Episode 75 of the Getting Things Done® podcast. Listen above, or read the full transcript below.
Transcript
Automatically transcribed and lightly edited. Timestamps omitted for readability.
Morten: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Getting Things Done podcast from Vital Learning. My name is, as always, Morten Røvik, and as always, I'm here with my good friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Privet, Lars.
Lars: Privet, Morten. I actually just— I have to detour a bit from the usual start. I just had a coaching client meeting a few hours ago, and he opened up with Privet Lars. It's really catching on. Good to see you as always, and as always, looking forward to recording another episode for all the nice GTDers out there. We always start off by reminding you to the purpose of this podcast, which is to help you learn GTD or become even better GTDers. So we hope, as always, that this episode supports you in that. 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. Today's episode number is number 75 of the podcast, and we've dubbed today's episode Next Actions and Horizons of Focus.
Morten: Yes, indeed. And before that, we have two things. One is that I was reminded, you said that it's catching on with Privet. We also had a meeting just before, a little earlier today, Loris and the rest of the trainers in Nordic region, where our managing director and the meeting leader, he signed off, "Until next time," which is kind of interesting. Okay, so, but the second thing is that we have had a milestone when it comes to our podcast.
Lars: Indeed.
Morten: Yeah, we have crossed the line of 250,000 downloads.
Lars: Weehee!
Morten: Did you? Yeah, we should have, we should have, we talked about this in the pre-show, we should have party hats and some fireworks going on in there, but it's a little difficult. We didn't prepare for that, but we.
Lars: Are— It makes for an interesting episode though.
Morten: It could be the office is burned down because, yeah. No, but this is when we started up 2 and a half years ago-ish. We had an ambition that was not very big. We had a, it was very modest, I think. But we have exceeded our own expectations or more correctly, you, our listeners, have exceeded our expectations. You should like what we do so much that you actually are listening to this podcast, which is why we do this. And this is directly— thank you so much for listening.
Lars: It's actually 3 years now. Just scroll back the release date of the first one, if I note correctly. I'm wondering if this is a bit off actually, because I think we made it back in May or June. So the release date in our overviews list is actually from from 2019, the first one. So I think it may be, maybe.
Morten: Yeah, that is correct. I see that in my overview as well. So it is 3 years.
Lars: Anyhow, we have not aged a day since then.
Morten: No, no, no. But that's because we haven't been on video for very long. For those of you who look, see this video on YouTube, both Lars and I have, our channels are carrying the video. So if you want to look at that, you can just search on Lars' name or my name, and you will find this.
Lars: And find links in the show notes as well.
Morten: Exactly. I've found, by the way, that not all podcast players actually make those links clickable. So it might be, if you don't find it, go to YouTube and just search for Lars Rothschild Henriksen, or I think Lars Henriksen is enough. You will find Lars and you will find me on Morten Ørevik. This is my due diligence. I tried it out before. It actually works.
Lars: My name is probably too common, but yeah, you'll find us there. But really, thanks so much for listening. It's really, yeah, like Morten said, surpassed all of our expectations for how this would fare. So thank you so much for listening. Thanks for the nice feedback. We have gotten so much nice feedback lately from people, especially reflecting on the episode on managing complex projects with our transition now to the new reality of Vital Learning. A lot of nice feedback there. So thanks everyone for feedback. Really, really appreciate it.
Morten: Yes, yes, indeed. And this, we, I hope that we are engaging you all in, you know, in your life, but you are also engaging us in our lives by listening and caring about this. And today's topic is exactly this. We think that What we are doing today is recording an episode as a next action in the calendar for recording this, and then all the next actions needed to get it on air and to plan the next one is part of, at least I'm sure yours too, Lars, your higher horizons, your horizons of focus, top level. What's the purpose of your life? What values do you have? What principles will you never break? And for me, this is, yes, my life is about getting things done to others, help others with getting richer lives with whatever vehicles we can help them with. And recording this is exactly our next action towards that. But there are some next actions that are not so easy to identify as Horizons of Focus Purpose Fulfilling. So maybe you can tell us the story behind this. You had a discussion, um, before.
Lars: Yeah, sure. So, so we have, um, as of this recording, um, in Denmark, I've held now 2 Level 3 seminars. Um, and it is, you know, just a pleasure getting to hang out with the people that are so passionate about GTD for, for 2 days and really geeking out on it. So I'm having, having so much fun. With that. And a lot of interesting discussions, of course, come up as we talk about that. We, you know, in the seminar, it's about coherence. It's a lot about the different horizons of power of focus. And we talk about the horizons of focus and try to, you know, unfold them both top-down and bottom-up and really try to work with it there. And in one of the test seminars, one of the participants we talk about as part of the seminar, we talk about how the 5 steps and the horizons of focus, how they intersect. And the example, I don't remember the specific details, but we go through how a next action can relate to different horizons. So it can be just relating to ground level, meaning that it's in your calendar because you're having dinner and some people are coming over because your wife put it in your calendar. Something like that. Or it could be relating to a project. You know, you're going to plan a trip and you need to sit down with the friends, so you've invited them over so you can discuss the trip. Or it could be on the horizon, the two areas of focus. So it could be that you're focused on, um, the neighborhood and good, good friendship with your neighbors. This is one of the areas of focus, so you have set up a dinner relating to that. Or it could be to a goal, one or two years into the future, and that's something that you're focused on there, or a vision that you want to publish a book and you actually know an author. So you've invited this person over to have dinner with because that's part of your vision. Or like you said, sometimes they go all the way up to the top. Could be that someone close to you has been going through a tough time and you want to just sit down and spend some time with them and enjoy a nice dinner and, you know, be there for them. So that's, that's really, I think, the context as much as I can remember it off the top of my head from what we go through in the, in the Level 3 seminar. And, um, and the topic came up as a, as a topic for conversation in the podcast because one of the, um, sharp GTDers in Denmark, um, was, was, you know, the topic came up of how many of your next actions actually then point to, for example, the vision. That's the horizon that was in focus. It could be, could be any of them, but really, you know, just an interesting reflection really of how many of your actions are directly related to any of those higher horizons. Because some of them will be maintenance, some of them will be to make the wheels go round, and some of them will have like a more direct relation to the higher horizons. So he, just off the top of his head, suggested that it would be 15% for him that pointed towards the vision part.
Morten: So 15, not 50.
Lars: 15, yes, 1-5. So, yeah, just an interesting perspective that I have not really talked about and we'd then walk through that in the seminar and then discuss that a bit. But it was just such a curious topic that I wanted to share it with you and now also our listeners. I don't know what you're thinking is, Morten, on that. What's your percentage?
Morten: No, and we discussed this briefly in the pre-show and I'm trying to to think about, reflect upon that. And let's just take a little step back so that people understand what is the next action here. The next action is everything you decided to move on, that's, you know, one step where you have everything you need. And that means that if you look in your kitchen cabinet and finding that you don't have food and just walk out the door and buy, that is a next action, but it's not recorded as one. And life consists of a lot of small next actions to maintain life. Like you get an invoice, you pay it directly, you know, that's kind of like a 2-minute sneaking into your system. But what we are talking about all are the recorded next actions that you put in your calendar or your system. And for me, that is, I'm just on the, you know, very guesstimate around 95% of what I put. And the reason is because, you know, we are working with getting things done. This is our business. We work with changing people's life. We teach people skills that can change their lives, and this is our core of our business. And, you know, since I am the business owner here and work for that, then okay, a lot of the things I do are regarding to that, like sales, presentations, discussions, interviews with journalists, writing. I'm writing I'm co-writing a small book in Norway on behalf of a client actually who is also a GTDer. And, and, um, but I also have— then we have the more, the more, um, peripheral ones that can be.
Lars: Uh.
Morten: And that's the 5% I mentioned that I have in my next actions. I have to buy a cable box. And a cable to different shops. It's on my errands list, and that I have to buy to maintain a better office. I have to change something in the office for me to feel better about it, more functional. And is that a next action that leads me to my Horizons of Focus, or is it a next action that supports, uh, support making my making new next actions to support my horizons of focus. And I really, I really don't know. But how many, how many do you think you have, Lars? And you want to guess?
Lars: And I think, you know, I'm just, yeah, no, well, what I did quickly did was just to have a quick look at my work list. And I think it comes back to how you see it and how perhaps the discussion came up with the action directly being tied to something very long term because often, you know, if I go through my list now, these will always be single next actions or they will be relating to a specific project. And that project will typically be a step on the way towards the vision. So I think based on this discussion or talks that we had in the seminar, they probably wouldn't qualify. But I think when you look at the whole picture and you try to, you know, the integrating the horizons aspect of it, it certainly Many of them will point towards the vision, if, if not all. Just looking through it and, you know, some of them are renaming the company. You could argue that that's not really a very big step towards the vision of where we want to go. So I would hesitate to go all the way to, to as much as 95%. But if we take only single list actions that relate to the higher horizons, I would probably stay down very low., as well because of the context it was in, because of, a vision for me would be to, you know, take more walks with the kids, biking around the, the neighborhood. So let's say that I actually defined that to be something I wanted to do when I go home and we are going to soccer practice, for example, that could be part of my vision. So that would be a next action that would qualify for that direct link to the vision part. But I suppose that with many of the visions, if they are bigger, require more steps, then often they'll be broken down into goals, which will be broken down into projects, which would be how I would see them in my system. So it might cheat me a bit, I guess, from that perspective in relation to how many I would see on my list.
Morten: But if you are, I don't know, we haven't looked at your, what we haven't discussed our horizons of focus in detail for a long time. I remember we did that back in the day, certification process. But on my— if I think I'm thinking that because my personal purpose of my life is to love my family, the one who close to me is I want to show them love. And the second is I want to teach people. Skills that changed their life. And getting things done is everything that's related to that is directly attached to my Horizon Focus. Can I ask you just bluntly, what is on, what is on your, what's your purpose now?
Lars: Yeah, those are the kinds of discussions that we have. No, exactly. No, no, be there for the be there for and with the people that matter most to me. Then it's helping others and then it's doing hard things would be my best translation just off the top of my head. And the last one would be to enjoy life. Those are the 4 different ones. And I think recently I actually disconnected the enjoy life because that's really where all the 3 come together and that's then what happens.
Morten: So number 2 is directly related to your GTD.
Lars: Exactly.
Morten: That's how I do it. Work. Yes. So, yeah. Well, let me put it this way that if you don't know what the purpose of your life is, if you have not mapped out your values and principles and your vision, which is the 2 top levels of the Horizons of Focus model, then of course you will not know if your next action is in coordination or will fulfill your life's purpose. So you have to map them out first, of course. And I'm sure Lars can quickly go into our sheet and find which episode number this episode is sponsored Bye, because we have an episode on Horizons of Focus. So, so, um, but, but to map that out is make sure that there is a direct correlation between what you're doing in your everyday life towards, or at enough things that you are doing that you feel comfortable you're moving towards your your life purpose. And it is up to you, of course. What's the correct percentage? It's like, think of a number for you, which is kind of, you must decide this yourself. And there is no right and wrong here. But the question is a bit thought-provoking because I know, unfortunately, people in my life that don't have any clue of what they want to achieve in life. And I'm saying that you have to know exactly what you need to achieve, but you should have it. Maybe if this is you, well, I'm going to go full circle here now because I told before about this French Canadian who were in my seminar when we talked about purpose. Values and principles. And where he says, but I don't want to have a plan, I don't want to know these things, I just want my life to happen. And, and okay, but that is also a plan, you know, to just have life happen. And that's your value, is your life should happen. And if then absolutely everything you do as a next action is in accordance with your purpose, because his life is just happening, he wanted just You know, to live a spontaneous life where he will follow his intuitive hunches, which is good. Fine, if you can make a living and enjoy life, hey, go for it. And those of you who are attracted to the Horizons of Focus model, wanting to map it out for yourself, to get a— and it is not, you don't have to invent Horizons of Focus. Just want to make that clear for people. It's just a way to clarify, to make it more visible for you what your values and purpose and principles are. And just make it more visible for you. I'm sure that you can recognize this, Lars, that when you started working on this the first time, you also went back to I'm sure you've gone back and changed what you did then, but it's something you've recognized in the process, not something you invented.
Lars: Am I correct? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it's a fun thing to play with and really getting started and really trying to look more long-term. And it's fun to see how things play out once you start to note things down on those higher horizons.
Morten: Yeah, and the only reason you should note them down is because if you don't, it's going to be in your head. As long as it is in your head, you can't think clearly about them because you can't remember everything you think. So write your good thoughts down and go back and look at them. Am I doing the things I've decided to do now? Am I doing things that is in accordance with my purpose of life? What I think my purpose is? What is my values? Am I acting upon them? And that might be for those of you who have not done this. Again, did you, by the way, did you go and find the episode number? Episode number 9. So episode, this episode is sponsored by episode number 9. And also maybe on episode number 3, which is Clarify, where we talk about next actions to clarify next actions. So to see them in, you know, together. That might be interesting for you. But the Horizons of Focus is a model where you can identify what's important for you in life. What's your life purpose? What's your values? What's your principle? What's your vision? What's your goal? What's your areas of focus and accountability? And it helps you make sure that what you do in your everyday life is in accordance with what you want to do. Or want to happen in the future. So, yeah. Okay. Have we exhausted this topic or do you have some additional thoughts?
Lars: Yeah, I think this is more of a just a— yeah, no, I think we probably have, but I just, I still think it makes for a good episode because I really want— it was thought-provoking when we did it in the seminar and I certainly want to throw that out there to the people listening to reflect on this and just add that perspective to how they think about their system, how they're moving forward. I guess it depends on the perspective and how you see things. One more just showed up on my list. I have some next actions relating to planning and doing the next GTD Summer Camp in Denmark in 2023. Quick note, mark your calendars for June 17 to 18. But that is really, you know, that is a project.
Morten: I'm sorry, what date was that again?
Lars: June 17th to 18th, as well as.
Morten: Summer camp in Denmark. Yes, yes, yes, capture.
Lars: It, capture it. Um, no, so that is definitely relating to a project, but that project is certainly relating to the vision that I have for the community in Denmark, where it's just an amazing community of basically, you know, very much self-driven. Everyone helps each other to become better GTDs, learn GTD more in depth. So that certainly relates to the vision in that sense. It's not directly there. It goes to a project, which goes to a goal, which goes to vision. But yeah, you get the point. So hopefully this kind of reflection was helpful for you out there. I think that was the key.
Morten: And I want to challenge you, the listener, if you think of a number, do a guesstimate for the number of things that you do, the number of next actions that lead to your higher horizons. Write that number down as a percentage and just send it. You don't have to do anything else, but just write the percentage and send it to us. And we will, and if you want to have some reflections as well, we might want to mention that in a future episode. Send that to Which address?
Lars: Podcast.Gtdnordic.Tk, also in the show notes.
Morten: Yes, exactly. And you can also comment on the— and subscribe and like and comment on the YouTube videos if you'd like. So you can comment if you're looking now and you say, ah, yes, my percentage is 16%, then write it down in the comments field. And you don't have to do anything else. It's going to be the most cryptic comment field ever, but we promise you we will capture that and, you know, maybe we will do a segment where we go back to this topic later in one of the later episodes. Yeah. Okay. Will you take us out, Lars?
Lars: I will not because I have a question for you.
Morten: Ah, you have a question.
Lars: Yes. So no, you like to throw me off course and you've done that for 2.5, 3.5 years, whatever it might be.
Morten: Yes.
Lars: Um, this is not gonna throw you, of course, but I, I nevertheless wanted to, to add something just, um, unprepared. Um, that also came up, um, in that specific Level 3 seminar. Um, Dan, who was in the, in the seminar, uh, noted to me, um, a list that I have. So I always, uh, share very much of my own practice and then how I do things. And, um, I had a list. For my home banking, actually for the, for the business in this case. But, you know, the, the different invoices that came in that I needed to pay. Yeah. So I had those on my list and he rightly pointed out, didn't that qualify as a 2-minute next action? And I stood there and I was, hmm, it's been years since I had to capture a question that I needed to go back and think more of and then get back to people. Because it really— so many of the questions are the same all the time. And if there are new ones, you know, you often have the answer when you've done this for as long as we have. But that one actually caught me. I think I am cheating on the 2-minute rule. Or am I? Because coming back to the question, the 2-minute action, 2-minute next action is, of course, when you've defined the next action, if it takes less than 2 minutes to do it, we want to do it right away. We want to do that because it would otherwise take too long to define the next action, put it on the list, have it on that list to reflect as an option to, to do. My argument would be that I still actually want to make a list with these because it would take me less time to put them on the list. And then when I'm logged into the banking system, I'll do 5 at once. And then I'll hit logout. So in the end, I will be quicker to do it this way, even though I'm cheating on the 2-minute rule.
Morten: Morten, help me.
Lars: Yeah, I think you're right.
Morten: You're, yeah, I don't know about that, but, uh, the, the, the, you know, it makes sense. You are being professionally lazy. I like it. Well, well, if you, if you have a 2-minute rule times 10, that's 20 minutes. And if you have, and then if 1 minute it's set up, log in and log out, then 1 minute is the next action, then you will actually save a lot of time if, you know, 9 minutes of the, or something like that on doing them. So it's professionally lazy. And I just want to say that I don't want to set off people to saying that, ah, but it takes 2.5 minutes, I'm breaking the rules. Oh, I'm a bad person. No, I think I'm going to say this until the day I kick the bucket. Getting Things Done is not a religion. It's allowed to cheat. If you feel it's more important to do a task now and it takes 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, even half an hour, that's a— as long as you do it on the half, you know, on the background of everything else you're committed to do. So it is, it is break the rules, you know, that's okay. No, but it just, just want to clarify this is if you don't have everything captured and clarified, then breaking the rules like that, it's, it, you, you don't have the freedom because you will never feel good if you don't have the full overview. But if you captured and clarify and reflected on everything you have to do and you understand that what came in needs half an hour and it's urgent and, and, and it's important, and I decide to do it now. That is, of course, something you can do with a good conscience and feel that you're not cheating on the system. That's actually very mature thinking, I think. What do you think?
Lars: Thank you, Mr. Psychologist. I appreciate it.
Morten: I need to major in GTD psychology.
Lars: Yeah, exactly. No, it was fun to reflect on that. You know, actually, I probably am, but in the end it makes sense. So I thought that, I had an idea you might say something like that, but I wanted to share that here as well.
Morten: Yeah. Now, my son, you are forgiven.
Lars: Thank you. Because now I'll go ahead and wrap up the episode with a reminder to now head on over to.
Morten: Vitallearning.Eu. But remember, you must say 2 Hail Marys.
Lars: Sorry.
Morten: What? You had to go, you have to make 2 Hail Marys to be forgiven. I'm sorry. I'm not getting silly here. I'm sorry.
Lars: I apologize. Once that is completed, vitallearning.eu is the place to go to learn more about the new company, because on that website, you will find information about all the different things we can now help you with, as we just shared. The purpose for us is to help people lead better lives, and now we have the opportunity to do that even more ways than before. So have a look around on that. You will soon find also links to each of the country websites for each of the Nordic countries there. So go there to learn more. Outside the Nordics, head on over to cruciallearning.com to find your local partners. And again, summer camp in Denmark, GCD summer camp. We have settled on the dates. I recently met with the summer camp committee here in Denmark. We have shared that in some of the forums now and just also wanted to share them here as well. So it looks like there's already a lot of interest, so that'll be a lot of fun. We'll be sure to share the signup form whenever you're— whenever that one will be ready. But for now, if you might want to go, be sure to then mark your calendars: 2023, June 17th to 18th in Denmark, It'll be fun. I promise. It will be. And lastly, as always, we really hope that you find these episodes valuable. That's what I was trying to say. If GCD has made a difference in your life, please consider helping us spread the message to more people by giving the podcast a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen, subscribe, all that thing that Morten mentioned on YouTube. It really helps the discoverability for more people to learn GCD, which is why we are here. Thank you all for that. Lars out.
Morten: Good, good. And just a little plug again for, for GTD Summer Camp. Um, I had a little epiphanette, as David Allen would call it, not an epiphany because that's too big, but it's epiphanette, um, about learning GTD. And I think that accelerated learning of getting things done, or anything really, is done in the presence of others. You learn better if you have a community. So, and the Getting Things Done community in Denmark is vital. But sorry, not vital, is, yeah, it is actually vital. So it is vital and living, and, and, and it is a very inclusive experience. We had people from all over the world attending, and they came, they come back to us and say, this was really great and I learned a lot, and And thank you for all of those who came back to us regarding this center. And this could be your community as well. A lot of new people, you will meet them, you will get to get a relationship to them. And getting things done, people are the best in the world, they're nicest people in the world. And so if you feel that you're a nice person, want to meet another nice person or a lot of nice people, go to Denmark next summer. And what was the dates again?
Lars: June 17th to 18th.
Morten: Ah, yes, June 17th to 18th. Good. Okay. And with that note, I wish you all a great day and a great rest of your life and stay safe and stay productive. Bye-bye, everybody. Bye, everyone.
Lars: Bye-bye.
