Episode Transcript

David: 0:00

See, getting things done is not about working harder, it's not about sweating more. So, you know, sometimes you need to put your shoulder to the wheel and dig in on something. But for the most part, it's about being appropriately engaged with it. Are you appropriately engaged? Are you appropriately engaged with this podcast right now?

CODY: 0:28

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Mind Hack. Today we have a guest whose influence is truly global. He's a productivity guru who's revolutionized the way that we think about work and life management. I'm talking about the one and only David Allen, the Mastermind behind the Getting Things Done Philosophy, commonly known as GTD. Since the early two thousands, David's GTD methodology has evolved from a bestselling book into a global productivity movement. It's been translated into more than 30 languages and has helped millions gain control and perspective over their lives. He's not just an author, he's a consultant, an international lecturer, and let's not forget a man who's had 35 jobs before he turned 35. His experiences and challenges have shaped GTD into the dynamic and ever relevant system it is today. David, it's great to be here with you. Now, David, you launched GTD in the early two thousands when information overload was just starting to become a thing. Do you think that timing was a factor in that success?

David: 1:41

I think so. think so. I mean, a lot of my work that created the foundation of the methodology that I formatted or framed took me 20, 25 years of doing a lot of training And coaching around this field and research myself about best practices. And so when I decided to write the book, uh, that was really, it took me that long to figure out what I'd figured out, and that it was essentially bulletproof. You couldn't punch a hole in it and that nobody else seemed to have done it the way that I did that or that I, that I framed it. and so at that point, that was when, a lot of our early clients, as we were doing, coaching and training in this world, were industries that were starting to deal with rapid change, flattened organizations, and the input. Of email and, virtual communication. We didn't call it virtual communication back then, but of the asynchronous stuff of email. I mean, it was a brilliant thing that showed up, but people were starting to get, overwhelmed with a bit of the tsunami of emails and inputs and change that was going on in these organizations. And so that was a ripe audience, obviously for what I had come up with because I framed it in a world that wasn't necessarily that busy or chaotic. I framed it because it was just cool stuff to do and helped me stay clear, even as busy or complex as my life was. and then what I came up with, it turned out that was the ripest audience for what I'd come up with were people who were starting to experience that pressure of the world that was coming at them. And yeah, it was very much started. I got onto email in, gee, 1995. 1993, something like that. and with Easy Link, that, radio Shack model 100 tied to my IBM XT

CODY: 3:38

hmm. Wow.

David: 3:38

little with a little storage drive in it. And that was brilliant. How cool is this? But it's been fascinating to watch that transition probably faster than we thought it was gonna,

CODY: 3:52

And now for, for our listeners who are unfamiliar with GTD, could you give a brief explanation about what the concept is?

David: 3:59

Sure. Well, the idea was how do you stay clear and focused when you have a whole lot of stuff you have to deal with? And a lot of it was about, being able to, clear your head. How do you get a clear head when you have all that stuff that comes into you and that you've allowed into your own personal ecosystem? All those things. If. allowed it in That means you have some internal or subliminal commitment with yourself that you need to decide or do something about it or figure out what it means. So I just figured out what's the algorithm about? How do you take stuff that has your attention? Little, big, small, personal, professional, doesn't matter. Whatever you've got on your mind, how do you get that off your mind?

CODY: 4:39

Hmm.

David: 4:39

See, there are a lot of things listening or watching this, a lot of people listening or watching this right now that have a lot of things that are not on their mind, and yet they're involved in it because they've appropriately captured and, and clarified and and organized the whatever the results of that are in some sort of trusted place. you know, like a calendar. If you trust your calendar, you trust you have all the right data in there and you trust you'll look at it as often as you need to. Then what's coming up in the next two or three or four weeks is not on your mind right now because you trust that I have now captured and clarified and organized that in a trusted external brain, if you will. So I just figured out what that was about. Most people have a calendar, but most people are not doing that same thing with all the other commitments they've got. So I just figured out what the algorithm or formula was. Okay, take anything that's on your mind. What do you need to do to get that off your mind? You need to capture it. You need to identify what it is. There are five steps, which basically my methodology is kind of, I didn't make 'em up. I just recognized what they were. How we take any situation and get it off our mind or get it more in control and more focused. First thing you have to do is say, well, what's on your mind about this? What's not on cruise control? What's not on automatic about this situation? Oh, that needs to happen. Oh, I need to do that. Oh, that needs to change, or I need to do something. So capturing all those things. Write em down, capture 'em somewhere. Get 'em outta your head. And then what do I need to do about that? Then the clarify step, that's step two is I need to decide, is that something I'm gonna do something about? Is that trash? is it reference, Is it something I need to be reminded of later on? That's a clarify step where I need to make some decision about what this really means to me since I let it in. And then step three, well well, I need to, to if I can't finish whatever that's about, if there's something to do about it within a couple of minutes, then I need to, track it somewhere in some sort of organizational system. And that's where the kind of external brain shows up out there. I need lists. I need a list of the errands. I need to run lists of things I need to talk to my boss or my wife about. I just need to keep track of the stuff that I've decided I need to do, I haven't done yet. And then step four, once you've, captured, clarified, and organized your stuff, then you need to make sure you look at your list. If you're going out, and about in your, you know. Transportation and you're about to do errands, you need to see a list of all the errands you've told yourself you need to run. Doesn't mean you need to do 'em all just means you don't need to miss any. You don't want to go back home and go, oh, forgot I should have, well, come on. It's wasted energy and space. And then step five is then you engage based upon having captured, clarified, organized, And reflected on all of your commitments at all these different levels. Then deciding what to do is more of a confident choice as opposed to gee, I hope this is what I ought to be doing. So I just discovered that algorithm or that formula. But everybody does that to some degree, but most people don't really apply that across the whole spectrum of all of the things that are on their mind that they have commitments about. So I just uncovered how cool it is if you actually do that

CODY: 7:51

Yeah. I first read your book, one of the things that really was this amazing wow, that's so true, is that idea of capturing those open loops and that we all have these things that constantly pop into our heads about, oh, I need to take out the trash, I need to, to, to write this report. And then you forget about it, and then the thought comes back up again. And so I think a key part of your methodology is teaching us to be more conscious and aware when we have these, these thoughts that pop up into capturing them into a single, central place. And I think that's one of my favorite parts of the system.

David: 8:30

If if your mind had a mind, it doesn't, by the way, your mind is pretty much just a reactive, reflective mechanism of things you put in there and be reminded of. If your mind had a mind, it would only remind you of things when you could actually do something about them. But to wake up at three o'clock in the morning and think, gee, we need cat food. Is, and you can't go buy cat food at that moment is a total waste of time and a total waste of, essentially psychic space. And so I just said, how do I get the most space out there? How do I keep those things from popping into my mind? And that's to your point, you have to make sure you've captured whatever that thing is. Doesn't mean you have to go buy cat food as soon as it occurs to you. You just don't have that thought more than once, unless you like thinking that.

CODY: 9:14

Yeah.

David: 9:15

So there's no, there's no reason to have a thought more than once, unless you like having a thought.

CODY: 9:20

Very true. Now, you've talked about having 35 jobs before age 35. How did these roles specifically inform the creation of GTD?

David: 9:30

they didn't

CODY: 9:31

they didn't,

David: 9:32

I just didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up. And I was very much into my own personal spiritual exploration who I was. You know, I, you know, come on, this is. I dropped outta graduate school in Berkeley in 1968. I mean, this is like, like personal growth, exploration time. So I was more interested in finding out who I was, How the universe worked and what all that stuff was about.'cause I'd had some experiences, of that were somewhat transcendental. And, and I was trying to figure out where all that came from. How do I get more of that how do I use that? And so a lot of the jobs were just, 'cause I had to pay the rent. People weren't paying me money to go do that kind of exploration, so I had to go, rice bowl and cave was not my, not my thing,

CODY: 10:18

Hmm.

David: 10:19

you know, I preferred good wine, attractive women, you know, and fun things to be doing. And so that's why I, a lot of those jobs were just because I needed I needed to pay the rent. And so I had. Friends are people I knew in my network who seemed to know what they were doing. And so they'd started businesses and they had small operations and enterprises going on. I became a really good number two guy. So I was really good at show, just showing up and going, how much easier can we do this? cause I'm Mr. Lazy, believe me. And I just look at how they were trying to get their stuff done. I said, there's probably an easier way we can do that, so we can leave a little earlier today, about that business. So I'd help 'em sort of improve their systems. I didn't have the words for that, but that's what I did. And then it got sort of under cruise control and then I'd get bored. So then I'd leave that and go find another job. Then at some point I discovered they pay people to do that. They call them something like, oh, consultant, uh, who'd have thought? And so I said, well, maybe I could just. My job could be essentially no job but helping other people with their jobs. And that was about 1982. I sort of hung up my shingle, Al and Associates. I said, well, lemme see if I can just get paid on a project by project basis, by helping people do what I seem to be like to be able to do, which is make things easier. So that's where a number of those jobs came from. I mean, I had a bunch, you know, I I didn't, I didn't grow up with a silver spoon. I mean, I, I, you know, I had, my first job was a magician on the sidewalks in Palestine, Texas, charging 5 cents to do magic for the kids. So that was job one. Then I became a magician, gave, birthday parties for kids when I was a teenager and, then bagged groceries and became a cashier in the grocery store. And, you know, so a lot of those were just to get, have spending money and if nothing else. So there was no grants. There was no grand strategy. I was just trying to, you know, follow my nose and just say, well, what do I do next to, So that's where a lot of that came from,

CODY: 12:28

Hmm. You seem to be a systems thinker. I believe I'm a systems thinker too, and everybody always looks at me as a process person. And perhaps you enjoy that problem solving of trying to create a or trying to solve a problem that others have on a reoccurring basis. Is that kind of accurate?

David: 12:47

I guess. So I think, I love models. I love a model that says, Hey, if you follow this model you don't have to change yourself. You don't have to transform yourself. Just follow this model and you'll make this thing work better or you'll make this thing work better. So I was always, I guess they call 'em templates. I was always fascinated if you could find the right template to say, if I thought this way, I would produce a better result. I didn't have to change myself. I just had to change what my focus was, win. When to focus on what that that would then produce a bigger or better result. Now I could say that now I didn't, I didn't have that understanding when I got into this. But in retrospect, I'd say, yeah, so I've always been attracted to that process

CODY: 13:33

Now David, you've been transparent about your journey to sobriety in the past. Can you talk about how this experience influenced your views on productivity?

David: 13:44

Well, come on, I, you know, this is the sixties in California or whatever. And so I was, a lot of my stuff in terms of drugs and, hallucinogenics and even cocaine and heroin for a short period of time, it was all more exploration. It wasn't escape. I was just curious, where did that lead me? Now with the HY stuff and all that, the mushrooms and people, it's kind of a reemergence of people's interest in. What Timothy Leary in the early LSD days was doing, saying, well, what do these things allow us to experience otherwise? So, I was just part of that, culture that ou So they weren't really, I I wouldn't say they were really addictions. I could give them up like that. I did, uh, just I realized, wait a minute, that doesn't work. Let me stop doing that. So I stopped smoking, I stopped doing drugs, I stopped doing all that. I did my last, smoked my last joint in 1971.

CODY: 14:38

Wow. that's amazing. Considering how commonplace joints are around here in Amsterdam.

David: 14:43

Yeah. And most people don't realize, you know, I had some good advice from people who seemed to be able to see more inner levels of what was going on. That, grass and kind of the real sneak. it does is it tends to it tends to dry up the synapses in your body. Your mind, See somebody who's stoned and they look stoned. That, that's that experience. But it, what it does is it blocks you from being able to see more subtle stuff internally. And since I was on a spiritual path, I said, Hmm, okay, well with that information I will stop so that I can come back around and for my, you know, clearer, cleaner space, do the exploration that I was involved in.

CODY: 15:24

What was the alternative after you, you chose sobriety and the respect of not doing any drugs. And a lot of GTD comes to having an awareness about one's thoughts, having awareness about the system and deciding to go a certain path. did you resort to meditation? Was there any kind of further spiritual journey beyond the

David: 15:45

Yeah, yeah. a lot of about meditation stuff, more about how do you quiet yourself. See the universe is always on. It never stops. So meditation or quieting yourself is not about stopping the universe, it's not about stopping any of that. It's about allowing yourself to listen to more subtle things going on.

CODY: 16:04

Hmm.

David: 16:04

And so having personal experiences with the subtler things going on on those different levels. Gee, I, I'm still a student still, you know, look, I'll be 78 soon. And, and I'm still like, well, okay. I could still do better at being able to be quiet more regularly and listen more regularly to the inner voice. And The inner voice is that come from, different levels. So that's an ongoing game. It's been that way for over 50

CODY: 16:36

Now, GTD often gets compared to Stephen Covey's seven habits of effective people. How do you see GTD as a, departure or extension from other productivity philosophies?

David: 16:49

Well, GTD is very much focused on implementation. A lot of the other stuff out there and God bless 'em that it's all great stuff. So Seven Habits, great book. a lot of Stephen Covey's work was was fabulous. I loved it reading that stuff. And a lot of it had to do with sort of the higher horizons that you or feel comfortable with. what it didn't do very well was tie that down to the complexity of your day-to-day ordinariness of how you then manifest that stuff And so a lot of it was too overstructured because I planned as little as I can get by with,'cause who knows, after we stop talking, who knows what will have shown up in your world and my world that then may totally reconfigure. And all the prioritizing schemes, the ABCs, the Eisenhower Matrix, all of those things, they all have value to them. However, is deciding, taking time to figure out whether you want to give your daughter karate lessons? Is that an A, B, or C? Figuring out that they're saying out, I just need to watch some tv, sort of relax my head. Is that an a B, or a C? see, there's nothing wrong with an A, B, C. Okay, let me just make some decisions about the thing, the commitments I've got out there, and which ones will have a higher priority if I get them done or will have a higher benefit. Sure, that's all good thinking, but it doesn't really map to the day-to-day, minute to minute ordinariness of our lives and having to make decisions about those kinds of things and feel comfortable about them. So, I think GTD, Has done an excellent job of taking all those horizons and then making sure that they map through all the different horizons. you have commitments.

CODY: 18:30

Your GTD methodology is often described as a time management system where there is an inverse relationship between the things on your mind and the things that you have to get done. Was there a philosophical or psychological basis for this approach?

David: 18:48

No. Which is practical reality. I just, practical experience, you know, I, had a mentor who, who in 1982 walked me through getting things out of my head and making next action decisions about 'em. I wasn't broken at that point. I wasn't, I didn't feel like I was disorganized or outta control, but it produced such an incredible experience it was like. that's what clear space feels like. I, I had no reference point about what it was like to actually have none of that stuff on your mind. Once I went through that process of capturing and then and clarifying next actions on all the things that had my attention it was like, that's an amazing result. And so that just became a lot of the, one of the fundamental, principles of getting things done and the methodology was capturing and then clarifying specifically what those things mean and then parking them into trusted systems. So that's where all that came from. There wasn't so much a philosophical or otherwise, in retrospect, I could say one of the reasons I was so enthralled with what I uncovered was that from my own perspective, and you could call it spiritual if you want, I just say it was experiential about life, is that we seem to be here to do two things. we, seem to be here to complete and create,

CODY: 20:01

Hmm.

David: 20:02

right? So we need to be accountable for all the things we put in motion that are coming to us, that have our attention. Whether you. whether that's 14 lifetimes ago in terms of your karma that you've got now, or just the things you told yourself to buy at the store you haven't bought yet, to everything in between. So all of that's about stuff that that will start to take your energy to wrap around it and to engage with it. And for most people, that's inefficient because they're having to rethink the stuff. I haven't parked it somewhere I trust, I can't get it truly off my mind because it keeps occurring to me. So the whole completion idea is to just identify the stuff that you have put in motion. Little big, personal, professional, doesn't matter, but identify what it is and then park that somewhere that then you can engage appropriately with it. See, getting things done is not about working harder, it's not about sweating more. So, you know, sometimes you need to put your shoulder to the wheel and dig in on something. But for the most part, it's about being appropriately engaged with it. Are you appropriately engaged? Are you appropriately engaged with this podcast right now? Are you appropriately engaged with your business? Right? Are you appropriately engaged with your trip right now to Amsterdam? Are you appropriately, are you appropriately engaged with your health, with your cat, with your dog, with your relationships, with your company, with your whatever? And so appropriate engagement doesn't mean you have to go finish all that. It just means you better decide what all that is to you, what it means to you. And that's the completion part. you completion, if you don't know everything you've got to complete is just a half process. So the first part is just making sure what is all the stuff that I need to be accountable for to myself, that I've put in motion that I've engaged with. And then if you get to that level of clarity, what do I now create? You can't stop creating, by the way. We are teleological beings. You, whatever you're doing, you're always wanting to be, do something about it with it or something. You're, you're always moving towards something. So is that creative energy being put and placed in the appropriate direction and the appropriate place for yourself. Otherwise, you'll have something you need to complete Mm-Hmm. about that, that you're gonna, they're gonna throw back into the completion cycle. so as long as you're completing, that's karma free that doesn't have residue with it. Or even if it does, it has to, like I'm saying like I need to buy a car, So we haven't had a car for nine years, we've been in Amsterdam 'cause we haven't needed one. But now we have room to be able to park it in a garage. So we go, okay, lemme get a car. So there's a lot of stuff about getting a car if you haven't had one. That you need to take care of. So, you know, I've just got a whole mind map and a whole list of stuff that we need to deal with in terms of insurance, in terms of parking permits, in terms of all kinds of stuff. So that's been a creative thing to do. And because of that creative thing to do, I now have a lot of things I need to complete and close up about that to appropriately engage with new car.

CODY: 23:08

Hmm.

David: 23:09

So if you kind of get that relationship, there's create and then based upon what you're creating, what are you completing about that or are you creating and then creating a lot of residue and a lot of stuff that's just a hanging out and then starting to rob your psychic energy or your ability to be able to create more cool stuff that make

CODY: 23:28

Yeah, and so we are both systems thinkers. We like to have a list, we like to capture, we like to organize and prioritize. Do you think that there are people who have different, I mean, their brains operate differently and I would use the comparison of say, somebody who's an architect versus, a archeologist, where you can either build the frame and the structure and plan it all out. Or you can dig and try and find something that's gonna be interesting. So are there, is everybody compatible with GTD as a system?

David: 24:01

Well, most people misunderstand GTD as an organization system? It's really about clear your mind system. If you're an archeologist, what do you need to do to get this dig off your mind? Oh, I need to handle this, I need to handle this. And trust me, they still have stuff they need to do. They'll still have some systematic way that they need to approach it successfully, you know, good, bad, or indifferent.

CODY: 24:24

Hmm.

David: 24:25

so, there are people who are more attracted to the, let's say, the more higher horizon vision things, and they hate the detail. Then there are people who are very attracted to the detail that get, feel challenged if they're asked to vision. And so yes, those are different personality types, but that has nothing to do with people's uptake in GTD It's just the uptake in GTD may be different for those different people.

CODY: 24:49

Mm-Hmm.

David: 24:50

we've had a lot of visionaries that love GTD because what it does is it, it gets rid of a lot of the detail that allows them to vision better and clearer. And a lot of the detail people love it because it actually gets that off their mind that they have more of a freedom and more confidence that they could then, create some bigger, goals and visions for themselves.

CODY: 25:09

Yeah, you, you've used the idea or concept of say, the 50,000 feet view and perhaps I think GTD is a system that allows people who are on the ground versus at 50,000 feet, it kind of brings them to have more balance. Because you can't really exist solely in one platitude. You have to be able to pull yourself out and either see the greater vision or to go down and look at the smaller details.

David: 25:34

Well, you know, if you get in a plane, nice that they, that they know they're going way up to 35, 40,000 feet. But if they don't have runway capability, they're in serious trouble.

CODY: 25:47

One of the things I loved, as I just mentioned, is the 50,000 feet view, and I also love the closing loops, and, I know you've had a myriad of experiences, So perhaps it's hard to pinpoint. Any specific concept of GTD to a particular time in your life, but is there anything that, or is there anything or anyone who inspired you to create the GTD as a methodology?

David: 26:13

Well, I mentioned, Dean Atchison, not the famous guy who was a secretary of State, but he just was a good friend and a longtime executive consultant, in organizational change. And he's the one who taught me about capturing and clarifying next actions and putting those in some sort of external form. he had actually come up with those things because he was trying to work with executives to make big organizational change. And there was so much. In their psyche that it clogged them up. They couldn't think about that. Not only that. the organization had a lot of barnacles on the ship, a lot of old business that was just clogging up the systems. And so all this, he had come up with this as a way to sort of clear the deck, both for the senior people, so they could clear the deck, emotionally, psychically, mentally so they could focus a lot more on the future. And then clear the deck in the organization of all the old business that was clogging up the systems so that the new stuff could be implemented very well. So Dean taught me, some great stuff that then became, a core element of what I learned. So, you know, I didn't make that up. he taught me that, he sort of took to me, he said, David, you're probably gonna take this much further than I will.'cause he wasn't particularly interested in taking this any further than that. So I hung out with him and I got to, you know, he was willing to share all of, he knew all what he knew about this with me. As we worked with several projects. I brought him a couple of good clients, so. He and I just then implemented that together, you know, in those organizations and that, that was, that created a lot of the sort of fundamental aspects of this. Then over time, a lot of this was just, once I sort of discovered, hmm, well just some of these aspects seemed to be, powerful stuff. It turned out that even though there were like six or seven stages to the organizational change process, the first stage was just this clear, the deck stage, but it turned out that cleared the deck stage cleared up 90% of the problems.

CODY: 28:03

Hmm.

David: 28:05

You didn't have to go much further to say, well, what's got people's attention in the organization and then what do they need to do about that I mean, that handles so much stuff and I saw that just be transformative for so many people, just personally. So that just became a lot of the core of my own consulting business as I started out sort of as a consultant and I'd figured this out because they worked for me. But these techniques that worked for me, I said, well, let me just turn around and see if they work for my consulting clients. And it turned out that these techniques did exactly the same thing for them. They did for me. Created more focus, more control, more clarity, more sense of confidence about their choices, about what they do and wow. So that became a lot of the core of what my consulting process was. And then some, senior guy in a big corporation saw what I was doing and he said, David, we need that whole thing in our organization. Can you design some sort of training or seminar around what you've come up with? That we could reach a lot of people, at least with the model about what this is instead of 1 on 1. So I did, it was a very successful program back in 83, 84. We did a pilot program for a thousand executives and managers at Lockheed in California. And it was highly successful, more successful than any other training programs they'd ever done. It could have fooled me. I had no idea. So I found myself sort of thrust into the corporate training world, back then. As an American intellectual history major in Berkeley in 1968, if you'd told me I'd be thrust into the corporate training world, I'd say, oh, come on. What are you smoking? See, you know, who, who, you kidding? So that was the kind of the last thing I ever thought I was gonna be doing. But it turned out those are the Ripest audience. We mentioned this earlier, for what I had come up with, and they were willing to pay for it. So I found myself thrust into the corporate training world. A lot of my consulting turned into coaching one-on-one desk side with a lot of senior people who ran across my stuff in these organizations and wanted me to sit desk side with them and handhold them while they actually implemented this process. So that was where, you know, I literally spent thousands of hours, one-on-one desk side with some of the busiest and brightest people you'd ever meet. And that was a lot of the foundation of then I was able to feel confident about writing, getting things done. But as I say, it took me 20 years to figure out what I figured out, you know, doing all that work. But it was bulletproof. it held water in some of the. Fiercest environments that would challenge you if you couldn't stand toe to toe with the best and brightest with what you were trying to teach or, coach them about. They'd spit you out in two seconds. But I went viral inside of environments out there. So I said, Hmm, well you probably can't punch a hole in this. So I felt confident to go ahead and write the book. I had no idea whether the book was gonna be successful or not. I just needed to get it out of my head and write the manual in case I got run over by a bus. I said, well, at least here, somebody could figure it out.'cause I figured it out and I still wasn't even sure if somebody could read the book and get it So the first weekend the book was published, somebody, woman and Philadelphia, I think wrote me an email. She'd picked up my book at Barnes and Noble and she said, David, I read your book and implemented it, changed my life. I went, oh my, the book actually could work in terms of something that could, or just people could read it. cause I had a lot of coaching. They said, well David, you know, if you can hang out with People personally. People listening to this, by the way, just by listening to my voice will, could potentially feel more inspired about it because it's real stuff. And so they say, well, I don't know if you can put you into a book. So, but you know, we did. So at that point that sort of created a change in my career, or at least a, a, a new vector my career. I said, okay, I guess this is scalable. I guess this is something we could potentially find some way to distribute to more people in the world that might be interested in having it.

CODY: 31:46

Hmm. It sounds in some ways, like Dean was a visionary and you were the implementer, and then you added on to a lot of his concepts and theories. Yeah. So you took, you took a concept that he, where he was the original inspiration and you were able to build on top of that. So why didn't He write the book and what pushed you? what motivated you that you had to push this idea out in the world? Because we all have ideas and creative ideas and thoughts. Maybe a lot of people will write a blog post, but very rarely do we stick a, a flagpole in the ground and say, this is it. This is what I'm gonna focus on. This is what I'm gonna do. And go from there.

David: 32:32

Well, first of all, Dean, my mentor, he liked to climb rocks, do audio work for not, not-for-profit, charity events. He loved to do that kind of stuff. He didn't wanna write a book, he didn't want to take this any further. That's why he said, David, I think you probably are gonna take this much further than I would. And for me it was simply. Gee, I don't know It was just follow my nose. There wasn't a big strategy about this. I just, at some point I said, okay, well, I guess I don't know that I could do anything else. I've still always said, Hmm, if, suddenly everybody in the world has got GTD and they don't need anything more and nobody else wants the book, over 3 million have been sold out there. now in some version and all these languages, but it's, it's maybe that was everybody who will ever want it. So then I'll go back and wait on tables again,

CODY: 33:17

Hmm.

David: 33:18

be my second preferred profession.

CODY: 33:20

So in some ways it's also not having a backup option. This was the only, only path that you saw and you had to make it successful.

David: 33:29

Well, it's not that I had to make it, successful. Yeah, I guess it was that I had to make it, but I didn't feel driven by it. I just felt like pick up the phone, respond to people. Once I put this out, then respond to people who are interested in it. I've never done any marketing. We've had people that now that have come into the business that have helped us help frame what does the image look like? What does our brand look like? what do we do to make sure that the brand is comfortable and safe out there in terms of what it is. But all I've ever done is just pick up the phone and then follow my notes and just follow much, like pick up the phone or, you know, respond to your email say, okay, I don't have any drive to do this other than people are interested in it and I couldn't help share it. And come on this. I've been graced by God, all the powers that be to have uncovered something that does nothing but help people improve their condition. Little big, personal, professional, everything from eight year olds to chairman of the board, large corporations, and we've seen it and we've done it. that's the, like, wow. Also, because I'm so lazy, I don't have to change what I say no matter who I talk to because it's, it's, all the same thing. It's all the same principles. And so to have had the good fortune to have uncovered something like that, you know, GTD is not, like, this is not like running with scissors, it's nothing dangerous about this. You could take any, you could just take the two minute rule that would improve your life. So you could, you could snack on the book and just take anything that might, ring your bell and it would improve your condition. Now if you really did the whole thing, it would improve your condition in ways you make. You couldn't believe so, but you know, anybody ask, or anybody who's thinks I might have some suggestion about how they do their life, then I couldn't stop sharing it

CODY: 35:23

in one of your episodes, you mentioned that GTD doesn't get rid of life's challenges, but it provides a good system. How has GTD helped you personally with life's up And downs, even though it may have also been the source?

David: 35:39

I dunno. I've used it for 50, 40 years, so I, wouldn't think of anything else. Every single thing that's come up and I've had challenges, all kinds of stuff show up. And so I go, well, okay David, what is this? Okay, it's on your mind. What's your project here? What's your desired outcome from this situation? I define what that is and great, what's your next step? What do you need to do about it? So it's just become part of my life and my lifestyle. And of course my wife, we've been married for 32 years, I think, but she worked for me to begin with. And so she, she does this somatic, she met me doing one of my seminars, so she's been doing this stuff too. So the two of us just live this. We don't, don't even think about not doing it. So it just has become part of our DNA and certainly part of my DNA. I mean, why, why would you not think that way? So, training myself to think that way. What I've, my biggest surprise, I suppose is over these years is how many people don't think that way and need to train themselves to think that way. I thought once people got it that's just what they would do. So it's actually some pretty significant habit people to really get this and to, uh, to really implement this. I mean, for you to write something down. See if I committed, with you right now to do something that I couldn't finish right now, this comes out right? That's a little notepad and a little pin, and I would make a note of that so that my brain does not have to stay. Keep trying to spin on that while I'm trying to talk to you. I will have captured that. That's a big habit. Most People don't have that habit. They think it's, unless it's really, really important, I don't need to write it down, I'll remember that. Oh right. But your head is just a crappy office and you know that understanding what you need to do to keep your head from being your office is a pretty big habit change for Most people

CODY: 37:36

I'm sure you've encountered a lot of people who tell you, David, I can't remember, or I can't get myself to, to remember that I have this task and to actually write it down. Is there any kind of awareness teaching or any advice that you give to somebody who isn't able to form that habit of capturing those open loops?

David: 37:57

Well, first of all, you're having a physical tool and a physical environment that you start to build in that when I have that tool in front of me, that reminds me of something that I need to capture. So sometimes just having the cool gear will help. but for the most part, nah, for the most part. The biggest reason people don't implement this is their addiction to not so much stress, but ambient anxiety.

CODY: 38:23

Hmm.

David: 38:24

The ambient anxiety call. Oh, I would, could, should I I don't forget The stuff that wakes you up at three o'clock in the morning. I used to say GTD is, it's about dealing with overwhelm. Nah, if you were really overwhelmed, you'd deal with it, for better or worse in some better ways than others. But you would deal with it because it'd be, so in your face, this building caught on fire right now, for instance, you'd, you'd be, you'd feel overwhelmed in a way, but you would then engage in, deal with it.

CODY: 38:51

Yeah.

David: 38:52

The Ambient anxiety about, is this the podcast really the best thing we need to do, and what am I gonna do about that? I don't know if I have the right people to edit this. And I don't know. You know, that's the kind of ambient anxiety that most people live with and most people are not used to. What it would be like if you had, if you didn't have that.

CODY: 39:12

Hmm.

David: 39:13

And so a lot of my job over the years has been to kind of, Hey folks, come on in. The water's fine. It's actually possible to be buried and have nothing on your mind, and at least I can model that or demonstrate that, and then at least let people know that's a possibility. Once you get more used to that, probably in your life as you got more used to having your clearer head, you just wouldn't tolerate not doing that,

CODY: 39:40

Hmm.

David: 39:40

right? You would do then have to do what you needed to do to get, make sure you got back to that level of clarity. it's like taking showers, brush your teeth, whatever. you only do that because it'd feel bad if you didn't do it,

CODY: 39:52

Yeah.

David: 39:53

and those became habits.

CODY: 39:55

and I find that when you're able to remove that ambient anxiety about all those things you have to do, you have room and clarity to actually be able to be creative, to focus on one specific purpose that can help drive you. And that's

David: 40:10

Or just relax and do nothing, which could be very healthy.

CODY: 40:15

Tim Ferris another big name. in productivity has lately shown a shift in his philosophy, focusing more on the quality of life rather than just efficiency. Have you experienced any similar evolutions in your philosophy toward productivity as a tool for efficiency versus purpose?

David: 40:35

Well, let's back up a little bit. productivity is a word that has a lot of baggage. If you go to a party to Boogie and don't have and don't Boogie, that's an unproductive party Productivity simply means producing the desired result. If your desired result is to have fun on a vacation, but you don't have fun on that vacation, it's an unproductive party. If your desired result is to be relaxed and enjoy the quality of your life, and you're not, you're being unproductive. So if you could, if you reframe productivity to What it really means, Then quality of life is certainly, if quality of life is something that you care about, then being productive about it is actually what you need to do. What would you need to do to improve the quality of your life right now? Oh, I should exercise more. Great. What's your next step? Or, oh, I should just learn to relax more. Great. How could you do that? What could you do that might give you more of that? So there's no, Conflict between the idea of being productive and quality of life.

CODY: 41:37

And so we all have these wants and as you say, it's, it's, I should exercise, I should write this book. But yet this ambient anxiety tends to stop a lot of us with the GTD as a concept. It's trying to get the person to not only write down these ideas, but then to write down the next step. Do you find that clarifying the next step. is that the biggest difference you see in people's ability to pursue these long-term goals?

David: 42:04

Well, it's one of them. It's one of them. Because it requires thinking thinking's hard. You actually have to think to decide, okay, what the heck am I gonna do about this podcast? Oh, okay. What's the next thing I need to do? So, deciding the next action without deciding the next action, it allows you to not have to think so much about it, but just assume, oh yeah, we're gonna do something about this. Right? What. You know, what are you gonna do about it? And if you don't care, say, okay, when would you like to be reminded about whether you ought to do something about this or not?

CODY: 42:34

Hmm.

David: 42:35

So making that kind of operational manifestation decision is something you have to train yourself to do. And it's, it's not, most people, trust me, I have spent thousands of hours with the brightest, sharpest executives making a lot more than money than I'd see in my life dealing with piles of stuff that they got outta their head, having to make next action decisions about them that they've avoided, and then they watched their life sort of transform and suddenly things to get going, that have been kind of backed up because they hadn't made that decision. So yes, deciding the next action, one of the absolute key elements to, being able to clear your head and to be clear about and and, to get rid of the ambient anxiety for Sure

CODY: 43:21

so say we're able to write down that next action. Have you had any experiences or, or questions from people in terms of their ability to pursue something that's hard,

David: 43:31

Sure all the time, but many times what they wrote down was not exactly the next action

CODY: 43:38

Hmm.

David: 43:39

they wrote down set meeting, Even if they got that far. I say, how do you set the meetings? That an email to send, is that a phone call to make? Is that a conversation with your assistant? What? What's, how do you set the meeting? Oh, I haven't decided that yet. Right?

CODY: 43:53

Hmm.

David: 43:53

So they haven't finished their thinking about this stuff. See, what you need to do is finish your thinking about it. And if you haven't decided the concrete specific operational next action on things that have your attention, you haven't finished your thinking, that means your thinking is still subliminally, at least engaged with trying to, what do I do about it? What do I do about it? What do I do about it? What do I do about it? And that you wanna shut up. So, you don't have appropriate engagement until you finish your thinking. And that may, you may have made the wrong decision. That's okay. Live and learn, of course. Correct. Then, okay. well that didn't work. Now what's next? And so training yourself to think that way, boy is transformational for people. once they do that

CODY: 44:36

Once you itemize the next action, I think another large anxiety that including I have is that I question what's the most important thing to be working on right now? And in order to focus on one thing, you have to be willing to say, this is the most important thing I need to be working on right now. But then you constantly second guess yourself. Do you have any advice on

David: 44:58

well, first of all, if all the rest of the stuff have been put in appropriate places, it gives you the clarity to focus on that one thing,

CODY: 45:03

Hmm.

David: 45:04

right What you don't wanna do is try to focus on that one thing. Say, yeah, But don't forget that No, no, no. That needs to be put in its place. Once all these things are put in their place, then you've just pick and choose, what should I be focused on right now? What's the best thing for me to focus on right now? And you may change your mind after 10 seconds. That's okay, but at least you had 10 clear seconds before you said, wait a minute, there's something else better for me to be thinking about right now, or focused on right now. So getting the clear space. See, it's funny, I don't know, it was Microsoft or who did the research, and it said it usually takes 20 minutes for you to refocus on something when you get interrupted. Well check with a martial artist who's fighting four people at once. Do you think they're waiting 20 minutes before they make one? punch before they do the next one? no, no, no. no. They're constantly boom, boom, boom. Re reassess, reassess, refocus, reassess. You can do that very rapidly, as long as some part of you is not hanging on to the previous thing. As long as you have clarity about that, you can shift your focus very, very rapidly and deciding what's most important. they're simple. To think about that. usually I say, well, what's the, what's the thing? If I actually appropriately engage with it now would give me, would relieve the most pressure off my head. Which thing right now would be the, would help me be the clearest right now? What do I need to do to get clear again about this right now? Or what thing if I moved on, it would give me the highest payoff in terms of what's important to me.

CODY: 46:36

Hmm.

David: 46:37

All those are just good common sense questions to ask yourself about, which one should I do? But if you don't have all the options in front of you, you know, you go to a restaurant, they only give you a menu that only has six of the, things, but they're 14 things that they could give you. How do you feel comfortable about your choice? You don't, well, wait a minute, what are all the things I could pick from? Oh, good. Now you say, oh, okay, now that's what I want. So try to do that with your lists that are not complete. can't. You still let your, you're trying to use your head as your office to let you decide all that stuff. Now, your, your head or your spirit, or your heart or your gut or your liver or whatever is gonna be the one that makes the decision out of all that, you know. And I, as I say, there's a still small voice inside of you that knows what you wanna or should do. you just have to be quiet enough to listen to it and then look at what your options are

CODY: 47:30

There was another interview that I did with a psychologist at New York University who came up with this technique, a visualization technique called WOOP. it's a methodology about doing a if then contrast. It's deciding what you're going to do, then visualizing what it would feel like to achieve that, and then visualizing what it would feel like to not achieve that. And then to ask, when this barrier comes up, what's the, if then scenario, if say, I feel tired, I'm going to just work on it for 10 more minutes, as a way of alleviating that, that pressure, that anxiety that we give ourselves. Is there any visualization technique or any recommendation on terms of how to think about things, and because thinking about things, as you say, it's hard and not everybody wants to do it. And thinking about something that has a lot of, tension or weight to it, it, creates even more anxiety. So we feel even more pushed away from actually even wanting to think about it. How do we find that strength, to focus on what is the next action since that seems to be the key thing about clarifying?

David: 48:34

Well, a simple answer is beats me. if I had to make a choice about that, I'd say ultimately it's about the ideal scene. back to the wish part. what do you want to have true? Why is this even on your plate? Why are you even having this decision? It's because what would be true? and how much do you want that? And are you willing to deal with not having you know? Sure. Well, you know, even back to the old, okay, get a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle and say, okay, here's the plus side of these things. Here's the negative side of these things. And just write down all the things that show up and then see which one has the highest weight. You know? So there's a lot of ways that you could, I guess, frame, so your priority, thinking about But I would suggest ultimately play, well wait a minute, what are you really after? What are you, what really matters to you about this? Why is it even on your list? Tell me what the purpose is.'cause a lot of people have forgotten why they actually have something on their list. Say, well, wait a minute, why is that there? And so backing people up back to purpose, purpose of this thing? If it's completed, you're doing this because of what? that. The reason it even showed up, and there may be now a different reason, or it could be that, gee, that's probably not the best way to achieve what it is for I'm after. Maybe you say, well, I want to have a more relaxed lifestyle. As you came up with some project about buying a sailboat or something, and then, you know, you say, well, wait a minute. Should I really buy that sailboat or not? I don't know, quality of life. Go back to that. Do you think that'll give it to you? Or something else showed up out there that instead of sailboat might be even better than that. So you always back up to the, you know, the old business thing, the five why's. well gee, why are you doing this podcast? Oh yeah, well, why are you doing that? Well, why are you doing that? Well, come on, why are you doing that? And at some point, if there's no further answer, you're probably at your, as you say, 50,000 feet. We call that the level five now, because the book is in all over the world and they don't use feet. use you know, more elevator levels, you know, so ground level, level 1, 2, 3, 4, and five is how we've reframed that

CODY: 50:44

Now you've probably encountered a lot of busy, tired, burned out executives, CEOs, entrepreneurs. And as somebody who existed in that startup entrepreneurial phase for a long time, my sole purpose was the business. I wake up, I work on the business, and then I went to sleep and did the exact same thing the, the next day. As a result, I would repeatedly get burned out and I didn't have that work life balance. What advice or opinion do you have that you give to these executives who want to work, but perhaps they don't know why they're working and they're not able to balance out their life? Because they're solely focused on the business, but they need to have more of a, a personal life or to relax more.

David: 51:30

Yeah. Well. One of the horizons we talk about is horizon two, which is your areas of focus and responsibility or accountability. And that would include quality of life It include all kinds of things. We say, well, what matters to you in terms of quality of life? Some people it's like, look, I'm willing to burn out for two years because I'm, just balls the wall,'cause I wanna make this happen and I'll deal with the other thing as best I can. It's like, fine, it's up to you. I don't have, I have no judgment about whether you choose to do that, have that kind of lifestyle. You just need to be clear. That's a lifestyle you choose. If you say, I don't know if that's a lifestyle I want, say, great, what would the lifestyle you want look, sound, or feel like?

CODY: 52:10

Hmm

David: 52:11

And so then you come back to are you being productive about what matters to you in terms of quality of life?

CODY: 52:17

hmm.

David: 52:18

Because I, by the way, I've met people a, client one time over several years and he was so, Engaged in foreign policies and traveled the world and was doing some of the most high level stuff you can imagine in terms of foreign policy, research and engagements. And he would have people that wanted apprentice with him and they just had to follow me around because they knew if they did that. they had a potential burnout capacity or capability because of the nature of that job. But they knew if they did that for two years, they could then write their own ticket in terms of career. So that was just their choice. So there's nothing right or wrong with that. You just have to decide, is that what you're willing to do and put up with? So you made that choice that you wanted to do that, but then at some point you had to go, wait a minute. Nah, I'm not sure. one of the, one of the strange things about. People who really get into getting things done and really get the GTD process and start to implement it, they get so excited and so enthused that there's so many things they know they could do now. And so they start to overwhelm themselves with all kinds of projects and all kinds of things. And I had a guy, a very senior guy in one of the high tech companies who said, David, it took me about a year or two to realize, wait a minute, I'm burning myself out with all my enthusiasm about how many things I could get done. Now he had to back up and go, well, wait a minute. That's not about what GTD is really about. And he had to then back up and then rethink quality of life stuff, And then undo a lot of his commitments, because they weren't taking up room that he should have used more quality of life kind of stuff. So that's not an instant change that somebody could make. It may, may take you a while to then come to that realization, but if you do sooner than later, that's, that's great.

CODY: 54:10

because an important part of the process is that review phase, and I find that that's where I sometimes get broken. I use a software called clickup. It's brilliant. It allows me to work with people and, project managers and contractors. But simultaneously, you can put endless numbers of lists. I have lists for handyman, for personal tasks, then I have a one for personal projects, and then I have a list of projects. And it is overwhelming. And it's also not probably the best system because you can end up easily overwhelming yourself. And then my review process every week would then have to be to look at every single list, or I'd have to decide, is this list, do I need to review this list every week? But then you start losing confidence in that system. And then you keep on, do you start to have these open loops again?

David: 54:55

Well, someday maybe is the big See, right now, how many things are you not doing right now? How many things am I not doing right now? Huge list, That is either okay or not. Okay. So you could glance through all that stuff and say, you know, all that'll wait for two weeks or three weeks, or, let me just trigger that or tickle that for a month from now to rethink those things. So you'd have to then decide, how much stuff that you're, how big a menu do you want to have When you go to a Chinese restaurant,

CODY: 55:31

Hmm.

David: 55:32

usually it's like overwhelming or an Indian restaurant or whatever. It's like, oh my god, there's so many Yeah, that's cool.' cause it allows you to have So the bigger the list, the better your choice is gonna be. What you don't want is to miss anything that you don't wanna be missing. So that's the only reason to review all those lists. What should I not be missing right now about this and anything else that'll wait until my next weekly review.

CODY: 55:58

there's a book called Thinking Fast, thinking Slow by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Turki, who wrote a book that's kind of like the Holy Bible of psychological fallacies and biases. And there's a study I recall where they were giving out free samples, and it's the samples that had say 12 or 20 people would try it. But when you compare it to when they had say, three samples, more people actually bought the product. And the theory is that it ends up feeling less overwhelming when we limit the number of choices. And simultaneously now we have, say, you go to the clothing store, and people have shown that they're actually less satisfied with the apparel that they buy because there's so many other options. And you're constantly questioning, wait, was, did I really want this? Does it really fit as well as I needed to? And then you just feel less happy overall. Any comment on that? Yeah, Just

David: 56:49

throw away your calendar, throw away your lists, restart the ones that really matter to you.

CODY: 56:55

Hmm. Declare bankruptcy.

David: 56:58

Yeah, but it's kinda like email bankruptcy. You don't want to go control A, control X and pray. I mean, that's sort of email bankruptcy. If you want, just call, delete the 20,000 and then just hope you're okay. Yeah, nothing's blowing up on you probably should go look through all that stuff and make sure, no, there are no landmines in here that? you don't wanna miss, and then just scale it all back. Otherwise you're just addicted to your stress

CODY: 57:26

Yeah. and I'm sure you've encountered a lot of people that are addicted to work and it doesn't have to be drugs to be addicted to something. And I've encountered a lot of people who are addicted to work, and, and myself included. And it's been a process to find a life outside of work, find meaning and purpose outside of this thing that I'm doing exclusively.

David: 57:47

Yeah, good luck.

CODY: 57:49

Yeah. Thank you just moving on, I'm, looking at, have you heard of Tiago Forte? So he developed the para method for organizing information and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on, on, it or other systems in terms of their compatibility and their ability to amplify or improve the GTD

David: 58:09

Well, as you know, Tiago is a big champion of my stuff, Yeah. And I wrote an endorsement. Yeah. The great stuff to do is how do I organize all the data that I might need to have access to appropriately? Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Perfect. But that needs to be quite unique to what data you want, how much you need to get to it, and, and what you need to do about it and with it. So, I mean, now with ai, that has that's changed that game, dramatically in terms of. What do I need to keep track of? Because I can now trust that AI will give me the data that I need, when I need it, if I want to be able to do that. So, I don't know what Tiago is thinking about the ai. I'm sure he has thoughts about, chatGPT and all that stuff going on now. But yeah, nothing wrong with that at all. You just need to make sure, get the stuff off your mind. What do you need to do to get it off your mind? So you need to have a, reference system so that it's off your mind what's in that reference system or that you'll get, you'll have access to what you need. I've had the same kind of reference system for 50 years. It's a simple alpha system, both in terms of my email and paper-based stuff. It's quite simple. not hard for me to find what I need to find. And of course, search mechanism. we've now shifted over to Office 365, so. I've moved a whole lot of stuff from Evernote and from Lotus Notes or whatever over into OneNote. So and the search in OneNote's, so good. You can pretty much find anything you want, but you stick in there. So I don't have any attention on changing any of that. But again, you need, if, if, that's not comfortable to you yet. Yeah. Then take Tiago's advice or anybody's advice, set it up like you want it

CODY: 59:59

about a year or two ago, there was a popular software that was released called The Roam, and that allowed you to insert notes and then it would find correlations between the notes that you end up creating. And it's kind of, it, I think the concept that was centered around something called the Commonplace book that was, originally, uh, I don't know if it was invented by Benjamin Franklin, I know he had one. a lot of people in history had these commonplace books and they would write these little notes and this would be a book they keep them, keep with them for the rest of their life. Do you have any opinion or is it just fascinating that there are note taking solutions that find the correlations between the note that you're, do you think that improves the workflow or creativity?

David: 1:00:40

I don't know, It'd be fun, know, but that's kinda like when your inner geek shows up on a rainy Saturday, that's like fun to do But is that really gonna work on Monday when the, fire hose of life, is back in your head again? Who knows? You know, my buy to use ratio in terms of software and programs is about 10 to one, so it's worth, worth exploring some of that stuff to see if it works. But a lot of that. Just like chat, just like AI and chat GPT, you're gonna need to curate it anyway,

CODY: 1:01:05

Hmm.

David: 1:01:06

right? So you're not gonna get rid of the fact that they tied that note to that other thing. You know? It's like, so what?

CODY: 1:01:12

Hmm.

David: 1:01:13

gonna do with that? is that useful information or not? if you're trying to write a book and you've got lots of different notes about something, probably not a bad idea to find, hey, this kind of correlates to that thing. Or whether that kind of correlates to that thing over there. Yeah, sure.

CODY: 1:01:30

Now with AI changing the landscape of productivity, do you think it's making us more or less productive?

David: 1:01:38

Dunno, depends on how you're wanting to use it. If you're using it for decision support, I'd say probably more productive. How many things could you buy for your mom's birthday? What are some great ideas? might give you a whole lot of stuff you never thought about before, so. Hmm. Cool. So you might make a better decision. But it's all about decision support. It's not about having it change your life or make decisions for you. it's about giving you more data or different data or perhaps different perspectives that might be helpful for you in terms of, creating some sort of result. I think that's the positive aspect of it. If you're trying to use it to make sense out of something that you ought to make sense out, out of your own head, and that probably is not gonna be the best way to use it.

CODY: 1:02:22

How do you envision AI integrating with the GTD methodology? what areas of GTD do you think could make it. even more effective? And have you thought about GTD as a philosophy in terms of how it might change as a result of ai?

David: 1:02:36

and that's quite a, a rich topic, especially for the, a lot of the champion GT DERs around the world right Now is like, how do I use that? And some of them are using it to have them do a better weekly review. And a lot of it has to do with how, soon will AI be able to customize what it's feeding back to you based upon your own personal input that you put into it. So we don't know that yet and jury's kind of out in terms of whether that's actually gonna be able to happen or not. But it could take a look at all your lists and you say, gee, chat GPT, what do you think I ought to do this afternoon? And it may be able to give you some options about that. It might be able to give you some, again, it would be decision support. it's not gonna call the airlines for you. It's, it's not gonna, you know, do all that stuff for you. But it might give you some other perspectives in terms of, hmm, how you want to think about, the contents in terms that you've captured in your systems. So that might be how you might want to use it. I don't have any particular interest or need to it right now 'cause it's so easy for me to just glance through all my systems and have a sense of what to do. And I don't have that complex of life now. At my age and given where I am and career-wise, it's not nearly as complex as it used to be. So, but, interesting stuff. You can go to chat GPT and type in David Allen and you'll see some interesting stuff. pretty accurate

CODY: 1:03:56

Or ask it. to act as if it were David Allen and to give you advice on topics. And I'm sure it has enough data in the database.

David: 1:04:05

I, have a very good friend in one of our partners in Europe who is using it quite a bit. What he does is he gets long emails from people and he puts it into GPT, and says, give me a summary of this, and he says it, it's saved him a lot of time. So, you know, those could be things to do. I don't get a lot of that stuff, so I haven't tried that out, but that's a possibility

CODY: 1:04:25

I, actually don't think that we're too far away from an AI that you can say, order flowers for my mom, and it has the context information to know who your mom is from your iOS contacts, and then it's able to find three different vendors and then call them and then determine the best one. And then order the flowers and ensure they get delivered on the same day,

David: 1:04:46

Sure, yeah, very possible. The technology's probably there

CODY: 1:04:50

and so with AI increasingly. Taking over, repetitive tasks and right now a lot of these tasks are, respond to this email or write this blog post. Do you think the nature of getting things done will fundamentally change as a result

David: 1:05:05

no nature of GTD is not gonna change. We fly to Jupiter. They still need an in baskets to capture stuff that's got their attention. They still need to decide next actions on things that have their attention to figure it out. They still need to say, is there some project now we've got about fixing this or making this happen? Who owns this? You're not gonna get rid of the principles of getting things done I don't care what kind of tools you have. It's tool agnostic. when I first got into this, all we had, there was no digital world. We did everything in paper and pencil, and physical in basket. That was it. You don't need anything more than that, quite frankly, but all the rest of it is just add speed and volume to accessibility of information.

CODY: 1:05:48

So it's easy for one person to have a personal productivity but as a human being, you can only do so many things at once. Do you have, have you seen based on your consulting role, an ideal setup for, say, an executive or an entrepreneur in terms of the optimal amount of, say, people on a team? do you find that, say you have an executive assistant, then maybe you have a, person who researches tasks for you and then maybe an implementer so that you're more like a puppet, controlling a, a puppet mastery effectively versus trying to do all the work yourself. And that's a hard decision to make, to decide who do I need and then how can I manage them in a way that's going to effectively accomplish my goals, on a consistent basis.

David: 1:06:35

well that's why the new book is coming up about how do you get things done with other people.

CODY: 1:06:39

Hmm.

David: 1:06:40

The title of it is Team 'cause team in English is also a verb as well as a noun. Let's team about this or that. And a team could be you and your taxi driver. It could be you and your life partner. It could be you and your executive assistant. It could be anybody that you need to work with and get them to do it. And so that decision that you framed is quite unique to the person in terms of where they want to go, what they want to do. And what resources they need to make sure that they get that happen. They make that happen. so you could have 5,000 people on a team, just have to decide what kind of decisions do you want to give them, if any. Or are you just asking for input? So you have to decide what's the nature of team? For what purpose, what's the purpose of a team? See, a team is only a team because there's some purpose to be a team, right? You and the taxi driver have a You and your life partner have a purpose. There's some reason that you're that you're doing something. So team is, you have to just go back to what's the purpose of us working together, with an executive. What's the purpose of me with an assistant? What's our purpose to make happen here? And a lot of the best practices go back to, servant leadership. How do I serve him or her if I've given them some accountabilities and responsibilities and a role to handle. Are they just gonna be making my airline decisions or are they gonna handle the staff party? So you have to, determine, what's the role, who's the team, what are the roles that people have on this team? see, some executive assistants are just follow the executive around and do their bidding, you know, minute by minute some executive assistants are given big projects that they need to manage. And there's, that's a big difference. You have to decide, which is it, what are you doing? So if you try to give an assistant, a big project, but then expect them to be doing time-based things, that then keep them from doing that big project. You got burnout, so getting clear about roles, getting clear about who's doing what, what's the purpose of us working together? I. All those are really good questions to ask. There's no simple answers to that. They're just, answers you need to come to, to then just make those kind of decisions with the questions you ask.

CODY: 1:08:55

Personally, I found that. it's hard to have a team of 5,000 people if you're say at the top of the loop. It's, you have to close that, that gap and that bridge. And that's really hard to do, to have that asynchronous communication up and down the pipe. Personally, I found that I have an executive assistant who is able to manage my long-term projects and we talk about them. I have a sub assistant who is the person that calls contractors who does those kind of more basic administrative tasks. And then I have a third person that is a researcher and implementer. We say, this is the project, because I'm not always able to focus on the project because in some ways I have to do what Paul Graham says is the maker versus the manager. And you have to really transition yourself from thinking about what you need to do to actually doing what you need to do and managing the team around you. so that I that's, I'm just saying that's my system. so

David: 1:09:46

who, who made your airline reservation

CODY: 1:09:48

oh. In that instance I did, because there are some things that I find it's really difficult to put into a process, and I would describe it as trying to create an SOP a standard operating procedure for how do you break on a car, because that requires knowing the wind resistance. it, requires knowing the weight of the vehicle, how far, what's your distance, what's the wind speed? And so you can't really put in words how much pressure you should apply to a brake pedal. And I think in some ways the same is true with booking an airline reservation.

David: 1:10:17

I agree. I've never had an assistant do that I do all my own.

CODY: 1:10:21

I think for a while I had hope I could actually put it into a system, and I tried, but I, I couldn't. It never worked. Yeah. so you're looking at implementing GTD as a business, as an organization, and that's something I've tried to do, but it's also increasingly difficult because it seems, or it feels like GTD was made for that personal productivity. And so how are you going about implementing it into a company as a culture and a philosophy?

David: 1:10:49

well. We've written that in the new book. basically it, and a lot of it? is the same principles of GTD just applied in a group setting. You know, what has the, team's How does it clarify what needs to happen on it, If anything? What are the next actions about it? If there's any projects, who owns that? how does the team organize the data that needs to be reminded of about the team projects and who's got 'em? The status of them. So the capture, clarify, organize and reflect are gonna happen. You may not on a team need to go all the way down to next actions. If you trust that the individuals on the team know how to do, that, who's got this, and then you give it to them in terms of the project or the outcome, then they have to come up with their own next actions about how they get that to happen. But then somebody needs to own the team and somebody needs to figure out, okay, so how often do you need to check the status of those projects going on? Who's got it, what's the status of it? So it's all the same principles. And then you also have all the six horizons you have, what's the purpose of the team? What's the vision of the success for the team?

CODY: 1:11:53

Hmm?

David: 1:11:53

what are the, goals that the team may have? what are the roles of the people on the team? What are the projects that the team has come up with that are team based projects, and then what are the next actions and who's got 'em? So, all the different horizons vertically are gonna apply to a team and some teams are good at some of them and are not so good at some of the other horizons.

CODY: 1:12:15

Hmm.

David: 1:12:16

so, you could pick and choose. Some teams are pretty good at, capturing, but they're not very good at clarifying. Some teams, have gotten real organized, but they don't know who needs to reflect on the status of these things, how often. So any one of these aspects of the getting things done methodology, could be something that needs to be done to improve the team's output and its quality of life.

CODY: 1:12:41

Before I started my company, I implemented GTD as a personal productivity system, but Until you released that book, we lacked the business component. And I found a system called the Entrepreneurial Operating System, eos. And now they have consultants all around the world and they call them implementers because a lot of business owners will read this book. And I found it absolutely fascinating. I, actually had a CEO at the time and I told them, you need to read this book. And this is a book that teaches you how to operate a business. you have a 90 minute quarterly meetings, you have rocks that you can't change that what are basically your goals for that 90 day sprint. Then you set sub goals to the team. You have a weekly meeting. even you start that meeting with everybody going around in a circle and saying, what's something positive that happened to them in the past week? And so it's a very structured, very ritual. It is. Any, how does GTD compare to eos? Is there any, symbiotic relationship

David: 1:13:38

Well, I haven't read the book, but yeah, all that's probably good stuff. Just sounds a little too structured for me.

CODY: 1:13:44

I, I thought GTD is fairly a structured system now

David: 1:13:46

no it's It doesn't care. It says what's on the team's mind. what do you need to do? Do you need to meet daily, weekly? Some teams need to, for two weeks, need to have standup meetings every month, every morning. But then if there's then having standup meetings and somebody isn't showing up, you don't need the standup meeting anymore.

CODY: 1:14:02

Hmm.

David: 1:14:03

Now maybe weekly works or maybe you need quarterly's. Okay? So Believe me, life is changing much too fast than what you're talking.

CODY: 1:14:13

Hmm.

David: 1:14:14

try to get a movie crew that's putting together a movie to do that. doesn't work. won't work. Not the appropriate thing. It needs to have its own kind of structure in terms of how often do we need to get together to find out what's going on with the script and with the da, da, da da. But you got all kinds of people that suddenly came together that never worked before, and then they at one, the thing Is done, they're gonna disperse and they're gonna have another one. And that's the world now. The world. now is gonna have to be reconfigured regularly. Who's on your team? Wow. That could change daily. That could change weekly, especially with the global world and virtual world. So you need to be able to be as flexible as you need to be to have exactly those kinds of things. So the kinds of things you're talking about are good things to do. How often do we need to have a conversation at what level with whom? But if you try to over structure that, maybe it works, but your world's probably gonna be changing a lot faster than that, as long as you have the freedom to change that as you need to

CODY: 1:15:12

you know, one of the things I find, fascinating that I've started to notice as an entrepreneur is I'll see broken systems in other businesses. And, an example might be a hotel where the maids are not trained with a singular process. When they're onboarded, they're relying on the maid's previous experience in previous employer, which they may do things a little differently. So there's not that level of consistency that in some ways you need for an organization. Have you seen these things like seeing

David: 1:15:45

I'll just read Atul Gawande's, the checklist manifesto. He wrote that years ago, like saves a lot of lives to have surgeons, make sure they wash their hands.

CODY: 1:15:53

Hmm.

David: 1:15:54

Follow the checklist. What do you think pilots do when they get in the plane?

CODY: 1:15:58

Have a checklist right.

David: 1:15:59

And the reason pilots do it and surgeons don't is because the pilots are in the plane. Believe me, if you had to operate on yourself, you'd have a checklist,

CODY: 1:16:07

Mm-Hmm.

David: 1:16:08

you know? So yeah, checklists are great. Just make sure you have the right checklist, and then, of course, correct it. If you need to add something to the checklist, have a travel checklist, full page Word document. I don't pack everything on that list, but I make sure that I don't miss anything on that list. I made the mistake if I was taking just an overnight trip thinking I don't need the travel checklist, and then I'd forget something critical.

CODY: 1:16:31

Mm-Hmm.

David: 1:16:33

So even the shortest little trip, I pull up that and go through it and mark it off. That's now in there. That's now in there. That's now in there. As a matter of fact, I usually only do it. I hate packing the night before because then I forget What I put in there already. But I could do it if I Have the checklist and it marked off the stuff that's already in the suitcase or already in my backpack or whatever, needs to be. But no, all that makes total sense.

CODY: 1:16:57

I actually have a travel checklist. I found after traveling consistency that I would have this incredible, horrible anxiety that would be days leading up to it. And then I would miss stuff. And then I had this idea of just, okay, let me just use todoist and create a checklist and I'll just duplicate this with the template. And the next time I packed, I just had my iPad or my phone. And I just inserted the things as I inserted them into the bag. And then I found after that that the anxiety I had experienced dramatically reduced because I trusted that everything I needed to bring with me is in this checklist. So. So with GTD implemented and say a lot of Fortune 500 companies, do you personally still abide by the GTD principles? Hmm

David: 1:17:41

wouldn't think of not doing it.

CODY: 1:17:43

Hmm If you had to describe GT D's impact in a metric like lives changed or hours saved, what would it be?

David: 1:17:52

I have no idea. People do whatever they do with it. I'm not into getting people to change their lives. I'm not a motivational speaker. I don't, I'm not a habit change, expert, I just created the game and defined the game, and then people play as much of it as they want, and as I say, and they play as little or as much as they want, it will then give them benefit based upon that. But that's that was basically my job, and so I haven't taken on anymore accountability responsibility to get people to then make sure that that happens. We have a lot of, anecdotal experience and testimonials from people about how transformational it's been, both for their organization as well as themselves personally. But that's all anecdotal.

CODY: 1:18:33

Is there any particular story that might stand out to you

David: 1:18:37

Thousands, you know. No, no one in particular.

CODY: 1:18:42

For listeners who want to dive deeper, besides your book, are there any certified, GTD courses or resources that you'd recommend?

David: 1:18:49

Sure. Well, we have, certified, trainers and licensed partners around the world. Offer GTD training and coaching. so they just need to go to our website, gettingthingsdone.com, and then click on training, and then you'll see all the different countries and all wherever you are Just click on that and then you'll see who our partner is that you could contact. Offers both public seminars as well as in-house and private stuff, as well as coaching.

CODY: 1:19:17

Well, David, it's been absolutely enlightening to have this conversation and diving into the depths of GTD and how it's not just a productivity hack, but an approach to life itself. Your insights have made an incredible impact in the world today. And if you haven't read David's book or dived in to GTD I highly recommend you do so. It's a game changer. Truly a big thank you to David Allen for joining us today and to our amazing audience. Don't forget to check out the show notes and for all the valuable resources and links and books that we've discussed today. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Till next time, keep hacking your mind and transforming your life.

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The Mind Behind Stress-Free Productivity: Getting Things Done with David Allen | Ep. 057

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