In our latest podcast episode, Todd and Robert discuss how long it takes to learn GTD and the fact that this is a journey.
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0:00:05.0 Robert Peake: Welcome, everyone, to another Change Your Game with GTD podcast. My name is Robert Peake, and I’m here with Todd Brown.
0:00:11.6 Todd Brown: Hello, everyone.
0:00:12.7 RP: Hey, Todd. In this podcast series, we look to elucidate, that’s a big word, some of the getting things done principles, getting things done GTD being a methodology that helps you to keep track of all the things you need to do so that your head is free to be creative and spontaneous and frankly, live your best life. That’s a lot of the intention of this. So if you’ve been out there seeking greater work life balance, wanting to reclaim some headspace from the busy, hectic lifestyle we sometimes lead, this podcast is for you. Stick around. As always, we basically chat and say, “Hey, should we do a podcast in advance of this?” In fact, we thought maybe we should even lead off the podcast series rather than with our usual bumper with just, “Hey, should we do a podcast?” [chuckle] Because it is very much that way. And then as we were kind of exploring topics and themes, one of the things that came up, one of the things that we often hear about from others is others, is those people in your life and world who maybe aren’t following getting things done best practices, shall we say.
0:01:25.7 RP: People who are a bit disorganized, people who don’t necessarily keep all of their commitments, and people who generally make things a little bit harder sometimes for those around them, not necessarily wittingly and maliciously, but for whatever reason. When you start to adopt some of these GTD principles, you start to notice, I think, others around you who aren’t necessarily playing by the same rules. So we wanted to just talk from that standpoint about what do you do about that? And of course, Todd, you and I, having practised this methodology between us for many decades now, come across this a lot, come across this frequently. Because of course, we don’t necessarily live in a world outside of, of course, the Next Action Associates company where everyone really does do GTD. We don’t live in a world where absolutely everyone does, at least yet, maybe this podcast will change that. But I’m curious your thoughts and how you personally deal with some of the, let’s say, the people who aren’t always adhering to GTD best practices, is the nice way maybe to put it.
0:02:40.7 TB: Do you know, as you’re talking about it, Robert, something occurs to me, which I think is a core belief for an awful lot of people that will provide us with some rich foundations to build on here. And that, so in our seminars, sometimes one of the questions that we ask is, what’s getting in the way of your productivity? What’s keeping you from being your optimally productive, clear-headed, motivated, kind of in the groove self. And a lot of different answers will come back, and some of them will be, well, I’m spending too much time on my phone or my organizational systems are not set up optimally. But a really significant chunk of what will come back from the group, when you ask that question, basically boils down to, hey, you know what gets in the way of my productivity?
0:03:00.9 TB: My colleagues. My colleagues get in the way of my productivity. If I had no colleagues, I’d get loads done, right? Seems to be the sort of the underlying idea. And by the way, when this idea does come out in a seminar, what you don’t want to do, of course, is just kind of turn the exercise into a bit of a gripe fest, right? So I sometimes, while I want to be sympathetic and I want to say, yes, I do understand other people’s behaviour, of course, has impact on how we work and how effective we are. I sometimes bring in a quote from Aristotle. I might’ve mentioned this in a previous podcast, but it’s one of my favourite quotes attributed to Aristotle. I don’t think we have him on a tape actually saying it or in a video actually saying it.
0:04:15.1 RP: We should get him on this podcast. We really should.
0:04:16.9 TB: We should.
0:04:17.2 RP: I think he…
0:04:17.4 TB: He’d be a great guest.
0:04:18.8 RP: He so would, he would.
0:04:20.1 TB: What a great idea. Anyway, the quote is, “We cannot change the wind, but we can set the sails differently.” And what I love about that is that sort of moves your mind from, okay, I’m a victim, I’m a victim. The world just happens to me. There’s nothing I can do about it to, okay, well, the world is the way the world is. What can I do? What can I do to sort of optimize my efficiency, ways of working, clear-headedness, reduce my stress levels, generate all of the benefits that we want from GTD? But to come back to the question, so what do I see out there in the world? Well, yes, a lot of people at the end of, if they’re getting coached or they’re in one of our seminars, they’ll at the end, they’ll say, “Boy, it would be so great if my team could do this.” Right? And then you start to drill into, okay, well, what are the behaviours that the team are exhibiting, which are getting in the way of you being kind of optimally productive and what can you do about it? So one that comes to mind straight away is the meetings we run. They’re just…
0:05:24.9 TB: First off, we’re only in the meeting once a week because the meeting has been in the calendar once a week since the dawn of time and nobody has ever questioned whether we should in fact be in this meeting every week. Okay. There’s one thing. So should we in fact even really be in the meeting in the first place? But let’s assume that the meeting makes sense. In other words, there’s some purpose. The meetings are spectacularly badly run. Right? So nobody’s really keeping track meeting to meeting about what are the commitments that got made in the last meeting? Who agreed to do what? By when? And are we tracking all of those results over time? And then in the meeting itself, right? Let’s say in this week’s meeting there’s generally speaking a lot of lack of clarity about what does done look like, this meeting is over when what? What’s our desired outcome, to use the GTD words about that. And again, as we have conversations, there is generally speaking, not a lot of consolidation of agreement about the commitments that we’re coming to. So in other words, nobody’s saying, well, at the end of the meeting, nobody’s saying, okay, now who’s got projects as a result of what’s happened in this meeting, right?
0:06:40.2 TB: And just go whip around the table and say, okay, well, I’ve got a project. I’m going to draft the budget for next year. Okay and somebody else says, yeah, I’ve got a project. I’m going to work with HR to come up with a job description for this job. We just agreed that everybody said was going to be added to the team. So there’s again, so the result of that, if there isn’t that kind of clarity at the end of the meeting, then people just kind of wander out and there’s a little bit of, if not physical head scratching, mental head scratching about, well, okay, I’m not quite sure. Did I have a commitment? Was there somebody else? And that of course means not just that the meeting itself was inefficient, but also that person, all the people who’ve been taking part in that meeting are now walking out into the rest of their day with some mental residue, right? Because the clarity is not there. So on the greatest hits list of ways in which other people’s behaviour is getting in the way of productivity, I think that would be high on many people’s lists is let’s just put it under the headline of suboptimal meetings. How about you? What experiences have you had?
0:07:49.4 RP: I think that’s a great one. And it’s a great one in particular in those environments where you have some possibility of influence. And there is the opportunity to influence your colleagues in terms of how you run meetings. I think there is the opportunity to influence your direct reports. You can even start to create some simple systems with them that are inspired by GTD principles and best practices. Obviously, the best thing to do, we think, is send them to a seminar, get them some coaching, get them on board the way that you’re on board so you can have similar standards. But an inroad to that, I’ve found, is exactly what you just said, is starting to think about outcomes, starting to think about what we call projects, which are really multi-step outcomes, and starting to get people to think about what are some of the finish lines you’re going to cross to know that you’ve done, some of these things you’ve said are important, and where are you going to put those?
0:08:50.5 RP: So a boss who periodically says, hey, can I have a look… Can we sit down and look at your project list? Can we look at your list of outcomes and talk about how those are going and talk about the relative priority of them, is to me someone that’s starting to influence the culture in a GTD-like way. Now I think also there are situations where you don’t have a lot of influence in terms of being able to bring people up to your standards as well. I have one at the moment. I have a builder I’ve been waiting on for a while to do some work. Clear commitment, in writing, commitment that this is going to happen. Clear timeline, and that’s not currently happening. So in those kind of situations, I think one of the things to do is really just to use the GTD system. Use your systems. In a sense, don’t give more head space than is merited, and it can sometimes be hard to do if it’s an annoying thing, and it always annoys me when someone doesn’t have the same standards about keeping commitments as I do.
0:10:00.3 RP: But getting the waiting for list going, getting the calendar reminders going, being a squeaky wheel without having to feel necessarily a lot of upset behind it just because someone isn’t doing things the way that you would like them to do. So I think the GTD system can work really well even in environments where other people don’t necessarily play by those same rules, at least to keep you sane, I guess is the message for me. But I’d be curious too if you have any war stories or any people that were particularly kind of falling down on this or success stories where you were able to kind of up level a team using some of the principles kind of in your own immediate environment. We do that all the time, obviously, in the teaching and the consulting work we do, but I’m wondering kind of in your environment what you’ve seen what some of those stories might be.
0:11:00.5 TB: Yeah, and just as you’re talking, I’m reminded about probably the toughest single coaching engagement that I ever had. And this was many years ago, about 10 years ago. I was brought in, small company, but growing very fast. I was brought in by the CEO to work with one of his direct reports. And I got talking to the CEO first a little bit about the situation and a little bit about this person. And what sort of unfolded was that this direct report that I was going to be working with was not only a direct report of this guy, but also this guy I was going to be working with was the stepson of the CEO. So we’ve got on top of whatever the productivity issues are and whatever the family, whatever the, sorry, the kind of things that might have to do with ways of working, we had that dynamic as well. And the net result of that was that his motivation, the guy that I ended up working with, his motivation to change was really, really, really small. He had all kinds of, as you might imagine, all kinds of emotional issues about the position he was in, he was dependent on his stepfather for his employment.
0:12:22.2 TB: It was just in many ways, a kind of a mess. And I tell that story because I think in my experience, one of the things that’s most important in any situation is that people need to be ready. They need to be open to the benefits that we’re offering, number one, and also to changing their ways of working. The old joke, how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but it really has to want to change, is a joke that comes to mind that maybe sort of summarizes this idea. But I think that’s core. So okay, in a world or in the reality that not everybody is going to be immediately receptive to, yeah, this is going to be helpful for me and it’s going to make a difference and I’m really interested to engage with it. Maybe back over to you. So in environments where you need to create some enthusiasm, or creating that… Enthusiasm is probably way too strong a word, but just create a bit of openness to what it is that we do. And people that aren’t familiar, what kind of tips, tools of the trade might you bring to bear in a situation like that?
0:13:43.2 RP: Yeah, it’s a good question. I think as you talk about that, what comes to mind is another very common question we get, which is, how do I fix my partner or spouse? And maybe not quite as pointedly as that, but that’s sometimes the underlying message. You read the book and go, oh, this really applies to them. And good luck with that attitude. What I’ve found in those kinds of situations where you have a close working relationship, and as you said, potentially some other layers of relationship, like family or partner, is that often the real convincing factor or the way that that works best is when you apply GTD best practices to a situation that you both acknowledge isn’t quite ideal. So one example from my world is applying the principle of checklists to various things that my wife and I need to collaborate on. Now we use a lot of GTD best practices. We keep agenda lists for each other. We have regular meetings. We basically handle the business of being roommates and co-owners of a property and all those other things in a somewhat businesslike way, so that we’re more or less mostly free to enjoy the good bits of being in a relationship.
0:15:11.6 RP: But one area that came up, and I don’t know if I’ve told this story before, but one area that came up was just getting ready to leave on trips together and having different standards and different ideas about what that meant to be fully ready to go on a trip. So we each had our individual packing lists, but then I’d kind of be okay, I’m ready to go, and my wife would say, yeah, we’re so not ready to go. There’s a lot of stuff that needs to be done. So immediately what I realized was she had stuff in her head that I didn’t have in my awareness and that’s a perfect candidate for a checklist. So often a lot of these alignment things and things that seem like values issues between people actually are just about, we haven’t gotten it out and looked at it together and decided who does what and what constitutes a project in action, etcetera. So focusing on places where there is some kind of friction and looking for, hey, could us deciding who owns the project help here, so that we don’t feel resentful that we thought the other person was doing this or that?
0:16:24.4 RP: Could checklist help here? Could getting a little more clear about who has what area of focus help here? So I think people get convinced by practical results more than anything. And that’s certainly what I’ve found and what I encourage people to do rather than you should read the whole book, you should implement the whole system, you should be a completely different person than the person I married because I liked you just the way you were. Rather than making it an identity issue right away, start to focus on those places where you can work together using a principle or two, it would be my suggestion. What about you? Other types of relationships, other situations where we can make inroads with this or just can’t, just need to, you know, just need to kind of, as you said, keep our sails rigged appropriately and not be a victim and control what we can control and let other people have the results of their own choices in their own lives.
0:17:32.1 TB: I’m reminded of another coaching that I did with someone who’s a very, very successful coach in a particular sport. And I spent a day with him, absolutely fascinating. And one of the things that he said to me was… He was famously, and still is, famous for having done a very, very good job of taking a team of people with very different personalities. And it’s a sport where there’s a lot of individual competition within a team, even though there is a team, right? So anyway, and he said to me, he said, forget about team harmony. He said team harmony is a distraction at best, okay, and can really get in the way of you being an effective leader. He said, what you need to focus on is goal harmony. Okay. So whether or not we like each other, whether or not we get on, all of that to one side, can we agree that we’re going together in the same direction and we’re headed for the same finish lines, literally? And I’ve carried that with me ever since. I’ve always found that really interesting. It goes back to what you were talking about in your conversations with your wife about getting ready to go on trips.
0:19:00.9 TB: So for me, the way you could translate that into a professional environment, and look, I get we’re not saying that this will solve every interpersonal situation, but from the point of view of let’s try to reduce friction in the way that we work together. I think one really helpful question, whether or not we are… Whether or not the people that we’re working with are implementing GTD best practices to the level that we’d like them to be doing it, is to say, okay, are we agreed where we’re going? Now, let’s get really practical. At that point, when you get to the point where you’ve sat with somebody that you’re working with and you’ve agreed, here’s the outcome. This is what done looks like. Really important to have a place where that outcome is documented and where you review it regularly, right? So that would be an example. If you wanted to put GTD words on that, that would be some sort of a shared projects list, probably. And you would then just agree, okay, we’re going to look at this when we get together and make sure that we’re both comfortable, that we’re making progress in the right direction. We can talk about it and then it will… We’ll be flexible about it and we’ll modify it as far as that’s justified, but we are agreed this is where we’re headed.
0:20:14.1 TB: So I think, and again, that’s not… Coming up with a shared vision of done and then reviewing it regularly, that’s absolutely GTD best practice, but if you’ve got somebody who’s being at all resistant about implementing GTD for whatever reason, then just don’t call it GTD. Just call it, just say, well, here’s some things we’re going to do. I mean, I, when I was still working as a manager in the big corporate that I used to work for many years ago now, one of the things that I used to require for all of my direct reports was that they would bring a projects list with them to every weekly meeting, right? Just as you have described. And I think that was, and I didn’t particularly call it GTD. I mean, there was no mystery that I was implementing GTD and that that was something that was part of how I was working, but I didn’t require that my people sort of bought into it to the same level. But I said, here’s the deal. You need to bring a projects list with you every week. And I used the definition of project that we use in GTD. So yeah, I guess in greasing the skids to help other people get engaged. An interesting question for me is to what extent do we need to label it, right? Or do we just need to focus on what the best practices are?
0:21:24.1 RP: I think that’s great. And one of the things I love about that is that the practical reality wins, that you can just fall back on this is stuff we both said we wanted to be true. And these are some great ways to march toward that. And then I think a key is as that success shows itself, you can start to potentially drop in that some of this comes from this methodology called GTD. If they’re interested, if they’re up for that. I always find the kind of soft sell really works when it’s grounded in practical results that people want to know rather than want to be fixed, if you like. One other topic I wanted to talk about is the boss. Because I think a lot of people when they say, other people are getting in the way of my productivity. Actually there’s a dot, dot, dot. One of them potentially is a manager of some kind, either a direct or a dotted line or what have you. So curious, curious your thoughts on this one too. Because this is the place where I see a lot of people getting into victim mode.
0:22:34.4 RP: And as you said, GTD I think very much is about taking charge, taking responsibility for your choices and the choices you have, not getting into a victim mode. And so, when I think about the boss factor, one of the things I think about is that part of their job is to help you manage to some extent your relative priorities and what you’re doing and what’s going on. So you having really good systems and you sharing the results of those systems can help a lot. I found out recently that our own Ed Lamont uses me as an example in seminars of someone that says no well. I didn’t even know this, but I come up, I’m the guy, he’s that Robert Peake guy who, he kind of sort of loves and hates for it. But it’s true that when Ed comes to me with stuff, I say, “Hey Ed, that’s great. Here’s some of the stuff I’m working on. Help me understand the relative priority of it,” which isn’t no per se, but it is help me optimize so you get the best and most you want out of me. And bear in mind that these are also things that we said together that we wanted to be true. And sometimes it is frustrating for a boss to go, “Well, I want you to just, I want you to do everything all at once.”
0:23:52.2 RP: The reality is that good managers know that there is one you and they’ll acknowledge that. And if they’re not, and if it’s not meeting your standards, you’re still not a victim. It’s called find an environment where your standards are met. And take us with you. Take us with you and get your team trained in GTD as well. But I’ve actually said that in corporate seminars. It’s like, look, if you’re really feeling like you have totally different standards or you’ve outgrown the standards, then you still have choices. I think people are a little surprised. It’s like you’re being paid by this company’s HR department. How can you say you still have choices beyond those that are available in this organization? It’s like, that’s just reality. That’s just reality is that you always have choices, I think, to not be a victim. But the boss is a big one. It’s people, a lot of people leave their jobs. The number one thing they really leave their jobs about is the boss. Curious what your experience has been either as a coach and in seminars, seeing other people with difficult bosses or your own, we won’t name names, or maybe a friend of yours, as it were, whatever. But curious what you’ve seen around that one as well.
0:25:12.1 TB: Yeah. Before I get onto the boss, just very briefly coming back to some of the ideas you talked about about the ability gracefully to say no. One of the people that I’ve coached in the last several months, a senior person at one of the financial institutions here in London, and he actually said to me, he said that he’s famous for being able to do this. And the phrase that he uses when presented with things that he’s looking for a gentle way to say a version of no, what he says is, “Well, to that it’s not no, but it’s not yet,” is what he says, which I really love. Because what that tells the person is, I’m really sorry, in the greater scheme of things right at the moment, that’s not something I can focus on, but I’m not saying no. I’m leaving the possibility open that I’m gonna work on it in the future. So I quite like that phrase and I may nick that and start to use it myself.
0:26:07.2 TB: As far as the boss is concerned, it’s a tricky one, right? But that said, I think you can gently encourage better behaviour out of your boss, not in the interest of trying to mould the boss into something that he or she is, sorry, isn’t, but rather in your own interest. Okay, so the kind of thing that comes to mind for me is, don’t walk into your boss’s office necessarily and say, hey boss, I went to this GTD seminar, I got coached in GTD and they talked about this thing called a projects list, I put it together and here it is, now we’re gonna talk about it. But rather just go in and say, hey, one of the things I think that would be really helpful for me is if you and I could over time develop a list of the outcomes of the projects that I’m working on, okay, we’ll review that regularly and we can just both be clear that I’m focused on the right things and that you and I are clear what the relative priorities of things are.
0:27:05.3 TB: I’ve just described the best practice in a way that doesn’t involve GTD, it doesn’t involve the word or the letters GTD, that might land better, right? And so I guess what I’m getting at is, and this is maybe the more general point, is that over time by being practitioners, by using the language, by exhibiting the benefits, we can gently encourage better behaviour. Behaviour, you know what I mean, better results in the sense that folks will be, well, more helpful for us from a selfish point of view, but also more effective and efficient themselves and if it helps to do that without mentioning the methodology per se, fine by me. At some point, as you say, it’s probably worth saying, oh, and by the way, everything that I’ve been doing over the last little while, here’s the book or here are the folks to call to get coached or to go on a seminar, that’s probably also appropriate as well.
0:28:05.1 RP: That’s great. So I’m conscious of our time, we’ll probably need to wrap up here, but I just had to say before the words not yet came out of your mouth in that anecdote about the senior person you were coaching, I flashed back in that moment to my baby sister, who at the age of two, as you know, two year olds are famous for once they kind of discover their own ego, their own will, saying no, but for whatever reason, weirdly enough, my sister used to say, not yet, not yet. Would you like to go to the park? Not yet. You want to eat your peas? Not yet. And so it just cracked me up to realize she is now a certified GTD coach. [laughter] So there you go. Maybe some of it is nature rather than nurture. Who knows? Who knows on that one? But for those of you listening, thanks for being with us. Hopefully this has been useful food for thought, for those of you at whatever stage of the GTD journey are finding that these best practices are helping you.
0:29:12.8 RP: And of course, wanting to help those around you. We do this regularly and we are always interested in your thoughts, questions, comments. If you go to next-action.co.uk, there’s an easy way to contact us there. And as we do this regularly, we also do a variety of other topics through other associates in our network. And that shows up on YouTube quite a lot. And so the easiest way to get notified of that is to click the subscribe and also click the little bell icon there. If you are getting this as an audio podcast, obviously you’re already in and on and be sure to share this. That’s one of the best things you can do to support us in continuing to just put this out for free. And we have a new toy here at Next Action Associates. We have something we’re really excited about, a new initiative called the GTD Collective. For those of you in the UK and Ireland specifically, you can subscribe on YouTube.
0:30:15.3 RP: So if you go to our channel on Next Action Associates channel on YouTube, you can subscribe and for a very low monthly fee, get access to exclusive content. You’ll get videos sooner than the general public, but also access to things like live weekly reviews. We’re doing one in just a moment after this recording anyway, where you can meet fellow GTDers, provide some support to each other during the live sessions as you do this critical best practice altogether. So we felt the need for some kind of community and some kind of support as well as to be able to offer exclusive content to those of you that are really keen and really into it. So have a look at the GTD Collective if that’s interesting to you. Do get in touch about anything and everything you’d like to hear on future podcasts. And yeah, don’t call it GTD, just call it what works. We’ll be back next time for more of what works and until then, be well, go well. See you then.
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