When you take notes, make sure that you are making— you can use— I use this, you just make a little square when there are things in my meeting, my personal meeting notes that I am responsible. Next actions that I capture there, make sure that those are captured. And always block time for after work if that's necessary. For instance, if you need to clarify and organize the meeting notes after. If you don't have time to do that just after the meeting, just put your meeting notes in your in-tray or make a note that you should check your— if you use digital, just make a note that you should check it after for clarifying, organize. So none of the next actions in the meeting notes are lost. Because I've seen this. And, um, uh, please try and avoid me, you know, back-to-back meetings, what we call wall-to-wall meetings in Norway, and because you will not have time to process anything and you'll just run from one meeting to another, and it's totally waste of time if you're not doing something. Then we have what I call good Post-work of after the meetings, and you know, you have to prepare for this. Find all the things that you've prepared, you know, that you've decided to do something, get them into your task management system, and, and, and, you know, collect and archive all relevant information that you need to look at. If there is a PDF or it's a handout you need to take care of, make sure that that's not just lost for you. So if you are going back You can also sound intelligent and appear intelligent because you have control of everything that is part of that meeting. And do good pre-work for the meeting. Read through the meeting notes, as we said, and check what you are responsible for and status. And then make a little extra time for reflection if you have. If there is something you would like to suggest, just jot it down.. And you can use your agenda for that meeting if you have agenda for a list for the staff meeting, for instance. And just if that's the meeting we're talking about, then just make notes of what you should raise there. So that's, you know, that's good pre-meeting work. Any comments, Lars?

Lars: Does this still make sense? Yeah, no, I'm reminded, you know, just to maybe the mind sweep perspective, just bringing the GTD aspect into it that, you know, some meetings will benefit from just a quick break at the beginning. We often do that in webinars and seminars and just, you know, give people just a minute or two to write things down, whatever's on their mind. Perhaps if they were in back-to-back meetings, get that stuff out of your head so you can actually be present with the meeting here. And I was reminded, as you were talking about taking meeting notes and the different strategies for making, maybe making notes for yourself, I found some meeting notes several years back. There was a heavy, you know, important big meeting, very crucial for the whole big project. And in the middle of those meeting notes, I had a note to myself to don't forget to buy cake. So, at some point in that meeting, I was reminded to buy this cake. And we were on the island where I live, we would say that we make the best version of this cake. And I was on a project in a different part of the country. So, I wanted to bring this cake with me. So, that was actually in those, you know, critical meeting notes with all the big decisions. Don't forget cake. As always, capture whatever, whatever shows up. And of course, have the practice to run through those notes and make sure that they then migrate into the right.

Morten: Places in your system. Yeah. Well, if you have a, you know, a department or a meeting where you only have GTDers, just do a mind sweep before. It's a good idea. Just 3 minutes mind sweep. And you don't have to tell people what that is. If you are a GTDer, you know what that is. So, so that kind of brings me to the end of my little— my notes for this episode. I just want to reiterate or just bring back that if you are in a meeting culture, if it solidifies, it displaces common sense, and the only way to get it back is to answer— sorry, to ask critical questions. To, to, and by asking critical questions like, why are we having these meetings? What is the purpose? Maybe the two most important questions you can ask, you know, the what, why are we having this, and what's the purpose? So kind of two, two sides of the same coin, maybe. But if you don't ask that, you will continue to have bad meetings, and we won't have great meetings with GTD. So why is very important Yeah, exactly. And you can also use the natural planning model here, you know, for planning a meeting, which is very good, especially the two first parts there where you have the purpose of the meeting. Why are we having this? And ask enough whys to understand why we are having this meeting. And then what's the standards? What's the framework we work within? Well, it's 55 minutes. It's supposed to have these things on the agenda. And then how does wild success look like? How would we know these meetings are wild success. And that is helping you to plan good meetings.

Lars: So, yeah, exactly. So I think there may be some homework for the listeners and viewers to just reflect on the meetings that they are leading based on the great tips that you shared now. And as well also as a participant, because I often see that, especially when coaching, it will vary from client to client based on the culture there and what their roles and responsibilities are. But it really I really see some heavy-duty calendars really, really filled up. And there will be cultures where I did a seminar earlier or last month actually now, as we record this, where they would have multiple meetings stacked at the same time. So, they might have 3 or 4 meetings from 1 to 2. And how would that even make sense, right? So, really think through whether you need to be a part of these meetings. Ask if you should be there. Or if not, then let the people know that, OK, can I maybe 'Can we just get the meeting notes? Can you let me know? Can you— I'll be available, but, you know, message me on Teams, and I'll jump into the meeting when you need me for those 5 minutes, and then I'll jump back out because I have my list of things to do, and I don't have time to sit, you know, 55 minutes just listening where I'm just needed 5 minutes.' And the other part was that I was reminded when you were walking through it was I had a client that specifically stated that, you know, it was so nice now that she could actually walk into a meeting and feel comfortable that she knew what they were going to discuss. And she actually was aware of the different statuses of the items on the agenda. It just was a, you know, a big, big change for her. So there's a lot of value in having good clear strategies about meetings and.

Morten: Also your own perspective on this. And I would like to ask the listeners a question. And you can answer by writing us an email at podcast@agileacademy.com. Podcast@gtdnordic.dk. And my question that I would like you to reflect a little about is how are you using GTD in your meetings? So if you're leading a meeting and you know GTD, how are you using that actively? Are you, are you doing something we've not discussed, or would you like to just tell us how you are doing your meetings? That will be something we can mention in a future episode. And any, yeah, and any good ideas would be a good, you know, to, to add to what we just said.

Lars: Yeah, I'm sure we'll hear from someone who says, so they will, you know, when there's 20 minutes left of that meeting, they will start to look for, so what are the projects, what are the next actions, who owns them, so all of that is clear as they.

Morten: As they start to leave. Yeah, yeah, let's, let's, um, I'm hopeful that someone will answer our question because, um, I'm interested to see how are you doing this out there? What are your takeaways? Those of you who call yourself a GTDer, I'm doing getting things done at the best of my ability, and I use it this way in a meeting. That is, I would like to hear that. So please send us an email.

Lars: Or if you have some challenges, right? So if there are some things that you just feel, you know, it's hard to figure out how would we deal with this in a meeting. Of course, there might be some things that are just cultural. So how will I get out of all those meetings? Well, you know, let's discuss. Let's see if there are any tips we can maybe share, but also if you're struggling with the meetings, then be.

Morten: Sure to let us know as well. Yes, yes, indeed. So, I think we have one listener who sent something to us. Yeah, could you read his email to us?

Lars: Yeah, sure. So, following, I think, the tools episode, we got an email from Jonathan Jonathan saying, dear Morten and Lars, always a pleasure to hear how you use tools to maintain a good GTD system. Recently you discussed Devonthink as a tool, but you made no mention of the very excellent ability to copy item links to individual documents, which can then be pasted into another, any other system, at least on a Mac, for instant recall to the document or even page within the document from, for instance, OmniFocus or Obsidian. An excellent tool for capturing notes in text and markdown. I would refer you to a recent episode of Mac Power Users if you're interested in either project.

Morten: Kind regards from Jonathan Kelp. Yeah, thank you, Jonathan. And you are right, we didn't mention that and we should have. So thank you for reminding us. But you can in Devonthink make, you know, Devonthink as a database for reference material is great because it's a safe place to put things and you can make them just copy the internal link and paste it anywhere., you know, and, you know, as he says, in OmniFocus, I'm using that actively. And, but also in, I use it in Pipedrive for doing that same thing. And, yeah, good tip. Thank you for bringing that to our attention, Jonathan. So I think we are at the end.

Lars: Lars, will you take us out? I think we are. And we always wrap up these episodes by reminding you to head on over to gtdnordic.com, have a look around. On that website, you will find links to each of the country websites for the Nordic countries. And on each of those sites, you will find all of the offerings that we have in each of those countries, different articles about GTD, links to newsletters, groups on social media, etc. And if you're outside the Nordics, gettingthingsdone.com is the place to go to find your local partners. And also, as usual, a quick reminder that if you are not already watching us right now, you could be So we post these episodes on each of our YouTube channels. So if you want to watch the next episode, head on over there to subscribe. There are links to both of our channels in the show notes as well as the email address that we just referred to, podcast@utdignotic.dk. And lastly, as always, we really hope that you find these episodes valuable. And if you do, especially I think this one, maybe it might be great to share with a colleague to maybe discuss how you do meetings in your organization and maybe you could change some things, make your meetings even greater with some of the things that we talked about today. And the other great way to help us out is to rate us on iTunes or your podcast player. It really helps the discoverability of the podcast, so that helps as well. Thanks so much to those of you.

Morten: Who have already done so. Indeed. Thank you. Thank you. And until next time, people, stay safe and stay productive.

Lars: Bye-bye.

Morten: Bye everyone.