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Transcript18 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hi, everyone. Welcome to our GTD Connect webinar on how to choose what to do. I'm here with Ana Maria Gonzalez. Hi, Anamaria.
- [00:21]
B
Hey, John. Good to see you.
- [00:23]
A
And in addition to helping out regularly with these GTD Connect webinars, Ana Maria's main role at the company is that she's called the. Is it super or senior Master trainer?
- [00:38]
B
I think super sounds more fun.
- [00:41]
A
Yes. Okay, super. She's the super Master trainer. And that means that she's very good at it, of course, but it also means super as in above. Above. She's the one who trains the trainers who train the trainers. So she's handling training and certification for trainers who train trainers around the world.
- [01:03]
B
Okay. Again, thank you for joining, for attending. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. In addition to John loving to say that I'm the Supermaster Trainer, I like to think of myself as a strong GTD practitioner. I will not only be sharing with you from. From my role as Supermaster Trainer, GTD coach, GTD trainer, but also, and as important as a GTD practitioner, which levels us all together, because you're all practitioners. I always like to think of these webinars as a. Sure, of course, we have the job of giving you the information, but we don't necessarily know at all or have the last answer. It's a wonderful opportunity to collaborate and discuss and ask questions and clarify doubts, et cetera. Every time I have an opportunity to interact with someone regarding gtd, I always like to think of how can we dissect this methodology in such a way that we continue to gain a deeper understanding and we continue to strengthen our competencies in our GTD behaviors. So please know that I come strongly from that place, too, so we're all equal in that way. And interrupt me as many times as you want or need to, whether that's because you raised your hand and John, you know, kind of John is watching all of you in the chat box because I can do all of that at the same time. So feel free to raise your hand on Zoom, or feel free to open your mic and say, I have a question, or feel free to type a question in the chat box. I think you're all professionals at this moment with Zoom, right, Don? We're all good in terms of instructions.
- [02:50]
A
I think by now everybody is pretty good at navigating meeting software, including Zoom.
- [02:55]
B
Exactly. And we're recording, right? We're ready to go.
- [02:59]
A
We are recording.
- [03:00]
B
Okay, so today's topic. We have an hour or a little less than an hour at this point to be done, but certainly the purpose for choosing this topic, it's in a way, when I was preparing this with John regarding how do you choose what to do? It's really think of we're going to magnify our time, our understanding, our practice, pretty much on the engage step, because that's really when in GTD we have an opportunity to actually decide what to do as well as decide what not to do. So even though the step five, it's not known as engage, it doesn't necessarily translate to doing. Engage can also be as in, well, it's well known when we talk about getting things done and when we say getting things done, it's not about getting things done, but about being appropriately engaged. Engaged can also be taking a nap. Engage can also be stopping for a moment. Engaged can also be looking out the window. I mean, there's so much science these days that confirms the need for quiet time, the need for reflection, the need for being bored. You could even argue. So let's broaden perhaps the definition that we may have about engage so that it includes choosing perhaps not doing anything, which is doing, by the way, but for the eye of the outsider, it may look like you're doing nothing and yes, you are doing nothing. So it includes doing so. It's often, I would say perhaps for some people a challenge when they're learning GTD or when we're helping them install their GTD system, as in, well, but how do I decide what to do and how do I prioritize? And this system is not going to tell me what to do instead of now that I have so many calls, but I also have the computer things and I also have this. And it can get a little confusing. I understand it's a change of paradigm that we're proposing, but we're not proposing a change of paradigm because we're being arbitrary about it. We're proposing it because it's based on being practical and based on what actually, David, through all these years has observed and was very intelligent in my opinion, to put together into a methodology that it's very practical, it's very hands on, and we can start applying it immediately. When we think of Engage and we consider the threefold nature of work which you may be familiar with, we're really the engage step. If you think about it, it's really a step when we're talking about the different criteria for deciding what to do is when you are actually looking at doing predefined work, which is the first circle here to the left. So the threefold nature of work basically describes pretty much what you can do on any given moment, on any given day, throughout your day. Given the nature of work, you can either be doing predefined work, which is what we're focusing on today when we talk about engage and deciding and choosing what to do. And that a lot of words to say that's when you're working off your lists or that's when you're working off your calendar. So you can pretty much, you know, summarize it down to predefined work is do is working off my list or working off my calendar. And if I want to be even more specific, I should say working off your next actions lists and working off your calendar because your lists obviously also include projects and someday, maybe at a very minimum, if you haven't personalized it yet, to include other lists. But we're not going to go there today so quickly. Just always remember, doing predefined work is working off my next actions list or working off my calendar, where your calendar obviously takes priority. Your calendar, it's going to dominate over your next actions list, meaning if there's something on your calendar that you're required to do at this moment in time, that is Thursday at 11:30am that's what you are to be doing, you should not be considering any of your other options as in the ones on your next actions list. If on the other hand, you have an open calendar, which is rare these days, but if you happen to have that luck, then that's your opportunity to work off your next actions lists. And I'll, and I'll talk about another, a couple of other frameworks in regards to, well then, what list of my next actions list should I be working from? Right? Because that's the next level of dilemma or discussion. But the truth is that on any given day at 11:30am if there's nothing on your calendar and perhaps you're now going to decide to do something off your next actions list, you may be challenged by the fact that the phone rings, or you may be challenged by the fact that a message arrives on Slack, or you may be challenged by the fact that someone pokes their head into your office or, you know, whatever, interruption, let's say, or unplanned work, better term, shows up. That's why we have unplanned work here as well. So in that moment in time at 11:30am it's like, oh my God, do I keep working on my next actions list or do I respond to the Slack message from My boss. Well, you have a choice right now, right? And we kind of all know what the answer is to that because it really depends. It depends on who you're getting the message from. Given everything else that you have on your plate, it's really a priority to stop what you were about to do to allow for that unplanned work. That answer you only have, no one else has. But it's a challenge. We're all challenged by it every single day. And in addition, let aside you creating unplanned work for you, I. E. Going on Instagram, yay. Let's go check what's happening on Instagram. Or let's be a little more professional LinkedIn, right? We don't go on Instagram and work. We go to LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever. Or X or whatever. Sounds more professional. But often we are the ones that engage with unplanned work, even though we have plenty of predefined work.
- [09:48]
A
And most of the time when we ask people what they spend more time on. Thanks. On than they want to, they say, I spend more time on unplanned work. Work that just shows up. And I think I should be spending more time doing predefined work. And I'm also lacking in how much time I spend on defining my work. So it tends to be that people get off balance mostly according to what they tell us, by doing unplanned work more than they think they should be, or spending more time on that, or being more distracted by that than they should be.
- [10:23]
B
Correct. And at 11:30am you get a message on Slack, you're going to ignore it, but you realize that you haven't empty your inbox for the last three days. So now you have another variable to consider, which is defining work. What's the best use of your time then at 11:30am to go empty, you're in because you have the bandwidth to do it. You're rested, you have the energy, you have the time. There's no meeting coming right after you have a couple of hours, you know, Etc. So what's the best use of your time?
- [11:01]
A
Should you.
- [11:01]
B
Should you then define work, which means empty your. In your ends, remember, are all, all your capture tools. They can be digital, they can be on paper, they can be physical and they can even be mental, which obviously we discourage because we teach your mind is for having ideas, not for holding them. So at that moment you have all these choices and you may say the best use of my time, given that I have two hours and given that I haven't empty my in is to actually empty my in because my predefined work is incomplete. Remember that what feeds your inventory of predefined work or what feeds your lists is the work that you've defined. It's everything that comes through your in tray. So often it's a much better use of your time to empty your in than to work off your predefined work, because your mind is very quick and your mind knows that that list is incomplete. Therefore it's not going to trust your choice. And the whole purpose of this webinar is to talk about how. How do you choose what to do? So it's not one simple answer. And this is why I wanted to start with this slide, so that you, you can see the complexity already. Just deciding between any one of these three. Well, obviously in a perfect world, we would love to have everything frozen at 11:30am and only give us the options to work off predefined work. But it doesn't work that way. So when we're talking about engage and when we're talking about prioritizing, I'm going to use that term instead of that long. How do you choose what to do? And when we talk about prioritizing, we're really looking at predefined work. So to consider then or to help with what list to work from. Right. Because now, okay, I have the time. I've already made my decision. I'm going to work on my predefined work. Well, what list do I work on? Well, you're probably familiar with our limiting criteria model, which is, in my opinion, a very effective, and I'm going to call it foundational instead of using the word basic because sometimes basic, it's translated as, as non important. Oh, well, that's a basic move and I'm advanced kind of thing. Not really. It's basic because this is really what you're limited by. You got no choice unless you change your ecosystem or you change where you're at. Why I'm saying this is because when it comes to deciding what to do off your predefined work, your first limiting criteria, it's always going to be context. And this goes a little beyond whether we like it or not. It is what it is. It's not good or bad. That's the brilliance of David. He really put something very complex into very practical terms that are immediately applicable because context refers to where's my body? You know, am I at the office, am I at home, am I in the car, am I at beach House? Am I at the store? Am I out and about? Am I at the computer? Am I on the grocery store? Am I at the bakery? Where are you? So that's context. It's where's my body? You know, am I a John? Meaning are John Forrester and I meeting in this moment? It's like where is my body? Because based on that, based on that reality, one should say then your options regarding what lists to work from or not may expand or shrink. Because if, let's say you happen to be traveling a whole lot of your options are not going to be an option. Home will not be an option. Grocery will not be an option. Errands will not be an option. Office will not be an option. You know, one could argue anywhere would be an option. And one could argue computer would be an option because you have it right there in front of you. So understanding that makes our decision making. It simplifies our decision maker. It simplifies our prioritizing. So think of context as where's my body? And when we talk about organizing work under context based lists, that's what we're referring. Call your list the name that makes sense to you. Yes, I know we have a handful of names for list titles, for lists that we suggest and if you don't know, start there, but later on you can change it. You can, you know, you can call it beach house or you can call it grocery, or you can call it at the, at the mountain when hiking. I mean, I don't know, whatever the right context is for you. So now that I've, let's assume, shrunk my options given where my body is, my next consideration always is going to be time again, whether I like it or not. So using the previous example, it's 11:30am and I have two hours. Wow. Now that I have two hours and now that I have two lists to work from, how many can I check? Dolls, Right? Or truth is that I only have five minutes. You know, I would have loved to have two hours, but it's 11:30am and in five minutes I have a conference call. Well, my probably your best option there is not to do is to not do much unless you have very small, short little actions that you can get done. So time, it's always going to come second and it's always going to then be the next option to either decide to do one versus the other in terms of your available options without forgetting if you're fresh or if you're toast. That's what resources mean. It means how are you where are you with your focus? Where are you with your concentration? Where are you with your energy? And I know we all know how to push ourselves really hard, and I know we can take three cups of coffees and push it through or, or whatever tricks we use, right? But is that sustainable? You know, maybe, yes, maybe young. Depends how young you are. Or not. So I, I was able to push myself pretty hard or much harder than I can do that now. Just because I've aged and because I've learned better. I, I don't, I don't, I don't want to do that to myself anymore. So, resources, it's you. How are you? Am I in my best state of mind to actually choose to write that proposal that even though I am in the right place and I have the right amount of time, it's complex. I have to be politically correct. I need to take into account lots of variables. Do I really have the bandwidth right now to do that or not? Resources, it's always another criteria that you're limited by that it's pretty much going to then allow you to prioritize. So prioritizing happens automatically as a result of considering these three. These three need to be considered at all times.
- [18:00]
A
So many people when they first come to gtd, say, well, how do I prioritize? Because they think that's where they need to start, and it's understandable. Prioritizing used to be the way that if you look at any paper planner from years ago, it would say, mark this as priority 1, 2, or 3, as if that would tell you what to do when. But the challenge is you may have something that's your highest priority, number one, in bright colors and bold letters. But if you're not at a place where you can actually work on that, then it doesn't matter what that priority is on that item. You can only do from the list of things that you, you can do at the place you're at now. The other thing is, place these days could mean anything. We often hear from people that I, I can do anything on my phone. So contexts don't matter anymore. I would challenge that. I'd get into asking you some specifics about what kind of work you're doing. And just because I can do anything on my phone doesn't mean I should do anything on my phone. And I'll just give you a wild example. I was working on a big spreadsheet yesterday. Lots of rows, lots of columns, complex formulas, pivot tables, all this other stuff. The thought of working on that on my Phone just because I can open it on my phone. I would drive myself crazy and it would be incredibly, entirely ineffective for me to be trying to work on that item on my phone. You could think of the phone as a place. Just because my phone is here in my office with me, the phone is not the place for me to work on that task. I need the biggest screen I can manage. If I could have the whole wall behind me, a screen that could be useful. So think about that. When you're looking at what you can do as far as naming your contexts, don't just say, well, I can do anything anywhere. Maybe you can do anything anywhere. But is that the best place for you to do that? Is that the best tool to be using? Back to Anna Maria.
- [20:14]
B
Yeah, and I think these days we may be seeing more just one next actions list. Given the possibility for all of us to pretty much get work done from anywhere, that could be one solution to just have a next actions list. And then you make sure that you start every one of your next actions reminder with the verb that clearly describes to John's point, right? Maybe X work of Excel sheet regarding blah blah blah. Like I'm making that up, right? And then call so and so and then email so and so or serve web or slack. Someone always start with that verb. Because then what happens? Obviously all digital solutions are going to alphabetize it so it's easy for your eyes to go to that grouping and then that in itself is going to give you the possib. It's equal to having more than one list. But for some people these days, because they find themselves being able to do work from anywhere, right? Just the next actions with the beginning verb that groups them solves their conflict. Because I'm getting pushed back these days. But computer I didn't get from anywhere. My phone I can get from anywhere. I can do this for everything is anywhere. Agreed. But then how are you going to be able to do exactly what John was describing if you just have it all lumped together and with no kind of easy way to differentiate? And that can just be the verb that very quickly tells you. Or big screen, you start with big screen or whatever common denominator you need to quickly let you make that decision. We like to say that we don't set priorities. We have them because often the question is how do I set priorities based on what we've seen so far? You will know what to do or not do from applying these limiting criteria. It will very quickly give you the answer if you just keep on using These obviously remembering, knowing that we're talking about doing predefined work. We're not talking about doing work as it appears, or we're not talking about defining work. Those are two other different. Those two have different approaches. This is the approach for doing predefined work. Why I say that we don't set priorities and I say that we have them is because you all know exactly who to answer the phone to, just from seeing the name on your phone. Because very quickly you identify if that is a call, that it's valuable to you, that it's a priority to you based on who's calling. So let's say you're at work and you're in the middle of, about to do something very of top priority. However, the phone rings and it's a call from your son's school or from your daughter's school, I bet you that you're not going to think it twice that you're going to answer the call. In other words, you prioritize doing work as it appears versus doing predefined work. And that's not good or bad. It's given your priorities because it's a top priority for you. Obviously your children. And if they're calling from school and they never do, something must have happened. So the mind very quickly goes up and down the horizons. I always like to say, which is very true, that 10, 15, 20 years ago, but let's use 10 or even 5, 10, 5. It doesn't apply. My parents would call and I would ignore their call, to be honest. I'll be like, oh my God, my mom calling again. Oh, my dad calling again. Like it was not a priority. Honestly, it was a disturbance. Now the phone rings and it's either one of them, and I don't think twice, I picked that call. Obviously they've aged, they're in a more fragile moment of their life. I've aged, I've mature. I have a different appreciation. So I don't have to look at any model to tell me if I answered the call or not. It has changed for me. Like I've now given it the value that I was not giving it when I was younger. So that's one example to show you that you don't set priorities, you have them. This is why if you see a child running down the street that you see they're about to be ran by a car, whether you know this child or not, you run to say, save their life. So these are just examples of we have priorities, we don't set them so when you think about this model and you go, okay, great. And how is that going to help me without going so extreme, you know, saving someone's life or my aging parents calling or someone or school calling, how do I decide what to do off my list? It's still 11:30am I have two lists to choose from. I have time, I have energy. Which one do I do? Well, thank you for asking. The first, the first place that's going to help you decide, it's the ground level, which is what we're talking about, right? Deciding which action to work from. Then the weekly review will continue to help, will continue to inform your decisions on the day to day. Because the weekly review is when we go higher on the horizons and we actually take the time to review each and every one of our projects. And each and every one of our projects are actually influencing our decisions on the calendar or the actions list. So doing your weekly review weekly will guarantee that you have no dilemma, let's say, in deciding what to do or not do. Because you're familiar with your system, you have the actions that are required to move all these projects forward. You just reviewed a week ago and you're about to review again. So that keeps the boat afloat. Then obviously your next horizon, areas of focus and accountability, which are pretty much your roles, what your job is, what's important to you at a personal level. So health, family, relationship, social work, environment, pets, you name it, finances, etc. And then work, whatever it applies, having that inventory complete, it's very useful again to inform your decisions on your day to day basis. But how do I, how do I do that? You know, like, do I have to each time I have to choose the next action, do I need to make sure it's in alignment to any one of my areas of focus and accountability? No, that would be crazy making. But we certainly recommend that you review your Horizon 2 once a month. And again, it's that reviewing, it's that keeping your system current, complete, consistent, that keeps on giving you the trust of deciding what to do or not do. So this is not, this is not hard, but it doesn't come free either. You got to do the work, you got to do the work of populating and you got to do the work of reviewing it. And then same will be true with goals and objective, which horizon three, any kind of outcome that you've committed to two, three years from now. And we suggest you review quarterly because again, that's going to inform your system, that's going to influence your decisions. Because most likely any one of those goals, it's going to turn into a project. And most likely any one of those projects is going to turn into either a calendar reminder or next action reminder. So that's how they all are interacting with each other.
- [28:08]
A
Once in a while, when we talk, when I'm talking to somebody about these, they go, well, it would take me forever to review my list of choices if for every single one of them, I said, all right, what are my purposes and principles in life? What are my visions? It doesn't take that long. This stuff happens in a millisecond for you. Once you're already somewhat familiar with your levels, Horizons 5, 4, 3, and 2. Once you already know that, then this stuff happens instantly. You don't have to rethink it and go reevaluate whether your next action or this item on your calendar is in alignment with your life purpose. You already know that. I just wanted to reassure any of you who are new, you won't have to go through this. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Every time you look at every item on every list.
- [29:02]
B
Yes, you do. No, no, you don'. Sam,