62. Changing Your Habits

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 Morten Røvik and I'm here as always with my good friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Terje Lars.

Lars: Hi Morten, good to see you as always and looking forward to recording another episode for our listeners and viewers out there. The purpose, for those of you who have not come across this podcast before, is for us to help you learn GTD or become even better GTDers. So we hope, as always, that this episode supports you in that. And if it does, we always love to hear from you. If you are new to GTD, we always recommend you go back and listen to episodes 1 through 6 of the podcast to get an introduction to the basics of GTD. So this is episode number 62 of the podcast, and today we'll be talking about something that is very much a part part of a GTD reality.

Morten: Exactly. We are going to talk about changing your habits. And before we go there, I just want to say thanks, thanks to Paul Vahur from Estonia. He's a certified GTD trainer who gave me the greeting we have today. Tere is Estonian. So if you, if you want us to use your language, send us an email at podcast@gtdnordic.dk. Podcast@dtgenordic.dk, and your language will be represented in our podcast. But changing your habits— habits is an integrated part of getting things done. You have to change them. And the problems, as I see it, when you're starting out with getting things done, and even if you've been doing it for a while, is that you have used your whole life up till you got to know or, you know, learn about GTD to build your own habits on how you, you know, how you handle everything that life throws at you. And that's, that's, you know, you are used to this. And I don't know if you recognize this, but I remember when I learned, started learning GTD back in 2006, That took a little time for me. How was it about you?

Lars: Yes, it really took time and it really took, you know, many small steps, which is really very much aligned with what we're talking about today in taking parts of GCD, the practice, the way to work, and then really integrating that to be just a natural way to do things. So for me, the starting point, just to capture things that was really new to me, as simple as it sounds. Stupid as it sounds, really, to not write things down. When I look back at that practice, it really took some time to getting used to that.

Morten: Yeah, me too. The way we've been talking about this, structured this podcast, is that we will like to take you through the 5 steps of GTD and talk about what habits you need to establish and where you might find your pitfalls. And then we will talk about, you know, the habit itself. What does books and science say about this, and give you maybe some book tips at the end when we discuss the, you know, the more specifics of a habit. So, and you mentioned one of the most important ones that you need to establish, Loris, which is where it all starts, by capturing everything that has your attention, that you might want to do something about, that you want to do something about, or that you have a worry about. And you do that practically by writing it out of your head or talking it into somewhere, and it's either physical paper or digital capture. And one of the stumble stones that I've seen people have, I don't know if you saw that when you learned GTD back in the day, but One of the things I've seen in the wild, and I can recognize by myself, is that when you have something that comes to your inside your brain, you understand this, I might want to capture, you are alluding yourself saying that, oh, I will remember this. I don't have to write this down. This is so obvious to me. Have you ever had that?

Lars: Exactly. Yeah, that happens all the time. And that, you know, we see that a lot in seminars and coaching. So if people are coming from a better place than I was, I would never write anything down. So just starting to write something down helped me. But obviously there are several people that will meet GTD and have better practices regarding capture already, but they will typically capture the big things. And as, as those of you who are seasoned GTDers know, is that if you only capture the big things, then the small things will start to grab your attention. These are all commitments. Showing up will all, you know, distract you from your meetings. Cat food is the classical example of I have to I have to remember to buy that, I have to remember to buy that. And that'll interrupt your whole day, your whole focus for the whole day.

Morten: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, if you want to convince yourself that it is good to capture things and, you know, to get it out of your head, it might be a good exercise to think back on your own practices. That if you ever had something on your mind that you forgot, that's a good— even important things that you might want to do something about. If you ever had that, that you forget things, then start thinking about those things. And you might, you know, use your common-sensical frontal cortex and ask yourself, is it a good idea I start doing this more consistently? And the answer is yes, it is. Because the more you do that, the more present you become in the moment. And that's, you know, the core idea of getting things done is your mind is— not for, you know, as a system, it's not a good idea. Your head is for having ideas, not holding them. Exactly. But when you are— if you look back, and when you establish the habit of capturing, what would you say that was the main holding Lars back from establishing this habit?

Lars: I think understanding the value of the clear head. And I think that's sort of an overall thing that we also often talk about in GCD circles is trying to teach people that there is a way to have everything out of your head. And obviously that's the starting point is to write things down. I had a Q&A with a company, an organization in Denmark yesterday where we were talking about this because they, you know, as they went into the seminar, they were looking forward to, you know, making better lists. But that clear head that some of them had really grasped now, you know, 2, 3 months after the seminar, and now they knew what that entailed and the value of writing things down, getting.

Morten: That out of your head. And it is for a lot of people a new experience that you kind of like, you free up your synapses. It's like a fresh breeze blows over inside your brain and you are able to think again without stress. And for a lot of people, that's very— and for most people, it's a very good experience. The only exception is that if you're addicted to stress, you will feel this a little stressful, not having something to think about. You will start thinking, hey, I'm not stressed, what's wrong here?

Lars: Yeah, no, and I had that. I had a coaching client mention to me, I think it was at the end of last year that he was, he felt that something was wrong because he had not opened his laptop in the evening for the past 2 months. He had just been there, you know, spending time with his wife and his kids and, you know, it just felt wrong.

Morten: No shit, Sherlock.

Lars: You know, that's great.

Morten: That's so good to hear. Yeah. And that's what it's all about, isn't it? You know, the ability to keep a clear head.

Lars: And he said that he felt stressed because he was not stressed. Yeah, which is— that was kind of what he said.

Morten: Yeah, that's counterintuitive, that. But, um, no, but if you, if you are going to, you know, I think it might be now that we could mention some of the, the basic structure of habit building that we have read about, and I'm going to give you more detailed book references after, but we have one of the first books I read about habits. It's called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Have you read the same book, or.

Lars: Have you read it? I have read the book, yeah. And I believe he's a GCDEr as well, right?

Morten: Oh yeah, yeah, I think so too. So, but he recognizes this as the habit has 3 steps or 3 stages, if you want. It's the trigger that starts the habit, it's the habit itself, and then it's the reward after. If I'm— if somebody has read the book and remember it differently, tell me.

Lars: No, it's exactly— so the cue, the routine, the reward.

Morten: Exactly. Okay, so the cue, the trigger is— when it comes to capture, the cue then, or the trigger, should be that I have something inside my brain that I'm thinking about that's come revisiting me. And if you have had, you know, if you experience to have the same thoughts 2 times, that's a good indication that it is on your mind but it's not getting done. So you might want to write that down. And the habit itself is writing it down. And the reward you will get is the feeling of, oh, I'm back to, you know, Zen, the equilibrium where you are present in the moment. There's nothing pulling on your attention. Correct me if I'm wrong, but David Allen quote is something like, when you understand what has your attention, you will understand what really has your attention.

Lars: Exactly.

Morten: Which means that every time you take something out, something else might show up. So be prepared when you're trying to establish this, that a lot of things might show up because you're clearing your head and then things in your mid or long-term memory might show up. So be prepared to always have your capture tools close by.

Lars: That's my recommendation. And exactly understanding that reward, that takes time. And that's part of the challenge I see when people try to establish the habits of GTD and the ways of working is that it does take time to really grasp that reward. That clear mind does not come when you just sit down and write down 5 things when you don't have any of the other habits gets installed. So it does take time to really understand. And that's what they mentioned yesterday, meaning that now 2, 3 months after the seminar, now they really, really grasped it. And of course, that then helps them establish that habit because the reward is now so clear to them. What happens when I write things down and get that out of my head?

Morten: Yeah, it is. If you are using your head as a system, you will feel that physically, you know, that when the reward is not coming, that clear head reward where you, you know, the first breeze, you know, is stroking your synapses. When you don't have this, but you have the opposite, which is stress. I'm stressed by everything that's in my brain. You know, I have a lot, too much things to think about. Then that's a good indication you're not doing that habit. So start doing it consistently and you will have that, you know, that we, you know this very well, the listeners might not, but David Allen has taught us all that the productive experience is when you're not stressed. The unproductive experience is when you are stressed. So you want to be in the productive experience, and an indicator if you're not is that you're— if you are stressed, you're not in the right zone. And the way that you get into stress-free productivity is start capturing consistently, get everything out of your head, decide what it means, park it in the system you trust, review the system, and do. Which is a very short version of the 5 steps. So, but if you're not— if you feel stressed about everything you've not done yet, write it down. So, um, so anything else to add on the habit of— No, I think.

Lars: It'S just, it always— it continues to fascinate me how we, you know, what people write down. So when we sit down with people and what they write down, what has their attention, what actually shows up, is it work-related, is it personal? Um, I worked with a coaching client recently that where you would, I would have expected him to simply write all the, oh, that's right, I have to send that PDF and I had to reach out to these 10 clients and all the work stuff. But relatively quickly he came into some personal things and there was something about his relationship that he wanted to work on and do better. And it's just fascinating to me to see what what shows up on people's minds once they start to write things down and don't really apply any filter, just write it all down, whatever has their attention.

Morten: And it could be that if you have worry about something that you might want to do something about, that's been rummaging, that might be— And that's not very— The book and the courses don't focus on the worry part, but I think that's important because it's If you understand that you have worry on something, and these, in the times that we live now, there is plenty to worry about. You know, that's not a problem. But if you want to live a good life in the midst of this chaos, you have to write everything down and ask yourself, can and should I do something about this? And if you cannot do something about it, just accept it as it is. Now Morten the Stoic.

Lars: Is coming. Yeah, and especially so in the Level 1 seminars where we talk about this, people will tend to write more of those direct things down, what's going on right now. And then one of the things I love about the Level 2 seminar is actually to then start, are there any problems or issues in your life right now? Hmm, well, if there is, well, let me just capture a few more things and then let's talk about.

Morten: Them.

Lars: Yeah.

Morten: So should we move on to clarify and organize? Let's do. Yeah, because this is where I see that people I've been saying this in this podcast many times before, but I see that one of the things that is the most difficult for people to get to stick is clarify. That is, decide if you're going to do something about something, and when you've decided, clarify the next action and the desired outcome. If you do not focus on this, you will more or less voluntarily, you will drag unclear things, emails and stuff, and cat foods, you know, unclarified things into your system after you clarify them. And for those of you who is not seeing this on the video, I'm doing air quotes. If you're not clarifying it, good, you will drag unclear things into your system. And when you look at the system later, you will go, I don't know what to do here, so I will procrastinate this, or maybe I will do something that I find easier. One of the key principles and the paradigm shift in Getting Things Done is to clarify everything that has your attention, that you want to do something about, into physical next actions where you have everything you need. If you do that on a consistent basis and then ask yourself when you've done that, does this next action finish this, or do I have a desired outcome here that I will help me remember that this is not finished when I've done my next action. And to be good about this takes time, but it's well worth building that habit.

Lars: Wouldn't you agree, Lars? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I can really recognize what you're saying in the, you know, we come across GTDs that clarify, but there is a significant difference in how well you clarify. Are these really thought through? Is that really the next action? Is it well-defined? Is it on the right list? Do you actually want it on your list? Because now you, you know, 10 new things showed up last week and right now you actually maybe need to put that on hold for now. So having good clear next actions is such a critical step. And again, it's very different to how people work this step. I see this especially in coaching with people and how, where they might, you know, might start to do things or whether they, you know, how well they can then work from their lists following.

Morten: A good clarifying process. And just a little heads up for those of you who are new to GTD: when you clarify and organize, you should not say yes to everything that's, you know, on your, on your, you know, capture lists or your mental mind sweep lists. Maybe something is someday maybe, or it should be on pause, or Because, and this is one of the things that I see people have a habit, is that if it hits my brain, I have to do something about it. I have to decide to do something. And to answer that question, if you think that, if you're in that place, no, you don't have to do everything that your mind cooks up or somebody tells you you should do. You should make a decision. And when clarifying, that's the decision-making time. Should I do something about this? Yes or no? And most often I see a lot of people have to be better at saying no. Because the minute you get good at GTD, when you clarify and organize everything, your list becomes often humongous. We've all been there. You know, the list grows out of, you know, proportions. And when you're doing your Engage, whether you are going to do what you decided to do before. You look at your list and you go, oh, this is just too many next actions to pick from. And that is a good, good, you know, then you have to go back to the drawing board, which is to clarify and ask yourself, am I really going to do this seriously?

Lars: So beware, people. Yeah, no, and I recognize that, and I've mentioned this on the podcast before, and it's, you know, for I think 3 years now, it must be that I really have to maintain a focus on not putting too many new things on my plate because it really does tend to, you know, that's new, that's interesting, that's so cool, and parking ongoing projects. Well, I said I was going to do this, so I don't really want to stop doing it. And yeah, I can— yeah, you might be talking about me when you— I'm.

Morten: Sorry, I wasn't thinking that, but it is, it is You know, when somebody asks you to do something, it's kind of like a gentle stroke on your ego if somebody asks you to do something. And you would like to help people. You would like to be a good person. And when a colleague asks you or your boss tells you something you might want to do, then you have to take a step back and ask yourself seriously, is this the most important thing I can do now? For me, the company, my career? And if it is, accept and then do something about it. But if you understand that you've said yes to too many things, that's one of the habits you have to build. Say no, which is difficult. But that is the clarify part, is where most people tend. And one of the things I've seen that people are tending to, I've seen this with my coaching clients over and over and over again. This is the main part, what people don't get clarified is that, but also when you, when you clarify, you do not add the serious, seriously, am I going to do this? So remember that. Yeah. So, so, okay. So moving on to organize, where, where have you seen people are not doing, you know, that building that habit? Well, have you seen?

Lars: Yeah, I think it really, again, the, the two steps are really interconnected, clarifying and organizing. So When things are not being organized, you know, like I think the classical example might be the email inbox. That is just one long list of things that have, however long you've been in that company, those are the 11,000 or 60,000 emails that are just sitting there. And you, we see different strategies with, you know, flags and unread emails and however people have previously worked with emails. But that's probably the most classical example. In my world, at least.

Morten: I don't know, what about you? Yeah, that is also— a lot of people have a bad habit about, you know, they are saying that, well, I need my emails in my inbox because they remind me of everything that's not finished. Yes, that's correct. If you clarify and organize them, you have them in two places. Now you have two places to look what you've committed to. The idea of clearing your inbox, don't use your email inbox as a list of, like a to-do list, is because it becomes a crappy place to, because things will appear there when you are trying to reflect on something else. So get it out of your inbox and into your lists. Decide next actions and decide outcomes and keep it there. And, you know, clear it out on a regular basis. Every 24 hours, that's the best practice of GTD. 24 to 48 hours, you should clear your inbox in the week. So, and I'm— and this is for a lot of people, then the reward of doing that is the reward of, you know, if you're not seen an empty inbox before, try, try a couple of times and tell us how you feel after. Because it is kind of unison that you get a bit euphoric, it's like, and maybe a little afraid because I've seen people get anxious when they get an empty email. I have nothing to do. Yeah. No, Sherlock, you have, but it's not in your email any longer. It's in your list. System, which is the proper place, because you don't have emails popping up in your lists when you're trying to reflect on what's the right thing to do. And, and I'm, uh, you know, am I doing the right stuff now? Am I, you know, engaging in the, in the right things?

Lars: So yeah, and that overview that you get, yeah, I think as part of the reward for me at least is, uh, you know, that empty inbox and then looking at those lists that you know exactly what you've committed to, what are the active projects That's one aspect. And then when you sit down and work, is it easy for you to actually pick the right things to do? Those, you know, those rewards then really help me establish the habit of, right, I need to really clarify, really think through, should I do this? And if so, what's the next action? What's the project? And get those on the right list.

Morten: And that brings us into Reflect, which is the fourth step of the five steps of Getting Things Done. And And this is also one of the keystone habits. You know, the first keystone habit is capture, then second is clarify things and organize them into your system. And then after you build the system, you have a system to review, and you should review as often as you need to, to stay clear and appropriately engaged, but at least once a week. And that's what we call the weekly review. But if you're thinking back when you're starting to establish your GTD practice, how did that work for you? Was it easy to establish this as a routine?

Lars: That's like you say, it's one of the really the keystone habits of Getting Things Done is the weekly review. And it's one of the things where most people will struggle. So I'm always excited when I hear from people that they really focus on that weekly review. Week. I got to get that one done. I really want to get that in my calendar because that really will help them with the whole practice in itself and really understanding the value of it. And I think the way David probably used to describe it was so that you really feel that you have to do it. There's something wrong if you don't get that done, kind of like if you missed brushing your teeth in the morning, there's something wrong.

Morten: The yuck factor, I think he called that.

Lars: Exactly. So we want to— yeah, yeah. So really need to get that review done. And again, focusing on, from a habits perspective, focus on the feelings afterwards, how good it feels when you've done the weekly review. And that's just consistent from all the GTDers. And for me, following the Danish GTD community and coaching clients and seminar participants, that's always it. That, yeah, now I've gone through it. Now it's, you know, now I can feel good about what I'm working on. I can more easily disconnect and stay present with friends and family, all that.

Morten: Good stuff that comes from the weekly review. Yeah, exactly. And that's the reward. But it's sometimes very hard to get started. And, you know, what I see is that you might have an inert inside you, an inner resistance of doing that. And I've tried to analyze that. For myself, and I try to remember how, you know, my thinking process was back in the day. My first inner resistance of not doing, you know, or for, for not doing a GTD review, a weekly review, is I feel I can't prioritize my own time. You know, this is time by me where I have to sit down, I have to think about my stuff, and, and I'm not important enough. I don't know if you have— have you ever had that strange thought that I'm not important enough for what? For prioritizing time for you?

Lars: Yeah, exactly. No, now there are other people waiting and I wanted to get that one done.

Morten: And yeah, then I'll call you for, you know, to have a meeting on an exact time that you are going to do your weekly review. Yeah, I'm just mentioning this because I think a lot of people feel that. I can't prioritize time for me where I have to reflect. So, if you feel that, know that you are mistaken. This is very important for you as a person, and you as a person, you are important. Don't forget this. You're the most important person in your life. You should be. If not, think again. This is— I got into some hard weather for saying this, but I'll say it until I flip, because if you can't take care of you, who can you take care of? So you need to take care of you to make sure that you are, you know, in a good place. So, so focus on that. You are important, and that actually taking time for doing your work good is important, not also for you, but also for the company and for your family. If you are reflecting well, you will do more of the right things.. And that's my first inner resistance. Do you have some resistance that you.

Lars: Remember, Lars, from your time of establishing GTD? No, it's probably somewhat similar to that in that taking the time for that. I was lucky in the sense that I had a long commute, and that sort of lent itself when I felt I could take the time. To actually get into that weekly review state. So I had a lot of time on the train for me to sit there and work through it. And, you know, sometimes I had to sit there and I had to— there was a bunch of emails that I had to deal with instead, so I might dive into that. But really having that time helped me establish that. And I think some of the things that also helped me— and again, you know, zooming out overall with GTD, a lot of this is practice and then learning the reward that comes with this. And Again, with the weekly review, it's one of the things that we also in the seminars really highlight to, you know, try to make your own, try to build your own practice on this, customize the checklist, Google weekly review PDF, grab those steps, put it into wherever, Word document, OneNote, wherever it might fit for you, and then make your own list. Start with a good cup of coffee, have that weekly review playlist playing in the background, and give yourself a reward at the end, maybe some kind of some kind of reward that again helps you then trigger and making you want to actually do that.

Morten: With your view. Yeah. One of my other inner resistance that I found is that it involves heavy thinking. And especially if you are, as me, a high associative, you know, the Kairos cognition test for those of you for It's called Kairos Cognition Survey, it's called. So I'm sure Lars can make a note now. We can put it in the show notes for those who want to understand more about what this is. We use this, the Kairos Cognition Survey, when we coach clients and when we train trainers, because we would like to understand how does your mind prefer processing information. And you will be on a scale where the outer points are, you know, high associative or high sequential. And for me, who is a high associative, it's difficult to do the weekly review in itself because it's very sequential work. My brain hijacks me all the time. It wants to run off into the fields and think free and think associative. But the weekly review is, is sequential. And what I suggest people do for getting out of, you know, building that habit, if you're highly associative, is maybe do it in, you know, do 15 minutes focused work and then just get up and walk around the, you know, the house or your office or put your head out to the window, break it up. And that makes it easier. And use Use a timer if you find 2-minute things, because your brain is very good at giving you the illusion that this will only take 2 minutes. 15 minutes, you're still at it. I know this so well. And suddenly, instead of taking like maybe an hour or 45 minutes, an hour and a half, maybe it's more or less normal, it can take 3, 4 hours. And for me, that is a struggle. Every time I do a weekly review, I have the same problems, and that is my head will take me and run with me. And so I have to be prepared for that and then try to break it up. And if you stand up, that might be, change your habit, do something differently for a little while to break it up.

Lars: That makes sense. Yeah, I, I played around with that as well recently. I, um, I, I took my, you know, instead of doing it at the, uh, my usual Mac at the office, I took my iPad, I sat down on the couch and did it instead, you know, just trying to, to make a change, a difference in scenery.

Morten: Yeah, and people like doing it in cafes with, you know, some good music in the earbuds if you are, you're that kind of person who like to be block out your internal noise and external noise by music. If you're a high mover, do it standing up. If you're a high observer, make sure that you're not distracted. Don't do it looking out the window. Looking into a white wall might help you to keep the focus. So, but building that habit takes It takes time. And it— but it is, you know, this is the habit that you have to work on until the whole— all the steps of Getting Things Done has the same principles, are that you will learn about GTD, you will start implementing it, you will start working on it, you will integrating it as a habit, and at some point it will become more like a routine. When it becomes a routine, you don't think about it. And I'm there, I don't have to think about, I need to do a weekly review. That's written in stone, more or less, for me. Because if I don't, I don't feel good. It's the dirty underwear yuck factor, as David will talk about. I don't like that. I can't really— I can relax without doing it, but I don't feel comfortable.

Lars: It's something a little off. And that habit feeling, I think many GTDers out there will also recognize it in the clarify steps. So those questions are just, you know, if something shows up in my world, I'll capture it. When I look at that list and want to clarify and organize, it's just second, you know, it's just built in. It's just, that's how I think about those things. What is it? Is it actionable? What's the next action? What's the project? And whatever you might come across. And just also, you know, you mentioned the energy requirement for you to sit down and do a weekly review. I also see that when it comes to the clarifying and organizing step that there will be, again, like we mentioned earlier, really want to do well when you clarify and organize things. So you find the right next actions and you make good, clear outcome descriptions. And if you do that too frequently during the day, for example, or you do it when you're too tired, that can more often lead to mistakes. So really keep an eye on that one. That energy level is, you know, a certain amount of energy is required to go through that.

Morten: It's heavy lifting, heavy mental lifting. You know, the decision is And, and just to riff 2 seconds about, you know, how your brain is put together when it comes to this, is that your— what you are using when you are making decisions are your glucose, who is, you know, the, the fuel of the brain. It's built up during the night and you don't have an infinite resource on that. So, so make sure you're doing it when you're fresh and your memory, you know, your, your brain is active. And when you are getting started doing GTD, you are starting, you know, stopping, you're starting your stopping of multitasking in your brain. You don't try and reflect on more than one thing at the same time, which is core of the problem for a lot of people that leads to stress. Theo Campanola, Brain Chains, is very clear on that, is that if you try to reflect on more than one thing at the same time, you will stress yourself. It will take longer time to do things, 50% on average, and you will make more mistakes. And you will burn the glucose in your brain and you will be tired. And when you are tired, then you can do, you know, let's go for another book, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, who's very clear on that. If you don't have enough energy, brain energy, that is, you will resort to your, what you call, System 2. System 1 and System 2, is that the name? I don't remember exactly, but you have the number 1 is your strategic long-term thinker, where your common sense and everything that's wise about your brain lives, while you will move it down to more the Neanderthal amygdala. Emotion state where you make worse decisions than if you are using your frontal cortex. So to be able to do a good weekly review and to clarify and organize, you should reserve time when your memory, sorry, your brain is at a fresh state. Don't, and I say this very clearly, don't try and clarify and organize and do a weekly review when your brain is tired. Just don't do it. It's like whipping your brain with barbed wire. Don't try that. You are not able to think. And if you make decisions, then I'm sure your brain will, you know, your decisions will not be as good as if you, you know, took the time to do it when your brain is fresh.

Lars: Makes sense. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the challenge. Then you have to go back and clarify and organize again or rethink things or move things off the list and park them.

Morten: And yeah, all sorts of things can come from that. Yeah. Okay, so moving on to the last step of GTD is Engage, and that is when you are either looking at your calendar and doing what's on your calendar, or if you have some spare time, you look at your, your lists and pick from them based on context time available and energy level. So I think people do have a bit of a problem, myself included, when I started, you know, establishing GTD as a habit, is that when you are engaging, it's easy to get drawn into something and start, especially if you're not done clarifying and organizing well, and, you know, and not done your weekly review. The idea with getting things done step 5 is that you will engage with something, you will feel good about it, you'll feel good about doing just that and nothing else. So how would you define the best.

Lars: Habits for that, Loris? Making that decision? I would just maybe take a step back and, and say that this step is, is one of the places where I really see the past habits conflicting with the new practices of GTD. So when you're implementing GTD, it's really— this is where it's really easy to fall back to old habits and then just, you know, working from your email inbox. So when you sit down and decide, what should I be working on? Well, if I check my email inbox, I'll open Outlook in the morning, and then I'll just be stuck in there for 4 hours doing all the stuff that shows up. So really being conscious about that is something that I have, you know, benefited a lot from really taking a step back. So sitting down and really being aware of the threefold nature of work and figuring out what is the right thing for me to do at this time. Obviously, if there's a meeting in my calendar, then it's a pretty straightforward decision, assuming that it's the right meeting to attend to. But otherwise, you know, taking a step back and, you know, should I be working from my list now? Should I be— has something shown up that I maybe should take care of right now? Should I be emptying my inbox? And really being clear on that decision is something that's really helped me a lot in working on the right things at.

Morten: The right time. I do, I concur exactly. So, but, and I wanted to, to talk about just one thing at the end here before we start looking at the books and recommendations if you want to learn more about building habits. And that is the, the threefold nature of work. Because And what is this? Lars, take us through this.

Lars: What is it? Yeah, maybe that was fair to define. So we work with these 3 different types of work. We have the predefined work, which is work that has been clarified and organized. So these are the lists that you have. These are the stuff in your calendar that you— meetings that you need to attend to, or full-day events, things that you need to get done on a specific day. So the things that are already defined for you, that's the predefined work. Then we have the unplanned work, which is work that just shows up. So your phone rings or your colleague drops by your desk or something has shown up in your life that you haven't even had a chance to, to, to deal with it, capture, get into the system, et cetera. So that kind of thing that just shows up. And the last one is defining your work. So that means clarifying and organizing your inboxes. So getting those, you know, picking one thing up, clarifying that, organizing it into the appropriate place, and then moving on to the next next one. And really being aware of that, I think, helps, you know, again, coaching clients with not multitasking. So coming back to what you were saying with Theo Campagnolo, for example, on the brain chain side of really making that a separate way to work. Now I'm going to sit down now and empty my inbox. That is my work right now. And then I'm going to work from my list afterwards or whatever else feels.

Morten: Like the right thing to do. And the reason I wanted to to talk a little about this is because building the habit of doing GTD is under, you know, defining work. And that's a bit of the paradigm shift for a lot of people, is that when you need to set aside time to define your work, that is clarify and organize, and you have to redefine your work again when you're doing your review, reflect step. And when you do that, when you are establishing this, it's very important to make sure that you stay in the gear. So if you're in gear number 2, you're clarifying, and then you're organizing quickly up to number 3 and organize it, then back to number 2. And you stay there until you clarify and organize everything that you've, you know, that's either on your your mental mind sweep, or in your inboxes. And do that consistently and stay in that gear. And then switch gear and ask yourself, okay, in the trifold nature of work, what makes most sense for me now? If something is in your calendar, do it or attend that meeting. If nothing is in your calendar and you have to take a step back, should I then, you know, if you're finished clarifying and organizing or you're reflecting, what should I then focus on? Is it, you know, doing predefined work? That's good. Or should I just open my door? For a lot of managers and leaders, that's just opening your door is enough for having, you know, ad hoc work, you know, as it shows up. But, but to be conscious about where am I, it takes time. To be, you know, in which mode or modi or modal— what is— how.

Lars: Is.

Morten: That in English? Which, yeah, which mode or mood are you in? Are you, you know, so, so to be— to build that. Um, any last words about GTD before we go on the book recommendations part, Lars?

Lars: No, I think we covered most of what we wanted to mention. The only one thing that I would maybe add is about building habits. One way that I would do it might be with affirmations. And one other place where I place it is as part of my customized weekly review checklist. So I will have things on that list to remind me that I'm trying to establish this habit. That's something that I want on my list. I don't want to put it in my calendar. I want to see if I can establish that as just a way that I do things. So you, if you were looking at my customized weekly review checklist, you might find things that I'm trying to establish as a habit. So just wanted to throw that in there as an example of where you.

Morten: Might put it as a GCDR. And I think we made an episode about affirmations before, haven't we? I think we have the dedicated episode of that.

Lars: Is that true? I will.

Morten: Have to look. Yeah, it's not in your head. This is exactly. No, but the reason I'm mentioning this is because of the— for those of you who want to understand what an affirmation is, I think we made an episode about this. Affirmation is, you know, by short, what do I want to change in this world with me as a person, or what do I want to become, or, you know, what do I need to reinforce or what do I need to change or want to change. So an affirmation for, for instance, the weekly review: I am a person who enjoys the relief and the good feelings of overview and control after I've done my weekly review. This is the person I'd like to be. So that will help you remember that you actually are going to do a weekly review. And, um, but okay, so, so moving on to the, the book recommendations, um, I mentioned The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Uh, that's a really good book. And, uh, another really good book, um, I've not dug into that in detail, but Tiny Habits, Tiny Habits is also a good book by what's his name again? Do you remember that on top of your head? But I'm sure you will find that— I see you are doing something, Lars. BJ Fogg, that's correct. And the last book, you've either read.

Lars: Or heard about Atomic Habits? Yeah, by James Clear. So I've read that, I'm still rereading it right now, actually, to refresh my.

Morten: Mind on what his thinking is on the topic. And I, I think the only thing I've seen that's the difference between us, or at least as of now, is the biggest difference between The Power of Habit and Tiny Habits is that Tiny Habits has something I like a lot, and that's celebration. And you know that after you've done what you decided to do, when you've done your habit, you should celebrate. And that could be like an internal celebration, like make a little mental dance or just for yourself, because then you will enforce that habit. But what it also says that I really like is that when you remember you want to build that habit, celebrate, because I remembered it.

Lars: Yay!

Morten: I want to change. I want to get good at clarifying, organizing. I remember that, and I can make a little dance inside. I can make a little woo-hoo in my brain. I remembered I'm going to build that habit. And I think that is powerful stuff. I like that.

Lars: So have you tried it? It really is. And it's just so interesting to see how, you know, amazingly complex, fantastic our brains are. And on the other end, how simple and stupid the brain can be and that you can trick it into doing things like that with affirmations or with simple rewards for, you know, noticing the cue or having completed the.

Morten: Habit. Yeah, and then just be aware that there is a theory behind building habits that actually makes sense. And one of the things that I like about these books, they talk about if, you know, what we call, you know, there's many different, you can cold create a habit, you know, you can make a habit of trying to change a habit or build a new. And the best way to do that is to build on an existing habit. So to establish an easy habit where you start and then add something to it. Like if you want to start flossing, just to give yourself a trigger, put the little box of floss inside the, you know, the If you have a glass where your toothbrush resides, put it inside there to remind you that's the trigger. And you just build on that. When I finish brushing my teeth, I will automatically start because it's there. The trigger is I start brushing my teeth and it's easy. And when you try to apply that for GTD, you know, have your tools, capture tools, easy, handy, easily accessible for you. That's where it all starts. Make sure that your floss is in your toothbrush, flossing thread is in your toothbrush cup, and your capture tools are in your pockets. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Anything else to add on to the book section?

Lars: Any— No, I think you just— but you hit an important point into making it easy. Because again, it's so easy to overwhelm ourselves. And that's probably what people can recognize from coming back to the unclarified lists, for example, that is not easy to work on a list where it just says budget. So having, you know, making things easy for yourself is just critical in establishing.

Morten: Habits and being a good GCN. Great. Okay. Famous, not famous, but the last words was yours. And it's going to be still be.

Lars: Yours when you take us out, Lars. Yes, as always, we wrap up with a quick reminder to head on over to gtdnordic.com to have a look around, because on that website you will find links to the country websites for each of the Nordic countries. And on each of those sites you can find articles about GTD, links to the newsletters, groups on social media where each of those countries discuss GTD. And of course you can find all of our offerings with speeches, coachings, and seminars, both physical and the virtual ones. If you are outside the Nordics, gettingthingsdone.com is the place to go to find your local partners. Also, if you are not watching us right now, quick reminder that you could be if you wanted to. You can find us both on YouTube. We upload all of these on each of our channels and you'll find links to those in the show notes. And lastly, as always, really hope that you find these episodes valuable. Um, if GTD has made a difference in your life, then please consider helping us by spreading the message to more people by giving this podcast a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you do this, or share an episode with a colleague. It really helps us share the good habits of TCD.

Morten: Yes, exactly. And that's what we want to do. That's why we are doing this podcast. We want to give you the good habits, help you to get good at getting things done. And hopefully, you've you've learned something from us. So until next time, build habits and stay safe and stay productive. Bye-bye. Bye everyone. And the new recording.