The Art of Manliness - #543： Learn the System for Getting Things Done

00:00:00.000 I'm Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.000 Over 10 years ago, I read the book Getting Things Done by David Allen, and I've been

00:00:14.680 using the tactics and strategies that he laid out in the book in managing tasks and, well,

00:00:18.640 getting things done ever since.

00:00:20.620 David's out with a new workbook to accompany his classic bestseller, and I have the pleasure

00:00:23.960 to speak with him today about his philosophy and system for managing life.

00:00:27.100 We begin our conversation discussing how David came up with the GTD system in the first

00:00:30.940 place and how it differs from other time management systems out there.

00:00:34.040 David then explains what the mind-like-water mantra is about and how the GTD system helps

00:00:38.920 you clear your head.

00:00:39.820 We then dig into the specific steps of getting things done, including capturing ideas, clarifying

00:00:44.380 tasks into action, organizing these actions, reflecting on your action list, and, of course,

00:00:49.540 taking action.

00:00:50.420 This is a time management system I can personally adore, so if you're not familiar with it or

00:00:53.560 have fallen off the GTD wagon, I recommend giving this show a listen.

00:00:56.740 After it's over, check out the show notes at awim.is slash gtd.

00:01:05.820 All right, David Allen, welcome to the show.

00:01:12.400 Brett, delighted to be here.

00:01:13.340 Thanks for the invitation.

00:01:14.620 So you are the author and the creator of Getting Things Done.

00:01:19.260 I've been using it for over a decade.

00:01:21.200 It's changed the way I manage myself, and I know a lot of our listeners are familiar with

00:01:25.760 the method in the book.

00:01:28.120 Before we get into that, can you tell us about the origin of this system?

00:01:31.840 I mean, this has become a phenomenon around the world.

00:01:34.520 How did it get started?

00:01:35.520 Where did you start piecing together the idea of what would become Getting Things Done?

00:01:39.900 Well, I was deeply involved in my own sort of self-development process back in the 60s,

00:01:44.260 70s.

00:01:45.200 You know, I was in Berkeley, California.

00:01:47.400 I mean, come on.

00:01:47.960 And that was a lot of what we were doing was sort of exploring ourselves.

00:01:51.680 So I was, I got involved in the personal growth movement, you know, got involved in some really

00:01:56.220 elegant, you know, experiential training about that stuff.

00:01:59.700 And so some of the pieces that were 20, 30 years later to become GTD or part of the,

00:02:05.460 you know, the methodology, as I finally described it in the book, started there.

00:02:09.860 A lot of it about agreements, you know, how do you manage, what happens when you keep,

00:02:14.620 don't keep an agreement with others and with yourself?

00:02:17.600 So some of that started there.

00:02:19.180 And there were also, we started to do some, some sort of productivity trainings, you know,

00:02:24.240 as best we could around that.

00:02:25.580 And, you know, a lot about open loops, what happens when you make a commitment that you

00:02:29.580 can't complete yet, or what happens when you, when you do finish your commitment, that's,

00:02:33.300 that's open.

00:02:33.740 So some of the sort of early pieces of that were components of, you know, part of the

00:02:39.300 sort of larger, you know, sort of gestalt of the, of the personal growth movement.

00:02:43.480 So I got familiar with some of those things.

00:02:46.580 Ultimately, after lots of different jobs, not knowing what I wanted to do, I became a

00:02:49.880 consultant and started to work with, you know, people who seemed to know what they wanted

00:02:54.260 to do.

00:02:54.660 And I came in and helped them sort of work their own process.

00:02:57.020 I'm a lazy guy.

00:02:58.220 I just walk in and say, you know, how can we make this easier?

00:03:01.120 So now they call that process improvement.

00:03:03.920 I just said, you know, how much easier can I not have to work?

00:03:07.440 And then I'd help my friends with their businesses sort of get up to speed, get under cruise control

00:03:12.540 and they get bored, go somewhere else.

00:03:14.520 Then I discovered they pay people to do that.

00:03:16.160 They call them consultants.

00:03:17.400 So sort of hung out my own shingle in 1981, started my own consulting practice.

00:03:21.840 And then I got very attracted to what are kind of models that I could use.

00:03:26.080 If it wasn't clear how to help somebody that might want to bring me in as a consultant,

00:03:29.200 what could I access?

00:03:31.780 What could I pull out of my hip pocket as a, as a model of stuff to walk people through

00:03:35.340 a process that would improve no matter who they were or what kind of business they had

00:03:39.620 or whatever.

00:03:40.100 So I was always hungry for what were the sort of the prime or primary or the essential elements

00:03:47.340 to, you know, productive, to being in the productive state where you had maximum space,

00:03:53.440 maximum clarity, maximum efficiency with whatever you were doing.

00:03:56.560 Um, so I got hungry for that, but also given my work in the personal growth world and the,

00:04:01.760 you know, my own spiritual practices and explorations, meditation, kind of black belt in the martial

00:04:06.380 arts and karate.

00:04:07.940 And so a lot of that had a lot to do with clear head.

00:04:09.960 So I also was a very attracted to how do you keep your head clear so you can stay focused

00:04:14.460 on all the cool stuff.

00:04:16.060 So, you know, my life wasn't broken, you know, I, but I'd started to experience and explore

00:04:21.560 some of the techniques I was discovering.

00:04:23.340 I had a couple of great mentors that taught me to other pieces of this and, uh, I said,

00:04:28.240 well, that worked for me, help keep me clear, turn around, use those techniques with my clients

00:04:33.100 that work for them too, without fail.

00:04:35.480 Well, that's pretty good.

00:04:36.900 And then somebody in the big corporate world saw what I was doing and said, wow, we need

00:04:40.580 that in our whole culture or stability, control, accountability, you know, senior professional

00:04:45.920 people being able to manage themselves well.

00:04:47.840 So they asked me if I could design a training around what I'd uncovered as these best practices,

00:04:53.820 a series of these practices.

00:04:55.800 So I did that and it worked very well.

00:04:57.960 It was very successful.

00:04:59.260 And so in 1983, 84, I did that for Lockheed and Burbank in California.

00:05:04.500 And it worked so well, I was found myself thrust into the corporate training world.

00:05:08.600 It's like, God, you could have fooled me.

00:05:10.400 You know, I was an American cultural history major in my graduate school studies in Berkeley

00:05:15.680 in 1968, if you'd told me I'd be in the corporate training world, I said, what are you smoking?

00:05:20.980 You know, come on, give me a break.

00:05:23.020 But I found out that was the audience that was quite hungry for what I had uncovered because

00:05:27.820 that was the beginning of the tsunami of email and the digital world and the input that people

00:05:34.000 were dealing with and the speed of change was speeding up.

00:05:36.820 And so people couldn't wrestle their laurels anymore.

00:05:39.120 And so there was a lot more need in a beginning, awareness, a need, I think, in the, in the,

00:05:44.880 certainly in the, in the major business and corporate world for how do people stay focused

00:05:49.740 and in control and sort of time management kind of hit a buzz in the, in the eighties,

00:05:54.320 1980s.

00:05:55.200 So I kind of rode that wave.

00:05:57.380 And that's where it all started really was me just sort of building a bit of a boutique,

00:06:02.380 you know, consulting and training practice with a partner or two, you know, that, that just

00:06:06.620 trying to fulfill a need that showed up.

00:06:08.300 I didn't really know what I'd come up with.

00:06:10.160 I've never taken a traditional or formal time management or business or, or, or psychology

00:06:15.440 class in my life.

00:06:16.640 This was all street smarts, you know, that I discovered for that.

00:06:19.980 So, so a lot of what I had been doing sort of, you know, consulting to, you know, friends

00:06:24.920 who were running their own businesses and so forth that became sort of coaching in the,

00:06:28.600 in the, in the corporate world with the clients that were starting to, you know, bring

00:06:33.820 us in to do trainings for lots of people, but their senior people wanted to know how

00:06:37.320 to do this one-on-one.

00:06:38.480 So I spent, you know, basically spent thousands and thousands of hours one-on-one desk side

00:06:44.160 with some of the smartest and brightest and busiest people you'd ever meet actually implementing,

00:06:49.000 you know, refining and implementing this, what became the sort of getting things done

00:06:52.880 methodology.

00:06:53.780 But again, Brett, it took me 25 years to figure out what I'd figured out and that it was unique

00:06:58.500 and nobody else seemed to have done it.

00:06:59.820 So that's when I wrote the manual and that's when the book, you know, getting things done

00:07:03.760 came out in 2001.

00:07:05.620 So there's a very short version of a very long story.

00:07:08.940 No, well, I think it's interesting.

00:07:10.720 I loved hearing that because I love the idea that you didn't know where this was going.

00:07:14.460 You didn't have an end goal, right?

00:07:16.180 With this.

00:07:17.100 You just.

00:07:17.300 No, I was just trying to maintain, I just wanted a good job.

00:07:19.660 I just was like, oh my God, they like what I'm doing.

00:07:21.600 Well, good.

00:07:22.120 You know, what can I do next?

00:07:24.420 Who wants me to come back and do something else?

00:07:26.580 I've not been very entrepreneurial or aspirational and that's, I was more of a researcher, you

00:07:32.520 know, and educator than, than anything else.

00:07:35.060 I just like to sort of create my own, be able to maintain a, at least a boutique kind

00:07:39.900 of, you know, a career that could support my lifestyle.

00:07:43.160 Yeah.

00:07:43.280 I think that's useful for particularly young people who are starting off in their careers.

00:07:46.040 They think they have to have it figured out right, right from the get go.

00:07:49.560 And here's an example of it, you know, 25 years, but you found something that's, you

00:07:54.240 know, fantastic.

00:07:54.900 And I don't know how to tell anybody else to do that.

00:07:57.820 You know, I just sort of uncovered it, you know, as I came along and just kept staying

00:08:02.100 the course with what's next, what's next, what's next, what's next, you know, and, and

00:08:06.720 keep doing a good job with whatever was in front of me and then seeing what showed up

00:08:10.180 next.

00:08:10.820 What's the next action?

00:08:11.760 We'll talk about that, right?

00:08:13.900 Here in a bit.

00:08:14.700 So, but for those who aren't familiar with GTD, what, what makes it different from other

00:08:18.160 time management or productivity methods?

00:08:20.180 So, as you said, this kind of started picking up in the eighties where you saw a lot of

00:08:24.140 the timekeeper, the Franklin Covey stuff started coming out.

00:08:28.020 What made yours different from that stuff?

00:08:31.460 Well, this methodology is more about not what you should be doing, but what are you doing

00:08:36.780 and where are you?

00:08:37.780 So it, it kind of got rid of the shoulds. 0.98

00:08:40.080 It just said, how do you get control of where you are and what is it that gets you to be

00:08:44.920 clear in your head about the complex world that you're dealing with and all the inputs

00:08:49.320 that you're dealing with and so forth.

00:08:50.680 And so, you know, this stuff is, it kind of starts with where you are, not with where

00:08:54.860 you should be.

00:08:55.740 So that's one difference.

00:08:57.540 You know, don't worry about the long-term goals or vision or your life purpose.

00:09:01.360 If your toilet needs cleaning, you know, or if you're, if you need cat food and you can't,

00:09:06.860 you know, you're not managing that well, you know, come on.

00:09:08.720 So if your day-to-day is out of control, don't even try to think about the future because

00:09:12.280 all it'll do is frustrate you, you know, create guilt.

00:09:15.980 You know, so a lot of this was about how do I get control of where I am right now?

00:09:20.520 How do I get it stable?

00:09:21.520 How do I get clear right now with, with the things that I've already committed to that

00:09:25.320 are already sort of running around in my ecosystem and how do I manage that?

00:09:28.900 I think that's one difference.

00:09:31.480 And, you know, the major focus here was to have a clear head, not to achieve necessarily

00:09:36.240 in a result.

00:09:36.940 I mean, there's, you know, kind of the big secret, Brett, about getting things done is

00:09:39.940 it's not so much about getting things done.

00:09:41.660 It's about being appropriately engaged with your world so you're present with whatever

00:09:45.020 you're doing.

00:09:46.920 You know, how present are you when you're cooking spaghetti or is your mind on the two

00:09:50.000 meetings you screwed up, you know, this afternoon?

00:09:52.960 You know, how, how present are you with watching your, your girl play soccer versus being

00:09:57.380 on your iPhone, trying to do emergency scanning to keep track of all the stuff that may be

00:10:01.500 falling through a crack.

00:10:03.380 So, you know, a whole lot of it is, is like people live, trying to live a busy life and

00:10:08.000 trying to stay clear and present, you know, with the quality of whatever it is they're

00:10:12.020 doing.

00:10:13.000 You know, it doesn't matter whether it's personal, professional, bigger, little, it's

00:10:16.220 whatever you're doing at any point in time that you could be optimally available for

00:10:20.380 it.

00:10:20.940 That's really what the objective of this was.

00:10:23.080 And I don't know any other time management course that kind of frames it that way or

00:10:25.940 even gives you the tools to do that.

00:10:27.840 Well, this idea of being clear, this is a mind like water, right?

00:10:31.900 Yeah.

00:10:32.440 Yeah.

00:10:33.200 Yeah.

00:10:33.560 Well, the idea of water, I mean, I think Bruce Lee is since I sort of turned him on to

00:10:37.660 that, I kind of still look for the martial arts, but the idea is that water is appropriately

00:10:40.940 engaged with whatever it's doing.

00:10:42.860 And it could be, though it seems to be fairly weak and flexible, it could be extremely powerful.

00:10:47.160 So the whole idea is building in the flexibility of water, but also the capability of being

00:10:52.980 as powerful as water is, and not over or underreacting anything.

00:10:57.920 Water is appropriately engaged with its environment, whatever it is.

00:11:01.240 But if you take one meeting to the next in your mind, or you take home to work in your

00:11:05.580 mind or work to home in your mind, you're not in a mind like water state.

00:11:09.200 Yeah.

00:11:09.640 These are open loops, right?

00:11:10.860 It's those things that aren't finished.

00:11:12.180 So you keep thinking about it in your head so you can't be present in whatever it is you're

00:11:15.800 doing. 0.99

00:11:15.980 And your head is a really crappy office. 0.99

00:11:17.720 I mean, we know now, given the cognitive science research that showed up in the last 10 or 15 0.99

00:11:22.680 years, something I discovered 35 years ago, but they've now validated that, that your head

00:11:27.120 can't manage more than four things in terms of remembering, reminding, and prioritizing

00:11:31.240 and managing relationships between them.

00:11:33.100 Your brain did not evolve to do that.

00:11:35.360 It does not do that very well.

00:11:36.940 Your brain evolved to do some very sophisticated stuff to keep you alive on the savannah and the

00:11:40.900 desert and the jungle.

00:11:42.220 You recognize that's a tiger, that my kid's crying, there's a thunderstorm, there are berries

00:11:45.720 in that bush.

00:11:46.640 You do that very well.

00:11:47.960 And computers can't even do that yet.

00:11:49.680 So your brain is doing some fabulous stuff.

00:11:52.340 And yet you go to the store for lemons and you come back with six things and no lemons.

00:11:56.700 You know, what happened? 0.98

00:11:58.060 Well, you're trying to use your head as your office and it's a crappy office. 0.97

00:12:00.880 It wasn't designed to do that.

00:12:02.620 So a whole lot of what cognitive science has now validated is the need to build an external

00:12:07.380 brain.

00:12:08.660 You know, in the complex world we live in of things that you're committed to that you can't

00:12:12.560 finish in the moment you think of them, then you need to keep track of that in some sort

00:12:16.660 of externalized form.

00:12:18.800 Otherwise, it's going to take up brain space and prevent you from doing what your mind is

00:12:23.380 really good at doing.

00:12:25.060 So you only have a certain amount of space in your head, but the more that you fill it

00:12:29.020 up with those open loops that you're not managing really well, then you don't have room for

00:12:33.800 intuitive intelligence.

00:12:35.540 Yeah.

00:12:35.640 I thought that was interesting in the re-release of Getting Things Done in 2015.

00:12:38.940 You have a whole section about the cognitive science that sort of backs up what you've been

00:12:43.080 talking about.

00:12:43.680 And I thought that was really useful.

00:12:45.660 Yeah.

00:12:47.180 Well, it's just, you know, nobody's got a lock on the truth.

00:12:50.060 We just all sort of discovered it in our own ways about how that works.

00:12:55.200 So let's talk about this external mind, right?

00:12:58.220 Because I think a lot of people have experienced that.

00:13:00.220 That's how bills get unpaid.

00:13:01.800 That's how, you know, you forget that there's a parent-teacher conference because you try

00:13:06.520 to keep this stuff in your head.

00:13:08.280 So GTD is all about getting that stuff outside of your head and processing it in an appropriate

00:13:13.780 way so it doesn't get lost.

00:13:15.020 So let's kind of walk through GTD for those who aren't familiar, sort of the framework of it.

00:13:20.060 The first step is capture.

00:13:22.200 And that's an important process because a lot of people don't think about it.

00:13:26.340 What does capture look like?

00:13:28.100 Well, they're actually sort of, you know, part A and part B.

00:13:31.380 Part A is recognizing what's got your attention.

00:13:34.380 You know, where's your mind?

00:13:35.980 Anybody listening to this, even in the short term, you know, I've been talking, you've

00:13:38.620 probably had their mind go somewhere else.

00:13:41.000 Where is that?

00:13:41.720 Where'd it go?

00:13:42.700 About what?

00:13:44.300 Something is not on cruise control.

00:13:45.920 So just identifying, this has got my attention.

00:13:48.580 Should I get divorced?

00:13:49.320 Should I buy cat food for the cat?

00:13:51.040 Do I need to give the kids karate lessons?

00:13:53.520 Do I hire a VP of marketing?

00:13:55.100 Oh my God, I just got a new project.

00:13:56.980 You know, yeah, my tooth hurts, right?

00:13:59.480 So any of those things that pop into your head are because there's something that some

00:14:04.240 part of you thinks you might, would, could, should, ought to decide or do something about

00:14:08.180 them.

00:14:09.120 So first of all, recognizing that you have those thoughts or that those things are out there

00:14:13.520 that are not on cruise control.

00:14:15.040 And then part B is write it down, capture it, cat food, tooth, VP marketing, divorce, you

00:14:22.680 know, and all that, just write it down.

00:14:24.600 Get it out of your head in some sort of a external form, you know, some sort of trusted bucket.

00:14:29.880 But for me, for 98% of the time, I just write a note and then throw it at my own entry, right?

00:14:36.160 So, you know, as we're talking, if something pops into my head, I've got a pen and paper

00:14:40.160 right here.

00:14:40.620 I just write it down and then just tear it off and throw it into my entry.

00:14:43.500 So my head had an idea and then, but I couldn't do anything about it.

00:14:49.480 I actually, I don't even want to, if I'm focused on talking to you, I don't want to have to

00:14:53.180 try to think about what does that mean?

00:14:55.040 I just grabbed the idea later on, sooner than later, I will then walk through steps two

00:14:59.840 and three.

00:15:00.300 As you know, there, you don't just leave it in the entry.

00:15:03.400 You then need to make some decisions about it.

00:15:05.700 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:15:08.780 And now back to the show.

00:15:10.520 You also say you can capture things digitally.

00:15:12.600 So for example, I use the Todoist app on my phone and laptop to capture things.

00:15:17.560 And there are other ways to capture things digitally, if that's your preference.

00:15:20.220 And those can work as long as you work them.

00:15:23.020 You know, good ideas and inspirations and I would, could, should autos, they'll come and

00:15:27.760 they'll go.

00:15:28.720 They come and you better grab them when they come because, you know, you'll forget what

00:15:32.540 you forgot, you know, very soon, the way the brain works.

00:15:36.360 So training yourself to capture potentially good ideas, potentially useful things, that's actually

00:15:41.600 something you need to train yourself to do.

00:15:43.140 It doesn't happen automatically.

00:15:44.780 Right.

00:15:44.980 And I've noticed as, as I started to do that, like just start capturing thoughts, like my

00:15:49.040 brain gives me more thoughts because it's like, it like trust, like, hey, you're actually

00:15:53.000 going to do something.

00:15:53.680 I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's my brain's actually thinking that, but it,

00:15:57.560 like there's like, they, they trust that I can, I'll do something about it.

00:16:00.780 And, and so I don't know, I feel like I generate more thoughts as I capture them.

00:16:04.180 You can, there's an end to that.

00:16:06.140 At some point, you know, if you sat down and actually wanted to implement this fully full

00:16:10.680 process, it may take you one to six hours to actually capture all the things that have

00:16:14.460 your attention until they stop.

00:16:16.460 They will stop by the way.

00:16:18.700 And that's what that's, you want to get to that point, right?

00:16:20.420 That's the whole mind like, well, that would be the ideal, right?

00:16:23.480 You really want to get to mind like water and a clear head.

00:16:25.960 You better get everything out of your head that's banging around in there that's not

00:16:29.160 finished yet, that you might want to do or decide something about.

00:16:32.740 And one of the powerful tools of this capture is a systematic, you know, mind sweep that I've

00:16:38.020 been doing for over a decade.

00:16:39.920 And it's amazing what's come from that mind sweep.

00:16:43.160 Yeah.

00:16:43.960 Well, mind sweep have taken a lot of forms.

00:16:46.220 I mean, for those of you who are not familiar with GTD, this is basically saying, look, write

00:16:49.540 down anything that's on your mind.

00:16:51.880 Anything that's on your mind, little, big, personal, professional, doesn't matter.

00:16:55.280 It's not a commitment to do them.

00:16:57.980 All you're doing is trying to empty RAM inside your head.

00:17:01.940 You're emptying the short-term memory thing.

00:17:03.480 Just get all of that.

00:17:04.740 Oh, I need cat food.

00:17:05.660 Oh, I should do this.

00:17:06.560 Oh, what about that class?

00:17:08.820 I might want to give my three-year-old so he can get into Harvard.

00:17:11.720 You know, God knows, you know, how many things people think about that are possibles and,

00:17:16.240 you know, that they might want to decide or do something about.

00:17:20.140 A great movie somebody recommends, you know, here's the person you might want to hire,

00:17:24.140 you know, as your accountant.

00:17:26.540 You know, all that stuff.

00:17:28.980 Anything that shows up in any conversations and any interactions you have in your world

00:17:32.580 out there that can't be finished in that moment, that's the stuff you need to capture.

00:17:38.740 And so, there's a lot of that stuff.

00:17:41.300 So, if you really wanted to be clear, you need to make sure that you've captured all

00:17:44.920 that so that some part of you doesn't go to bed and go, what am I going to do about what

00:17:48.400 I'm going to do about what I'm going to do about what I'm going to do about it?

00:17:50.520 If you only keep it in your head, that place has no sense of past or future.

00:17:54.960 And so, it'll wake you up at three o'clock in the morning.

00:17:56.860 I need cat food or I need a new business plan.

00:17:59.180 Same space.

00:18:00.840 And they'll just yank your change, you know, kind of like get random ad hoc moments when 0.99

00:18:05.860 you can't do spit about either one of them, which is really stupid. 1.00

00:18:10.020 So, you need to get smarter than your mind. 0.99

00:18:12.140 And most people are letting their minds run them as opposed to, wait a minute, you have

00:18:15.600 a mind.

00:18:16.020 You are not your mind.

00:18:17.600 Right.

00:18:18.360 No, yeah.

00:18:18.980 So, you have a trigger list on your website, sort of like to get people thinking about

00:18:23.500 the things they can get out of their mind.

00:18:26.120 So, it's like, you know, what stuff do you have around your house you need to fix?

00:18:29.400 Who do you need to call back?

00:18:30.940 What stuff do you have to do at work?

00:18:32.280 What appliances do you need?

00:18:33.320 Like, I go through that every week and do sort of a mind dump and it's been really useful.

00:18:39.240 So, okay.

00:18:39.680 We get this stuff all out of our mind.

00:18:41.240 We're going to write down thoughts, put them in an inbox.

00:18:43.780 We're going to have our digital inbox.

00:18:45.320 We're going to put bills in this inbox.

00:18:47.140 We're going to just capture it all in one place.

00:18:49.520 The next step is clarify.

00:18:51.940 What does that look like?

00:18:54.000 Well, you can write down light bulb.

00:18:55.680 What are you going to do about the light bulb?

00:18:58.000 You know, do you need to buy it?

00:18:59.200 Do you just need to change it?

00:19:00.360 Do you need to figure out?

00:19:02.000 Do you need to go look and see what the wattage is in the old bulb that burned out on the porch?

00:19:06.620 You know, what's the next thing you need to do?

00:19:08.400 And most people actually keep avoiding.

00:19:10.300 Most people avoid that next action decision.

00:19:12.460 So, it's really clarifying what exactly these things that have your attention, you know, what's the nature of them?

00:19:18.860 The very simple algorithm and the book I elucidate on that, and you can find that in multiple places out there.

00:19:24.540 It's a pretty simple formula.

00:19:25.600 It's just like, well, first of all, whatever you wrote down, whatever you've captured, whatever you've thrown into your entry, is it actionable?

00:19:32.560 Is it something you're committed to move on or not?

00:19:35.160 Yes or no?

00:19:35.960 And we get a lot of things, both in our email and our physical, you know, mailbox and so forth, that there's no action on it.

00:19:42.360 But you need to decide what that is.

00:19:43.960 By the way, junk mail does not tell you it's junk mail.

00:19:47.100 Have you noticed?

00:19:48.520 It's telling you this is important.

00:19:50.280 You need to pay attention to this, right?

00:19:52.100 So, you're the one who actually needs to make a decision about these inputs that you get wherever you've collected these inputs that you've allowed to come into your ecosystem in some way.

00:20:01.600 Your own notes as well as, you know, stuff piling up in social media and email and your physical inboxes and mailboxes, right?

00:20:10.040 So, you need to decide what is that.

00:20:11.320 If it's non-actionable, then it's either trash, reference material, or something to hold on until, you know, a later date to make a decision about it.

00:20:20.100 So, you know, that's a clarification of the non-actionable things as either something I don't need or something I need to just hold on to to refer to later potentially or something I need to be reminded of at some later date.

00:20:32.100 And then if it is actionable, oh, there is something I need to do about this or I want to do about this, then you need to decide two very important questions to answer.

00:20:41.340 One is, what's the very next action you would need to take?

00:20:45.520 You know, you wrote a note about mom.

00:20:47.260 Great.

00:20:48.220 Why'd you write the note?

00:20:49.220 Well, her birthday's coming.

00:20:50.500 Great.

00:20:51.080 What are you going to do about her birthday?

00:20:52.280 What's the next step?

00:20:53.820 Oh, God, you know, I should probably call my sister what she thinks about what we should do about mom's birthday.

00:21:00.120 Great.

00:21:00.620 Now you've made a next action decision.

00:21:02.520 And by the way, will that one action calling your sister finish whatever your commitment is?

00:21:07.880 No.

00:21:08.460 We want to celebrate mom's birthday.

00:21:10.280 Fabulous.

00:21:10.720 Now you have a project.

00:21:12.420 So there are two things you need to ask and answer about the things that have landed on your plate that are actionable.

00:21:17.980 What's the action and what's the outcome?

00:21:20.020 Action and outcome are the zeros and ones of productivity thinking.

00:21:23.340 What are we trying to accomplish and how do we allocate resources or reallocate them to make sure that happens?

00:21:28.980 But that thinking does not show up automatically.

00:21:31.360 As a matter of fact, most people listening to this right now, if you're listening to this right now, pull out your to-do list if you have anything like that and look on that list.

00:21:40.320 And what you're likely to not see are actions and outcomes.

00:21:44.040 You might have written down, just call your brother, wish him a happy birthday.

00:21:48.040 Maybe that's the next step.

00:21:49.080 But likely what you're going to see are things that still need a decision made about, well, what exactly are you going to need to do to move the needle on that to get to closure or resolution or clarity on what that thing is?

00:22:02.120 And oh, by the way, what's the outcome you're committed to complete that you need to keep track of until you can complete it?

00:22:07.680 And that's the cognitive muscle that actually people need to train.

00:22:11.580 That's the clarify step.

00:22:12.940 And it's very, very powerful.

00:22:14.340 Trust me, you know, Brett, I've spent thousands of hours with some of the best and brightest and most sophisticated people on the planet, walking them through that exercise about all the stuff they dumped out of their head the day before.

00:22:26.080 And they haven't done it yet.

00:22:29.160 And that's the big problem because of what happens is then it's that stuff spins around and keep spinning around in there.

00:22:35.620 If you haven't finished your thinking about what it means, what does done look like and what does doing look like and where does it happen?

00:22:42.640 So interestingly that I, you know, I discovered or uncovered or recognize that that was the thought process you have to apply to these things to be able to get them off your mind without having to finish them.

00:22:53.160 And this is where, do you think this is where a lot of people mess up getting things done when they try to implement it?

00:22:57.960 Like they, they don't properly clarify or describe what they're trying to do.

00:23:02.660 Sure.

00:23:03.040 They write down set meeting.

00:23:05.000 I go, well, how are you going to set the meeting?

00:23:07.200 Well, I could send them an email.

00:23:08.880 I could follow them.

00:23:09.600 I could talk.

00:23:10.240 Yeah.

00:23:10.540 If you haven't decided that, you haven't finished your thinking.

00:23:13.160 And some part of you is still spinning in there called how do I set that meeting every time you look at that list.

00:23:18.680 So you can change your mind.

00:23:20.180 Go look, just decide what's the very next physical, visible activity you would need to do about mom's birthday, about increasing your credit line, about handling the tooth that aches, you know, hiring the VP of marketing.

00:23:31.920 What's the very next thing you need to do if you had nothing else to do in your life, but move that to closure?

00:23:36.020 Where would you go right now?

00:23:36.940 What would you do?

00:23:37.780 Surf the web, send an email, draft ideas, talk to somebody.

00:23:43.140 What would you need to do?

00:23:44.120 And most people actually avoid that decision until the heat forces them to make it.

00:23:50.180 One of the powerful rules that come out of this process is the two-minute rule.

00:23:54.740 So as you're going through and you're saying, okay, is this actionable?

00:23:57.840 And then one of the questions you can ask yourself if the answer is yes is, well, can I do this right now?

00:24:01.940 Yeah.

00:24:02.360 And you just do it.

00:24:03.380 Yeah.

00:24:04.100 Two minutes or less.

00:24:05.020 And that was just kind of a rough estimate of – that's pretty much the dividing line where if it takes less than two minutes to do it,

00:24:12.760 it would take you longer to organize it and review it later than it would be to finish it right then.

00:24:18.600 So that's why that's there.

00:24:20.440 And what you don't want to do is go run down some rabbit trail of something when you have other potentially more important or significant things sitting in your inbaskets and in your email before you start spending extra time on something that may not be the most important thing to spend time on right now.

00:24:36.740 But the two-minute rule, that's – yeah, it's great.

00:24:39.100 I've had people tell me that was worth the price of admission.

00:24:41.440 Just that changed their life.

00:24:43.340 That's the two-minute rule.

00:24:44.200 So you clarify.

00:24:47.260 Now you have these tasks that maybe – okay, you figure out the ones you could do in two minutes or less.

00:24:51.900 You do those.

00:24:52.900 But there's some tasks that – okay, you can't do them now.

00:24:57.040 How do you organize that stuff so that you continue to keep the loop closed and it's not just spinning there in your brain?

00:25:05.820 Well, once you clarify the nature of these things, you don't need a really complex system.

00:25:10.160 You need to keep track of the projects you have.

00:25:12.240 So a project list is really important.

00:25:14.200 You need to keep track of your own actions you need to take about the projects or any single actions.

00:25:20.960 And those could be on simple – one simple – actually two lists.

00:25:24.500 Your calendar has some things you need to do.

00:25:27.020 It's a specific thing.

00:25:27.920 The next thing you need to do is go to the meeting on Monday at 2 o'clock, and that's on your calendar.

00:25:32.080 That's fine.

00:25:33.100 But if the next thing you need to do is actually to do some research before you go to that meeting, then that's a next action you need to put on some sort of a next action list.

00:25:40.900 So you've got a project list, and you have your actions you need to take, which will either go on a calendar or on a next action list you could do in and around your calendar items.

00:25:50.840 And then a fourth list called waiting for, things you're waiting on to come back from somebody else.

00:25:56.400 And essentially, if you have a fairly simple life or lifestyle, those four lists can handle pretty much everything.

00:26:04.160 Now, the non-actionable things, obviously you need a trash – some way to trash stuff, and you need a reference system, both digital and paper-based, so you can put stuff that's just referenced somewhere so you can find it later.

00:26:15.340 And you need some sort of a – what we call a tickler system or an on-hold or an incubate system that will let you say, I don't – you know, this cultural event that I just got a mail about I might want to go to.

00:26:27.680 It's two months from now, this Bach concert at the concert hall, but I've got so many pending things, but I might want to go to it, remind myself in a month, that'll give me time to get tickets.

00:26:38.640 So you need some sort of a system that's going to give you that sort of ping back, you know, whether digitally or in a physical tickler file or bring forward file where you can see that kind of stuff.

00:26:49.020 But that's about it.

00:26:50.820 You don't need – in terms of categories, those are the primary categories that you need to have to organize the results of your decision-making about what you need to be reminded of and what you need to have access to in the appropriate context.

00:27:04.500 Where that gets more complex is most people have 100 to 200 next actions aside from their calendar.

00:27:10.640 So, you know, what happens if you've got a fairly complex life, you may find it, as I have, much easier to sort your next actions into various contexts.

00:27:19.200 I have an errands list of my actions that need to be taken when I'm out and about.

00:27:23.820 I have a list of actions of things to talk to my wife about when she and I get time to talk about the business life stuff.

00:27:30.340 I have a list of things to do in terms of creative writing on my computer.

00:27:34.480 That's a separate list.

00:27:35.440 So, I've sorted those into things because I can't do all of those at any one time, and I can't even – don't even have the possibility to run errands if I'm not out doing errands.

00:27:45.980 So, I've then sorted my action list into some subcategories.

00:27:50.080 But it doesn't have to be that complex, but it is sophisticated enough to be able to manage a pretty sophisticated life.

00:27:57.820 The distinction between projects and actions, that took me a while to figure out when I first started working with GTD.

00:28:04.280 Because what I would do is I would just create actions.

00:28:07.300 But like you said earlier about the example of mom's birthday, right?

00:28:10.900 You can say mom's birthday.

00:28:12.220 Well, there's going to be a lot of actions you have to take to get to that completed thing.

00:28:16.880 So, that took me a while to figure out.

00:28:18.940 But once I did, it helped out a lot to figure, okay, if it requires multiple steps, it's a project.

00:28:24.320 And just create a project folder, and you have your little list of actions to create that project or to finish that project.

00:28:29.580 And by the way, Brett, given that definition, most people listening to this have somewhere between 30 and 100 projects, if they include personal and professional.

00:28:38.780 Right.

00:28:39.100 Like even something like cleaning out your attic or basement isn't just a single action.

00:28:43.120 Yeah.

00:28:43.380 Go up there and start.

00:28:44.640 But you probably are going to have that as a project because you may go, oh, I have to get those things away.

00:28:49.160 We have to get boxes so that we can do those.

00:28:51.560 We need to digitalize our photographs in that box.

00:28:53.700 You may find a whole lot of other things there.

00:28:56.520 So, it is tricky business to kind of say, what actually do we actually call a project?

00:29:02.060 You know, most people listening to this probably have a body project.

00:29:05.020 Fix a tooth.

00:29:06.520 You know, check your, you know, see how your blood level is right now, given cholesterol, whatever.

00:29:12.940 Get a checkup that you've been avoiding, you know, X, Y, and Z.

00:29:16.460 Or God knows, you know, whatever, all those things.

00:29:19.080 Or if I need to look into this sprained ankle that's just not healing, maybe I should go figure out how to handle that.

00:29:25.020 Those are projects.

00:29:26.220 Because you have at least a phone call to make or at least a web surf to do to find out, well, what might I do next?

00:29:31.480 And you couldn't, that's not going to finish whatever this is.

00:29:34.040 So, whatever it is you can't finish in one sitting or kind of in one call that's obvious, that's a project.

00:29:40.700 So, the final steps after you've clarified your information, organized those tasks and projects is to reflect and engage.

00:29:46.700 What does that look like?

00:29:47.860 Like, well, you're going out for errands, what do you want to do?

00:29:50.480 Look at the errands you've come up with and decide which ones you're going to run.

00:29:54.240 You know, you've got a list of stuff to talk to your partner about in your business, right?

00:29:58.940 You've got the meeting coming up, take a look at the list you've created and say which ones are the most important that we deal with if we have a short period of time.

00:30:06.240 It could also be reflect, it could be at any of the levels of commitments.

00:30:09.500 I mean, the other aspect of getting things done is identifying the multiple horizons that we have commitments.

00:30:16.680 There's six of them.

00:30:18.340 You know, at the top level, why are you on the planet?

00:30:20.900 What's your purpose and your core values?

00:30:23.080 And then you have what's your vision of doing that successfully?

00:30:25.680 And then you have what are the things you need to accomplish to make the vision happen?

00:30:29.520 Then you have all the things you need to maintain, you know, to make sure all that works and keep going toward that in a balanced way.

00:30:35.480 Then you have all the projects about all that stuff.

00:30:37.200 And then you have all the actions you need to take.

00:30:39.400 I couldn't get it any simpler, you know, than this, Brett, over these 35 years.

00:30:43.420 There are six horizons.

00:30:44.880 We actually have all of these commitments.

00:30:47.560 So, reflecting could be how often do you need to reflect if you've got a life partner?

00:30:52.280 How often do you folks need to think about where you're going in your life in terms of career and lifestyle?

00:30:56.740 Where do you want to be five years from now?

00:30:58.760 What's pulling or pushing on you that thinks you might want to change it?

00:31:02.620 You know, if you say, if you've got a job that just changed, you know, how clear are you with you and any potential boss or partners about your job description and your accountabilities?

00:31:10.720 So, there are a lot of these commitments at multiple levels that need to be reviewed and reflected so you can feel comfortable about both your priorities and as well as what are the appropriate projects I need and actions I need to take, you know, to maintain all those things.

00:31:23.220 So, this is not quite a, you know, most people have a much more complex life than they realize.

00:31:29.120 So, don't shoot the messenger, guys.

00:31:30.540 I'm just letting you know all those things are going on.

00:31:33.720 So, when you say reflect, yeah, reflect on what?

00:31:37.180 Reflect on the 35 projects you have?

00:31:39.420 Yeah, once a week you ought to.

00:31:41.040 Reflect on where you need to be this afternoon?

00:31:42.940 Yeah, check your calendar.

00:31:44.360 That's a good reflection.

00:31:46.460 Reflect on, you know, how you're trying to manage the strategic plan you have and the operational plan you have in your company.

00:31:54.220 So, is that a quarterly review, monthly review?

00:31:57.080 Is that a, you know, how often do you need to look at that?

00:31:59.700 So, reflection just says step back, step up at some level to be able to look at another level of game in terms of locating yourself in space and time.

00:32:07.840 So, then you move to step five so that whatever you decide to do this afternoon, whether that's take a nap, have a beer, you know, draft the plan, deal with the ugly email that's staring at you in your in-basket.

00:32:20.440 You know, that's that, then you do that from that context.

00:32:25.120 And this also is where the weekly and daily review comes in.

00:32:28.780 This is where you figure out, you know, you do that step back on a weekly basis.

00:32:34.100 What am I doing with these projects?

00:32:35.580 Is it pushing me forward where I want to go?

00:32:37.800 And then, yeah.

00:32:38.260 Yeah, should I even have that project?

00:32:40.280 Right.

00:32:40.620 That's an important, because I think sometimes people think like if they put something on a list, it means they have to do it.

00:32:46.040 Not so.

00:32:47.100 You can change your mind.

00:32:48.680 Yeah. 0.99

00:32:49.000 And sometimes you have an inspiration and then two, three days later you go, you know, too much wine or, you know, that was dumb.

00:32:55.820 Or, you know, no, given all the other things I have on my plate.

00:32:59.040 And by the way, if people don't have a complete project list, they'll always overcommit.

00:33:02.640 Yeah, no, that's true.

00:33:03.740 I've seen an exception to that.

00:33:05.000 But once you have a complete list of all the commitments you have, the word N-O is going to come a little easier to you.

00:33:11.740 That's a good point, because I think a lot of people, I know of myself, and I don't know exactly what's going on, or I don't have it in front of me, all the stuff that I've got going on, I overcommit.

00:33:20.760 Because I'm like, oh, yeah, I've got time.

00:33:22.100 And then, you know, a month later shows up, and I'm like, oh, crap, I don't have time for this.

00:33:26.620 And I didn't have time then.

00:33:27.600 I don't know why I said yes a month ago.

00:33:30.200 You mentioned doing this stuff with your wife.

00:33:33.480 I imagine families could benefit a lot from a GTD methodology, because the modern family is just crazy.

00:33:39.780 Like, you have three kids going to different things all at different times.

00:33:43.460 What does a GTD system look like with, like, a couple or within a family?

00:33:47.300 Have you seen that play out?

00:33:49.040 Oh, hugely.

00:33:50.080 Oh, with families, it's huge.

00:33:51.880 I've got a lot of families that do family week through reviews.

00:33:55.340 Sit down and look at the kid's schedule for the next week.

00:33:57.180 What's coming up?

00:33:57.920 Look at your spouse's schedule.

00:33:59.480 Look at your partner's schedule.

00:34:00.760 Hey, what's coming up?

00:34:01.960 What do I need to know about that?

00:34:03.060 How can I help?

00:34:04.320 What do I need to do?

00:34:05.500 My God.

00:34:06.200 The lack of those conversations creates some of the strangest stress out there in those relationships.

00:34:13.040 You didn't tell me.

00:34:14.600 I thought, were you going to pick up the kids?

00:34:16.440 I thought I was, you know, yada, yada.

00:34:17.880 Oh, my God.

00:34:18.480 And so, yes, any kind of sharing of commitments in terms of groups and teams and so forth.

00:34:25.060 What do we all need to be aware of?

00:34:27.340 Not only that, just proactively, if you've got a family and say, hey, we're having a holiday coming up.

00:34:31.960 Let's sit down and have a brainstorming.

00:34:33.260 What do we all want to do?

00:34:34.440 Are we taking care of everything?

00:34:35.840 We might want to see, hey, kids, what do you want to do with it?

00:34:39.620 You know, well, let's go surf the web and see what you might want to do, you know, yada, yada.

00:34:43.980 Those are great conversations that you won't have unless some part of you sits down and says, hey, I got a project called Next Holiday.

00:34:51.360 Wonderful.

00:34:51.840 Next action.

00:34:52.600 You know, God, I ought to check with my family and see what they want to do.

00:34:55.540 Make sure we're all on the same page.

00:34:57.760 What does, so you say someone starts doing this, what does GTD mastery look like?

00:35:02.820 Does it just become second nature where you don't really have to think about the process and you just do it?

00:35:06.940 Yeah.

00:35:07.580 Yeah, that's it.

00:35:08.220 I mean, my wife took a seminar for me 35 years ago.

00:35:12.220 You know, and so people ask me about her system. 0.72

00:35:14.580 I go, I have no idea.

00:35:15.800 I just know where her in-basket is and I know how to email her.

00:35:18.380 That's all I need to know.

00:35:19.940 She handled it from there.

00:35:21.820 It's great because she's sitting in the other room right now.

00:35:24.440 I could email her right now because I don't want to disturb her.

00:35:26.720 She's doing some work.

00:35:27.640 She's doing stuff she's involved in.

00:35:29.000 She'll see it in her own timing.

00:35:31.240 We trust our own systems and our own integrity to be able to deal with these things in that way.

00:35:35.440 Man, does that move you up the food chain in terms of relationships?

00:35:41.220 Because a lot of what screws up relationships are those kind of strangely mundane but still meaningful things

00:35:49.680 that are not handled really well and the communication, you know, just fall through a crack and then you have all the issues and conflicts and stresses that show up because of that.

00:36:00.200 So, yeah, it's great stuff when, you know, for...

00:36:03.680 See, once anyone gets GTD, gets this stuff, it's going to affect every one of your intersections.

00:36:11.140 You know, Brett, how many people do you intersect with on a daily or weekly basis?

00:36:15.880 Lots of people.

00:36:16.480 And every one of those intersections, when you get off that phone or you get off that conversation and you go,

00:36:22.380 I'm tracking what we just decided, what I've agreed to, what they've agreed to that I need to keep track of or whatever,

00:36:28.040 that just moves all that up the food chain.

00:36:30.380 And those people, whether they get GTD or not, are going to find that out.

00:36:33.360 When you come back and say, by the way, we talked on Tuesday.

00:36:35.500 You said you get this by Friday.

00:36:37.220 I don't have it yet.

00:36:38.460 Do you need some help?

00:36:39.200 Do we need to renegotiate?

00:36:40.360 And they're going to go, oh, my God, Brett actually cares about this and tracks it.

00:36:46.360 And, boy, does that make a difference, you know, from then on in your relationship.

00:36:50.800 And I imagine the end goal, too, as we've been talking about it, once you get this thing going,

00:36:54.460 you flex those cognitive muscles to clarify your task and get them in a system, is that, yeah, you feel present.

00:37:02.140 Like, you can actually, you can be at your kid's soccer game and just think about your kid's soccer game and nothing else,

00:37:07.320 which is a great feeling.

00:37:08.580 Yeah.

00:37:08.760 I mean, the whole idea is like clear space.

00:37:11.860 And so people ask me, well, what should I do with this?

00:37:13.980 I say, what do you need to do to get that off your mind?

00:37:16.660 I have a very simple question back.

00:37:19.560 What do you need to do to get that off your mind?

00:37:21.780 What do you need to do to get that off your mind?

00:37:24.000 What do you need to do to get that off your mind?

00:37:26.420 And I just figured out the algorithm about what they need to decide and think about and how they need to organize that so it does get off their mind.

00:37:32.980 Most people don't have a clue, frankly, about what they need to do.

00:37:36.960 But that was, you know, that was the elegance of GTD.

00:37:40.840 That it is.

00:37:41.240 Figured that out.

00:37:41.800 Well, David, where can people go to learn more about the work?

00:37:44.940 And I guess you have a new book coming out, a workbook as well.

00:37:47.300 Yeah, we do.

00:37:48.180 Well, gettingthingsdone.com is our website.

00:37:50.380 And now we're being, you know, our trainings, we've certified master trainers and coaches in 70 countries.

00:37:58.440 So you can go to wherever you are in the world, you're listening to this, you can go to our website and see how you could get a training, which is really good to do.

00:38:08.060 You know, obviously you can get my book, the new edition of Getting Things Done, you know, has all this in there and how to do all that.

00:38:15.580 And, yeah, there is a new, you know, if you get the book Getting Things Done, it may be a little daunting for a lot of people because I just accumulated 25 years of my professional work or 30 years of my professional work and put it into a manual.

00:38:28.360 And so a lot of people, it does tell you how to implement all this stuff with a lot of detail and cool stuff about it.

00:38:35.700 But a lot of people feel a little daunted, you know, or overwhelmed by that.

00:38:39.860 So we decided let's create a workbook that sort of lowered the barrier of entry for people to be able to say, look, here are the 10 moves that are easy to do.

00:38:48.160 So if you do them, you'll start to implement these five steps, you know, of capture, clarify, organize, reflect, and engage, you know, in a very simple and easy way to start to do that.

00:38:58.580 So that's why we figured it would probably be a good idea to do a workbook.

00:39:02.860 And we've got QR codes in there.

00:39:04.360 If you've got an iPhone or a phone that recognizes QR codes, you can read a little thing and, you know, do a little exercise and then you can pump on the QR code.

00:39:12.080 You'll see me talk for two or three minutes about what that actually is and what it feels and looks like.

00:39:16.220 So it's cool. We feel proud of that.

00:39:19.300 Well, fantastic. Well, David Allen, thanks so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:39:21.940 Brett, my pleasure. Thanks for the invitation.

00:39:24.500 My guest today was David Allen. He's the author of the book, Getting Things Done.

00:39:27.460 Check out the new workbook that's out that accompanies the book.

00:39:30.260 It's called the Getting Things Done Workbook, both available on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:39:34.720 You can find out more information about his work at his website, gettingthingsdone.com.

00:39:38.640 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash gtd.

00:39:41.920 We can find links to resources. We can delve deeper into this topic.

00:39:46.220 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.

00:39:54.560 Check out our website at artofmanlios.com where you can find our podcast archives.

00:39:58.240 There's over 500 episodes there as well as thousands of articles on things like productivity, getting things done.

00:40:02.920 I write about there as well.

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00:40:19.700 And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher.

00:40:23.920 It helps out a lot.

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00:40:31.600 Until next time, this is Brett McKay, reminding you not only to listen to the AOM Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - September 16, 2019

#543： Learn the System for Getting Things Done

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