63. Worries – how can GTD help?

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

Lars: Hello, Morten. Good to see you as always. And as always, looking forward to recording another episode for our listeners and viewers. If you have not listened to this podcast before, our purpose 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 always love to hear from you. And if you're new to GTD, we always recommend you go back and listen to episodes 1 through 6 of the podcast to get the basics of Getting Things Done. So this is episode number 64 of the podcast, and I'm really looking forward to today's topic, which can hopefully really help some GTDers out there.

Morten: Yes, we dubbed this Worries and How Can GTD Help? And as we record this, we are just at, you know, we are still having the pandemic is still here, and now we have, in addition, we have Putin attacking Ukraine. And for those of you who paid attention, I said Bryden, which is Ukrainian for hello or hi. So in support of the Ukrainian people, not getting political, but this is, you know, a worrisome topic which plays into today's topic of the podcast. So we talked about, you know, I don't know if you ever are prone to worrying. I sometimes I catch myself worrying a little about the world and, you know, where are we going and will we ever have some kind of normal come back? It's like, yeah. So, and I don't know if, you know, David Allen says that have your attention on what has your attention. And then he continues with saying when you have your attention on what has your attention, you will really understand what has your attention. And then digging deeper that when you get your mundane stuff out of your brain, then the really important stuff kind of shows up. And they might be worried about something, or it could be just something different, more like life-changing something. And I wanted for us to dive a little into this, you know, the thinking of being worrisome and what can we do about that? Does GTD help? For those of you who don't want to wait until we explain, the answer is yes. And we have some concrete suggestions for you. So, but Lars, we talked a little in pre-show, you never worry. That's correct, I think.

Lars: Never worry. No, of course I do, like anyone else. I will, of course, worry about some things, especially in these challenging times. But I often, as I was saying, I often find myself, I think, and that probably comes back to the years of the GTD practice that I will relatively quickly find a way to either, you know, really, really clarify that worry in the GTD sense and figure out, well, what can I actually do about this and be really good at either throwing it out and then, or otherwise try to find some small step that I could do to actually move forward. It might not impact the big thing or the actual reason behind the worry, but it will help me feel the sense of control that we all benefit from with GCD.

Morten: Yeah. So I, and I do this, I have the same as you. Of course, we worry a little when something shows up you don't have control over, especially like the pandemic or Putin, but also, you know, your health, some person close to you having health problems, you know, economy, You know, and everything in between that you can worry about. And for those who are in, I have my brother-in-law's wife is from Ukraine. His mother-in-law is in Ukraine right now in Kiev, and the bombs are there. So, of course, I worry for him, worry for her. And, you know, and this, of course, this is, you don't have control over this. This might even ruin your day. And if you just take a step back, I think step number one to deal with worries is to acknowledge that you have one. And that starts with capture. So if you write everything that has your attention down and you have a worry, you write that down as well. When people, sometimes when I tell them that you should write down everything you decided to do something about, that you might want to do something about, or something that you have a worry on. When I say the last, people say, do I need to write that down? Well, if you don't want it to bug you, write it down. And I think that's the first step. And can you take us through the clarifying process? And just for the listeners and viewers to understand what is the clarifying and how can that help with your worries?

Lars: Yeah, exactly. So for everything that we capture, when we sit down and define our work, the first step is to clarify these things, meaning first figuring out what it is, whatever showed up. And, you know, we, we apply this process, whether it's, you know, a letter in your mailbox or an email that came in or, or worry or another thought that popped into your mind that you captured on, on paper or in your digital system. The first thing to figure out is what is it? And really think that through. And perhaps that question is even more relevant when it comes to something like the worry to really understand what it actually is. And just a reflection on my side regarding that is that I will often tend to— I can easily overwhelm myself if I don't disconnect those two processes in writing things down and clarifying it. It's so easy for my brain to, to melt down if I, if I don't disconnect those two processes. So nice to write it down, nice to sit down and then really actually think it through. And when I'm ready and fresh and awake to do that. So first question is, what is it? Second question is, is it actionable? So is it something that you can do something about, want to do something about? And really being clear on that decision on whether you say yes or no to that question. And if it's a no question, first option is to trash it, get rid of it. Second option is to, to archive or reference it. So place it in a system where, you know, you can find it again at a later stage. And the last option is to incubate it, meaning to park it on a someday, maybe list, for example. And if it is actionable, we have that third question, which is What's the next action, the next physical visible action that I would see you take to move things forward? How would you move things forward on this? Would you call someone, email someone, draft a presentation, whatever it might be, identify that next action. And if that takes less than 2 minutes, we like to do it right away if it's appropriate in the context where you're in. Second option is to consider whether you're the right person to do it. If not, then delegate it. And last option is to defer it, meaning that you will do it at some point later. And last question is, is there a project related to this? Are you done with that single next action, or is there something more that we need to get done about this? And in that case, we also identify the project, meaning the desired outcome. What are you looking to achieve? What does the world look like when you can cross this off your list? That's the questions in the clarify step.

Morten: Very well explained. Thank you. Yeah, you did an excellent job. I paid attention. No, but I want to add a little on the decision-making part when you make the clarifiers. First, understand what is it. And if you think about the worry, like I could worry today, see what I have. For those of you who can see this on screen, this is a rapid test for COVID. I tested positive this morning. Oh, you didn't know that? That was a little surprise. And I could worry about this, but I don't. Because I decided not to. I'm sure I will be fine. I have 3 vaccines, and that's something I've done something about, you know, that when I started having worry about, you know, pandemic and COVID-19, I started thinking, oh, what can, you know, is there something we can do? And when the vaccines start coming, I thinking that what I can do as a, both as an individual to protect me but also protect the ones around me, is take the vaccines when they are available. So I've done, you know, normal double dose and then a booster after, since I'm such an old person.

Lars: I did the same as well.

Morten: Okay, so you're also old. Thank you for letting me off the hook. You let me off the hook. Thank you. No, but, and I, you know, I don't have heavy symptoms. It's like, I'm sure you can't even see that I have something. It broke yesterday afternoon, night, and, you know, I don't feel bad yet. Maybe tomorrow, but I've done what I could. So, but if you go back to the decision-making process, there is that if you have something you decided, well, this is a worry. If you identify this as a worry, when you get it out and like the, what we are in now is the war with Ukraine, or not our war with Ukraine, but the Russians has invaded Ukraine and they are fighting as we speak around Ukraine. And Putin has pressured us in the Western world, I have put my atomic arsenal in combat readiness. I think it's more or less his words. And if you're not worried before he said that, maybe you are worried now. Maybe you didn't know this. I'm sorry if I added to your worries, but this is reality at the moment. And then when you identify, like, I worry for the war in Ukraine spreading, or not stopping, something like that. And then you can ask yourself, and this question is that, you know, am I going to do something about it? Or then add a question instead of I'm going to do something about this, you can ask, can I do something about this? No, I can't do something about this. This is a worry. You identify this as a worry. You can't do something about it. Well, maybe you can. Maybe you want to support it, you know, the Ukraine government economically. You can— there's a lot of Maybe you want to donate money to a relief agency that's down there to make help. I don't know, that might be a next action. But if you are not identifying this something you are going to do something about, but just a worry. Our colleague in Finland, Jukka Bachmann, has something he showed me a few years back. We talked about this back in, I think, 2019 or maybe 2018. He had some challenges in his life at the moment that was was worrying him, and righteously so, because, you know, there were worrisome things. And he then decided to do something I find fairly genius, is to create what he called a worry list. And the way that he attacked this is, I think, that's where we will be able to give people something. And that is, he will then write down what he was worried about. On this list, it's like a sublist of the someday/maybe lists, or it could be just a separate list, it doesn't matter. Just, it's non-actionable, you can't do something about this, not for reference, not for trash, but you're worrying about this. And then you can do what I found fairly genius, is that he added half an hour to his weekly review where he decided, I will spend 1 hour a week really worrying about this. I will wallow. I will, you know, he will put his body inside all this and feel the worry on his body for half an hour. And then when that is finished, and if something surfaces, like there's something I want to do about this, or I can do about this, then he will write that down, capture it, clarify and organize it. But if nothing did, he kind of parked that emotion on that list. And then what he said, which I totally believe him, is that when you are then finished with that, you can leave it on the list. It will not follow you in your everyday life. And, and that goes to say the same thing that we call the Zeigarnik effect. Um, and for those of our listeners who don't know this, maybe you can explain the Zeigarnik effect, Lars.

Lars: Yes, explainer-in-chief coming right up. Um, so it's a psychotic effect. Um, around, I think, 100 years ago now, back in the 1920s, I believe, the Russian psychologist by the name of Luma Zeigarnik actually identified this as being a way our brains are wired in the sense that we identify these incompletes in our lives. And they tend to take up mental space. And that's really a lot of what we try to do with GTD is try to get ahead of that process. Instead of these things actually ending up in the back of your head, try to capture them before they end up in there. Because if you don't capture them, then they will tend to just be stored somewhere in your brain. And they will tend to just jump out at you at any given random time, typically when you cannot do anything about them. So that's the effect that you experience when you drive home from work or you put your head down on the pillow at night. Those things that will tend to show up at that time, those are the things that are, you know, that's the psychotic effect in play, in action to actually these things and then popping up in your mind once again to remind you that there's something not finished about this thing.

Morten: And one of the examples we use when we teach this is that if you are We are doing a thought experiment. At least I do this as I tell people that let's imagine that you are now home where you live and you are getting ready to go to bed. And then suddenly you remember some important papers you just have to bring to your office tomorrow. And they are in a cabinet or in a shelf or a drawer where you don't see them the morning after. What do you do with these papers? Where do you put them, if anywhere? And a lot of people then say, well, I will put those papers in my bag or my briefcase by the door. And then I ask people, why do you do that? Well, I do that not to forget things. But then I will ask them, that's not the full truth, is it? Because you do it to be able to forget them as well. And this is the Zeigarnik effect in, you know, in real life is that if you park it on a list and your brain trusts that you will see it later, your brain can let go of this thing. And the same thing is true with worries. If you park them there and promise yourself, I will look at this once a week and I will allow myself to worry then, but until then it stays on the list. If you tell your brain this, that actually helps.

Lars: Yeah. And it's a genius strategy. I have to agree. It's a really good tip and it's a good tip to share in this podcast as well, especially in these times. Hopefully this will be valuable for people out there to try for themselves if and when these kinds of items show up in there in trace.

Morten: Yeah, I do, I do believe, believe this is a very good strategy. And it also ties into something you and I have, and Jukka, and a lot of other GTDers have found out about life and the universe is that we are, you know, our journey through life, we have understood that we are stoic, that we are living the Stoicism life. Stoicism, for those of you who don't know, this is a philosophical direction. It's not religious at all. It's just a set of, you might call them best practices. And one of the most important ones is that, you know, worry does not help. And I think I mentioned to you before, maybe even in this podcast, but the first person I met that was a Stoic or the first persons were my mother and father. And I'm going to tell a very personal story. So I hope that you will allow me this. But my mother and father, when they were around 20, they had a life-altering event happening to them. And, you know, they didn't know each other at the time, but they both had something happen to them. And I remember, I go back to when I started worrying about the pandemic a few, you know, maybe a year and a half, 2 years ago, when we really understood what this is and that it doesn't go, it doesn't leave us and it's killing people and you're getting worried about this. I remember telling my father, more or less like, I was a little whiny, I admit this. I said to my father, "Oh, this will never get over. It's like maybe take 1 year to be finished." Now, you know, it's more than 1 year, but at the time I thought that was true and I was really, you know, whining a little. Feeling sorry for myself. My father then looked at me and said, "Son, when I got polio—" He got polio at the age of 20. He woke up one morning after feeling like he had some, like a cold or an influenza flu, and woke up 3 days after, and he told me, "It took me 1 year to be able to sit up up in the bed by myself, by my own forces. I could not. I needed help for one year to be able to sit up in the bed. And that kind of like, I started thinking, and that was life smacking right in my face. Thank you, Dad. But it is true. Because when it comes to worries, the only thing that you can do with a worry is to accept. If there's something you cannot do something about, you just have to accept this is reality. And you have to ask yourself, how can I adapt to this reality? How can I make this the best version of my life? And accepting that this is happening. So imagine you wake up after feeling a little head cold. 3 days after, and you can't move. You can't get out of bed. You can't, you can't, you don't have muscles from your lungs and down. My father was there, and if it continued a little more, he would not be able to breathe and he would have died. But he didn't. And of course, I'm grateful for that. Thank you, Daddy. You're still around. He's 90 and still kicking ass in his own way. And, but he's, he's Stoicism has helped me. And he don't know what Stoicism is. It's just the way he is. He looked at, okay, imagine that you can't work ever again. How will you get a job? How will you arrange your life so that you actually have a life? And my father and my mother, later when they met, they hooked up, then married, and then got me at some point. And I grew up with this. This is normal for me to have to parents sitting in a wheelchair. And to accept your reality, I think it's very important just to say that I can't do something about this and worrying does not help. So what can I do? I can just accept things as they are and try and work around it, find the best solutions. So both my mother and father have rich lives. They are enjoying. My mother died a few years back, but my father is still with us. And he's happy, he's positive, he's happy with his life. And, you know, he did the best he could with what he had. And I think that's important. We have a saying in Norwegian. I don't know if this is translatable into English. I will give that job to you after. "Der erke vurdan du har dem, vurdan du tarder." How would you translate that?

Lars: Yeah. So how you deal, not how things are, but how you deal with them, right?

Morten: Yeah. Yeah. So that has everything to do with your ability to deal with surprise and accept realities as they are. So can we do something about the war in Ukraine? Yeah, maybe something. We can do some, you know, we can make protests. We can support, you know, some efforts for help. Relief, or maybe even, you know, you can join up the army. That's maybe not recommended, but you can— army— but you can do something. But you have to accept that now this is out of your control, and this is where we are. I don't— does that make sense?

Lars: And it adds perspective as well. Yeah, absolutely. And it adds perspective as well to some of the things that might, you know, annoy you during your day-to-day life. And then these, these bigger things happen, and hopefully, uh, can have a a positive impact in that sense that it helps you put things into perspective. And perhaps in this case also, I do see some things that are inspiring as well in the sense of how people then deal with them. As an example, we have a GTDer in the Danish GTD community who is now organizing these support concerts, for example, to raise money. We see from our Ukrainian franchisee Slava as well, sharing links links on how to donate money. I see from my business network roundtable, I see how they, you know, some people are organizing ways to send things and send help in some way. Some people are even driving there themselves to help out in any way that they can. So in some sense, there are some, you know, inspiring aspects as well in seeing how people then deal with them and try to— again, you're not able to impact the war, at least in where most of us are in the positions that we have and the lives that we have and the networks that we have. But it's, you know, seeing how people then try to deal with these things and try to, you know, do something about them in the way that they can.

Morten: Yes. So my suggestion— this is going to be a little shorter episode, I see, because we don't have any more than like 23 minutes. But I don't— that's not very important to me that we are super long. What I hope that we have accomplished so far in this episode is to give you, the listener and viewer, if you're on YouTube, some idea of how to handle your worries and that it is actually possible to do something about them, even though you can't do something about what causes the worry. But is there a way to park them so that you can look at it when you want to look at it? And it doesn't— because, you know, if you worry too much, that hinders you to get things done, to anything, like take care of your family, do your job, do groceries. If you are overwhelmed with worries, you can't do very much. You will sit in your bed and don't get out. Maybe self-medicate with something. I don't know.

Lars: Yeah, no, but I think it makes sense that this would be a shorter episode because I think this is an episode that's very much directed at what's going on right now and specific concrete advice in how to deal with it. So hopefully this will help people, you know, try to deal with things in the way that they can do, you know, from their position. And I think the practical tip coming back from Jukka with his worry list, I really hope that this helps some people out there who will benefit from having this kind of list and dealing with it in this kind of way.

Morten: And there is one thing that is true, is that with this life, there are just a few truths that we can say. That's that after you're born, you will die at some point. So just get ready for that. If you worry about this, you can't avoid it. Just accept it. This will happen. But the second truth that I would like to throw to you is that life will throw you curveballs. You can't see what surprises are around the corner. They might be good. They might not be, but it doesn't help worrying about the things that's not happening to you. So just get ready, get your ducks in a row, as David Allen would say. Capture everything that has your attention, clarify what it means to you, organize it in a system, and reflect on that on a regular basis, and then do the most important things. And that will keep your head clear so that if you have a worry, you might identify it as a worry and then park it on a list. As we suggested. And I would like to, to ask our listeners to, to share how do they handle worries, if they have some alternative ways of handling worry that might be inspiring to other people. And I'm sure we will do a listener questions, comments episode next time. Or maybe time after, but at least we have, um, we will be able to lift your, your ideas into the, to the next episode maybe.

Lars: So yeah, no, that's a great, great tip and would love to hear from you how you, how you deal with them and then we can share it. Absolutely agree, great idea.

Morten: Okay, so Lars, will you take us out?

Lars: Yes, let us wrap up this episode and we always do that by reminding you to head on over to gtdnordic.com to find the local country websites in the Nordics, because on each of those sites, you will find all of the activities that we engage in— speeches, coaching, and seminars— and also the newsletters, articles about GTD, and other offerings in there. If you're outside the Nordics, then gettingthingsdone.com is the place to go to find your local partners. And lastly, we always really hope that you find these episodes valuable. I think especially maybe this one, if this or GTD in any way has made a difference in your life, please consider helping us spreading the message to more people by, you know, rating the podcast on iTunes, sharing it with a friend, rating us on Spotify, wherever you listen, wherever that makes sense for you. It really helps the discoverability of the podcast and helps more people learn GTD, which is why we are here.

Morten: Indeed, we are nearing 200,000 downloads now, which I'm very happy to say. So it's apparently we've hit a nerve, people are downloading our episodes. This is good, and I hope that we are helping making your world a little better. So thank you for listening, and until next time, stay safe and stay productive. Bye-bye.

Lars: Bye, everyone.