93. Cynefin & GTD – Interview With Dann Bleeker Pedersen

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. I am Morten Røvik, and I am with my good friend and colleague, as always, Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Prævit, Lars.

Lars: Prævit, Morten. Good to be with you as always, and to be with our listeners and viewers out there. We always start off with a quick reminder of the purpose of this podcast, which is to help you learn GTD or become even better GTDers. So we hope that today's episode supports you in that. If you are new to GTD, we always recommend you go back and listen to the first episodes of the podcast, episodes 1 through 6, to get an introduction to the basics of GTD, the 5 steps. Today's episode number is number 93 of the podcast, and it is an extended interview episode.

Morten: It is, because you've been talking to Dan Blaker Pedersen. He's a Dane, and I will give you the rights to introduce him more lightly, and he will, I'm sure he will present himself in the interview as well.

Lars: So, but yeah, I spoke to Dan, and I'll, you know, I'll mention it in the, as we, as we go through the interview and talk to Dan, but he's a longtime GTDer from Denmark. He has a lot of interest interesting things to say, both about himself and his own GTD practice in his job and as a father, but also about a framework that I had not come across before that he mentioned at one point in time. So it's called Kinevan. If you read the episode title, you probably did not expect that to be the way it was pronounced, but we'll dive into that in the episode as well. It's a really interesting framework perhaps to combine and be aware of in your own GTD practice. So looking forward to the interview.

Morten: Me too. So let's just roll the interview.

C: And now our special guest.

Lars: I am here with Dan Blager-Petersen, who is head of tech, retail, and enablement for Bestseller. And you also find time to teach at the Business Academy in Almost. Dan, welcome to the podcast.

C: Thank you so much, Lars. Really been looking forward to it. Being an avid DCGer for many, many years. I'm just really excited to be here. And while I'm here as well, thank you for doing these podcasts. It's been a pleasure to be part of that journey from number 1 and all up to right, what are we now? 90 or something around that?

Lars: Yeah, we're closing in on 100. Thanks so much. Yeah, we've known each other for a while. I've delivered a seminar for your team. Other team members have joined some of the public courses that we have. And we spoke at one point after one of your team members, Maria, attended a Level 2 seminar, and you had a very interesting discussion with her regarding projects where you introduced this Cynefin framework. And the reason I'm trying to pronounce it that way is because I've only known it on text for, for so long, and the way you write it is not how I would expect you to pronounce it. And I think it's because it's a Welsh word. So, but that conversation sparked my interest and that was sort of leading us to this conversation that we've planned for a while now. So I've been really looking forward to this. So we agreed to set up this interview, talk about your GCD practice as well, and also how you might use that framework in relations to GCD. But first things first, could you please tell the listeners a bit more about who you are and what you do.

C: I'll be happy to. So my name is Dan, as you said. Right now I have the privilege of working in Bestseller. Bestseller is a Danish fashion company. We have stores more or less all around the world. And in that context, I have the privilege of working with our retail stores and other miscellaneous stuff, if you will, regarding our tech team in Bestseller. That's kind of it. And then as you said as well, I do some training on the side where I teach different stuff that could be related to product management or different technology topics or something like that. I do that simply because I love teaching and to be able to push knowledge to someone else and just see that they just get, get a little bit of a spark sometimes. It's just fantastic. That makes, makes my day. So that's more or less me. I'm married, the two kids, and I have a teenager. We can maybe get back to that. We're also trying to, let's say, force-feed a TTD into her. At least I have a 1 and a 3-year-old, not there yet, but But the 14-year-old, we're working on it.

Lars: Sounds good. Yeah, might be some tips from the Getting Things Done for Teens book on that one.

C: Definitely.

Lars: So, and you mentioned already that you have known GTD for a long time. When did you start using GTD?

C: I'm not completely sure, to be honest. It's around 15, 20 years ago. In the beginning of the 2000s, I picked up the first book that was handed to me as some kind of book club thing. Just read through it. I was like, I can't really use that. 2 days later, maybe actually something is in here. I reread it and then I just started building up my system. And over time that meant using Post-it notes and stickers and all sorts of things. We're using notebooks and at the present day I'm working in something called Trello. But I mean, to me the tool is not that important. It's how I use it. And then I just want something that's ubiquitous that I can access anywhere. And as to, I think one of the most important tips for me is I always carry my trusty just paper notebook and it's so I can take notes down and jot down stuff so I can remember. So 20 years or so playing around with GTD.

Lars: Yeah, yeah, those years add up and we don't get older, but we gain more experience. And you've gone through the seminars as well. You actually put me to work after the Level 3 seminar last year, requesting a Level 4 seminar. Which does not exist. So I'm working right now on setting that up, looking at some really cool venues that will really enable us to think through those higher horizons. So I don't know where we will end up yet, but wherever we will end up, I'm sure it will be a very interesting few days together that we'll have hopefully later this year.

C: I'm looking forward to it. As you know, just sign me up, I'm there.

Lars: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it as well. I think I'll, I'll have to learn as much as anyone else in that, in that seminar. It'll, it'll be fun. But you use TCD both at home and at work. You already mentioned a teenager.

C: Yeah. So, so to me, TCD is, I don't know what way of life is probably putting too much emphasis into it. It's like purpose of life, probably not doing stuff. Having said that, I'm not able to discern for my brain, at least if I'm doing something work related, or not. So while we were setting up for, for this interview, I remember that I needed to buy something on my way home from the grocery store. I mean, that's not ticking, there's something I paid for, but that's something I remembered anyway. So let's put it on a list somewhere. And similarly, when I'm mowing the lawn or something, something work-related comes up and then it goes into the list system as well. To me, it's the same thing. I handle it with using context. So there's something that ends up on a list I can only do at the office. Something I can only do at home. But honestly, these days, most stuff just ends up on a computer list because it doesn't really matter as long as I have my computer in front of me, I can do it on my phone. Mm-hmm. But yeah, so, so to me, it's, it's all mixed in together and then, you know, filters and stuff so I can see whatever I need to, but it's, it's my life, it's my tasks. That's how I do it.

Lars: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I remember at one point talking about this and yeah, I'm always doing stuff and some of it I'm paid for. But it's really all the, you know, it's all, it's all doing and getting things done. Yeah. And use, how do you use GTD in your, your role and how do you use it perhaps with a, with a team? What does that look like in your world?

C: So I think let's start with my, my role. So first things first is that if we look at GTD, there's this higher horizon concept you might know. Otherwise, I'm sure Lars will put a link down in the show notes so you can go to the right episode there, but I have these areas of responsibilities mapped out for my roles at my job, what am I responsible for? And I use those, first off in my weekly reviews to see have I actually got the progress I need, but also take every month and every quarter a deeper dive into what do I want to achieve for each of those. And so basically map out projects and then based on that, we end up having next actions. That's what brings me forward, if you will.. And then of course, on a daily basis, something pops up, you need to do something, and then just write that down. And that just goes into the jumble of next actions that needs to be handled. So to me, it's both about realizing something that's in the future, but also just about the day-to-day. And I think those are intertwined in both my personal life, but also in my work, because in the end, right, in any given day, we just do stuff. It doesn't really matter. We open the door, we go eat, we talk to someone, we do PowerPoint presentations, we do meetings, whatever it is.. And the way we do it oftentimes helps us or not in achieving our long-term goal. So to me, it's important to also sometimes be reminded of what I want to achieve a little bit longer term. So that's kind of taking from the top and then building it down into my, my lists. And then at least for me, work-related, the waiting for is a gift and a bit of a curse because it means every time I have something, I put it on the waiting for list. Someone owes me something. I think they, most people probably hate it because that means I follow up on more or less everything. And that's not, sometimes it's easier just to skip something. I think that's probably the one thing. And then the other thing work related that's pretty important is that I have this work in progress limitations on my list. And we talked about that a little bit earlier, Lars, but we have, I have, I want to have only so and so many next actions in the given context.. And that often makes me, at least for me, more effective. Because on any given day, I only have a very small selection of nuggets I can pick and choose from and then go and work on. That just often makes me able to do stuff more focused and get more stuff done on any given day. It probably also puts, you know, a little bit of a mental pressure on myself to, ah, come on, I need to finish this list before I go home so I can put new and interesting stuff on it today for the next day and so on. That was the one part of your question. Then you said, what about our teams? Well, I asked everyone in teams to do TTD training, some of them, and some of them have, and they, most of them loved it. And some of us are saying, yeah, we don't really get it yet. But everyone has taken one thing to heart. I mean, if you want to do TTD methodology or not, it's not really paramount or important to me. I don't want to force that upon anyone. But what is done that is unique and something we don't do often enough is talking about how we work. Oftentimes we talk about the context of the work. So we want to do something and code something, or how can we have a better meeting? You're talking about this and something, but we don't really talk about our own personal work processes. That's assumed that every one of us is experts in how we do stuff. But I mean, looking back at university, or school before that, no one really had any kind of topic on our, those lines. So we all kind of just stumbling around trying to figure out how to do it. And GTD for us has put that on a map. So it's, it's fair game to talk about how we work, not what we're working on, but how we're doing it and give tips and tricks to each other about something we can do even better. And that doesn't matter if something wants to have the something on Post-its or in a system or whatever, we can still always improve our ways of working. So that's kind of put it really on the map. That would be the second part of the answer.

Lars: Thanks for you. Yeah, no, really cool. Pretty cool. It's always interesting to hear how it's, you know, part of the work that each and every one do. If we look back at the biggest wins with QTD for you, is there anything sort of that pops into your mind how it has impacted work life.

C: Or a specific situation perhaps? Yeah, I mean, I want to start with the very generic thing and then can make specific, but to me, when I started out, it was just about being a little more, getting more done, right? Doing more check marks, done, done, done, done, done. Uh, but as I have progressed and gotten a better understanding of at least myself and my life, my goals, and be that in a work context or a personal context, then some magical way stuff just kind of materializes. So, uh, for a couple of years, my wife and I had been discussing if we should buy a summer house or not. And didn't really get anywhere. But once it materialized on my project list, 6 months later, we had a summer house. We're very, very happy with it and it's sexy as we would like it to be. And this just, I think there's this French philosopher, Voltaire. He has a quote that says, chance favors the prepared mind. And so, so if you don't know what you're looking for, how would you ever get it? So somehow by magic, putting stuff on my project list just makes it materialize further down the road. And then maybe another thing that could be almost couple counseling, but my wife and I have discussions where, I mean, she's not really avid DCDer, she does some, but at the very least we can discuss the higher horizons where what we want to achieve in life, where we're going. And that aligns us a lot more on, so why are we actually wanting the summer house? Well, we have each of our reasons, but they coincide in this action. So let's just go buy the house. And so stuff like that is probably.

Lars: What'S the most important to me. Yeah. And it's funny, we were talking about the higher horizons in one of the more recent meetups where David actually showed up as well, unannounced. So that was a nice surprise. But one of the things we also talked about was the goal. So that would be 1 or 2 years into the future, or by the end of next year, you want to have this experiences, whatever it might be. And my experience, and I know from others as well, is that, yeah, they kind of suddenly happen, and oftentimes they actually happen faster than we expected. So it's interesting to see there. Yeah, there's some magic behind defining these things, and then suddenly it Just, just happens.

C: This has triggered me. I want to share one thing David said at that meeting, which at least made me think differently about some things when it comes to these 5 horizons. Because oftentimes I thought about them as stuff I want to achieve, and that's kind of one way of going about it. But David introduced a, the negation of that, which is just mind-blowingly, of course, but just at least to me, it was very different to think about like that. What is the things I cannot live without? So like 2 years from now or 10 years from now, everything will be okay if this still exists or that still exists. And just think about it that way actually gave me some clarity instead of having a very long list of stuff I really want, like a kid at a toy store right now. I have a list that's a little bit shorter because stuff I really can't live without, I just need to have or need to achieve. So it's going about those both, both.

Lars: Directions, I think is very valuable. Yeah.

C: Yeah.

Lars: It was a nice, nice insight in that, in that meeting. If we go really practical, what tools are you using? You already mentioned Trello. What about reference systems, support material, capture tools, automations? What might you perhaps highlight from, from that long list?

C: I'm imagining this could be a long, long conversation because over time stuff just happens to accumulate, right? But from my, my list manager, if you will, I use Trello, which honestly is not ideal. Because there's no real link between projects and actions. So I need to keep that, I mean, in my head or somehow fake that in the system. Then why am I using something not ideal? Well, because I'm using it and there's a lot of change in it for me and it would take me months to change systems and I'm not really up for it because Trello is simple. I like simple. And then there's some stuff that automation is built into it. Everything from every, for me, it's Friday morning. I do my, I wanna say maybe extended weekly review with my own adapted checklist that pops up there automatically. I know I need to do that. If I add a task to my computer list, that's automatically created something. And I use OneNote for reference material, at least electronically. I got a page there created automatically, stuff like that. So I had a lot of tie-ins to different systems. We have a to-do list system we use for some of my work-related tasks. If I enter something, it's created there. It ends up on my personal to-do list as well. So I have one pane of truth, if you will. One place to, to look for, for capture. It's honestly everything. I have Brainstorms. I use that from time to time, but not that often. Mainly when I'm driving, I have, uh, my trusted notebook I always carry with me with my pen. I have, uh, on my computer when I'm there, I can push something in the email or just an app on my phone and all different kinds of ways. It's just set up in a way so it all funnels into my virtual inbox in my system. Or it could be my physical inbox, but that oftentimes ends into my virtual inbox anyway. And that kind of forces me at least on a weekly basis. I would love to say I do this daily, but honestly, let's, let's say weekly. I take my notes, all my physical notes from the week, and, and I simply type them in. That gives me two advantages. One is I get them into my electronic reference system. That's nice. I also make sure that the actions I maybe forgot to put in immediately are now there. And then it kind of serves as a reminder. Oh yeah, that's what we talked about. So it's kind of a memory jogger for what happened during, during the week. So I do that at least once, once a week, empty out my notes, if you will, together with all the normal stuff on your weekly review. And then that's kind of it. Otherwise, pretty simple stuff. I mean, I have a physical inbox at home. My wife has one and my oldest kid has one as well. It's just easier for us to stop. Oh, she has something laying around the house. Here you go, honey. And then put it into her inbox. And she's kind of taking that to heart. So sometimes, you know, during a day, something breaks at home. It could be something— my wife, she has a fountain pen, and I'm often the guy who changes the ink. Or it could be my kid who has something that runs out of battery, even a small one. And that stuff magically finds a way to my inbox at home. And then I can— oh, I need to fix something. So at least they have found out that it's a very efficient way to get dad to do stuff. I'm not sure they're completely converted yet, working on it, but at the very.

Lars: Least they figured me out. Yeah, no, and I can really recognize that. When I left home this morning, I also noticed some stuff had found its way to my inbox. So there was a, you know, a poster from a theater event that we went to recently that we want to hang in the kids' room. There was also actually a toy that was not working. So my youngest He, for his birthday about a month ago, he really wanted a remote-controlled snake. I don't know why, but he really wanted that and he got that. But now that doesn't work. So I'll have to go and investigate, see what's happening with that. But yeah, that found its way to my inbox. And also I'm setting up inboxes for my kids at home as well. So they're 5 and 7 now. The oldest is turning 8 soon. So I'm playing around with that and actually also maybe creating a customized clarifying flow for them to see if that can actually help them get started with GPT. So you just reminded me about that.

C: As you mentioned that. I think it is for my teenager, especially the CAPTCHA step has shown her a lot of value. She's not really great at the other stuff, doesn't really matter because for her, in her life, she uses her phone and that's basically her life, right? Everything is on there, but it's a gazillion different apps. So something pops up here from a friend, she needs to do something about over here, there's something else, this is for school and so on. And then just having the ability or the mindset to take all those, put it in one place and then look at it. So oftentimes I see her just jotting stuff down on a paper and putting it in her own inbox because then she knows she'll get to it at some point. So that part at least has given a lot of value to my team.

Lars: Yeah, I'm happy to hear that. And I hear that as well from other GTDers in the Danish GTD community that they have kids, maybe 10 or teenagers or whatever they, however old they are, but they really actually, the capture step is really nice to have a place to store these things once they're able to write or just have a place to store the stuff that they still need to do something about. Definitely recognize that. All right, let's move on to Kinevan.

C: Am I saying it right? As is my knowledge, I never personally met the author of it or the guy who made it. This guy called Dave Snowden, he made it while he was working at IBM some years ago. So that's how I heard him pronounce it. You know, watch videos on YouTube and I'm sure you can see it in the link below. But yeah, that's how I pronounce it as well.

Lars: Kinevan. Yeah. Yeah. So it's spelled differently and that's what you saw in the podcast title and I'll be sure to link as well to different sites. Uh, I think it's from Welsh, meaning.

C: Habitat or something like that. It means two things. The direct translation is habitat, but it doesn't really translate well into one word. Uh, so the way it's often talked about is the place of many belongings, which kind of— so to everyone listening here, okay, that's like weird what you're talking about. Uh, and the idea is that the model talks about how we can makes sense of the world. So that's a little bit philosophical, I guess, but it's talking about sometimes the world is pretty simple. Uh, you, you trip over a bucket of water, the water fills the floor because the bucket tips over. Okay, that's easy, we get that. It's a simple thing. There's direct causality: A and then B and so on. So it's easy, everyone understands this. My kids understand this. Sometimes the world becomes a little bit more complex but still predictable. So now we are in what in this framework is not called complex because words matter here. So it's called complicated. Complicated is something that still can be configured out, but it's the domain of experts. So when something is simple, it's what we talk about best practices, how you're supposed to do stuff. That's a right way of doing it. Everyone can more or less understand it. Now we go on to the complicated. It's where experts are needed.. So if you want to completely dismantle a plane and put it back together, or your car, unless you're a really, really good mechanic, you probably need experts to do that, but it's doable. And there's a process for it. And someone can probably make a project chart and saying, we start there and then this and this, and then we're done in 2 weeks ago or something like that. That's kind of the easy to understand part of this model that makes this differentiation between experts' domain and normal people's domain. If you want, there's not an expert within any given field. Where it becomes weird is when we introduce the word complex, which is now, it's once called unordered. So think about something, analogy, I don't want to emphasize using this ever, but if you trip over a bucket of water and it turns off, you can figure out what will happen. But if you trip over, let's say, a dog, good luck figuring out what will happen. I mean, maybe nothing, maybe you'll get bitten, maybe something completely different. You don't really know. So in this domain, what you have to do is just try something, see what works, and then adapt from there. And the way the author will say this is when we have this kind of reality, oftentimes humans are involved, and this is where we just need to try something, safe to fail experiments. So if you ever heard about doing a proof of concept, this is where you will do those, a lot of them, probably do more than one, see what works, and then emphasize what works really well and maybe de-emphasize what doesn't. So try it. Doing experiments and learn from those. And then just know that the world can only be understood backwards and not forwards. You cannot have a plan before you start. And your plan is basically just try and then see what happens. And based on that, then, then learn something. The last part of this simplified edition of the model I'm talking about here is called chaos, which is where there's absolutely no rules. It's just, hey, good luck. It's not a nice place to be, but sometimes we've all been there. When, I don't know, let's say we lose our luggage and don't know what to do. It could be a small example, but it could be, at least from my part, hey, we did a small, pretty big organizational change with no notice. So we're just thrown into the deep end of the pool saying, good luck, figure out something, which we don't really know what to do. You can use your experience, but will it work? Won't it work? The trick is just to do something, see what happens, and then try again. And if you take this way of looking at the world, which is kind of an extra level you can put on top of projects in GTD world. Then if you take the natural planning model, which has its steps for mission and so on down to what are we supposed to do now, sometimes it will make sense to map out everything. If you're down in the simple, or if you're expert in the complex part, you can map it out, all the tasks ahead of you. You could do the organize step. You can just, you have everything in place, you have your project list, you can just go do it. No problem. But if you're more on the unknown territory side of this, then you need to think a bit different. And sometimes that's difficult, at least also for me. I like to know I will win. I like to know I will achieve the goal before I start. But sometimes it's about having the vision and then just figuring out what is the next 2 steps I can take to get some feedback, to figure out what's going on, and then just revert to my project list saying, okay, I did that, I learned this, now I can need to do this. And sometimes it is for me going through a natural planning model. Is very different depending on which domain I'm in. Can I actually figure it out? Do we need to involve experts? Do anyone actually not know? Or are we just completely chaotic and just do something? And that was a long-winded answer to saying what is kill event, but that.

Lars: Would be my at least initial response to that. Yeah, no, that's a great description. So that's the different domains that we can then work our way through. One of the descriptions that I found helpful for me to understand it was one of the quotes was, by distinguishing different domains, in parentheses, the subsystems in which we operate, It recognizes that our actions need to match the reality we find ourselves in through a process of sensemaking. So that's sort of the perhaps more abstract way of saying so by recognizing the different domains that we might find ourselves in, in relation to any given project that we're working on, that then affects our thinking, whether it's a more simple, straightforward GCD project or something more strategic, complex that might involve the natural planning model.

C: So I think you walked through that quite nicely. I think it's about making sense of the world so you can act in it. And I guess in a TTD sense, be effective. So don't do more than is needed, but do exactly what is needed. And that's very different from the different.

Lars: Domains of how the world works. Hmm.

C: Yeah.

Lars: So how have you— you already touched on this, but how have you then worked this framework using, you know, in relation to GCD? How does that show up in your world?

C: So when I'm in the either the simple domain where I can actually think about what's going to happen and plan it out, or if I'm for some reason the expert on the subject at hand, then what I will do is just project management 101, sit down, build my work breakdown structure, and figure out what is the plan actually to, to move onwards here. If I'm not an expert and we are still in the complicated domain, I'll find the experts, right? Facilitate some kind of planning workshop and.

Lars: Then figure out how to go about So that would then trigger a next action to talk to someone and then gain that expertise where the more simple one would just be a straightforward project, change tires on my car. That's pretty predictable what's going to happen. So that one is definable all the way through to the end. And I know the next actions that.

C: Need to happen to get me there, right? Yeah, you're so right in a sense, but it's also something that is kind of personal. Because I mean, I'm not able to change tires and I would break my car and my tire and probably also the neighbor in the same process, right? So I need a mechanic for this. I need a trip over there, dog. My, my next step would be call someone for help. Uh, but if you are able to figure it out, then it's easier, right? So it's also, it's not about the world in general, it's about how your abilities are to interact with the world.

Lars: In any specific content.

C: Yeah. Yeah. And that's different from person to person, right? So sometimes if you have experience enough, You can figure out how to do stuff and maybe not, then let's just try something. It, it differs a lot. Mm-hmm. That is also a thing. While, uh, in, when I was younger, my expectations was that I could figure everything out. Of course, if I just knew enough, if I just learned enough, read enough, studied enough, I would be able to disentangle the entire system behind everything in the world. Mm-hmm. I mean, and that becomes a very philosophical discussion. Is that possible or not? But at least I've given up. And figured out that I will never be able to do that. I mean, I try a little bit sometimes, but I'm giving up and say, okay, sometimes it's not just possible. We just need to go into a different domain, just do something and try it out and see what happens. So we are in the complex area. The way you, you go about stuff like that is if you look at maybe strategy, then if you are in a more simple domain, you'll have what's called the planning school of doing strategy. So we all know about the, or if you do strategy, Boston Consulting Group matrix or something like that where you have the stuff you're making a lot of money on and stuff you're not and, and so on. It's, it's not really important the model, but you can Google it if you want to. Uh, but sometimes you can figure it out and sometimes you're entering maybe a new market. You don't have any experience here. You just need to learn something. Probably need to make mistakes and then build on those. So you just go over in a complex world and just try something. And then just take it from there. So it's, it's basically all about what do you think you can actually figure out what's going to happen or not. And do you need to know? Because sometimes it's not even that important, right? If you just know where you're going or what, where you want to achieve more or less, then just going in one direction will probably bring you there at some point in time. Back to the earlier discussion about projects and the magic just appearing, right? At least for me, buying a summer house was very complex and never done it before. I didn't really know anyone who'd done that. So how, what's important, what's not, how to go about it, what's the process and so on and so forth. Doing it again, it would be, it would just be complicated for me because I've done it before, I can do it again. So it's, it's stuff moves around depending.

Lars: On your experience as well. Yeah. And that makes sense. Does it also then, I imagine that it will be easier to define the sort of longer, not necessarily longer term goal, but But I imagine that the duration of a project might be more— let me maybe phrase it differently. When I know the outcome, I have a really clear outcome where I want to be, I can define that and that will be my project. And that might be— that's within the 12-month sort of limit on projects in GCD. But I imagine with more complicated or at least complex projects that it might be more difficult to define it, or maybe you're able to define it, but you perhaps have more milestones along the way as you get smarter, you revisit, you revise the defined and desired outcome.

C: Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes complete sense. And it's actually a very interesting question. And the dimension milestones is at least what I found is what makes it very, very easy to manipulate with the world. But let's just take it back to the start of your question. If you want to set goals when you don't know how stuff works, that's very, very difficult if you want to do the SMART goals thing, right? But if you want to keep it at the very high level, what is the vision? Maybe even the principles or standards I want to adhere to. We can keep those. That's probably achievable, at least to some extent. I mean, they make some direct course changes around doing the work on it, but being specific and saying, I want to achieve 10 more of these within that timeframe, it's not really doable because you don't know how to do it. You don't even know if it's possible to do it. So you need to have a more milestone approach, or you can timebox things saying, okay, I'll spend 2 weeks investigating this and figuring out if that's even something that's feasible. I'll learn something, I'll try again, and so on. And actually, that's kind of the trick that is being used when you talk about agile for a lot of IT and other organizations. Scrum specifically is one of the things it does incredibly well, is taking something that's complex and then by putting into these sprints, that's timeboxed period of time where you look at something or work on something, then it makes it more complicated. So you kind of a little bit push it over the border. So it's, I don't want to say easy, but easier to work on. So exploring stuff and having milestones or timeboxing is at least for me key to approaching stuff.

Lars: I don't know what will happen. Yeah. So would that also, you know, let's say we have a complicated project or a complex project where you say, well, you need someone else's expertise on this. Let's say you were bringing in the natural planning model. Would then that also lend itself towards maybe having a shared session using the natural planning model to sit down and everyone together and try to define the desired outcome, the wild success vision, brainstorm.

C: Together in that approach? I think the answer to that is yes, but I will go even further and think if you're doing something together with people where it's not just, hey, I'm ordering ice cream and then whoever serves me the ice cream is doing something else, right? But we're actually doing it together. We're working on something, then I would always do that. I might not use the natural friendly model depending on who's in the room and how they work and, and, and so on. But I will always make sure that we have an agreement of what we want to achieve. Uh, I think there, there's two different ways of looking at this I want to mention here. One is that if you think about the Alice in Wonderland, this old story, not really done in Denmark a lot, but at least in the US, uh, is saying if you go somewhere, And I think Alice goes down and meets someone, a magical figure, and asks where you're going. She doesn't know. And then, well, the magical figure is not able to tell her if she should go left or right. Kind of similar. Uh, sorry for everyone if I butchered that one. But, uh, the way is if we have a lot of people or just some people, there's two people working on something. If you're not in agreement of what we want to achieve, how are we able to make decisions on our own? How are we able to figure out if we go that direction or that direction with any specific task?. But if you have a shared goal or shared vision at the very least, then we can easily work together and we collaborate on achieving something we don't know exactly what is, and then just make sure we touch base and collaborate on it. So my answer would be always. A different thing from the military, there's a saying there or something there called commander's intent that you probably know this quote that the plans are great, but they don't hold up the first that meet with the enemy, right? Similar.

Lars: I think everyone kind of says something similar. Yes. Mike Tyson said as well, right?

C: That everyone has plans until They punched in the face. Yeah, exactly. And, and similar, if you know what you want to achieve, then it's way easier when you hit reality to take actions going to one direction or another. But if you just agreed on the actions and we are in this world where we can't really figure it out, then how would you be able to decide on your own? And then you need to have a gazillion meetings and a lot of coordination and basically inefficient. Everyone will hate it. But if we agree on what we want to achieve, if we can keep it on the top of the natural planning model, the vision step, then maybe the principles as well. Then we are in a really, really good shape. And it's, that's my experience. And then we can coordinate on the next steps for the next 2 weeks or whatever. But making sure we're in agreement on the vision and always checking in on.

Lars: That is, is key. Hmm. Yeah. No, that makes sense. That's fascinating. So how do you, if, if we were to, um, apply this in, in practice, when you come across projects, is that sort of a, a natural way for you to think about projects and think through which domain they kind of live in? And then that impacts how you think about defining the desired outcome and also.

C: Of course, the next actions. It is, uh, I always just by heart, I don't do it in methodology, like, you know, checklist stuff, but it's thinking about what is the type of project, but not only for me, but also if there's more than me involved, what is it for the participants? Because if I think this is just easy peasy, but someone else has never tried anything similar to that, then either we need to state that up front and figure out how we can make sure they learn along the process, or it could be opposite. I could know nothing and they can know everything, similar setup. And, or figure out that we might, no one knows anything or whatever it is. And then based on that, create the shared vision and then the next steps needed to do that. I think that's important because otherwise you'll end up nowhere. If you want to take that to a leadership model or management model called situational leadership, you always look at the specific task and the abilities, the common sense, the motivation each individual have, and try to figure out how can we then move from here to where we want to, to be. I think the similar things go when.

Lars: You'Re starting a project with people. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So if people were to, um, so I'll link in the show notes to, to the different websites describing this, um, any recommendations on, on your end with regards to how to get started by.

C: Using this, this framework? Yeah. Uh, two things. One is, uh, go and watch one of the videos that Lars will, will link to because that will just start you thinking about it. And then, uh, at least the way I internalized it, I took my weekly review and then I said, okay, there was this stuff I've been working on the last week. Where is it actually? Is it something that's simple or is it complicated or is it complex? So what are we talking about? And Everyone will think now that, yeah, of course, but that's stupidly simple. But at least to me, it made me a lot of aha moments, saying, okay, that's why that didn't work, right? That's why I couldn't persuade them to do this because they see it differently, or that's why I couldn't achieve this goal because I didn't plan it out properly because I should have, or whatnot. So just having those kind of reflections, this was how I got started with it, and I can only recommend doing that. And if you're not up for doing that, if you want something simpler or maybe easier, then if you have the natural planning model, if you're using that, of course we all have that in our notebooks. Of course. Then just the, who doesn't? I have a laminated version, so I always bring it with me. But just make sure you kind of somehow either just check out what are we talking about, because that also hints to you what type of planning are we actually able to do here. Because if you are in the complex domain, mapping out the 10 next actions might not make sense. It might, it might not, but it's, probably thinking about it from here to finish will make no sense because you're not able to do it anyway. So just think about the next couple of actions and try those. And I mean, to me, my personality profile, that's pretty— I can live with that. I think I can without making her too mad. Maybe to my wife and her personality profile, she really won't like that because she wants to have the plan thought out beforehand. So going on vacation, she likes, and then, and then, and then, and then I just say, hey, let's go that direction, see what happens. We have a bit of a different attitude towards that. And for her, living in that domain, the complex domain, is a bit difficult. She needs to do a little bit more, push herself a little bit. And similar for me, living in the similar domain, I just overcomplicate things way too much. And so that can be for me sometimes. So just knowing who you are and.

Lars: How you approach it is also probably important. Yeah, no, that's a great tip. And as you say that, first of all, I'm reminded that a project we just discussed in a business meeting earlier today that's certainly complex and that requires some different thinking. So that already opened up some new thoughts for me. And the other one was that perhaps this mind-like water thinking or approach from Getting Things Done is also really impacted by this because I can imagine, like you're saying, with the different types of individuals that we all are, whether the right amount of planning and what we can actually expect to, to have, you know, a clear picture of and what we still have as unknown. Perhaps this can actually help in saying, yeah, I know these steps, I know that the future is unknown there, and that's as much as, you know, detail as we can get. So perhaps that will help someone in.

C: That direction as well. I think that's a good point, setting the right expectations for yourself as well. But I think in addition to that, having that mind like water, if you want to achieve it, one of the things that GPT does for me is getting this mindfulness, being present, uh, and being able to be present and just handle whatever comes at me makes it easier for me to handle the complex domain where I can't predict stuff. But I know I'm in control, if you will, of my task, what I want to achieve. And if something happens, then I know what I'm not doing so I can focus on it without having a too bad of a conscience or at least setting new expectations or agreements or whatnot. So having the mind like water feeling also helps me at least going into it. Because I know come what may, we.

Lars: Can probably figure it out. Yeah, exactly.

C: Exactly.

Lars: All right. As we, as we wrap up, coming back to GTD, what's next for you.

C: With your GTD practice? So there's two things. I think one is I'm really, really not good at clarifying. I mean, if you look at my system, my most of my actions, most of my projects will be just 2 words, maybe 3. And if you go through the positive list of what I should state, it doesn't really. And most often it doesn't really matter for me because I'm able to handle it, right? But sometimes, sometimes I don't have a lot of energy and then just having to even think about what we're supposed to do now makes it something I don't do. So I need to improve my, especially for my, my next actions, the phrasing of them.. So it's something I can a little bit more easily do. And I think it especially hits me when I have like 5 minutes on my phone. I have a list context-wise phone, but sometimes it just says a name and then it actually wants, is this like a long call, a short call, or what do I actually want to ask? Shit, I'll do it later. Right. So being a little bit more specific on clarifying some of my actions is I think the one thing. And the other thing is, it's a continuous journey for me, but being better and better and better and integrating what we call higher horizons into my projects so it actually materializes, as we talked about earlier.

Lars: That'll be— that's the two next steps for me. Yeah, well, that sounds really good, and it's, you know, just a good reminder for everyone out there listening, you know, 15, 20 years of GCD experience coming back to the clarify step. I love that. Then that's, you know, I can recognize that, and I recognize that from a lot of people that, that we come across and also work with. This was really, really interesting. Then I have to go back and listen to this again and reflect more on my projects from, from this perspective. Perspective. Thanks so much for your time.

C: Really, really appreciate it. It's been fun. Well, thank you for having me, and.

Morten: Have a great day. Thanks, Ben. That was an interesting interview with Don, and I hope that you as a listener got something out of the Kenevin and got inspired by Don. His experience with getting things done. Anything you would like to add before.

Lars: We end this episode, Loris? No, just a lot of fun to talk to Dan. So many interesting things to reflect on from this interview. And I really hope that this was interesting for you, the listener or viewer as well. If it made sense to you, if you benefit from it now or later, as always, we'd love to hear from you, podcast@wiserlearning.dk. And this is also a great opportunity to remind you that you should perhaps consider becoming a GTD trainer. This is, you know, you get to meet so many interesting people. It is really a joy and there's, uh, it's such a rewarding job. So again, if you've ever thought about it, look into it. If you're in the Nordics, this, you know, you can reach out to us. Outside the Nordics, find your local partner at cruciallearning.com. A lot of fun.

Morten: So quick reminder on that one as well. Yes, yes, become a trainer and help teach people skills that can change their lives.

C: Yeah.

Morten: So with those words, I would like to tell you, as I always do, please until next time, stay safe and stay productive.

C: Bye-bye.

Lars: Bye everyone.