← Getting Things Done
Getting Things Done
Ep. 331: Exploration of GTD for Educators
00:40:20
Join us for a discussion of how two educators apply the GTD methodology. Erik Johnson teaches high school in Chicago, and David Drake is a professor of microbiology at the University of Iowa. They both have a passion for teaching, and have adapted GTD...
Loading summary
Transcript86 lines
- [00:10]
A
Welcome everyone. I'm John Forrester, here for an exploration of GTD for educators. This is a new topic, one that came up when there was a forum post from a couple of educators who were saying, wouldn't it be great to talk about how GTD applies for educators? In this case, the educators are David Drake and Eric Johnson. And welcome. Thank you guys for being here. And would each of you say a bit about your work and where you are and just introduce yourselves a bit?
- [00:39]
B
Thanks for having us. I'm Eric Johnson. I am a high school social studies teacher in Chicago Public schools. I teach at a really large school. We've got about 3,000 students, 170 teachers. I teach sociology, honors sociology, and freshman seminar, which is a special class that teaches students how to survive high school and become adults. And just a bit about where I'm at professionally. This is my fifth year teaching. This is sort of the make or break point where a lot of high school teachers burn out. And GTD has saved me from that.
- [01:08]
A
Oh, that's good to hear. Very good. David, how about you?
- [01:12]
C
Very good. So glad to be here. My name is David Wright and I'm a professor of microbiology and infectious diseases, the Iowa Institute for Oral Health Research, College of Dentistry, University of Iowa. And so I'm going to be coming across from a faculty perspective in terms of research intensive faculty. And I can tell you I've practiced GTD for many, many years now and like Eric, it has been a major contributor into maintaining my sanity. And so I am looking forward to this discussion.
- [01:53]
A
Sounds good. We have perspective then from a high school educator and a university level educator. And there may be some differences in how you apply GTD as educators. And I think that'll be interesting to find out what those differences might be as well as what the similarities are. So I'm going to start with a question or two for each of you. Do you have a dedicated office space?
- [02:16]
B
Well, I can speak from a high school perspective in a big public school. I'm very fortunate that I do have office space available to me. A lot of schools and the teachers don't have that. However, my office space is open plan. So productivity can be very challenging in my office space.
- [02:33]
A
David, how about you?
- [02:35]
C
Yes, I am very fortunate. As the senior faculty member in the research institute. I have my own private office with a window. I have my own conference table in the office so I can have one on one meetings with my staff and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. So I have a door that I can close. In fact, I have a Sign that I put on the door occasionally saying please do not disturb. And all my colleagues know that means I'm doing focused work. And this is not a time, unless it's an emergency, of course, to knock on my door.
- [03:12]
A
If you have a conference table in your office, I assume you have meetings there. Some of the time at least, yes.
- [03:17]
C
Yeah, Again, they're just one on one meetings. I have my lab manager. She comes up at least twice a week. And then if I have a meeting with a graduate student or a postdoctoral fellow, I'll invite them into my office. So those are scheduled meetings? Those are already on my calendar.
- [03:36]
A
And how about when you're teaching in a classroom, is your system somewhat portable so that you can carry it with you?
- [03:43]
B
I can speak to that a little bit. I'm jealous of David having that conference table. For me, I share classrooms. I'm always on the go. If a meeting isn't something planned by state administration, if it's with a colleague, a lot of times we're just sort of roving the halls to find an open space. So we have to be mobile. And for me, my GTD system really relies on the inbox and having somewhere where I can put everything that comes up throughout the day as I'm meeting with people in all sorts of different locations.
- [04:12]
A
Okay. All right, let's get to more of the GTD methodology questions. As educators, do you have areas of focus that you would say are educator related that somebody in another profession wouldn't have?
- [04:28]
C
Well, I can speak to that. Yeah. I would think so, because since I mentor graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty, one of my areas of focus I just have labeled as mentor. So all of the projects and actions and waiting for is within that area of focus. I'm research director for my clinical department, and so that's an area of focus. I have collegiate service, university service, national service, national board service. All of those things are separate areas of focus that I maintain. And of course, then I have teaching, and I have that as an area of focus, teaching. And so I give a number of lectures to classes. Usually the largest is usually around 85 students. Most of the time with graduate students, it's much smaller. And then I have scholarship as an area of focus. I have NIH grant writing as an area of focus. We're always writing grants. We're never satisfied with the level of support we have from the federal government. So we keep writing more and more grants. So that's all from the professional side. I'm not touching the personal side, of course, but That's. I have many, many areas of focus that I maintain.
- [05:53]
A
Eric, how about you?
- [05:54]
B
So this was an interesting one. When you sent us these questions to think about, I noticed I have way more personal areas of focus than teaching, and I think that sort of reflects some of my philosophy as an educator. I really think it's important to take care of myself so I can be my best in the classroom. My education areas of focus are literally just sort of my two main hats at school, which is a debate coach and as just an educator. But one thing I find, and I'm sure David could echo this in a role as an educator in academia. There's sort of an infinite amount of work and an infinite amount of hats we put on. And I think one of the rabbit holes to avoid as an educator doing GTD is you can get really granular. I could have an area of focus for a student that is like a trouble student that I got to work on for the whole year, or I could have an area of focus for maybe one specific class period. You know, any of these things that are sort of ongoing challenges and sort of sections of our education life. I mean, you could sort of get really, really deep if you wanted to.
- [06:57]
A
That makes sense. You could look at it from a telescopic or microscopic level.
- [07:01]
C
Yeah. And I agree with Eric. I have to constantly look at my areas of focus to make sure they are not too granular, but they're working pretty well right now.
- [07:13]
A
Okay, well, let's drop down one level then to projects. This is a question that's come up in the forum and from students who are practicing gtd. They'll write in and say, should I make every class a project, or are there projects within classes? How granular should I be about this as a student? And I'd love to hear what you both say about that as educators. Where do you put projects and how many sub projects and that sort of thing do you do?
- [07:40]
B
You know, this is something that I feel pretty passionate about it. When I started gtd, I spent a lot of time reading old GTD forum threads in terms of how people in similar roles attack this and how students attack this. Because I ran into a similar issue where, you know, you could get really microscopic in terms of making projects for individual lesson plans, individual materials, things like that, and it became unwieldy. And so I had to step back. And for me, I have a project for each class section that I teach. So this year, one for sociology, one for freshman seminar, and then any other more than two step things that I have to tackle of which there are many. I'll make projects out of those. But in terms of classes and things that are going on in the classes, I just restricted to a project per class.
- [08:32]
A
Okay. And David, how about you?
- [08:34]
C
Actually, I'm exactly the same. All the courses that I teach. Each course is a project. I don't get any granular than that because you could, I mean you could get, you know, there's little mini, mini sub projects within each course of course, but for the most part I try to avoid sub projects but sometimes you have to have some of those. But yeah, every course is a project and that way I can see where I am within the course and move accordingly.
- [09:07]
A
Would you both advise students who are practicing GTD to treat classes, something like that as projects?
- [09:16]
B
I was actually teaching a colleague gtd, so I was in sort of a similar situation and you know, I think I stressed when I was teaching my co worker, you need to make this as nitty gritty and specific as is beneficial to you. You could turn literally every single thing that you have academically into something that's more than two steps into a project. If you're a teacher, you could make literally every lesson plan its own project. But at a certain point you have to step back and say, is this making me mobile and agile? Am I able to complete my work better? Because I'm getting so specific and I think thinking from a GTD perspective, like if it's relieving your stress, absolutely do that. Right. If that makes you feel better and helps you be more productive. But it's good not to get overburdened by your system.
- [10:01]
A
That's good advice. Very good advice, David. How about at the university level? Do you see that any differently or how do you approach it?
- [10:08]
C
About the same for all the students, like all my graduate students and postdocs that I regularly mentor, I actually have an agenda list for them and so I maintain it that way. So I'll have an agenda list for Dr. So and so and then if I things come up in my mind that I want to talk to him or her about, then I will go ahead and add it to the agenda.
- [10:31]
A
And so I just training them about gtd even without explicitly telling them exactly.
- [10:37]
C
Exactly. In fact they asked me about it and actually I give, I give presentations to clinical departments and to my colleagues all the time about how to navigate with all of the inputs. And of course GTD is the cornerstone of everything that I teach. And so yeah, I think it's that old adage that actions are a lot louder than words. And so when they actually see me doing these things, then they realize, wow, this, this must work pretty well because Dr. So and so is doing this and he's senior. He, he knows everything. Har har. So yeah, yeah, that's the way I do with agenda list.
- [11:24]
A
Oh, interesting. I would imagine that you also keep track of waiting for so they get to see you writing down when they've made a commitment to get something back to you.
- [11:33]
C
I do. In fact, they're amazed sometimes because I, after my weekly review or during my weekly review when I'm going for over my waiting for list when I see, oh, he hasn't gotten back to me yet on that. And so I will send a reminder email and I will say, I sent you an email on such and such a date about this and I have not heard back from you. And they're always impressed. Like, how do you keep track of all this?
- [12:00]
B
Yeah, people often I, they're kind of, I don't know, I feel like sometimes my colleagues are jealous. I don't know about yours, David, but I hate to brag. I'm one of the few teachers in my department with a clean desk and a lot of that is thanks to gtd. And people notice you getting this stuff done and they ask how you do it. Just a lot of times they're scared to sort of tackle creating the systems that get you in this good place.
- [12:21]
C
Exactly. I'm the same way. I do have colleagues that have said to me, it's like you always seem relaxed with everything that you've got going on. How in the world do you manage all this? I see this large door opening up. Well, let me tell you how I manage all of this.
- [12:39]
A
Yeah, well, good. Let's go into that for a moment. Both of you had some things to say about how you share about GTD with your colleagues and what they resonate with, what they push back about. Let's talk about that a bit.
- [12:56]
B
You know, I think people really like the idea of the consistent and sort of organized in basket. That's something I think a lot of teachers and a lot of people do naturally. Everybody's got the thousand post it notes they fill out during the day. It's just where they get stuck is processing after that. And one of the biggest challenges I had as I was teaching a colleague that asked to be taught GTD as best I could recently was people can get into the in basket, the organizing and the processing. People struggle with the project list. You know, they find the idea of Context list, really exciting and helpful, but obviously you need to be able to have it organized as projects. And I think that's been really tough for the people I've worked with.
- [13:41]
A
David, how about you? What sort of pushback or resonance do you get?
- [13:46]
C
Well, I think, and I have mentioned this to you before, so faculty are, I think, natural planners, if you pardon the pun. I mean, faculty are taught from an early stage. You plan out your semester, you plan or a quarter, depending on if you're on a semester or quarter system. They just stick it with semester. You plan out your semester, you have your major projects, you know the due dates or whatever, and then you backward plan, you decide, okay, these are the weeks I'm going to do this and this and this. And that's what we're taught early on. And so when I. Faculty love the whole idea of capturing all the inputs, I mean, that really opens some eyes and they really love that and clarifying what it means to them, putting in a trusted system. They love that concept of a trusted system. Organizing it, reviewing it, they love that. But the engaging step is where they from standard boilerplate gtd, if you will, where they have some issues. They say, well, I can't decide in the moment, every moment what to do next because I have all of these major projects, all these due dates. I like to plan things out, I like to see on my calendar, okay, I got this time blocked off for that project. I got this time and I do the same thing. And you guys have seen me on GTD Connect where I have posted that I do time blocking because for one thing, it prevents meetings from magically appearing on my calendar, particularly in my high focus times in the morning. And so when I tell them it's okay to make appointments with yourself, it's okay to block time off. Even David Allen has said within the forums, if you want to block every hour off, that's fine. That means there's something in your mind that you gotta, you, you gotta settle it by having some protected time. And he says that in his different books that, you know, an aha moment, that when you look in your weekly review and you see down the line you've got a major project due, that you better block off some time on your calendar so you can have focused work on that.
- [15:59]
A
I can tell you for sure, David wouldn't have written those books he wrote if he didn't do some time blocking.
- [16:04]
C
Exactly. So once they hear that, then they're like, oh, okay, now I understand. What I always tell them though, is what you don't want to do is create a to do list and put it on your calendar because that's where things go wrong. I said, how many times have you created a to do list? And everybody, if you do that, you create way beyond what you think you can do. You've got all those time blocks on your calendar with all these little tasks, and then somebody shows up at your door and something has come up that's major, that you've got to take care of, that your labs just exploded or something. Who knows, you know? And all of a sudden it's like, oh, well, all those time blocks I had, it's not going to work. All those tasks I have blocked, I'll just move them over to the next day. And so I say, you got to get away from that. You got to understand that. And now what I tell. And I think I mentioned that to you, John and Eric, that when you come to a time block that you have put on your calendar for focused work, and this is what I also do, I always ask myself the question at the beginning, is this still the best use of my time where I'm at right now? Because I may have made that time block a day ago or two days ago, but have things changed now that my priorities have shifted? Is this still valid or do I need to focus on something else? So that's the part that I'm working with faculty on in terms of, yes, you can time block, yes, you can make appointments with yourself, but always ask yourself that question.
- [17:40]
A
Yeah, I remember years ago using a paper planner system and somebody was showing me theirs and they had to post it on a calendar page and they'd moved it enough times that they'd worn the adhesive off the back of that sticky note and it just won't stick anymore. And I remember saying, if you're moving it that much, you need to look at what's going on here. Are you really putting it in the right place? Should it be on your calendar at all?
- [18:05]
B
Yeah. Or I mean, is it even a priority? And I think one of the biggest benefits of GTD for teaching in the high school setting at least is, you know, I don't know if it's really possible for many high school teachers to specifically time block our calendars. You know, generally at my school we have maybe one or two 50 minute class periods free, and we could time block those.
- [18:26]
A
But.
- [18:26]
B
But the day is so dynamic from day to day. Maybe you come to work, all our copiers are dead, which is very common.
- [18:33]
A
They all decide to die at Once.
- [18:35]
B
Yeah, that is a very common situation that we run into. Or you have everything blocked out and planned out. You've planned out your entire semester, day by day, minute by minute, which I don't, because so many interruptions happen and you start your day and you find out a student is having a nervous breakdown or there's some horrific, you know, emotional need that you have to tend to with one of your kids. And I think GTD in the high school setting is really good at helping you navigate an environment where there's just little pockets that you can't really block, but you can tactically address what you need to address through your day when you have time.
- [19:09]
A
Interesting. That leads right into the next thing. I was going to ask you both about, because in our email before this, you both brought it up, that surprises show up like they do for anybody else. What kinds of surprises show up for you? How does that fit into your world with lesson plans and classes that are on a schedule? Let's talk about surprises, interruptions, and the unexpected.
- [19:34]
B
I mean, sort of exactly tied into what I was saying before. I mean, every day in the classroom in high school comes with surprises. You know, I've had kids stab themselves on notebooks. Somebody throws up, there's an assembly that nobody told you about, and, you know, that usually is pretty fun. Suddenly you're going to watch, like, people play drums all day or something. But, you know, your best laid plans are regularly shifted and adjusted. And I think one of the biggest things beyond the GTD system allowing you to sort of tactically change plans is this philosophy that, you know, interruptions are just shifts in immediate priorities. And I wonder if David can echo this as well. But people in teaching roles, I feel like, often get really mad when their stuff gets interrupted or their plans get changed. I think teachers really feel like what they have to say is the most important thing in the world. And I won't disagree with that. But knowing that you have the system to help you navigate that interruption is really helpful.
- [20:31]
C
Yeah, I agree completely, Eric. And that's the beauty and strength of a GTD practice. And so, as I said, I put time blocks on. Again, it's just to protect my time. If I need to focus on something in the morning, if it's really, really I need to focus and I can't be disturbed. I can put a do not disturb sign on my door, but I can tell you even that doesn't work. And for an example, I would do that because, oh, I got a really heavy deadline here. I've got to get. I got to work on this grant and I will do that in the morning and I'm all ready to go and my cell phone goes off and it's my 85 year old father that wants to talk to me. And so all of a sudden my priority just changed, you know, and it's like, that's fine. You know, what I tell faculty is like, if you want to make appointments for yourself, don't block every hour. I think that's crazy. But if you want to make some appointments, but keep in mind that things are going to change and it's okay. What you're doing is you're just setting in an attention and there's been a lot of research showing how important intention analysis. And so if you're setting an attention but things may change. I don't. Interruptions from graduate. If I don't have a sign on my door, yeah, it's freewheeling. I may go for hours with nobody coming to see me or I may have somebody every five, 10 minutes and.
- [21:53]
A
Whatever scheduled office hours. That put some structure around that.
- [21:58]
C
I do, I do. If I'm teaching a large class and then I will have office hours. But working with graduate students and postdocs, no, it's if they need me, if they're, they're working on a complex experiment and they're not sure what to do at this step or something has come up, they weren't. They'll ask me and they'll come to me and say, well, what do you think about this? I want to be available to them. That's my role as a mentor.
- [22:24]
B
Right.
- [22:24]
C
So I don't. Interruptions at that level, that's fine. That's. That's my job. That's what I do. So. But that's again the beauty of gtd, you know, whatever I'm working on. And I remember watching a little video from David Allen one time about if you're working on something and you get interrupted, I literally will take what I'm working on and putting it in my inbox. I have an inbox tray here on my desk. I'll just move it over there and then when I'm back I'll say, oh, that's right, let me get this out of the inbox. Because I'm gonna process what's happened, where am I at, whatever, and move forward.
- [22:57]
A
So you're using the inbox as a placeholder so that you can readily get back to where you were. And the interruption is what he would call, David Allen would call a well managed Input.
- [23:08]
C
Exactly. You know, I mean, I want to be in the moment. I want to be there for whoever needs me and not have my mind sitting there looking at my project notes or whatever. You know, I want to engage this person one on one, 100%. And so by doing that, putting it in my inbox, it just releases that from my mind and now I can engage with them.
- [23:32]
B
One of my most embarrassing pre GTD hacks for dealing with interruptions. It's very common at the start of every class. I'm trying to get materials for the period ready, and there's 14 kids that have wandered up and have varying questions. And I used to dump it back on the students and I used to tell them, email me, and effectively turning my email inbox into sort of a GTD inbox. But I don't know, it wasn't the most present or kind or good teacher thing to do. Kids come to you for help, you tell me, email me, and then I would help them out later. Since gtd, the line of kids shows up with a million questions and I can take whatever they need, plug it in my inbox, and then still take care of it when I have time to take care of it. But I'm not dumping it back on them and I'm embarrassed. That was something I used to do in the past.
- [24:18]
A
Hey, at least you had a method there and weren't just trying to hold it in your head and say, okay, I'll remember to get back to you later on.
- [24:24]
B
That true. Which is what a lot of teachers do. I mean, they run around all day. And this is something that I did. Pre GTD is, you know, you're teaching and you're in front of a room full of ninth graders and you're saying words, but you're not present and you're not attending to their sort of emotional and educational needs as fully as you can be because you're carrying, you know, an email from administration in your head and instead you can process that and actually really enjoy your time teaching.
- [24:52]
C
Yeah.
- [24:53]
A
And it. By keeping it in your head, you're also setting up a good chance of having a broken agreement when you forget about it because something else shows up and then you don't get back to the student. The student doesn't feel as cared for.
- [25:05]
B
Yeah.
- [25:07]
A
After surprises, let's look at priorities and how you set priorities when you start your day and when surprises show up. Tell me about what you think, about what, what parts of your system you look at when setting priorities and reprioritizing as things show Up.
- [25:26]
C
So if I have a time block and let's say I was going to work on a manuscript or a grant or whatever it might be, and somebody shows up and they need to talk to me or whatever. And then as I said, if I had project notes, as I mentioned, I would put it in my inbox and come back out. But maybe as a result of that conversation, now there's something major that needs to be taken care of. So what I will do is I will glance at obviously my projects list and next actions list, look over real quick, and I'll go up to the areas of focus, and I'll say, okay, where am I now with everything? Let me think through this a little bit. And then based on that quick review, then I'll make a decision. Do I now want to put my. This project I was working on aside for a while and. And go take care of this, or will I add this problem as a project to my list and then I'll get back to it in due course? And so that's the process I use.
- [26:26]
A
Just to put a little frame around that in order for that to work for you. It means you already have a complete inventory. You've got a complete projects list, you've got your next actions lists, so that you can know that by glancing at those, you really are getting a good idea of how to set your priorities.
- [26:43]
C
Absolutely. Absolutely. I use, as I've mentioned on GTD Connect, I use Nirvana. I'm completely digital, and so it's wonderful web access. And then I have their apps on my iPad and my iPhone, and so my iPhone is always on my hip. It never leaves me. Well, I shouldn't say never, but. And so I'm very mobile in that regard, so I can always, very quickly, even if I'm stopped in the hallway after the conversation is over, I can glance at everything right from my phone to get a sense of where I'm at.
- [27:23]
A
Well, they do make waterproof iPhone covers. So if you did want to keep it with you in the shower, you could go that far.
- [27:31]
C
Yeah. And then my wife would say, it's time to have you evaluated.
- [27:37]
A
Yes. Which again, is one of those areas of focus that set priorities.
- [27:41]
C
Yeah, yeah. And by the way, she is an area of focus. I have an area of focus that I call wife.
- [27:48]
A
I do, too. And from what you mentioned earlier, I would imagine you have one related to your father as well.
- [27:53]
C
I do. And my children. Yes.
- [27:57]
A
Smart man.
- [27:59]
B
Yeah.
- [27:59]
A
Eric, how about you? And setting priorities, resetting them when you need to.
- [28:04]
B
Yeah. You know, I Think one of the best things GTD has done is pre gtd. I would spend a lot of time, my sort of small slots of free time during the school day, trying to figure out what I needed to do and often sort of remaking the same to do list each day. Okay, I gotta make copies for tomorrow. I gotta make the lesson plans for tomorrow. With gtd, I sort of have my list structure such that I always am tackling the materials and prep I need to do for tomorrow first. You know, that's one recurring to do item that I have. I use todoist currently. It's not super GTD in that it's not super specifically clarified. It just says, prepare lesson plans for sociology. Prepare lesson plans for freshman seminar. If you, I think, really wanted to be a good gtder, each of those would specifically be clarified as to what that lesson looked like. But that changes often and it's not necessarily the most practical. And then just following, knocking out that, you know, the stuff you literally need done for tomorrow or you're going to be that teacher that's running out in the middle of class trying to make coffee. After that, I just sort of look at my list and the cool thing about GTD, actually, and I don't know if my bosses necessarily would love to hear this, but I look at, you know, my personal stuff, I look at my school stuff, and I just tackle strategically what's on my mind based on my context. If I'm at work and I'm at my computer and it would make me feel better if I knocked out my budgeting right now and maybe did grading later, I'll take care of that. I feel okay tackling, you know, whatever I have on my mind just based on where I'm at.
- [29:34]
A
Years ago, I read a book that had a recommendation for how to process your inbox. And he said, do the personal stuff first. If you do the personal stuff first, you'll get it off your mind. And that's often what you might even care about or have more interest in. And I thought that was an interesting way to do it. And it sounds like you've adapted that to your system some as well. If something personal is on your mind and you can do the grading later, that works.
- [30:00]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's all about being able to be present, you know, so I can sit with my students during the day and truly enjoy what is the best part of teaching.
- [30:09]
A
It's nice to hear that you enjoy that too. Next up. One of the other things we emailed about was contexts. And you Both had some really interesting things to say about adapting the idea of context based lists in your work environment. So David, let's start with you on that. Talk about your contexts and how colleagues think about contexts.
- [30:34]
C
Yeah, I have like probably most people that have practiced GTD for a long time. I have changed my context many times trying to see what works best for me. And currently it's kind of funny, I've come back pretty much to the standard boilerplate context in terms of I've always had agendas and errands and home things like that. The big one that. And I'm not sure not gonna be surprised by this, the big one that it seems to be somewhat problematic sometimes is the one called computer. And I struggle, I have struggled with that. And my colleagues always push back on that for the main reason they say, well, you know, back in 1990 or whatever when everybody had these large desktop computers and that's the only place where you could do this kind of work, then I would understand it. But now with laptops and pads and iPhones and Android phones and all of the things that we can do just about anywhere, then they say, well, computer doesn't mean anything to me or everything's gonna be on computer. And so one of like I've experimented with, and one thing I've worked with some faculty with which they really love, and I think some of our colleagues on GTD Connect have done have talked about this, is that it's like, well, maybe instead of computer, maybe separate it out in terms of what kind of software programs you use. And so if you spend a lot of time in Microsoft Word, for example, then maybe have a Microsoft Word context means you can access it from your desktop computer, you can access it from your laptop computer, you can access it from your iPad or pad or whatever. And so there you are, you know, but you have that as a context. And so that seems to resonate pretty well with faculty that to them that makes more sense than just saying computer. I do have a separate context that I call email, text, because I get a lot of that correspondence. Again, it's something I can do from my phone easily. And so I don't need to have that as a computer context. So that's what I'm doing.
- [32:56]
A
Okay. And Eric, how about you?
- [32:58]
B
That's interesting. I think I've had colleagues sort of similarly confused about some of the context lists and thinking about a computer list. I have my sort of digital realm divided into three sections. I have a list labeled any computer, which I include my cell phone in It's a computer. And then I also keep a context list in terms of digital stuff. One for my laptop, my work laptop, and one for my home PC. So there's the odd, you know, there's a file that's only on my home PC that I have to address there. And then the other two lists that I keep that I think are sort of interesting and relevant to education. I keep a general office list for tasks that need to be done either in the social studies office or administration that I got to find or meet with. For me, grading is something that's done on the computer but is contingent on actually having the papers with me. And I sort of struggled where to keep that. And I had it on my computer list for the longest time, but then I'd be at home and I wouldn't have the papers and it would be sitting on this list where it didn't actually belong. So I keep a grading binder list, and that's where I keep all my students work in this binder. And so now I know if I've got the binder, I'm at the list, then I can look at what grading needs to be done.
- [34:14]
A
How about. Are there times during the class when, let's say you've decided on a pop quiz? Are there times when you're in the classroom and you've got the students working on something, but you don't need to be talking to them or answering questions or anything? Do you have think where. What do you look at? What do you do during that time? What list do you look at for that opportunity?
- [34:39]
B
I mean, those times are extremely important in maintaining sanity as a teacher. Right. It's why we like to play movies on Fridays.
- [34:48]
A
I knew there was a reason behind all this.
- [34:49]
B
Yeah, it's so we don't have to do work at home. And, you know, that's where the first thing I always look at is the stuff I need to prepare for tomorrow. If that's accomplished, then that's where I just sort of freely allow myself to tackle any of the things that are on my mind. So I just look at, you know, generally if I'm in the classroom, I don't keep a classroom context list because many school years I'm in four or five different classrooms a day. So in that case, I just look at you. Usually my any computer or laptop list, because I've got my laptop or stuff that can be done on any device. And if I'm not helping kids out or hassling them while they take their tests, then I'm Doing some work.
- [35:30]
C
Very good. So with me real quick, if I'm in a lecture or whatever or in a situation where I'm proctoring an exam and I've got time, the vast majority of time, I'm not looking at my list for something to do, but. But I never go anywhere without a paper pad, some way to capture. And so what I would do is sit and I'll just think and basically be doing a minesweep and recording things down. I also have an app, a couple of apps where I can put in my phone where it'll automatically send my idea right to nirvana and show up in the inbox there. Or I can have another app where it'll just right into my email inbox. So between writing and these two apps, I'm usually just putting things out. I do have a context, an old traditional one called At Anywhere. And so if I'm in a classroom and I don't have nothing's on my mind and I don't have anything to capture, I will look at that list. Is there anything here that I can at least look at and think more about or whatever A thought that I.
- [36:39]
B
Had while we were talking about this is for any teachers looking into getting into GTD and using that time while kids are working to tackle your own lists. Before I start students on an assignment where maybe I'm going to do work while they're working, I have made it a practice to tell the students what I'm working on. So I say, hey, Mr. Johnson's taking out his to do list right now, and I'm going to work on X, you know, whatever that might be. And that way kids don't think I'm just sitting there, like, reading about video games. They know that I'm engaged in work, and hopefully they kind of get a glimpse at some of these GTD practices. You know, like, I think both David and I have mentioned sort of using the lingo and making these practices visible, so hopefully other people pick up on them.
- [37:35]
D
I'd like to give a short message to those of you who've been participating in planning, 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 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 on to 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 fine tuning. 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, 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 software manual. I remember when I read, when I learned Microsoft Word to begin with, for instance, I read the manual like, 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 life 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. And 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 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.