73. Managing Complex Projects

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. And oh, what did you say now? Yes, Vital Learning. My name is Morten Røvik and I'm here as always with my good friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Privet, Lars.

Lars: Privet, Morten. I like the sound of that. Good to see you as always and as always looking forward to recording another episode with you. For our GTDers and GTD-curious people out there. Our purpose with this podcast, as always, is to help you learn GTD or become an even better GTDer. 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 guide you through the basics of getting things done. And today's episode is episode number 73 of the podcast. And today's topic is another listener feedback episode, listener questions episode. But first, a bit of actual feedback from one of our listeners regarding a previous episode, right Morten?

Morten: Correct, correct. I asked in a previous episode for help. What, what does that tire depth thingy— what for measuring the tire depth, what's that called? And John Kibler reached out on our YouTube channels and commented, the English word for this week is tyre thread depth gouge. And he says I was on the right path with tyre tread depth, and it's measured by a tyre thread— sorry, tyre thread depth gouge. And thank you so much, John, for setting me straight. Sometimes English is getting a little complicated. For us, and at least for me. So thank you so much. And you have also feedback from a listener.

Lars: Yeah, that's right. Thanks, John. We need you on speed dial. I think during the episodes where we.

Morten: Really struggle, we should go live with this episode.

Lars: We need John to stand by. No, I also just wanted— Hugh was kind enough to get back to us. We covered a question earlier for you, and then he sent me an email, just a quick feedback on something that he recently discovered. So he said, hi, Lars, I'm enjoying— continuing to enjoy the podcast. Well done on 3 years. Thanks, you. Just wanted to share something I discovered recently, which I'm finding very useful as I try to implement GTD. I thought you may find it interesting. And I know that you have occasionally done episodes on GTD tools. So if you do so again, perhaps this will be of interest. I use Todoist, using it primarily in my browser and on my iPhone with the premium version. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that in addition to the phone app, there is a Todoist widget. This allows me to have a decent-sized window showing my lists for today, personal next actions, and work next actions. I put these on separate pages where each list takes up two-thirds of the page, with apps in the bottom third as usual. This setup meant that my lists are very easy to access, and I constantly see them while selecting different apps. I don't need to remember to go and check the lists as I see the key ones without trying. This has made a real difference in my implementation of GTD, and the ease of access means that I'm using GTD and my lists far more than before. I have combined it with using the calendar widget so I can swipe along the different pages and very quickly see what needs to be done today, all of my next personal and work next actions, plus my calendar.

Morten: Calendar.

Lars: I hope that the above description makes sense. I appreciate the screenshot would have been helpful. Thanks again for making your podcast available. It's really a useful resource. Hugh. So just wanted to share that tip out there for people. I'll certainly go and have a look and see if that might actually improve my setup as well. I have the calendar widget. I really appreciate that. So yeah, maybe I'll sneak that To-Do widget in there as well to see if that that supports my setup. Do you use something similar?

Morten: No, because I want to go— I need to— I am so easily distracted so that when I can't see my work because I'm getting pulled into doing that. So I have to compartmentalize more. But I understand that some people are different than me. So one of the things I've found very beneficial for people with both iPhone and Android is that you can, you do on both operating systems, you can create a dock that is, you know, a set of fixed apps that are following on your home screen. So if you swipe left or right to find your apps, you can still have the, you know, 3 to, I think, 5 in Android you can have apps, 4 on the iPhone if I'm not mistaken. And that will follow you around. And one of my, my, you know, tip in conjunction with that is to, you know, capture. If you are— we want to make it easy to capture, put your, put your list manager in the dock, and then you can long press on the icon. And most of them have where you can add, add a task to the inbox, so you can capture things really easily. So that's a power tip I would recommend. I know that Todoist do this, Microsoft To Do do this, and OmniFocus, maybe others as well. So that's, that's a power tip. Easy, get it out of your head.

Lars: And yeah, if you use Brain Sauce or Drafts or something like that, then you have it easily.

Morten: Exactly. Yeah.

Lars: So, yeah.

Morten: Okay.

Lars: Just another tip on that note, because I saw the parts of the developer conference that Apple just did. Recently relative to the recording of this episode where they discussed some of the improvements that are coming to the different focus modes. And that's already something that I've set up, and it seems to be the case that they will be making it simpler to switch. So one of the things that I have set up is that when my phone sees that it's 8 o'clock in the morning, it'll switch to its work mode. And that means that the different screens showing up on my phone will be showing a different list of apps. So they'll be showing me all my work-related apps. At 4 PM, it'll switch back again to personal mode. During the day, it might switch between driving or do not disturb as we, as we go through here. And I really, you know, spent some time setting that up, and it's been really, really helpful for me. I, you know, it changes the background. As simple as it sounds, it's nice for me. So I have a, you know, a folder of pictures from GTD seminars and speeches that will pick a random photo at that time. When it goes into personal mode, it'll go in and through the, the, the vacation photo album that I have and just pick a, a random photo from that as well to have as a background. So just, you know, small things to remind me to, you know, what am I doing right now, and you're not working with the best possible option. Yeah, exactly. So I'm glad to see that they'll be making that even more easily accessible because it was a bit of a pain to set it up, but once it's set up, it's actually really, really nice.

Morten: Yeah, I know that you've been fiddling around with that, with the focus mode and the triggers and the shortcuts app. So you can— I tried that and that didn't work. It worked, but it kind of confused me more than it enlightened me. So I need things to look like they always do. That works better for me. But we are different. And that is why we need to do this podcast together because We are two different camps, but we are in the right camp together, and that is we like GTD or we love GTD. That's more like it.

Lars: Exactly. All right. But let's dive into the listener question that we wanted to aim for today. And it's kind of a sneaky way, I think, to get us to the topic as well that we wanted to discuss. But that was such a perfect fit. We got an email from Michael. A few years, uh, not a few years back, some, some, some weeks back, I think. He says, uh, hey gents, thanks for 3 years of good podcasting. GTD is for most people a life-changing methodology if they stick around and develop. The famous quote, GTD is not rocket science, but you can use it for building rockets, speaks a lot to me. However, when we discuss GTD, we very often use projects and tasks relating to buy cat food, water flowers, change the window tires, etc. That's all good and good for understanding the methodology and get the ground level under control and making space. For example, space, energy, and focus to deal with more complex situations and projects in personal and work life. So could you give one or two good examples of complex situations and projects where GTD is the natural way forward? All the best from Michael.

Morten: Well, thank you, Michael. And that's, um, we will use that, um, question and use a situation we were just in that started in, if I'm not mistaken, correct me if I'm wrong, but in January. We received an email in the GTD Nordic group of companies from David Allen Company telling us that they are discontinuing their work with the franchisee license partner they had called SM-Kovi, and that our contracts will be terminated by December 2022. At the end of our contracts, we will not have contracts. And that kind of drove a little shock through our way. Yeah, we'll— we're exactly— for those on video now, Lars, does this.

Lars: This, this.

Morten: This is By the way, I don't— for those who don't know, this emoji with this, with, you know, that both hands to the— or your flat hands to your cheeks and with a scream, that's actually a painting painted by the famous Norwegian painter Munch, Edvard Munch, who— and this painting is called Scream. So yes, we screamed.

Lars: I think it's from the Home Alone movies where Kevin is at home and he puts that aftershave on. I think that's where it comes from.

Morten: I think maybe he takes that from Scream. At least look at your emoji, you will see. And look at the— go for Scream, Munch, M-U-N-C-H, and Scream, then you will see where the emoji came from. Seriously. Don't mess with our national feeling now, Lars. We just discussed, Lars and I just discussed the logic of the counting in Danish. And I'm not going to go on a tangent here, but if you want to say 70, you will do the math of 4 times 20 minus 10, which is 80 becoming 70. So, whole fiasco.

Lars: That's how smart we are.

Morten: Yes, you are doing that on the fly. You don't memorize it.

Lars: Yeah.

Morten: Okay. No, but we got this message back in January and it kind of shocked us a little. Stunned us at least. And, uh, because— and then after, you know, a few weeks, we got more information. How are, how are we going to handle this? And then we got, um, another piece of information later on that David Allen Company will start offering the GTD Fundamentals courses, as we would call them. We— again, Getting Things Done courses are in 3 levels that we have received them, and the Level 1 is called Fundamentals, and We will then be offering that through Crucial Learning, the company called Crucial Learning. And this, we know, we've known about them because they've been doing this Level 1 training in the US and Canada, but now they will be doing it worldwide. It's kind of like another shock. Okay, we will not be able to do Level 1 at all. No, we will do Level 2, Level 3, and coaching. Kind of, hey, what do we do now? And I remember my feeling here is that I really need to understand what's happening here. So in this situation, it's like life— I think that to use an American baseball analogy, life throws you a curveball every now and then. And this was definitely a curveball. And we were just kind of getting out of Corona, and then now something smack hit us in the face. And on top of this, of course, this tragical war in Ukraine came. Later on, you know, in the spring. And, you know, what do you do then? How do you handle this? And for me, what I did for, you know, as the responsible, overall responsible person for the franchise business, I need to sit down with myself and a mind map and just map everything out, you know, and try to make dots connected, to understand what does this mean to us. Is it, you know, because it was the first, our first, my first feeling was this is a threat to our business. We will be out of business by the end of the year. What do we do? What do I do? Do I seek employment somewhere else? Like all these kind of thoughts goes through your head. But after making a mind map showing myself the connections of the dots and what it means, that kind of— you get an overview and like calm starts setting in. So, and then of course we started, we must, we communicate with all our partners what is happening and trying to make sure that they understand that we have this in control, as much as in control as we can. And then on top of this cake, we have this, the question on what does this mean to us as a business? Because we could lose our Getting Things Done Level 1, what we call Level 1 Fundamentals courses, if you didn't find a way to partner with Crucial Learning. And that ended up as a, as a a project in my project list called Clarify if we can work with Crucial Learning. This was my project title or somewhat that, but in Norwegian. And then you just start, you know, next actions. You know, it's not rocket science, but you can build rockets. And this is kind of like a rocket for us. And the reason for those of you who are on video, you can see this. Let me see if I can point to this. This was difficult. The Vital Learning logo on the, on this, on the video is that that's our new logo. We will be Vital Learning EU and DK and SE and, and, and O. And we will be delivering these crucial, sorry, crucial learning courses, which one is, you have 5 courses. We will not go in depth with them. We will just mention 2 of them. One you know very well is Getting Things Done. And they have a surprisingly, not surprisingly, but little, to be honest, it came like a little surprise that they actually made a better version of that course than what we have at the time. And it's really good. So it's a better way of learning Getting Things Done. So if you are interested in learning Getting Things Done, in the Nordic region. Check that out at some, you know, later on. And we also, um, had— then we will not only carry the Getting Things Done courses, but we have to carry the 4 other courses as well. And, uh, there are 3 Crucial Conversations courses. The Crucial Conversation is the flagship course that they have. They have Crucial Conversations for Mastering Dialogue, which is the main one, and then they have Crucial Conversations for Accountability, and then they have the Crucial Conversations called Influencer, just, or just Influencer. And then they have the Getting Things Done and the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. So we will be carrying all these 5 courses in the fall/winter. And going from not knowing anything about this course to now have both Lars and I have taken these courses, we are now ready to at least give you our first impressions of it. And, um, and that took some time, and it took some thinking, and it took some calming down. And it is super complex because we imagine this, that we have two different legal entities that we need to talk to. And then we have Norwegian law, we have Danish law, Swedish law, and everything needs to be, you know, fitting together somehow. And, um, but it is a next action after next action after next action. And after we— this, you know, I— what I try to, to establish is, you know, do the natural planning model for all of the sub-projects we did. I did it by myself, asking myself, why are we doing this? Why is this important? Why, why, why? Until I understand that, well, it's about changing people's lives. And if we are partnering with Crucial Learning, we can continue changing people's lives. That's our business. Lars and I are doing this because we know Getting Things Done is helpful. It can help you live the life you want to. And we also see that the other courses that that Crucial Learning carries has the same DNA. Like the Crucial Conversation for Mastering Dialogue has the same DNA as Getting Things Done, that it is potentially life-altering. It's potentially helping you to get a better life in whatever crucial conversations you have in your life. And define, help me define Crucial Conversations, Lars. As I remember them, they are high emotions, high stakes, and opposite meaning, opposing views. So if you are in a situation where you, you have these three present, then you are in a crucial conversation. And these crucial conversations can dictate how your life is, so, or how your life becomes. Because if you, you lose your temper with your colleague, boss, friend, wife, child, mother, father, that could be detrimental for your relationship to them. And, or if you do not have that crucial conversation, what happens? You know, if you either attack or you flee, if you flee and go into silence, then you are avoiding this. I'm just saying that this is potentially life-altering. And I am really pleased that we are going to carry that in the future because it is— I love the idea. I had to get used to this, of course. I have to learn this, as Lars, I'm sure, going to say the same thing. But when we looked at this, we understood that it is in alignment with our higher horizons and what we are on the planet to do. So did you have the same reaction when you understood? The nature of the— Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Lars: So yeah, and you had to get to that understanding point. So I think this is, you know, that's why we picked your question now, Michael, to really kick us off on this, you know, sharing this new information, because it's such a good example of a really big project that just showed up that you needed to then deal with. And yeah, like you said, Morten, a lot of thinking, sitting down, thinking things through, and and coming to the conclusion, I think I can find an email somewhere in my sent folder as well that I sent to you back in, let's say, late January with, yeah, you know, thinking all this thing through, it kind of makes sense and it really is in line with the purpose that we have, which is to help people live better lives. It used to specifically be with the Getting Things Done techniques and now we can really expand that to different offerings. And like you said, I think this really, the DNA of this is very much in line with some of the things that we help people with the GCD. And when I think just from a GCD perspective, since that is the topic of this podcast, it really is, you know, some of the things that will have the most impact on your life will really be these kinds of conversations. And they, you know, I'm really, like I just told you, I recently attended the seminar, really looking forward to using this framework to work with my thinking and planning and interacting with people. It's really, really interesting to look through. And I think, you know, some of the things that were most critical for me to get off my list were, you know, it could have been things on my calls list or things on my agenda list where I needed to discuss something really important with, you know, a business partner or my mom or my wife or client, whatever it might be. And those were the ones that might tend to stay even longer on the list than they needed to.

Morten: I hear procrastination.

Lars: Yeah, exactly.

Morten: And this is emotionally difficult conversations.

Lars: Yeah, exactly. And then, those will be, I might be attracted to my list, but some of those might be, I need to think these things through. And now with the Crucial Conversations Mastering Dialogue course, I actually have a way to approach these and have the tools to give me the confidence to walk into those kinds of conversations. So I think it's a perfect match and the perfect complement to the different scenarios. Yeah.

Morten: So that's what I like about or love about GTD. It is life, potentially life-changing if you are implementing it, learning it and implementing it in your life. And one of the— but it also is very logical. It's very commonsensical. If you start thinking about Getting Things Done, look at it, you will understand, yeah, that's the way it needs to be, to, you know, to be the simplest system you can create without it crumbling, but as complex as it needs to be to be able to encompass your whole life and your being. And I do feel the same about the Crucial Conversation Mastering Dialogue. It has the same commonsensical It's like somebody sat down for a long time, really long time, and starting unravel and, you know, unpacking what happens when we are in a situation that could be, that has these three elements present. What do we do? How do we handle that situation the best for the the common good of everyone, trying to resolve something difficult instead of getting angry or, you know, retracting or just pull out of the situation. Don't just close your mouth and walk away. And the commonsensical way it's structured as well, you learn something, you get some visuals that you will memorize and learn, you will remember those when you are in that situation. Like, okay, what do I need to do now? Well, I have to do this, and then I can, you know, you have to— first you need to start with you, because if you get angry in situations like this, you know, it's not good. I'm sorry, I'm going on a tangent here, going off topic, but this is— but this, going back to the natural planning model, is that we need to establish the purpose of whatever we are doing and the purpose of continuing trying to figure out back then how can we work, can we work with Crucial Learning at all? And when we look at the why, it's because it has the same DNA as us and it also allows us to keep what we are doing today. So it's kind of like a bonus bonus. Or a win-win-win something. I don't know how you would phrase that, but it actually, not only, it wasn't a threat at all, it was a really good opportunity for us. And when that kind of dawned on me very early on when I used the natural planning model, I understood that this, we need to, you know, the DNA is correct, the feeling of, you know, common ground that we are having the higher horizons locked down, then the standards needed to be, you know, we must find how, what's the framework here, how can we work together, what are standards do we need to adhere to, to, you know, to get, make this work for us. And that's just, you know, contractual things that what can we do, what can we not do, how do we offer them, what can we offer, and what does it cost. And then, and Everything from how much printed material is there to what does that cost us to print and how is the cost structure, what should the courses cost, and, you know, can we continue doing coaching and Level 2 or Level 3? Yes, we can. And as long as we know that the DNA is correct, we don't have that doubt. At least I didn't have that doubt in my heart. It's just how can we make this the best possible possibility for all of us moving forward. So that not only can we now give you, our listeners, Getting Things Done. This is going to be a purely Getting Things Done podcast as far as I can see, but it might bleed into Crucial Conversation Mastering Dalai at some point. I don't know, but we will keep it a Getting Things Done podcast. Keep— you will, you will be able to look at this at all the normal sites as you are, you know, continue at gettingthingsdone.com, gtdnordic.dk,.se,.no,.fin,.is. For those of you who are, you know, familiar with our sites, these will continue on being your resources, and we will continue doing this, just a little different branding. We will not be GTD Nordic as such, we will be Vital Learning, but with the The Nordic sites will continue. And then after this, you've decided, you know, you need to establish some standards that you would like to work on. And then, you know, you continue, then you go for what would wild success look like. And wild success for us will be, we will be able to continue doing our Getting Things Done business and expand into the 5, sorry, the 4 other courses that we can do for our clients in the Crucial Conversations, Crucial Learning offerings. And then, you know, and we have some added bonuses as well. We get a new network that we can communicate with, a lot of other things that I remember my natural planning model happened to do. And then brainstorm. And then brainstorming, I did mostly with our managing director here in Norway, Espen Auge Hegge. We did, you know, what could be relevant here, what do we need to, what kind of loose main topics do we need to tie down, and who is responsible for what. And then we started doing, you know, we needed to change the way that we work because before he was not as involved in the franchise business, and then we needed to get him under and on the, on, you know, in, into this. And he is a lot better reading complex documents than I am. I have a slight dyslexia, which makes it a little difficult for me. But it's, um, so we change roles so that he start reading all the, the paperwork. And, um, yeah, and then we have to communicate with all the our partners, Lars is one of them. We have a partner in Sweden and one in Finland. And how do we structure this? How do we work this? What are we going to carry in the future? So Vital Learning will not be in the Nordic region, but in Scandinavia. So Norway, Sweden, Denmark. Getting Things Done is going to be carried on as coaching in Iceland and in Finland. You can also get courses there if you want, but then you have to get to reach out and we will have to find a workaround for that. But all this complex, really complex things is just decide outcomes and next actions. What do we want to achieve and how do we start moving towards that? And we discussed just briefly in the pre-show that we are You know, I asked Lars because he's not been directly involved in all the discussions we've had with Whitehall, sorry, with Crucial Learning in this, you know, it's been a lot of meetings, but I asked him how did it, how has it, did it come across for you? And because that's a big part of, you know, these big complexes, the people, how do you take care of them so that they understand they are heard and they are informed and that we can, you know, and I think you said you had, you trust, you trust us. Yeah, that is a very big part of good, good working environment together. But how did, how did that seem? Does it seem to be a structured project for you from the outside?

Lars: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it just also shows, um, just coming back to Michael's question, shows how, you know, these projects, you know, landed on both of our radars, but our involvement was very, very different from you to Espen to Martin in Sweden to myself in Denmark and how we were involved. So certainly was a project on my end to also research and learn more about the different offerings. So yeah, certainly a project on my end, less next actions relating to reading difficult documents and more in following up and providing my input and checking how we were doing and if if there were any news and those kinds of things, seeing the different information that showed up and walking through that. So yeah, same goal in the end, but certainly different next actions on my end.

Morten: Yeah. And just to throw on top of this is that in this complex world that we have been in since mid-January until now with Everything that goes around in the world, plus this, we have also taken on an investor that is going to help us, you know, with some fresh funds for us to start marketing, be better at marketing our offerings so that we get more leads so that we can grow. We need to grow. We have enough people, but we need more leads. So if you're out there and in the Nordic region, get in touch if you want to hire us for doing something. So, I'm— No, so, and then, you know, one could easily be overwhelmed. I remember back in 1999, roundish, I started getting the— '98, '99, I started getting burnout symptoms. I didn't know that at the time, but I was constantly stressed. My blood pressure was high all the time, and I was not a happy person. I was just stressed all the time. And I remember, after when I learned GDD, I know I would not have been in that situation. Actually, I got burned out. I was on sick leave for.

Lars: Yeah.

Morten: On and off for, and partially for 1.5 years to get back from that. And that is not something I would, and I've been open about this. We have a podcast episode dedicated to this before. So if you listen to that, you know the story. But I know that this situation here is way more complex than the one I was in at the time when I got burned out. And I know that getting things done is so helpful for people. So if you're listening to this and feel overwhelmed or stressed, know that if you continue, don't give up, stay there, stick to it, learn this. It's not rocket science, but you can use it to build rockets. I love that quote from David. And it is, I'm telling people, you don't even need to be very intelligent. Just look at me. I don't feel very intelligent, but I stuck with it and I didn't give up and it gave me so much. And now We just want to give it to other people. And that is, you know, you handle complex projects in your life, making sure that your life is moving forward in that direction you would like. Then first you have to identify what do you like, what is your direction? And if that direction, you hopefully, is for a more peaceful place inside your own head so you can be more present and more enjoying more, more of life than you did before, I think getting things done is really good for you.

Lars: And now I went on that topic. It, it, it really is, you know, one of the things that I have started thinking about after attending the Crucial Conversations Mastering Dialogue course is, you know, these different kinds of tools in your tool belt that we will get from, you know, different seminars. It could be, you know, it could be that I learned to build a shed and now I'm gonna go build a shed at the, at the summer house. This is, this is the same thing. It gives you a new set of tools that you will then hopefully give you some chances to do things that you couldn't do before, where GTD will always be the base of how I will do things. I think, you know, these seminars will really help people, you know, they will open doors that might not have been possible to open before because you didn't know how to do it or you didn't feel that they were something you could impact. And, you know, when with DCD, we naturally think at the, you know, we think of the things that we can actually impact, and then how would we do it? You know, what's the next action? What will we do about it if we can do anything? And I think this, this, you know, this skill will probably give me the ability to, to open some doors that I couldn't before. So again, that'll, that'll be how that then impacts, you know, even the higher levels of GTD and, you know, starting to see things show up on my radar. I really do expect that to be the case during the summer, actually. Things that I might have just, you know, accepted for what they were because I couldn't change them. And now with this new skill in my tool belt, then I might see things differently and I might see that, you know, maybe I actually could make that relationship better or do something differently. And so I'm actually really excited to see how that'll show up as Yeah, as we move forward, both, both for myself and of course the, the future participants in, in Denmark and the Nordics and yeah, in the world.

Morten: Yeah. And, and this, just come back to the, the, the question here is that maybe you, we didn't, I didn't use any Gantt charts for resource allocation or, you know, milestones and, uh, but it was just desired outcomes and next actions. So contract signed with Crucial Learning was the second desired outcome. The first one is, you know, clarify if we can work with them at all. If we have the same DNA, we feel comfortable with them because, you know, do they, does this fit with us, you know, what we are doing? And then yes, then this changed the nature to sign contracts signed with Crucial Learning. And then just the next actions on next actions on next actions on next actions. And voilà, earlier in June, we signed with them.

Lars: Exactly. And also the help of the natural planning model, episode number 10 of the podcast.

Morten: Yeah, great.

Lars: So go back to— Sponsored by episode number 10.

Morten: Sponsored by episode 10. No, but the natural planning model is really powerful. And I just want to say that sometimes I find that the projects, like in this case, I didn't start with the purpose and the why natural planning, but I actually started with a mind map to get an overview of everything because it was a lot of moving parts. It was like I felt like, I don't know if you've seen like action movies where the hero is on a lake and there is, you know, the lake is frozen and the ice starts breaking up. So, you know, he or she is on one piece of ice and is drifting down the river and picking up speed and then he or she needs to jump to another part of another piece of ice, and that starts breaking up. I felt like this, it's like the earth was moving. And just to get an overview, a mind map worked for me to just— What is this? There's a lot of things going on now, and if I keep them in my head, I will just be confused, and I will be stressed, and I will be overwhelmed, and I don't want that. So how can I get it out of my brain and start, you know, sort through them and start looking at and finding them, I started with that. And then I found, you know, found back to the natural planning model when I got that overview and then starting to see if it fits. And it did. Hooray!

Lars: Yeah.

Morten: Like all learning.

Lars: And you're, yeah. And you're reminding me of a conversation that we had, I think probably was back in February, maybe, where because I, as you say that, I recognize that, that, that mind map that, that showed up when we had some conversations about, you know, so how is this going to look, might it look going forward? Because we of course didn't, didn't know back then what would happen and that we would be at this good place that we are right now. But we spoke about the different scenarios of what might come up and how the structure would be and future trainers. And I remember that we talked about retirement age as well in, in all of this planning, right? And you know how how a normal Morton and Lars status meeting every 2 weeks on Mondays shifted from, did you get that email? And did you hear that? And blah, blah, blah, all the way up to, so when are you retiring? How old are you really? Having that kind of conversation, this— whoa. I clearly remember that. Just such a perfect example of, you know, how things show up and how they impact how you think and what you need to do to get things back under control and really opened up, you know, some different different conversation, and happily it all, it all worked out as planned.

Morten: Yes, me too, me too. So, and then, and then it, because it moved up to the, you know, what's the purpose of, of the company or the companies we are part of, until, you know, the purpose of our lives. What's, what's the purpose of my life? Um, I know you also have this on, you know, your purpose is we want to change the world, help people to reach your lives or something of that sort. I don't know exactly what you have on yours, but that's on top of mine. This is my, on top of my agenda for my life. And when that is aligned, then that helps a lot. And then I don't know if that is why I've been talking about many times before that GGGers are the nicest people. And I don't know why, but I'm trying to decipher why. But I think when you start reflecting on your life and start reflecting on where you want to go, and I think getting things done is attracting people who want to help people. And if you want to help people, and you, of course, you will help yourself by learning GTD. And, but when you want to help people, you understand that or maybe you don't understand, it just happens, is that your ego goes away. And with the ego, I mean, of course you must understand you are existing as a person, and about an ego like, well, I am so very good at what I'm doing, I am the best, you know, and I drive a Ferrari. Not, but you understand what I'm saying, is that, you know, that I think that many of them are all of the really nice GGGs, you know, they don't have ego. They're just interested in helping people. That sets them apart from a lot of others. So does that make sense to you?

Lars: At least I can recognize, well, at least I can, you know, it's been one of the things that I've noticed just now that we're really, really all the way up to the purpose level. I see from coaching and also from level 2 and 3 seminars where we talk about this is that there seems to be some alignment on the purpose level. So there are some basic building blocks that just recur from person to person. And I had this with a coaching client recently, actually, where he, we were talking about actually a project. We used the natural planning model. Again, we come back to that sponsored by episode 10. And as we, People will often— we talk about a specific project and then we try to, to go up to the purpose level. And he was, you know, struggling a bit to, to get there. And so, so I tried to walk him through it and share some ideas what I thought it might be. And he, he said I was a mind reader because I just specified, you know, on that purpose level, why were we actually involved in doing this project. And it is— there are some common building blocks, and it could be that it's Ideally it was for humanity, perhaps it's, you know, for people that are attracted to GTD, I don't know. But it is interesting. So yeah, I can certainly recognize that.

Morten: Yeah, I don't know. I think it feels like we are at the end of this episode because I've been talking a lot, but I'm trying to make people understand that GTD is really easy. You just need to know what's my What is my desired outcome? How does finish look like? And as finished as I can see it now, because it changes nature, it changed nature several times, this project for me and the sub-projects as well. First is clarify if we can work with them, you know, find that out, and when we can find that out, you know, then how can we get the best working environment together as possible, what, how does the contract look like, and etc. And that is, and I think that, that is, you know, some of the power of what we are doing is that we know how to find that out. This, and what does finished look like, and what does doing look like. So doing, next actions, finished, done is the side outcomes. And it is That's simple. Then you just need a list manager and a calendar. And I'm not saying life is easy. I'm not saying that your work is easy. But when you are getting this internalized, this thinking, you know, getting to the bottom of something and then resolving that as, you know, as elegant as possible is a lot easier. I don't know if you agree with me. I think you are.

Lars: No, I do. I'm always hesitant to say if something is easy or hard, Birgit. But yeah, in the end, once you have the thinking and the framework, yeah, it is. Those are the building blocks of getting things done, both the methodology and the actual activity of checking things off, marking things as done. So I think that, yeah, thanks to Michael for the question. Thanks to those of you who send in questions. We have some great ones coming up as well. So looking forward to more of those. If you have any questions, podcast@gtdnordic.dk will end up in both of our inboxes and we'll cover it in a future episode. So thanks, Michael. That was a perfect time now for us to cover a pretty good example of a very complex project that just showed up and the thinking to walk through it. So thanks for that.

Morten: And just an additional information, maybe at this point when you are listening to this, if Let me, let me put it this way. If everything comes together, as I hope, you can go to vitallearning.eu and see our first offering page so that you can get an idea of what this we are working on is. Hopefully. So if you just find out, I'm not hedging my bets on this, but I'm hoping that we will get something there. So we can look at it.

Lars: Spoken by a man who knows IT projects and what can happen during the way.

Morten: Yeah, I know. That's why. So, but hopefully, yes.

Lars: So hopefully we can send you to vitallearning.eu now as well. And for those of you outside the Nordics, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Learning, sorry, cruciallearning.com is where to go. To, to see all the different offerings that you will then be able to see in the Nordic as well. For the GTDers out there, you can still go to gtdnordic.com. That's where you'll find links to each of the country websites for each of the Nordic countries, and on those sites you will find all of the information relating to that country, different articles about GTD, newsletter, different offerings that we offer in each of those countries, both physical and virtual and outside the Nordics, gettingthingsdone.com is the place to go to find your local partners. So as always, we hope that this episode supports you in learning GCD, becoming even better GCDers. Thanks again to Michael for the question that led us through today's episode. If GCD has helped, as always, we really appreciate any ratings you can provide in your podcast player, Spotify or Apple Podcast, whatever it might be. And, um, yeah, Thanks so much for listening. We really appreciate it.

Morten: Yes. And I understand that we are reaching people because they reach out to us with feedback and questions and just general comments on the videos and thumbs up. And that is very much appreciated. Thank you. It motivates us to continue. And we have people saying that, well, you've just passed 3 years. Will you continue? And the answer is yes, as long as we feel it provides you of a service that you like and want. And that we are explaining Getting Things Done in a good manner so that you can learn more, then we will continue. So keep up the comments, that motivates us to continue. So thank you, and I think this is our wrap-up wrap-up, which means that I need to say until next time, stay safe and stay productive. Bye-bye! Bye everyone!