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Getting Things Done
Ep. 326: Complete Projects Inventory
01:05:17
This webinar recording will assist you in developing a current, complete, accurate, and clear inventory of all your projects -- the outcomes you are committed to finish within the next 12 months. To watch the entire webinar from July 2025, please...
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Foreign.
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Hi everyone, this is John Forester. Welcome to our GTD Connect webinar on the complete projects list. This is going to be presented by Anamaria Gonzalez, our senior master trainer, who is a very big title, which means she trains the people who train the people who train the people, etc. She's, she's been around this for a, a long time and, and is very well versed in every aspect of gtd. Welcome, Ana Maria.
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Thank you, John.
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All right, well, I'm going to turn this over to Ana Maria. I'll still be here and monitoring the chat for questions and things like that if I'll keep track of questions in the chat and bring those up at the end during Q and A unless they're more relevant at that very particular moment as we go along. But either way, I'll keep track of those and from this point on I'll turn it over to Ana Maria and.
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We'Re scheduled for two and a half hours. Is that correct? Don't.
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That's correct.
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Okay, great. Well, thank you very much for joining and for attending this webinar or, you know, workshop, if you want to think of it that way. You're welcome to have your cameras on. You're welcome to not have them on. We changed the format to a meeting because I find it much more user friendly in terms of you having that ability to go on camera mute, unmute yourself. It's a small group. I think we're, last I checked, we were eight, nine now. So feel, feel free to just, you know, behave as you were in a training room in person. We just happen to be virtual, but it's the same idea. So before we get started, you will all ask to make sure you had your capture tool nearby. Whichever capture tool you use, that could be paper or that could be digital. You were also asked to have your projects list or your system, your DD system, however you define that, where you're keeping your projects list and your next actions list and your waiting fors and your agendas calendar. And I also, if you have it, your higher horizon maps, maybe you've already started creating your areas of focus maps or, or your goals and objectives or your vision or your purpose or some version of that. We just need to have all of it handy because we're going to use it during today's webinar. So make sure to you have it. Whether that's digital or paper or a combination of either works, it's not a problem. So what we're going to do next is basically I'm going to Jump straight in into the agenda. We we already know this session is scheduled for two and a half hours. Obviously we will have a break somewhere in the middle for about 10 or 15 minutes. Why I'm not being precise on the length. No less than 10, let's put it this way, and no more than 15 because it depends on how we progress if we're actually wanting more time or needing more time for completing activities that may kind of affect our break time to 10 minutes unless of instead of 15. But I'll be. I'll pay attention to that. Be prepared for this class Workshop webinar I'm going to use the term class to be like a lab. It's actually hands on. It's a very practical session. You're definitely going to be able to walk out of today's class with I don't want to say a complete projects inventory because as soon as I say that you make a new commitment, there's a new project you haven't added to your list and therefore it's not a complete projects list. So. So we're going to be very close to having a complete project list, at least to that second. But what you definitely will know is how to keep on adding. Be much more prepared, more knowledgeable, have more tools, better understanding as to what goes on my projects list because much more that what seems to go on the projects list particularly a lot of the subtle tensions in our lives often belong to our projects list and they're not there and they're creating unnecessary tension for ourselves. So today most definitely you will have an opportunity to further develop your projects list. So that is more current, more complete, more accurate and each and every one of your projects are more clearly identified. You have a better grasp on each and every one of them, if you want to think of it that way. And then we will end today's session. Actually I forgot to do this. So a lot of what goes on your projects list are. One could define it as stuff that comes from your higher horizons. For example, it could be stuff that comes from the others. And we're going to talk later today what the others mean. And then last we will activate your projects list which is nothing more than making sure that every one of your projects has a next action. Otherwise it's not active, which is super important as you probably know from learning and reading about the GTD methodology. Then last we'll do some implementation next steps just so that doesn't stay in the theory, but you really walk out from today's class with very clear understanding of what to do next to continue your GTD implementation. So basically, that's today's agenda. And where we want to start is we want to start with a mind sweep. So always a good idea to practice the basics. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to ask you for the next two minutes or so or three. I'll check in with you in a moment. I'm just going to ask you, is there anything on your mind as we begin this session? Have you captured everything to be fully present right here, right now? Anything that it's kind of distracting you or disturbing you from being fully present that needs to be done or needs to be handled? Anything in the last 24 hours that you agreed to and that you just kept a mental note. So, you know, kind of simple, easy, relaxed. Just take a couple of minutes and see if anything comes to mind that needs to be put onto paper or whatever capture tool you use. Maybe you have a digital capture tool. I just want you to take a moment now and empty your mind. I'll give you two minutes. Okay, so that's about two minutes you can finish up. If you were writing something, just finish up with that last one that you were writing or entering on your digital tool. So by raise of hands, and I guess you all know how to raise your hand on zoom, by raise of hands, how many of you capture at least one thing, if not more? Just thank you, Jeremy. Thank you, Katie. I can see you, but those of you that I can't see, you're going to have to do it digital. Thank you, Mark. What else? What about Becky, Amelia, Claudia? Yes, Hands up. Good. Again, the intention, it's to ask you is to actually bring awareness. Because this is not about being right or wrong. This is just about realizing that there's still more than we can do in terms of our GTD implementation of the basics. Because as you probably know, your mind is for having ideas, not for holding them. And this is a lot of our working hypothesis as we're teaching GTD is that you make sure you have nothing on your mind. As soon as something pops in your on your mind, that it's pulling or pushing on you in terms of your attention, your focus, just take a moment and put it on your capture tool. Later on, you'll come back and clarify and organize. So obviously, if more things pop into your mind or come to your mind, just keep on adding to your digital tool. Don't wait for me to ask you to do the exercise kind of thing, to do the job which is if it's on my mind, it's in the wrong place. Let me put it on my capture tool. Simple and easy. Now what we're going to do is we're going to move over and start with class material because the idea was to have you fully present. And the first thing we want to do in order to bring your project list current is that we want to make a couple of reviews of two definition slides. But I think you're all familiar in terms of the definition and what we mean by so in gtd. As you know, when we talk about a project, and this can be obviously a personal project, a professional project, doesn't matter, we don't make a difference. It's nothing more than a multi step outcome achievable within a time frame up to a year. So it's anything and everything that you said yes to or you didn't explicitly said no to that it's going to require more than one action step or sometimes it's easier to understand more than one sitting. In other words, or sometimes it's also easier to understand is no matter if I have the full day to actually do all the steps, its nature is one that I cannot possibly complete it because I will take one step, then that will be in the hands of someone else and until that comes back to me, then I cannot move on to the other step, etc. So it has a time frame of up to a year. Can it be more than a year? Yes. So if it's 12 months and I don't know, three hours still qualifies, let's not take it so like by the book, it's, it's just a time frame that we're giving you. And the reason for giving you this time frame is because your projects list and we will see more of that later. But you probably already know that it's the driver of your weekly review. That's why it's very important to have a complete project inventory or to have a complete projects list. Because that ambient stress that gets created around us throughout a week, we're able to calm it down, we're able to release it, to let it go. Once we come back to our projects list on a week to week basis and we get to see and ask ourselves am I still committed to this outcome? Where am I in relationship to my current reality and my desired outcome? What more if anything, can I do think about, come up with that brings me closer to my outcome? And that's a good percentage of what happens in the weekly review or I should say it's the heaviest weight to lift during the weekly review. That kind of thinking, thinking about each and every one of your projects, how far am I from my desired outcome? What more can I do to come close to my desired outcome and always have that next action or next actions identified? So up to a year works because in terms of you don't want to have something that you review on a weekly basis that it's 10 years from now because that instead of actually bringing stress down, it can potentially increase the stress in terms of oh my God, how far I am, when am I going to get any clothes? Because it's too far. That's why we have horizons of focus and different outcomes. If you think about it, they're all outcomes belong at different heights. Some of our outcomes belong to the ground level, some belong to Horizon one or horizon two or horizon three. And we'll see more of that today depending on how far they are in terms of our timeline, they will belong to a different horizon. Everything that can be accomplished or achievable within a year. It's smart to put on your projects list because then you can very easily relate to as part of your weekly review. So it's, it's. Think of it as a trick, is a trick that really helps your mind visualize. What's the next action to get me closer? What's the next action to get me closer? Because if it's too far out, it's going to be more difficult for your mind. Not that it's not doable. That's why I'm saying if it's a project that takes you 14 months, 15 months, I think it still qualifies. But for some people it's sorry, feels like I'm telling you a lot. But it, because there's a lot with GTD and it becomes very personal. For some people, 15, 16 months, it's already too far. They prefer to, to add it to their Horizon 3 inventory, which is goals and objectives. They kind of like for them a project, it's better defined for anything that gets done within six months. I used to work on Wall street and long term on Wall street is three months. So it depends where you're trained. In Japan it's 10 years. So it becomes very personal. How, how easy can you relate to that outcome or not? I think determines a lot. Is it a project for me, is it more of a goal or objective? Am I going to put it more as a vision because I'm more short term driven? That's another way to think of it. Point being, it's a multi step outcome. You cannot get it done in one sitting. The other definition that it's important to take a moment to review, it's the definition of someday Navy. It's very simple and very straightforward. It's nothing more than potential projects or next actions that you're not yet committed to move on. You're not doing anything about it. It doesn't mean you may not do something about it sometime in the future, but you're not doing anything about it and it's not for this week. Some people think of it that short time frame like, no, I'm not moving on this. I'm not committed to this. But again, there's a whole world out there for someday maybes. I mean, I have folks that organize their someday maybes as bucket list items. I have people that are organized someday maybes or quarterly someday maybes yearly because they want to kind of have different tiers or time frames within even their someday maybes. It's a personal preference. I only have one someday maybe list. Me personally, but I've seen all different variations. All you have to remember is exactly what says there. I am not yet committed to move on. Would I be next week? We don't know and we don't have to know until you do your weekly review next week. And then at that moment you ask yourself again, well, I'm not ready to. I'm not, I'm not committing to moving on this thing yet. Fine, let's wait on to the next week. It's really up to you. See, as long as you renegotiate agreements with yourself on a weekly basis, you're not breaking agreements. And that's a very powerful teaching from gtd. It's not that you're procrastinating, you're not forgetting, you're not ignoring it, you're not denying it. You are being conscious about your decision and saying, I'm not moving on this thing this week either, etc. So that's a simple yet I think powerful distinction between what's a project and what's something maybe. Therefore, what I want you to do next is I want you to update your projects list. And for that I have a couple of instructions. So I'm trusting you have your projects please handy. As I said earlier, please have it nearby. And what I'm going to give you five minutes to update your project list. And what that means is a make sure you have identified your desired outcome. Remember, when you're thinking of projects, you want to think of what done looks like. Prepare presentation, organized trip. Remodel the house. Complete M and A. Buy my car. I don't know. Improve my, my, my, my health condition by X percentage. Lose this much weight. Hire this new person. It has to very clearly say, read what done looks like. Can I start with a verb? Can I end with a verb? Up to you, as long as it answers to the question, what does done look like? Some people prefer to finish with a verb because they like to see their projects in alphabetical order. Some people don't mind to start with a verb. Some people don't mind a combination of both. So either or it's fine, it works. Just make sure they're written in desired outcome terms and that there's a. There's a verb that clearly tells you what done looks like. That's one part of the exercise. When I'm asking you to update your projects list, that will be the first thing to do as you're doing that you actually may come across projects that are. There are not projects yet. They're actually someday maybe based on the definition I just gave you, potential projects or next actions that I'm not yet committed to moving on. So take the next five minutes. Make sure you have all your projects defined in desired outcome terms. Make sure all your projects have a verb. Make sure all your projects answer to the question what does done look like? And if they don't belong on your projects list but your someday, maybe move it over to your someday. Maybe give yourself that gift and move them over to the someday. Maybe I'll let you know when time's up. Five minutes. Oh, actually three minutes. Okay. That's about three minutes. You can please finish with this part of the exercise. We'll have more time. What we're going to do next actually is we're going to start mining for more projects, as we like to say to in order to get to a complete project inventory or complete projects list. And they're actually three areas, if you want to think about it, where you can mine and explore for projects. These are current activities, Higher horizons and the others. So we're going to start first with current activities. Current activities. It's everything that potentially, where potentially there is a project camouflage or hidden or that somehow you didn't see. And it's everything that it's. You want to think of it. It's like ground level. Ground level or very close to you in terms of the surfaces around you. So it can be the stuff that you wrote a moment ago from your mind sweep. Right. Or it could just be anything else or whatever else from your mind. It can be stuff that might be sitting on your calendar. Like if you take the time in a moment to check your calendar from last week, that may trigger a project of something that occurred at a meeting and that you know you didn't capture. You add to your system, it's, it's nowhere but somewhere in your mind. If you look at your calendar for next week, maybe also there is something walking towards you that you haven't seen and it's actually a project that you know you had overlooked, let's say. So calendars can easily trigger projects that are needed on our list. Your next actions list. Sometimes we're very good at adding next actions, but not taking a moment of asking ourselves is this next action part of a project? Does this next action belong to a project? Am I done when I complete this next action? Or is this part of a multi step outcome? So pause for a moment and think about it. If there's something there that again meets our definition of a multi step outcome, achievable up to a year or within a year, then add it to your projects list, your agendas list, same thing. You might have items, items in there to talk to someone about or discuss with someone about that, that item itself, it's part of a project that's missing from your list. Sometimes there are things that somehow ended up on our briefcase, our bag, our purse, our pockets on top of our tables at the office or at home that that little piece of paper itself, once done, doesn't get me to done done because it belongs to a project. There's still more work to be done. So check that out. Obviously, if you are working from home, check around your home office and if you're working for work, check around your work office. And as well if not, close your eyes and scan and see what can you remember from either one of those environments that can potentially be reminding you of a project that needs to go on your list. So let us not be fooled by the fact that these are projects that we're mining from our current activities, because there's plenty right there, right then. It's not like they're only being driven or generated from the higher horizons, which we will do in a moment, or the others stuff that it's sitting very nearby and very close to us can, can be a reminder of a project that's still not on my list. You know that faucet in the bathroom that drips and every time you walk by you go, I fix this faucet. Well, guess what? Unless you put fixed faucet on your projects list is not going to happen. So I'm talking about the level of minutiae. So I'll give you I believe now. Yes, it's five minutes so I think it tell you the wrong time. I'll start the clock in a minute. Five minutes to go mine for projects in any and all of these places. I think I'll leave this slide up for you so that if you forget you can just look up to the screen and be reminded. And I'll keep the five minutes on my timer here on my phone. So five minutes and I'll let you know when time's up and that's time. You can just finish up with that one please. Okay, so let me check with you and you can type it in the chat box. How many projects do you add to your projects list from this activity? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. However many just share with me how the result of this time. So I have the chat box up nine. Excellent, Mark. Thank you. For Ariadne. Great. Who else? About 20. Becky, congratulations. That's a much more complete projects list than what 36 minutes ago, a couple dozen which were originally listed as next action. Good catch. Jeremy. About 6 broke bigger projects into smaller projects. Good job. Katie. Who else? What else do we have here? Excellent progress and honestly we're just beginning. Just so you know, we're going to start now mining into the more subtle where it's easier for projects to be hidden. I didn't want and get clear on several. Emilia. Excellent. Did any of you moved at least one to someday maybe anyone out there? You can just type Y for yes or you know, whatever is easy. Raise your hand. I just want to know if you. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Jeremy, if you moved at least one. Good. Great job. So definitely sounds like a good use of your time and certainly a much more updated projects list. Let's say given where we're up, we are at the class at this moment. Okay. What we're going to do next is we're actually going to start mining for more projects and looking at the higher horizons or exploring the higher horizons. I just need to jump this like this timers and because often in the higher horizons there are projects that are actually hidden and they are pulling on our attention whether we're conscious or unconscious of it. Like there's a part of us that go there's something that I know I'm missing. I just don't know where it is or what is it or where is it. Coming from. So that's the intention for this next exercise. And we're going to start by focusing on Horizon 2, and then we're going to move to the higher horizons. But the first part of the exercise is just focusing on Horizon 2. Horizon 2 in GTD is what we refer to as your areas of focus and responsibility. These are kind of your ongoing. They never get to an end. We don't complete them, they don't finish, unlike projects. In other words, if you think of personal health, when are you done with your health? Probably as soon as you lose focus on your health, you're going to need a project on your list related to health. So these are all things that as soon as you lose focus or you stop paying attention to them, you need to course correct or you need to make adjustments, you need to do something about it to bring them back to standard, to bring them back to cruise control. So your areas of focus require maintenance. That's another way to think about it. And I'll give you a couple of examples just to give you an idea of what we're referring to. And we're going to start first with professional, and then I'm going to do personal. So let's imagine that you are a human resources. You have a human resources role, talent and development, recruiting, whatever it is that you have. You're a human resources person. Well, within your role. You probably have anywhere from four to seven very clear areas of focus. They usually run between four and seven on average. Doesn't mean that if you have more, it's wrong, or if you have less, it's wrong. I'm giving you an average so you can have part of your role. Means that you're responsible for HR admin, company culture, legal hiring, organizational development, you belong to committees and training and development. I mean, you can see it clearly on the image here. Truth is that that's good. If you have this, that's already good enough in terms of giving you a map of what your areas of focus are and allowing you to use this as an orientation tool. Meaning anytime I go, am I really fulfilling my job? Where am I falling short? Where can I do more? If you just look at this, it's a map that gives you enough information to know where, if anything, you need to course correct or make improvements or do something more. However, you can go deeper. And you can go deeper on each and every one of them. Right? And kind of ask yourself, well, as HR admin, what do people expect of me? What's my job? Where am I being paid for Those are all questions that we ask ourselves when we want to define our areas of focus. What's expected of me? What am I being paid for? What am I responsible for? Personnel, budget, department planning, for example. And same is true for each and every one of them. I'll give you a moment if you want to kind of find yourself on this map and read so that I'm not. Oh, John, I think I need to read in case someone is listening only, right?
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B
Yes, it would be. You don't have to read every single word or anything, but just to get a, a sense of what else is on the slide. That would be helpful for those who are listening while say they're driving.
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Yeah, this is difficult, difficult workshop to do as you're driving. But just in case, you never know. You know, people these days with the AI and tools, who knows what they can do? Could be. For example, let's say you're thinking about hiring. Well, what does hiring mean? Well, it means you're in charge of new hires, but not only just new hires, also their orientation, recruiting, recruiting, keeping the employee manual current. Same will be true with organization development, internal consulting, team building, communication, succession planning. So as you can see, you just went deeper on each and every one of them. Great job. I mean, you can do that too. And you actually, I think it also has another tier just to torment you even more because you may say, well, personnel. What about personnel? Oh, that's true. We have Francis and we have one and we have Margaret and Miriam and Aaron. And you know, I need to kind of be, be on, on the lookout for them and, and what about them? So you can go as deep as you want or for this next exercise as time allows you. But at a very minimum, I want you to make sure you've gotten as far off. So as far as this 4 to 7, whatever main air, you know, titles are under your role. So if you just, if you are an HR and you identify these seven areas that are true for you, that's great for this next activity. And if you have time and you want. And you can go deeper, personal, let's say now we're talking about you as a human being, right? Not as a person that has a job. Well, what are my areas of focus and responsibility and, or interest? That's another way of think of it, to think of it. Well, relationships, recreation, career, health, energy, spiritual, self development, household, community, creativity. This is all me. These are all things that matter to me. And within each and every one of them there's more. Right. When I think of Relationships. What do I mean? Well, I mean my family, I mean my relatives, I mean my pets. And when I think of recreation, what is it that I like for recreation? The movies and hiking and camping and travel and tennis and Instagram. I mean, Facebook sounds so outdated. And reading and food, wine, whatever, you name it, right? Creativity, watercolors, poetry, baking, photography, gardening, health by exercise, nutrition, you know, yoga, meditation practices or however you want to think of it, etc. Of course, they are still deep. There's a deeper tier here because look at just how family expanded just in a minute, right? My three kids or my two kids and my wife or whatever. It's true. So in terms of that, let's say my wife Sandy. Well, what about our quality time and support? And Sarah, my daughter, what about her education, her health, her creativity, her extracurricular activities? I mean, we live lives way more complicated than we give ourselves credit, believe me. So there's plenty here that you can use your time in this next activity to either identify again the main four to seven or go deeper as time allows you. Because what I'm going to ask you to do in a minute, I'm going to ask you to update or create, if you don't have them, your areas of focus maps, personal and professionally. So you will have time for the next five minutes to actually only update or create your areas of focus maps, personal and professional. Maybe you only have time for one. After we're done with that, I'll give you more time to identify new projects. So only worry right now of updating or creating your areas of focus map. Any questions, John? Because I'm not looking at the chat box, it's very hard for me to be looking at them and the screen and everything else that I'm doing. So I just want to make sure I answer questions.
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B
Sure. One here that came up may apply for others as well and it may help to distinguish between areas of focus and projects that can be done. So would you consider each of the areas of focus sub items a project or only if there are next actions? I think that refers back to the slide where the areas of focus then go into subdivided areas of focus. And Katie? I'm getting a nod, so I think that's what you mean. Would are each of those projects or only if they have next actions? And what do you have to say to that, Ana Maria?
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A
I'm not sure I'm understanding the question, Katie. So let me see if I can help. The areas of focus are this, that map that I'm just showing you right As I said, you can stop here and you can say, okay, I as a person, these are the things that I don't want to lose focus off. I don't want to lose focus of my relationships, my recreation, my career, blah blah, blah.
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Right.
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A
I'm not going to repeat all of them. Truth is that that's enough of an orientation map. You could argue and say once a month I look at this and it helps me enough to be able to confirm with myself I'm on cruise control or I'm not meaning, ooh, you know, I really haven't been paying attention to my recreation. And no wonder I'm feeling so tired and so short tempered and so intolerant. I've been doing things for myself. So that's the intention of the areas of focus to monthly brings us to this place of where we can say I'm on cruise control. Things are up, up to level, up to standard. I don't need to course correct anything. The course correction using that term can happen by either adding a project onto my list. I gained five pounds without me even noticing. I don't like it. I had to lose five pounds and honestly losing five pounds doesn't happen in one sitting. I wish. So now I have a project on my list, right. So it could potentially trigger a project. Katie potentially doesn't have to because things can be on. I'm happy with my five pounds. I'm not going to do anything about it. Right. I mean it all depends on what we, what decisions we make. Or it may trigger a next action only. You may say, you know what, I haven't been going to the movies lately. I really want to go and I'm just going to go this Saturday to watch a movie. That's just the next action. You need to make a project about that. And that would bring recreation as an area of focus back to cruise control or balance. The reason why I'm showing you extra thinking is because each and every one of those areas of focus, if you take the time to do a map on relationships, for example, that's going to trigger what are the relationships that matter to me? Well, my family, my relatives, One could say friends. And there are no friends in there as an example here. Right. So and then you may say, well, what about my family? Who do I consider family? Who's my family? And then that would trigger. So it's like a map within a map within a map, only to help you identify if there are projects or next actions needed to be added onto my system. But not that you have to go this far. You're welcome. So I guess I answered your question or it helped. Okay, good. What else, John?
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B
That's it that I'm seeing in the chat. Katie says since those things wouldn't get completed, they don't have a done point. They sound like they can just stay in areas of focus instead of being projects.
- [36:21]
A
Yeah. The only reason an areas of focus changes is if you change jobs or if you get a divorce, you may still have your husband on. On your areas of focus. I'm on terror. I'm terrible. Don't I always go. Sometimes I go too far. I be. This becomes too intimate. But you know what I mean, Katie. It's practical. If obviously I'm no longer in HR and now I've moved to finance, then I got to redo my whole map. Right? Or pets. If two of my dogs die, they can no longer be on that list. There will be the new ones. You know, it's GTD is very practical, which is what I love at the end of the day, the source of the stress or the tension or the stuff, it's still. It will still need to recur. This same rigor of thinking, whether it's something that that makes me sad or makes me happy or it's positive or it's negative, still requires the same rigor of thinking in order for me to organize it where it belongs. That's why GTD is so practical. Okay, so guys, five minutes and only focus on creating your areas of focus map, personal and professional. Or at least get you started if you don't have one. Or update your areas of focus personal, professional, given this short presentation that we just completed. So I'll give you five minutes and let you know when time's up. Don't do anything about projects yet. Excuse me. Go ahead and start to finish. Complete that last item you're writing or reviewing, please. Okay, so what we're going to do next is now I want you to scan those areas of focus maps and add as it says there, any projects, new projects or next actions or someday maybes. What's important to understand here as I. As the example that I gave a moment ago, I think is not necessarily because one of your areas of focus demands attention from you, as in having to do something to bring it back to balance. That equals a project. It may just equal an exception. So it doesn't have to go on. A sequential or hierarchy structure like horizon two should generate a horizon one that should generate a ground level item. No, you can go from horizon two areas of Focus to a ground level item and next action. Go to the movies. That takes care of recreation for me, for example. Or it can definitely be no. Here's a project about this. It's not just calling my mom because I forgot to call her in the past few days. I really want to organize a trip with my mom because we haven't, you know, it's been too long that we haven't spent time together. Therefore I'm going to organize trip with mom to fill in the blank to Hawaii. Therefore that's a project. So now I need to add a new project onto my list which of course will require that I add a next action. Because what it is true is that for every project there has to be a next action, but not for every area of focus has there to be a project and the next action or a someday maybe there may be nothing because you may look at your areas of focus and say, I'm good. They're all on cruise control. I have no tension or attention on any of them. I'm good. Good job. See you next month. They're designed to be reviewed on a monthly basis. So let's take the next three to five minutes. I'll check with you at three minutes in case you need the time. If not, we'll move on. But what we're going to do now is go back to those, the maps that you just did or updated and see if it triggers any new projects, next actions or someday maybe and go ahead and add them to the right list. So let's get started and I'll check with you at three minutes. Move on. Perfect. So any reflections or comments given what we've done or just on this last activity, anyone wants to share anything, either open mic or in the chat box.
- [40:53]
B
I'll say something. Yeah, I've been using Todoist for many years and I had it set up pretty poorly. So just thinking that through just now, I made it much, much simpler and therefore a lot easier to define things and track.
- [41:11]
A
Fantastic. Easier. It's always better. Jeremy. So good job. Thank you. Simple. Yep. Simple and easy. We always say GTD is simple. People don't believe us. Anything else or what? What stood out for you? If you want to let us know either on the chat box or again open mic and I know John will tell me.
- [41:43]
B
I'm not seeing any of their hands raised or anything or open mics, but see, oh, just one person commenting about their Internet issues. We're switching back and forth and stuff like that. So it's not related to the Content here. So nothing further on the, on the sharing about the content so far.
- [42:07]
A
Okay, so we're going to move on to the, on to the next three horizons of focus. But before I do that, I just want to read something that I think it's very useful from David where he says maps of this horizon, referring obviously to Horizon 2 are very useful orientation tools, especially when you're in transition mode of any sort, personal or professional, or when a recalibrating of your resources and focus might be needed for more balance. So definitely exploring this horizon too, and keeping it current allows you to walk into your world more comfortably and confident about your priorities. So if at any moment you're confused about your priorities, trust me, just look at this horizon. It's the horizon that can very quickly and effectively get you back to really trusting that the choices that you're making are the right choices. Both your projects list obviously, but if you want to go a horizon higher, it would be Horizon 2. This designed to help you with, you know, ensuring you trust your decisions, you trust your choices. Okay, so let's now take the next three levels as just one. I'm not gonna ask you to go deep into each one like we just did with Horizon 2. We're just kind of take it, we're going to take it as one big one. And the intention here is to do it a little bit more like light touch. This is not designed to be intimidating because sometimes for folks when asked the question of what's your purpose, it can be intimidating. It's intimidating for me. I hate when they ask that question. I'm like, why do you want to know kind of thing. We're just going to do it just to keep on helping you again, complete your projects list. The intention for all of this is mining for projects and to see if there's anything out there that can potentially be a project that needs to be added to your list. So Horizon 3, it's very simple. Think of this horizon as outcomes. The outcomes that belong to Horizon 3 are often referred by goals and objectives. And lots of companies, they have goals that they need to achieve within two years or three years or whatever length of time. So that would be what belongs to Horizon three. Some people refer to it as objectives. Usually these are defined during strategic plan sessions or year end planning sessions. Those are the opportunities at companies that we define these goals and objectives. Personally, you can just think about what would I like to be through by the end of 2026 or why would I like to be true in the next two years? So this horizon is about two years from now, then Horizon four with the title we've given it or we've defined it as vision. This is again just outcomes, no different, but further out in the timeline or further out in your time frame, four to five years from now. So here you can think, take a moment to really grab things that are more like way out there. Like I know in four or five years I'm going to move to another country. Or you know, I know in four or five years my kids will be out of college, so now what? Or I know in four or five years my kids will be starting college. So now what? Have you prepared financially for that? Or do you need a project? So when you think out, that helps again trigger projects in case they're missing from your list. And then of course, purpose would be top level stuff. You know, what's really core meaningful to you, what matters to you in your life, what kind of drives you, moves you. It's your prime criterion for your priorities. I mean, whenever we're making the wrong decisions, whether we are conscious of our purpose or not, because I think we all have a purpose, we may just not be conscious of it, but we know if we're not on purpose because there's a part of us that feels off, whatever that translates to you. So, so the intention here is kind of just bringing greater clarity to Horizon 5 and potentially putting words, you know, my purpose is to be joyful. My purpose is to be of service. My purpose is to be a mother. My purpose is to be, you know, a community person. You know, doesn't have to be perfect again. And no deep or too complicated. It's just give yourself some criterion for making decisions. So I will give you now, I think five minutes. Check with you again at three minutes and you can either update your higher horizons maps if you have them, or you can just start creating a draft. Well, here are some of the things that I see that I've committed to as goals and objectives and here are some of the things that I know are going to be true in four to five years. And here's kind of what I resonate with in terms of what's my purpose. Simple and easy again. So five minutes. Check with you on at three minutes. Go ahead. Yeah, so I was just catching up on the chat and thank you, John. Mark, I think you had that question. Indeed. Really the distinction here is the timeline. That's why I purposely chose to say outcomes. Because everything, if you think about it, it's an outcome, even if it's the next action. A next action. By definition it's an outcome. Call my mom to say hi. That clearly has an outcome defined. So everything are outcomes. It's just a matter of where in the timeline. If their outcomes, you know, days from now, if their outcomes month from now, if their outcomes years from now, then you get to decide on which horizon they belong and it becomes personal. These are just time frames that we give you just to orient you to kind of know what goes where. But there's wiggle room. It doesn't have to be exact. So the visions are just things that I go, I know this will be true four to five years from now because definitely in four to five years my kids would be out of school and ready to go into college or for sure in the next four or five years I've reached retirement age and what's next kind of thing. So that's, that's the intention or to, to take the time to actually think about these things because if so, then do I need to add a project as the next exercise is asking us to do? Right. If in four or five years I reach retirement age, is there anything I need to be preparing for, getting ready, considering adding onto my someday maybe list if not ready to put onto my projects list or even just a simple next action because I'm not going to make any commitment much further given what I know today. So that's the power for mining for projects in the higher horizons is to think how far so to see what brings closer to us. Okay, so now let's, you know what's next, go ahead and scan these higher horizons that you just either created or updated a moment ago and add new projects, next actions or someday maybe whichever one is appropriate or not. So again, I'll give you a couple of minutes to do this and I'll check with you to see if you need more time. That's about time here. And again I want to check in with you anything that stood out from this last activity, higher horizon 3, 4 and 5, anything you, any reflections, anything you want to comment about it? Yeah, go ahead. Adiana. Thank you.
- [50:22]
C
Yeah. So for me what came into my mind because I was looking at my areas of focus in my horizons three and four was that I think for some, for some time and actually recently I was having these kind of way of thinking that goals were not projects, meaning I would, I would have like a separate list of goals. Even in my, in my current, you know, view of projects, I would have like a, a project that I would call goals for 2025. Because I. I had this. I don't know, this understanding for some reason. And then just recently I realized that they were actually projects, but I was just keeping them in a little separate container for some reason because I think I thought I wanted them to be separate because I wasn't acting on them yet. I didn't want to. So I think the thing is I didn't want to see them on my projects list because they were not activated. And I didn't want to say that someday maybe, at least because I thought it was someday maybe it's not. That means I'm not going to act on it this year. So I think it's a kind of a weird cognitive, you know, confusion or something. But I. And then I started kind of moving all these goals into my projects list. It's very recent, like maybe, I know, two months ago. And I'm like realizing that I had a bunch of projects that were hidden in this walls list for some reason that I wasn't acting on. But. And then. But I actually wanted to execute them this year. But I was kind of.
- [52:17]
A
They were on another list. They were not on the list exactly.
- [52:20]
C
They were not in my head. I was not treating them as projects. I wasn't acting on them because I was like, yeah, those are goals. I'm going to act on them. I don't know.
- [52:29]
A
Yeah.
- [52:29]
C
But so just the fact that I started moving them into projects as they are because they are my expectation of them being completed this year.
- [52:40]
A
Correct.
- [52:41]
C
And then I started acting on them.
- [52:43]
A
Yeah.
- [52:44]
C
Just my weird, no good job.
- [52:47]
A
I mean, humans were funny. You know what I mean? Who knows what little crazy hits make up of things. Thank God for that creativity. But what you did and what you described, Ariadne, it's very common. I've seen it a lot. Some people actually create a list titled Projects on Hold because it's not a project, it's not a goal, not a someday maybe. Don't you dare. It's a project on hold. And I go, if you want to call it a project on hold because that's how your mind better relates that works. What matters is your commitment to reviewing. And I think it's in the reviewing that we either do or don't do, where we start making all this kind of variations in forms because our minds are very quick and very smart. And we often quickly conclude that it's a someday maybe. I'm not going to look at it. And GTD says that your Sunday maybe list is a list to review as part of your Weekly review. So. But it feels like it's, you know, someday maybe someone's like, it's like Neverland. Not, not really. All Someday maybe is. It's a list for potential projects that I'm not committed to move on yet. So it's a very simple definition, Ariane, but if you think about it, it's a powerful one. It's one that I need to be able to stand for because it's. I saying I'm not committed to move on yet. That's a powerful statement. But if instead I put it on a project on whole, you know, these are all variations of some. They maybe, to be honest, but for some brains, it works better that way because it calms them. So if at the end of the day you need to call it differently or, or organize it differently, as long as you're reviewing it regularly, that's what matters. Otherwise it will all crawl back to your head because the mind is very quick and very smart. And it's going to say, arianne, you're not fooling me. You may be fooling the screen, all this list and all these title things, but you're not fully me. Therefore, I'm holding on to it because you're not looking at it. And the whole purpose of gtd, right, is to get things off our mind so that we can be fully present, so that we can be engaged, so that we can be strategic, creative, etc. So all great awarenesses. I completely understand what you, what you were referring to and just know that the Someday maybe list is the first cousin to the projects list. If there's a list that it's very near, the projects list is the Someday maybe. It's a wonderful list that I think we don't often explore enough because there's a little bit of a concern or a fear that I'm not going to see it or I'm not going to do anything about it. Not doing anything about it is correct. Not seeing it, it's what's incorrect. But it's part of the weekly review. But good job. Thank you.
- [55:49]
C
Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting to notice.
- [55:51]
A
Very interesting. Yeah, I know. And that's why, that's why I go. It's all outcomes guy. Just put it, it put it in, in the time frame that it belongs. Because it's true. There's some things that are goals in terms of how we define it, right. Two years from now or three years from now. And sometimes it's arguable that some people may say, well, I still need to keep A closer hold of that goal, because the goals list, theoretically, it's reviewed quarterly. Okay. Each one of these horizons require a different time when to review them. So you may say, even though this is, by the GTD definition, a goal, because it's in two years from now or three years from now, I got to keep my touch on this thing weekly because it is how this job or this work gets done, then that perfectly qualifies as a project. It's more a matter of how soon, how much or not do you need to be reviewing it? What defines more, where it goes? You know what I mean? Like, that's where all this flexibility starts to play in. Oh, but two years from now, you just said that's not a project. Do you need to look at it weekly in order to relax your mind? Yes. Then it's. It's more of a project than it is of a goal. Does that make sense? Arianny, when you bring in that other.
- [57:11]
C
Variable, it makes total sense that you know that you touched on a point that that is exactly what happened. I wasn't looking at that list because I was thinking it's a goal or this year, But I wasn't actually reviewing that list. Because you were not. Yeah. And. And because, you know, when you do weekly review, you have, like, the step review project. So in my mind, I was just looking at my projects, and I was forgetting about that one because it was. And although it isn't the same app, like, I. I could see the list was there.
- [57:39]
A
Oh, yeah, I know.
- [57:40]
C
But my brain was like, man, but it's not. These are not projects. Don't look at them. And then. And then I realized, well, I have ch to go back and look at them. And then I realized that I was kind of not putting them in the projects category for my mind to actually go through them and take action.
- [57:59]
A
I'm telling you, the projects list is the most liberating list. And it's the nastiest list because it's the list that brings us back to peace, to clarity, to a sense of control. But it's the list that demands thinking. All the other ones, we can kind of, like, pretend they're there, but they're not there. The projects list is heavy lifting, but it's. It does wonders to our lives. Right? But. But I understand. I understand the relationship.
- [58:27]
C
Can I just make one more comment about projects list that also sometimes I think or my brain think when I say my brain, my brain, it's not me, thinks that that goal or that thing I want to accomplish is so small that it doesn't deserve being a project.
- [58:51]
A
I understand, but that's because of how, however you've, you've learned to refer to as a project, you may just need to, you know, kind of change your relate. Because to me a goal is bigger than a project to me. But I was raised in dtv, you know what I mean? So to me fix the faucet is the project as much as it is, I don't know, build a new house that we're actually doing because they're all multi step outcomes. But so to me I'll go, it's a bigger thing. So two people thinking completely different.
- [59:22]
C
Yeah.
- [59:24]
A
All right, my dear, thank you very much. What else, John? Because I'm not seeing, I'm just seeing the chat box jumping on my screen, but I'm not reading. Before I move on.
- [59:36]
B
Let's see a comment here from Mark. A project is anything that is more than one action. Size does not matter. There we go. Yeah, I think Ariadne, you, you mentioned something that a lot of people can relate to with thinking that it's too small to call it a project. And then they, the, the trouble with that is they end up with next actions that are really projects but the next actions list repels them or they don't feel drawn to do things on it. Because some part of our consciousness, some part of our mind is not fooled by that. Some part of our mind looks at that next actions list and says that's not really a next action. Because even if I do that, it's not. The thing is not done, the outcome isn't achieved. So it's hard to trick our own minds.
- [60:27]
A
Very hard. And before we go on a break, just keep this in mind guys. Often if it's self evident, it may not even have to go on your projects list despite the fact that it's multi step outcome. For example, you know, my dad is coming to visit me from Spain. All I need is a reminder in my calendar to go get him at the airport, you know, at the time that he arrives. I don't need a project about that. It's kind of self evident everything that I need that needs to happen for him to stay at my house. If on the other hand I had to move my children out of their bedroom to accommodate for a new bedroom and I had to do, you know, make some logistical changes and there was a work involved to preparing for that visit, then that might not, that might not be self evident. It may require my mind to weekly focus on this outcome of preparing for that visit, otherwise it's going to show up on a Tuesday and nothing's going to be ready. So there's some things that even they are multi step outcomes. If they're self evident, you may not have to put it on a projects list. You always need to put it on a project list if it requires your weekly thinking so that you confirm, ensure, guarantee that you get to your outcome. If it's not required, then you're probably fine with just, you know, a reminder on your calendar and when in doubt, put it on your projects list. Worst thing that can happen is you go, oh, that was overrated. It wasn't a project. But it's always better to say it was overrated and to go, they put on a project, they thinking it wasn't and now look that is here and the house is a mess. They're your choices. All right, dear, let's go on a break. And unfortunately it's gonna have to be 10 minutes so that we can finish on time when we come back. So 10 minutes beginning now.
- [62:31]
D
I'd like to give a short message to those of you who've been participating and playing with GTD Connect for a while and sort of remind you that all of us with this GTD methodology and this set of practices go through cycles. You know, I still go through cycles myself initially. There's, there's kind of the inspiration and there's a lot of material to ingest and to get familiar with. And so people oftentimes when they first come onto Connect are just potentially overwhelmed by how much information there is. In a way, it's just a huge library where we've been able to archive so much different information from so many different perspectives and people and points of view and so understood that it's like walking into a library, oh gee, where do I start? So that's oftentimes the initial phase of this and many people after a year or two, you know, probably get on some level or some plateau where they go, well, I kind of got it now, I've got my system set up and everything's fine. And I'm thought. And you may find yourself at that point also finding yourself saying, gee, I'm now becoming a resource of this methodology for people around me, you know, people asking me for assistance and help in this. And we've seen in the forums a number of people now sharing ideas about how to get your teams more involved or families more involved with this information. So some of that information is in there as well. But I think you'll Find yourself going through cycles of this and you may find that much like if you've ever read a. I remember when I read, when I learned Microsoft Word to begin with, for instance, I read the manual, wow, this is really cool. And I started to use the tool and didn't need the manual anymore. As a matter of fact, a good example of that right here, the manual for this camera that's taking this picture right now. Initially, I read this, got it all set up. That's really cool. And that's really fine. And so pretty much everything was onto cruise control. I didn't need to go back to my library to make this really work. And then of course, as I started to get more sophisticated in terms of the stuff I wanted to do, got more inspired about some things I saw other people are doing. I go, how do I do that? Went back to the manual. I went, oh, God, I didn't realize I could do that. I didn't realize I could do that. I remember at least two or three iterations of going back to Microsoft Word back in the days when there actually was a manual for that, as opposed to just all online and realizing, oh, oh my God, I didn't realize that, oh, I could do that now. I could do that now. And I think that's what you might find with Connect too, is that it's a gold mine of stuff. Well, many people have read getting things done more than three or four times, and every time they read it, they get something new out of it. So I think you may find Connect the same way and probably even easier because, hey, it doesn't take much to just click on, surf around, see what might be new or what might be of interest to you, and pay attention. There's more than meets the eye in there.