Episode 127 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. I am Morten Røvik and I'm here as always with my good friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Privet Lars.
Lars: Privet Morten. Good to see you as always. And as always, good to be with our listeners and viewers out there. Indeed. We always start off with a quick reminder of the purpose of the podcast, which is to help you learn GTD or become even better GTDers. We hope that today's episode supports you in that. If you're new to GTD, we always recommend you go back and listen to the first 6 episodes where we go through the basics of GTD, the 5 steps. Today's episode number is number 127, and today's episode is a listener question episode. Woohoo! Weehee!
Morten: It is some interesting questions from actually two separate questions from, or set of questions you might want to call it, from the same person. And he signs his email with K. Kai, I'm not sure exactly how you will pronounce that, but there There are some Chinese letters that I don't understand. So I don't know. Have you found out what is, how to pronounce his name?
Lars: No. And I won't say where the letters are from either. So they are Chinese.
Morten: I looked it up. They are Chinese.
Lars: Okay. Okay. Good. Good. So we know that much. But yeah, some really good questions for us to pick up on. And, you know, we've been asking for these questions for a while. And then we just got the two emails last month. From my case. So we figured now it's time for a listener questions episode.
Morten: Indeed. And for us, the listener questions are a way to sharpen our brains and trying to figure out how can we answer you to give you the most value. And, you know, if you have a listener question, send them to us. We love them. And we do answer, if not all of them on the show, some we answer actually, actually directly on email. So feel free, send them to us. Don't expect we do answer them, but you would be surprised how many we do. So, Lars, give us the first question.
Lars: We'll go for the first one. And there's some good context for both of these questions, which is really good because that's very helpful for us to understand a bit more about the background. Otherwise, we will be guessing too much. So that's very helpful. So if you send in a listener question, if you can also give a bit of background, that really, really helps us. This email says, Dear GTD team, I hope this message finds you well. I came across a question while reading and applying GTD in my daily life, and I was wondering if I might ask for your advice. I've noticed that GTD recommends using context lists to organize my next actions, but in my situation, I'm almost always working at my computer. If I follow this method strictly, I end up with only two context lists: at context— oh, sorry, at computer and at errands, which doesn't feel very helpful in clarifying what I should do next. Previously, I tried categorizing by areas like personal, study, and work, but that didn't seem to improve things either since I do all of them in the same environment at my desk. I'm feeling a little unsure about how to move forward. Recently, an AI assistant suggested that I consider using categories like deep focus and light tasks. Instead of location-based context. I thought this was an interesting idea and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Would you have any suggestions for adapting context lists in this kind of situation, or would this be something that requires a coaching session to explore more deeply? Thank you so much for your time and kind help, and please excuse me if my English is not perfect. I'm still learning. Okay. So that was the, the email from Okay, there we go.
Morten: Yeah, then thank you for your email, and it is very interesting. I've been dabbling with this because this is one of the things that we hear often, that the contexts are difficult to grasp or to work with because everything happens on one list. And I do have some I've been doing some pondering on this, and I think I might have an— if not the end solution, one solution to this that I might want to recommend him. But I will let you go first, Lars. Should we just do a recap? What does GTD say about the context lists? You know, next actions, you know, physical, visible next action where you have everything you need should go on a context-based Next action list. And what is a next action list, Lars? What is a context? Just to define it.
Lars: GTD-wise. No, well, I think most people will be familiar with this and how we organize in GTD, where we have a set of standard lists that will be, you know, familiar to most people when they start off with GTD. So as we go through the trainings today, we'll talk about you might have a next action that you need to do at at the office, so you create an at office list, or you might have an action to do at home, so you create an at home list, or calls, or errands, or, uh, agenda lists for the things that you need to talk to someone about. So they have a, a place to go. But as you say, it's, it's one of the most common places that people ask about, how do we actually do this? And, uh, I like to point out that it's one of the places where we tweak GCD the most to make sure that it works, uh, best for you. And I don't have any idea how many times over the years I've changed mine, both from a, you know, technology perspective on what each of them, how they could work with them. And also, you know, using different tags, separate lists, folders lined up with areas of focus, multiple tags, you know, tried out so many different things and continually tweak it. And, you know, it's not, yeah, I think it was last month where I tweaked my lists again that I had separated them into two and I'm, decided no, no, I want to keep it as simple as possible. So I have, you know, just 2 or 3 lists here at the office that I tend to work from. Again, because I have minimized the amount of active projects on my lists and ongoing things.
Morten: And I think that you are touching on a key to get the context list to work. I just want to take you through the You know, what is the definition of a context list would be something like it's a physical location or a tool you need or a context you have to be in. Like, you know, at the office would be a place you need to be. Tool you need could be your phone or your PC or a specific software that you need to use. Like, let's say you do some, some several tasks you would like to batch them into same place. Let's say you do Adobe InDesign. So all the Adobe InDesign tasks you need to get done could go on that list so that when you are in Adobe InDesign mode you can go there. And in context being, I am with my spouse, I'm at, you know, the agenda for lists, that would be agenda for the staff meeting, agenda for my one-on-one with my boss, etc. So this is the, you know, the clear-cut definition of a context and And for many people, that doesn't work because everything is on PC and it grows. But you are touching on what I would recommend people to do. Like when he talks about personal study work, then that is not the best. You are confusing context with areas of focus or maybe even areas of responsibility. And the light tasks, deep focus. I know that our colleague in London, Robert Peake, at some point coined the brain dead list when he's really, you know, tired and don't have a lot of mental horsepower to do things. He would go to that list. I tried that. That didn't work for me.
Lars: So I have that. That's one of the three lists that I have. I have the Mac, finance, and zombie.
Morten: Those are the three.
Lars: Zombie.
Morten: Zombie.
Lars: Okay.
Morten: Good one. Well, good for you. That doesn't work for me, but my suggestion now is that we would start thinking about this with a little, you know, how to make sure that your list doesn't have an overwhelming amount of things or stuff on them, like the next action list for PC or at office, depending on how you do this. And one of the things I think is key is to think about using on-hold lists. Because if you are showing yourself all the next actions you could be doing, or all the desired outcomes you have in your work, probably specifically your work, it can be really overwhelming. And David Allen says it is possible to have an overwhelmingly many things to do without being overwhelmed. And how to do that would be probably in my brain, I don't know what you think, Lars, I'll let you comment on this, but to, to take all your desired outcomes that are not a next action, that are not something you are going to do before maybe 2-3 weeks from now. So what is active right now, the next, this week, next week, maybe the week after, how far you might— you can go, that's up to you. But think about this as a way to not overwhelm yourself. So then you will have a desired outcomes work on hold or paused or whatever you want to call that. So, and then drag just all the desired outcomes that are not active right now down there. And then you will have a ditto for next actions on pause. Just drag them down there and they're out of your regular list and makes it easier for you to focus on what is important, urgent now and in the next week or two or three, whatever you decide to do. How does that resonate with you, Lars?
Lars: Yeah, no, it certainly does. And I've heard that actually, as you, as you walk through that description, I think one or even two of my most recent Level 2 participants actually described a process somewhat similar to what you just did with really trying to to limit what we see there. And I've seen different, different ways to, to do this over the years as well. Some people will, you know, look at the longer list that will take them longer into the future, but then they'll pick out 5 and they will flag them or they will start them or they'll write them on paper and close everything down and that, that's their list. So again, for me, it comes back to ways to work with more manageable lists, whether that's, you know, yeah, whatever approach you end up, end up taking. And then again, you know, with the— when it, when it comes back to, to context, it's— and I'm sure you've gotten this question many times over the years as well— so which, which lists do I need? Well, what do you need to put on those lists, right? It's this sort of chicken and egg thing that people tend to, to think that we should provide all the lists. And we, we've tried that, right? We tried to, to do that in previous versions of the seminar, and for some people they would say, that's a lot of lists, and some people didn't need all of them. So it wasn't You know, I, I, I've mentioned this, I think, multiple times now on the podcast, but I like the approach that we have now where it's sort of, what do you think you need? Right? Well, let's do a mind sweep. We'll clarify the next actions. We'll look at those next actions and then we'll start off from there. That does require some more flexibility for people going forward and having that awareness that they could tweak the system and add lists and remove lists as they go forward in life. But I really like that, that approach. And also the number of lists. How many should Kay have? It really depends on, you know, what you find on your list. So maybe what you just suggested in trying to filter and really zoom in on what is actually active right now, that will give a more manageable set of next actions. And maybe you don't need that many lists. So maybe there's a lot going on still and then you need multiple lists. And what I have suggested as I wrote back by email was to perhaps think from the engage step instead. So, you know, the goal of the organization step should be to make it as easy as possible for you to navigate and be presented with the right amount of options that you would want to see in that situation, right? So how do we then do that? The right amount. Yeah, exactly. And how do we then do that? Is it like you said, physical location, tools, situation, time available, energy available? Whatever, you know, whatever works best for you. I've tried those as well over the years. I've had thought of that high energy list as well that has worked for me, which might be deep, deep work today. I don't use it anymore. Typically, I will block time in my calendar if I need any of those. But, you know, in the end, what makes it the most easy for you to sit down and do the right things, engage in the right things at any given time. So considering also that Kay describes both, you know, it's the same desk where this person's, you know, sitting, doing personal stuff, doing their work, doing their, you know, study things. That might be a, I might be looking at ways to figure out. So when I need to sit down, let's say I have a dedicated study time, next 2 hours I need to do study things. Okay. Then I would wanna see that list, right? So it's, it's, it's, it's, I would turn it around and say it's fun to play with. As new GCDeers, it's, you know, you get to, you have these next actions and now you have to be Sherlock Holmes and you have to put on your hat and your magnifying glass. And now you have to go and look and figure out what list do we need here and, and play around with that. And maybe next week you need different lists and it's, it's, uh, it's part of the game. That's, I think, the, the final, final.
Morten: Thought from my side. I'm just reminded of David Allen says that you need— this is like the David Allen-isms paraphrased maybe— you need as many lists as you need, but not more, not more nor less. So how many do you need to encompass your life and at the same time keep it simple? So having it as simple as possible, you know, without any extra fluff. I know that I've seen so many lists from, from my coaching clients that are, you know, we look at the list and there is list upon lists upon lists and they're full of stuff that they're not doing. So, so that might be, I'm sure you've encountered that, Loris. And my, my feedback to them would be, okay, so let's rework this because You're clearly going into productivity pornography, which is kind of, well, I had, that might be a list I might use someday. It's like, it becomes a way to procrastinate by fiddling with your system. So don't do that. That is a good thing. And I would recommend to people to just I don't know what you think about this, Lars, but I would recommend them just to have, you know, start with a very basic system like an office, home, errands, maybe PC, and that's it. And maybe not more. And then see what grows out of that. Maybe you will have more, maybe you will have less. But let them grow organically. So when something, oh, I really need a list for that, and then feel that pain for a little before you create that list instead of that., oh, that might be nice. Like, oh, we have an expression in Norwegian called 'skekt to ha,' which means like nice to have. And don't go for nice to have, go for must have for that instead.
Lars: So, yep. Completely agree. No, that's good advice. Start off simple. Complexity is, it can quickly show up. So let's start off simple. Simple list manager, simple set of lists, and then.
Morten: Build from there. Indeed. I think we answered that question.
Lars: Any other last questions? I hope so. No, the only thing to add was that we had a similar question. I noticed I ran through the show notes document that we have, and I found that in episode 96, we had a question that was somewhat similar. So for those who are looking to to get some more input on this topic, then perhaps episode 96 might be.
Morten: A good place to listen to as well. And I see that Kate Wise in the other question as well said, I apologize if my English isn't perfect. Thank you for your patience. We can return that.
Lars: Thank you for your patience.
Morten: Yeah, thank you for your patience with our Scandinavian accent. So thank you for still listening to this. Okay. Should we, should we go to the next question?
Lars: Maybe let's go to the second email, which contains 3 questions. So I'll, I'll go through and set up the, the background and then I'll stop after the first question and we can, can dive into that. So this one says, dear GTD coach, I hope you're doing well. As I practice GTD, there's a question that has been bothering me for quite a while and I'd really appreciate your thoughts on it. I often find myself getting pulled away from my intended focus by sudden ideas or impulses. What David Allen might call the latest shiny object. For example, while I'm working on a task, I might suddenly think of a GTD-related question and immediately go online to search for answers on a forum.
Morten: In those moments, that never.
Lars: Happens to us. Never. In those moments, I skip both capture and clarify and go straight into do mode. While the action itself might take only a few minutes, I often end up going down a rabbit hole of articles or new actions and completely lose sight of the original task. I never return to my next actions list. So this tends to happen, especially when I'm working on my research-heavy tasks. Sometimes, though, sometimes it spills into my personal life as well. For instance, I may be in the middle of studying and go to the kitchen just to get a glass of water, but when I walk past the bathroom, I notice the floor is dirty and start cleaning it. Then I realize the laundry needs doing and begin washing clothes. And by the time I snap out of it, hours may have passed and I haven't even started with what I originally intended to do. All of these impulse actions bypass my GTD system completely. Here are my specific questions. And then question number 1: Should I train myself to always capture any new thought or impulse or urge to act instead of acting on it directly?
Morten: Let's start off with that one. That's an easy one. Yes.
Lars: Yes.
Morten: Well, with one qualification is that, as I can see it, if it is a less than 2-minute action, that is, you can do straight away. So if, oh, I have to send them a text to give a message.
Lars: Yeah. So if you already have the next action, you could identify that as 2-minute. Yeah. Yeah. I would, you know, I always, I'm always careful when people say always, because there will be some specific scenarios, you know, the fire alarm goes off. Yeah. Don't capture that. So there will be specific It's a good idea. Yeah, exactly. Don't sit down and look at your list, then it's time to, time to act. But yeah, definitely try to be much more deliberate about that. And I, I, I'm, I'm, you know, I've, I've started to play around a bit more with what might be what you refer to Morten as productivity pornography. But I, you know, I, I bought a Stream Deck after the summer camp. Now the, like I said, the, both the Stream Deck mafia and the, the fountain pen mafia have gotten to me now. I've started to play more with shortcuts on iOS and Mac and have some really nice capture ones. So it captures for me without letting me see all the other stuff that I captured because again, easily distractible, just as you described, could be walking around and seeing things and, oh, that reminds me. So, yes, definitely capture those. And now, you know, you might feel that you will be capturing a lot. And, and, and I'm guessing you will, you know, based on the descriptions here in both emails, there's a high-level knowledge work. It certainly sounds like there'll be a lot of ideas coming up. And I've started to notice that I'm like, oh, I need to capture this again. Not again, but, you know, another thing to capture because I get so many ideas. And if you— well, if I don't, if I don't do that, I will do exactly what Kay described and start to go online and research and Google and Yes. Suddenly realize, oh, what happened? And then, then not be able to return back. That being said, I would add that, you know, if it bothers you, if you think that it is unproductive and you're not doing the right things, because as I wrote the, or sorry, as I read the question, I was thinking about, you know, how I might move around at the summer house. And at the summer house, I will have days where I will just walk around and I'll see something and I'll fix it. And then I'll be walking in there. Ooh, that, that one looks good on you. And, and, and I have fun with that. And I just, you know, when we spoke about affirmations, at one point I mentioned one that, that David told us at one point, which was, I can let my dogs take me for a walk. I think this is sort of, and this is the, the version that I have. I don't have any dogs, but I can, I can have work for myself and, you know, just run after the different things that I spot. Oh, those tomatoes, they look good and we need to fix some things. And so just to give that background as well. I thought I wanted to add that.
Morten: Does that make sense? It does. It does. And I have another aspect of this that I would like to touch on. And that is the aspect of getting things done is for freedom. Creates freedom for you so that you can feel good about what you're doing and not doing. And having that freedom to follow your intuitive hunches, then suddenly maybe the best thing you can do is to wash the floor, you know, if that's really screaming at you. But then you have the freedom to do that without the other things screaming at you. But if you're doing washing the floor in the bathroom instead of doing something that you really should have done, that is procrastination and that is never good. So having the freedom to follow your intuitive hunches and to follow the rabbit hole when you don't have anything else that is really important that you need to get done, I think that's a good qualifier.
Lars: What do you think, Lars? Yeah, no, completely agree. And again, that's also why I'm a bit hesitant to say, you know, always 'You have to do this and do that.' Again, the most productive thing might be to exactly do those things and go out into their garden or go for a walk or have a nap or whatever it might be.
Morten: Good thing to add as well. But if you have a thought in your head of something you need to do, the best practice is to write it down and give yourself the pause before you go to clarify it or do it. So just because what is showing up in your brain, the last is probably, or could not possibly not be the most important thing you need to do, unless it is to put out the fire.
Lars: But my brain tells.
Morten: Me it is.
Lars: Don't listen to your brain. Look at the shiny thing.
Morten: Yeah, exactly.
Lars: Yes. Okay. And you're kind of starting to touch on the second question. So maybe we should throw that in the mix as well, which says, If I capture something and clarify it immediately, is that risky as well? Could I still end up going off track? And how can I balance the temptation to clarify with staying focused on my main task? Yeah.
Morten: Well, what I would say there is that do not clarify immediately unless there is, you're in the clarify mode. And with that, I mean that if you are doing something else and then suddenly, oh, I remember something, I need to do this X, Y, Z, then write X, Y, Z down instead of trying to, well, what does X, Y, Z mean? What's my next action here? Because then you procrastinate doing what you are doing. And that is one. And the second is that you will also give yourself the, And this is very— I remember very clearly when I learned GTD back in the days that when I started to clarify exactly the same thought that, you know, I captured and clarified immediately after, then I got into that habit. And into that habit builds resistance to capture if you don't clarify. So that's why they are two separate steps. Because you should give yourself the freedom to capture whatever you have in your mind. And then later on, when you're finished capturing, you can sit down and then clarify what it means to you. But if you do that in one go, you will procrastinate just getting it out of your head, and then you will be back to square one.
Lars: What do you think, Lars? Yeah, we can move on to the next question. Those were exactly my points. Okay. No, no, but it, but it's fun to hear that the people have this. Some people in, in, you know, the level 1 trainings will have this resistance. Why not just clarify it immediately? Why, why capture it? So it's often a topic that we touch on. So it's, it's good that the, the Kay asks. But yeah, exactly what you said. It takes, it takes you off track and also, you know, it switches modes in your brain. So you will have, you're in capture mode, you're, you're in coming up with good ideas mode. And then you shut that off by going into clarify mode. So, you know, again, with the assumption that this is sort of a, you know, a knowledge worker that we're dealing with here, which is, which it certainly sounds like, then there might be more good ideas in there. There might be more, more good stuff coming if you don't start to think too much about what you just thought and just keep that radar scanning and.
Morten: See what else might show up.
Lars: Yeah, indeed. Alright.
Morten: Well, then we'll go for the third one then.
Lars: Yeah. Please do. We are productive. Surprise. We love it. Does clarify need to happen at designated times only? The GTD workbook suggests scheduling clarify sessions throughout the day. I tried setting 3 time blocks, but I often find myself wanting to clarify outside of those scheduled times. Is this flexibility okay or does it indicate.
Morten: A system breakdown? Yeah, that is a good question. So I do sometimes do clarify in the middle of between, you know, I have scheduled 3 as you have, or I have scheduled 3 of them in my brain. So depending on when I start in the morning, so I have, you know, I will clarify and organize my inboxes when I get to the office. And then around noon I will clarify and organize whatever showed up in between, and then before I leave for home. But suddenly I'm in the middle of something, then I capture something, and I feel, you know, and this is contradicting a little what I said before, but I have the freedom, I can do what I want, but I capture something, and then I said, oh, Now, this is interesting. I have some extra thoughts I would like to add into that. So that's, I wouldn't call it maybe clarifying, but I go into the note field of the capture and then just captured all the thoughts that I have and then I leave it. So that's a level of in-between clarifying that I'm doing. So how do you think about this, Lars?
Lars: No, no, and that sounds very familiar. And I've done both over the years, doing it, you know, as, you know, up to you when you want to clarify. So let's say if we focus on email, I sit down, I show up at the office, look at my list, look at my calendar. I decide to check something off my list before starting email, or maybe I want to go in there and clarify and organize my email and then get on with my tasks or meetings, whatever might be the, might be the case. So in some cases I've done that, you know, putting it in the calendar, 8 to 8:30, 12 to 12:30, that's when I clarify and organize email. Other times times. I don't look at my, my email. I've, yeah, it really depends. Right now, I've sort of a, I have sort of a mix, which is that I have set up my Gmail to only arrive between 8 and 9 and 12 and 1. So I will only get new emails twice per day. And, and for me, that's really helpful. I have done that late afternoon check as well, but I, I have found sometimes that it would annoy me because I would see things, spot things that I would want to act on, but I'm just heading out the door. So I wouldn't want to see them then. So I will actually leave them until the next morning and then see them at 8 or 9. This conflicts for some people though. Like right now when we record this, we are at the end of the accounting, you know, for the bookkeeping for the whole year. It has to be has to be done. And, you know, in that scenario, from one of, one of the biggest, you know, companies in this space globally, they would send me emails at, you know, 8:30 and expect me to respond within 10 minutes. Is this wording okay for the, for the documents that we're creating? So it, it really, it conflicts with some people's way of working, but I think this, this makes.
Morten: Sense for me. Yeah, me too. So just one comment that it sounds like you are trying to kill your email snacking. I just, because your middle name is.
Lars: Email snacking, Roskill Hendrickson. I think you've given me that. It's not that I snack, but I'm really attracted to email. I think that's more the case. So, so now I have my, my beautiful checklist, physical checklist right here next to me with only 2 emails checked per day. In the morning is done. The afternoon one is not done yet. So keeping track and I have the, the inboxes here.
Morten: So, yeah. And, and you know that the life is not and work is not square. Sometimes it's round, sometimes it's squiggly. I don't know how to say this, but it is moving around. And I can be in the, you know, I'm doing something, I'm on the route for, you know, working on a desired outcome. And then I understand I have to send an email to someone to get feedback to be able to continue. And then I will Sometimes when I'm, you know, then switching to another, I will go and check if that email came because that first project is more important for me to finish. And then suddenly I see all the emails and I have the same problem as you. I would prefer not to see them if I can. So, so, but because they are, they are distracting for me.
Lars: So, yeah. And no, yeah, that certainly makes sense.
Morten: Yeah, and I really, I think we should, you know, he writes also that, or maybe it's a she, I'm not sure. Now that Sunlik came up, we are being really, we don't know what we're talking about when it comes to foreign names. Sorry about that if we even got your sex wrong here. But he writes about, he or she writes about the current strategy. Maybe we should just read that out and comment on that as well?
Lars: We could do that. The one thing I do want to touch on as well is the, the way that this is described in question 3. I often find myself wanting to clarify. So I just zoom in on that, that specific sentence because that, at least for me, that triggered something that I am very aware of or try to be coming back to to the, the email snacking that you mentioned that maybe in this case I would lean towards trying to schedule specific times and really honor those. You know, if you don't honor what you put in your calendar, you might as well not use it. So really honoring those times because otherwise that, that wanting to check, that's the, that's one of the monkeys up here that I have to keep in check, right? Because, ooh, wonder what's an email. And then I could go in there and check every 30 minutes. Or 15 minutes or 10 minutes, whatever it might be. So, really trying to be mindful of that. And like you said, you know, there are occasions where there are exceptions are needed. That's certainly fine. But really trying to, if you set up a strategy leading us to this, the next part of his email, really, really honor that and try to watch for what you want to do as opposed to what the smart version of yourself decided. Yeah, this, this is the one I should be, should be doing. So with that being said, let me go to the current strategy. Um, let's call that the, the last question. Um, which is, um, my current strategy is I capture everything without acting on it and only clarify during pre-scheduled clarify blocks. During work sessions, I only execute clearly defined next actions. For example, if my project is research the natural planning model, I only do the action look up what NPM is, and after completing it, I immediately write down the next specific action. Does this approach align with the GTD method? Am I on the right track in trying to discipline myself and prevent being hijacked by distractions? I'd love to hear your perspective.
Morten: Thank you so much. Yeah. Do you want to go first on.
Lars: This one or should I? Yes. No, no, but I think that's, you know, kind of summing up the 3 questions that we walked through. Yes, capturing everything. That's what we just spoke about. Clarifying the pre-scheduled clarify blocks. If that works for you again with the, you know, the thinking in mind that I just, you know, zoomed in on with finding myself wanting to clarify. Maybe this would help, but again, play around with it just like the amount of lists. Play around with it. See what, what works best. During work sessions, only clear execute clearly defined next actions. That sounds good to me. And yeah, summarizing his project with the next action. I don't know if I would write down the next specific action. That sort of depends where the project is going. But otherwise, I think this sounds like a good starting point for a strategy.
Morten: What do you think? No, my only adding to this would be that if you are working on You know, you're done on next action, and then you know what the next action is, and then you realize, well, this has a deadline for tomorrow, and it is important. So I really have to do— I need to set aside an hour to work on this. Then you jump out of next action thinking and then just schedule time to work on your project, move it forward. Do next action after next action, next action, until you're either finished or it stops naturally by you are waiting for someone else. So, so execute on clearly defined next actions is good when you don't have something scheduled. And you, as you know, urgent and important should go on the calendar and everything else should be held on your list that is anything that is important but not urgent on your list, and everything else you should consider not doing. So, but to have that on as an addition is that when you need to move something forward fast, put it on your calendar and then just work towards the desired outcome.
Lars: Does that.
Morten: Make sense? Yeah. So, so I think we are at the end.
Lars: Are we? I think so. I think so. Again, really appreciate the questions. It's been a while since we had a listener questions episode. So thank you so much, Kay, for those questions. And for those of you out there watching or listening, be sure to send us your questions. podcast@visalearning.dk. We'd love to hear them. It adds some new angles for us to talk about GTD from. It's interesting to hear the challenges that you face, and it's very helpful for everyone else to hear them. So especially, I don't know if you come across this, Morten, but I tend to get the feeling that when people sit there with their GTD practice, they're just starting, or they might be seasoned GTDers, and they think, oh, this is a situation that only applies to me. No, in many, many, many, many, many cases, this will apply to so many more people. So if you have that question, be sure to send it to us. And we'll pick it up in the.
Morten: Podcast in a future episode. Yeah. And then you are so right that, you know, the people that I talk to when I coach this, that they, at least it feels sometimes like they think they're the only people who have this problem. That is not so. Rest easy. You are not alone. So, okay. If we are at the end, will.
Lars: You take us out, Lars? Yes, I will. First, one last note. So this will be my last podcast with this background. So if you're watching, I'll be switching to a new home office going forward. So just wanted to mark this as the final episode where I'm at this office. So let's see what it looks like next time. You'll have to check our YouTube channels to see what it what it looks.
Morten: Like in the future.
Lars: Subscribe and like, I hear the young people say. Marketing Martin in action. A quick reminder of the GTD Summer Camp. So that was back in June. And when we release this recording, we might actually have the fixed date. We already have the tentative date for 2026. If you are considering joining us, then send me an email. I'll let you know when we open up for the signups. Also, be sure to check out the show notes for this episode because you'll find the updated 2025 version for a— is it a 3-minute check-in on the summer camp? At least whatever you put together, Morten, with a— yeah, it's such a nice video, and it's the one that's been in the show notes for the last couple of years, was the 2023. It's now updated for 2025. So Be sure to go in there and check that. It gives you an idea of the fantastic vibe that you'll find at the, at the Summer Camp. The other place we point you to go to is vitallearning.eu because that is where you will find information about the different companies in the different countries, the different offerings that we have. I think when this releases, Morten, there might be a page about the Masterclass as well. So be sure to go to vitallearning.eu, have a look around. You'll see all the information. GTD coaching training in the different countries, the Crucial Conversations, Crucial Influence, the other trainings that we offer as well. Everything you'll find at vitallearning.eu. And if you're outside the Nordics Plus, as we call it, then head on.
Morten: Over to cruciallearning.com to find your local partners. Yes, and there will be a Bitly link for the masterclass in this, in these show notes. So if you want to hang out with Lars and David Allen and me in the first time, will be in February 2026 in Norway, you are most welcome to apply to be part of that. More information will then be on the, in the Bitly link. Yeah, Lars, good. Anything else we need to talk about before we end this show?
Lars: Anything else? I think you said subscribe, like, rate.
Morten: Yeah, well, we didn't rate. We didn't. I didn't. No, no, no. But just if you have, if you as a listener or viewer think that what we're doing is giving you value, the way that you can pay us back is to follow us on LinkedIn. Of course, if you want to hang out with us, you can just follow us at LinkedIn. You will find Lars and me, there's links in the show notes. And what we would also really like and appreciate is if you rate us on the podcast platform you're looking at. So YouTube will be subscribe and like, and give us a rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or whatever your platform is that has ratings. That helps the discoverability of the episodes and our channel, and it helps other people to learn about Getting Things Done so they can, you know, make their lives better. That's why we are doing this. We want to help you guys. So help us spread the word. And with those words, I can do as I always do, is to say, until next time, stay safe and stay productive. Bye-bye! Bye everyone!
