Boost Creative Productivity with GTD: How Actor & Musician Marcelo Cervone Uses Getting Things Done to Stay Focused and Organized

In this episode of Change Your Game with GTD, join certified GTD coaches Todd Brown and Robert Peake as they coach BBC actor and musician Marcelo Cervone through practical challenges with the Getting Things Done® methodology. From managing overwhelming Someday/Maybe lists to implementing GTD checklists for creative projects, this is a masterclass in applying GTD for creatives, entrepreneurs, and professionals alike. Marcelo Cervone is an actor-musician known for fronting the alternative rock band, The Vone and for playing the interstellar rockstar, Rio, on CBBC's Andy and the Band

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Todd Brown (00:05)
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another Change Your Game with GTD podcast. My name is Todd Brown, and I am here as always with Robert Peake. Hey, Robert. And I am thrilled to say that as a guest today, have Marcelo Savoni. Marcelo, you're very welcome. Thank you very much for joining us. I'm going to

Robert Peake (00:14)
Hi Todd.

Marcelo Cervone (00:25)
How you doing?

Todd Brown (00:27)
Very good hear from you and good to have you on the show. I'm going to just do a little bit of an overview of what we know about you. And then I'm going to turn it over to you Maybe to tell us a little bit more about your own ⁓ experience. for those of you who haven't heard ⁓ these podcasts before, our goal in the Change Your Game with GTD podcast is really to give you the benefit of our knowledge and experience in the Getting Things Done methodology. ⁓

Both Robert and I are certified coaches, certified trainers and have a lot of miles on our tires in terms of GTD. And Marcelo, one of the things we're going to hopefully do with you today is give you the opportunity to tell us, you know, what's working for you and your GTD ⁓ practice and systems. And also Maybe what are some of the things that you've got some questions about or some concerns about, which we'll get onto in just a minute.

But as far as the headlines go, as I've understood it, I've had the pleasure of watching an awful lot of what it is that you produce, but you're an actor and musician. ⁓ You're currently starring as Rio in a BBC show called Andy and the Band. And those of you who have not checked that out, please do do do that. ⁓ And you're also, as I've understood it, the lead singer of your own band, which is called The Vone So have I done you justice there? Is that about right?

Marcelo Cervone (01:49)
That's about right. It sums me up to a T, Todd. Yeah, those are the main things I'm currently working on.

Todd Brown (01:58)
a little bit about your GTD history. So how did you come to the methodology? How did you learn about it? What's your experience been so far?

Marcelo Cervone (02:06)
A great friend of mine who also happens to play bass in the Vone and bass in the TV show, because for those who don't know, Andy and the Band is also based on a real band called Andy and the Odd Socks. Tours around the UK. In fact, now as of 2025, tours around the world because we did our first Australia tour in January, which was amazing. this GTD, now GTD trainer, Marcus Ramtohul, back in the day, he was just a GTD aficionado. ⁓ He gifted me for Christmas.

a ⁓ GTD, the book, the original book, right? ⁓ And I read it over Christmas and I was like, there's so many nuggets here, kind of mind blown. And then as Marcus went into his training, he is part of his training, he had to get people to sign onto foundation level one course, which I then did over two days. So that's how I came to it. And that's how the practice began. That was back in 2018, been using it ever since. And it was a

pretty big game changer, especially as things got a bit harder, because I now have a ⁓ three-year-old at home, and things certainly don't get easier when you get children involved. And so all of that's just helped me manage my life a lot.

Todd Brown (03:19)
And that's great stuff and really good grist for the mill and good to know as well about what's going on at home because of course, GTD is not just about making things happen in your professional life. It's also about making sure that the wheels stay on things at home as well. ⁓ Could you just give us at a high level, what are the elements of your GTD system, your GTD practices that are really working well for you at the moment? What would you count among those things?

Marcelo Cervone (03:45)
⁓ I think that the number one thing, I'll go from smallest to biggest, the two minute rule was mind blowing for me. That's become regular practice. think the amount of hours I've saved by just getting that done if I know I can do it immediately instead of just like leaving it for later or writing it down. If it takes longer to write it down, just do it there and then. And that's definitely been a game changer. Then working backwards, just like I'm really passionate about languages. I'm currently learning my fourth language.

And I love how GTD changes the way you think of an action and the way you write it down. so always attaching a verb, just taking that extra time to identify what that is. Again, game changer, because suddenly I don't, if I, if I make a list and I come back to it a week later, there's always that adaptation period for most people where you're like, what is this about? What am I doing here again? And you waste time, right? ⁓ Whereas if you've

properly identify what happened. You look at the list and you're straight in there. I find that ever since I did my GTD basic practice, I find that when I identify something, it stays in my memory as well. Because you know how that whole idea that we're great for having ideas, we're not great for keeping them. That's what our brain is good at, right? Having ideas. ⁓ I find that ever since I got better at identifying how to action those ideas and putting them into my system,

Bizarrely, my brain retains the information that otherwise it would have forgotten. So again, that's all to do with linguistics. And so that was a big top level changer. And then of course, the waiting for list. The waiting for list was game changer because that's a huge source of stress, especially in the creative industry and where pretty much everything I do is waiting for. For ⁓ example, I got an email from my agent today, two hours ago.

say, there's a tape for a really good commercial. would pay you really, really well. It shoots on Wednesday, so you might have to move your ⁓ job that you do on a Wednesday. You might have to tape for it today or tomorrow. It might be a really quick hour turnaround. Are you up for that? And I was like, yeah, it sounds great. It's brand I use. I'm on board with that. ⁓ But again, there's no immediate action there. So then how do I quantify what's going on with my day and tomorrow?

not waiting for a list, and they're like, okay, I'll check in again at the end of the day until someone actually calls me. I'll have a little reminder, but it doesn't need to clog up my regular lists, you know? So suddenly, that's where I park those things. That's a subtle, short example, but yeah. So hope those three things are three nuggets there of GTD practice that have changed things for me.

Todd Brown (06:27)
Great stuff. Yeah, no, think, I think, and for those of you who aren't familiar out there, I mean, most of the folks who are listening in will be familiar with some of the core concepts from Getting Things Done but, but the good old two minute rule, ⁓ you know, if, you identify a next action, which can be done in two minutes or less, please don't add it to one of your reminders. Please don't put it on a list. Just do it. As you've quite rightly said, that's a, that's a biggie for an awful lot of people. I've had people come up to me in, in, in airport lounges who are people that have been on the training or been coached or whatever.

and said that changed my life. That's what we changed my life. ⁓ And the waiting for us as well. I think we hear that a lot from people. We had this conversation Friday last week. get all of our certified trainers and coaches together once a month in a virtual call. And one of the things that came up was, and this sort of overlaps with what you were saying around language, this idea that I'm waiting for, and I'm waiting for again, for those of that aren't familiar, it's a situation where

the next action on something doesn't sit with somebody, sorry, it doesn't sit with you, it sits with somebody else, right? You're simply waiting for somebody to follow up. ⁓ And what's interesting about that is, and this came up at the meeting, you know, to have the idea that, it's okay for me to expect something from other people to chase them up if they don't come back to me, to whatever.

Not everybody was comfortable with that. So people were saying, well, that feels wrong. That feels aggressive. That feels whatever. And yet the GTD gives us the language, right? Gives us the vocabulary simply to say, you know, in a meeting, Hey, okay. What I've just understood is you're going to send me that document. Is that right? Great. Now we've got a waiting for situation, right? And we both agreed. Yeah, that's the situation. So there's no, there's no, there's no sort of friction there as a result of that. That's just a, it's an agreement between

⁓ consenting adults I was gonna say which sounds a little strange but anyway you know what I mean by that

Marcelo Cervone (08:25)
I know

exactly what you mean. And the biggest thing is it's the dates. I keep track of the dates in which I chase something up. That was another nugget that changed because suddenly even going through an email thread to find out when when did I last talk about this, it just happened a quick like I just put the actual date in the month. my gosh. OK, I've chased this up four times this year and it still hasn't happened. Just good to know it doesn't necessarily change your approach because we all want to be flexible at work with the people we're working with.

but it does certainly give you a benchmark of like, okay, that's where I'm at on that journey, you know? So there you are, yeah.

Todd Brown (09:02)
Great stuff. ⁓ Well, so I'm sort of tempted. Robert, did you have anything you wanted to interject at this point? I was going to potentially just turn to Marcelo and say, hey, how can we help in terms of a little bit of live in the moment coaching? anything you want to add to what we've said already?

Robert Peake (09:19)
No, let's get down to it. Let's see if we can, you know, if there are things that, you know, knowing this or figuring this out or cracking this would get me to my next level. Those are the kind of things we'd love to hear about and talk about with you. So let's do it.

Marcelo Cervone (09:32)
Okay, ⁓

well, there's two main challenges I have with GTD and they're connected. The first is the someday Maybe list. I've never managed to make that work for me. I feel like that's where my ideas go to die. And over time, the someday Maybe list starts to work more as an anxiety inducing thing rather than not, because it's like, look at all these things I'm never gonna get to do, or they feel so unachievable. ⁓

So that's the first one. It connects to prioritization as well, which is the second issue, but I think I'll tackle one at a time. So yeah, I don't know.

Robert Peake (10:09)
Well, I'm particularly ⁓ big on the someday Maybe list. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Big as in there's a lot of them too. I've had more than a hundred items on a someday Maybe list at various points in time. the very, I mean, what I'm hearing is, so you said, you sometimes it feels like a place where things go to die. And I think the first thing to clarify is what goes there and what your attitude is when you look at it.

Marcelo Cervone (10:13)
yeah.

Robert Peake (10:38)
So for me, I'll just tell you how I relate to the Someday Maybe list and Maybe this is a compare and contrast that could help. To me, the someday Maybe list is good ideas that I don't wanna lose, but that I don't wanna commit to right now. And that last part is super key for giving me the freedom and the flexibility to just put all kinds of sometimes slightly nutty things on that list. So my active commitments are projects, my active commitments are

next actions, and those are in a very different place, not only in my system, but how I kind of hold them, right? So in order to make sure it isn't a place where good ideas go to die, I also look at that periodically. It's not every weekly review, but it's pretty regularly. And one of the things is, you know, I'll do it near the very end of my weekly review because sometimes I'm like, there's nothing on that list I could possibly take on, right? My plate is so full.

I don't wanna look at the someday Maybe list. And other times I go, that was good. I feel on top of stuff. I'm curious, what's in there? Let's go have a little peek. Let's go look at, it's almost like, ⁓ you know, shopping for stuff you know you already want, you know, or like somebody's lined up the initial list of cool ideas. So for me, it's actually can be quite enticing. But what I'm hearing you say, if I hear you right, is there was a sense of I'm ⁓ not achieving those things or those things are piling up in the someday Maybe.

So I wonder if you could tell me a little more about that. Yeah.

Marcelo Cervone (12:09)
Yeah,

can I start by asking you a question? Do you ever get to that week review moment and you go, ⁓ I'm on top of things and then diving into the someday Maybe list is what takes you over the edge. Like I said, now suddenly I'm not on top of things anymore because I'm now personally over committed. Does that ever happen to you or am I?

Robert Peake (12:32)
It doesn't

with the someday Maybe list because the someday Maybe list again is not stuff I'm committed to. It's stuff I might be someday interested in being committed to. So that's a really important distinction I think for you if you're feeling overwhelmed by that particular list.

Marcelo Cervone (12:40)
Interesting.

This is, okay, this is.

I think that's the problem. I'm looking at the list right now and I'm thinking, actually, these aren't things that I'm not committed. There's stuff here about royalties that I need to sort out. There's stuff here about a release. But it was like, basically, there's so many different ways you can do, for example, as an independent musician, there's so many different layers you can add to a release. The more time, the more money you have, the better your release can be.

Robert Peake (13:00)
Mmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Marcelo Cervone (13:19)
Halfway through planning a release, I might go, that's such a good idea. I wish I had time for that. It won't work for this release. So then I put it in the Someday Maybe list, but Maybe that's the wrong list for it because really, I kind of want to be thinking about that throughout the entire release process because at some point it might creep up into the realm of reality. Suddenly someone might offer you something. Actually, now that's possible again because that particular offer has changed our budget constraints or whatever. ⁓

It's just funny, isn't it? A lot of these things are connected to my career. And I guess this connects to the second issue. It's about how you prioritize. I we had a brief conversation before. I feel like when you're working in a slightly more organized corporate situation, and by that I mean somewhere where there's a hierarchy, there's someone with a responsibility to look at the overview of the company, like this is the direction we're moving in.

and then there are other someones with the responsibility of actioning that slightly more on the ground level, right? I feel like in that scenario that I've only worked in a few times, an example would be the TV show. I feel so relaxed during the TV show compared to when I'm just running my own business because someone tells me where I have to stand, what I have to wear, what time it is to eat, what I have to say. There's no decision making process. The only thing I bring

is the decision of how I deliver a line. And that's all the creative juice I have. And so when you realize that, there's so much creativity in that limitation, right? ⁓ Fast forward to the TV shows over, I'm home and I'm now trying to, know, we're, as The Vone, we're very lucky to be an independent band that makes an income every month because we run our own Patreon page. And recently we actually launched our own Vone-ly Fans as a little...

play on words. It's actually run off our own website. It's the same as the Patreon. It's just a quirky way to call it because people know about OnlyFans and that's permeating the pop culture. So it's actually really funny that it's working really well as a branding idea. ⁓ But in that realm, the sky is the limit. If I have 12 hours to spare, I could spend 12 hours promoting Vone-ly Fans If I have 24 hours to spare, I could do it. There's no limit to how much I can do because there's always more people I can reach.

So then that becomes a problem, you know, because the tasks that pertain to promoting that one product, for example, ⁓ who decides when it's time to stop and who decides when it's time to like, that's an idea to park in the Someday Maybe And then I'm always asking myself, if I park it in the Someday, Maybe could I have made more money in this term? Could I have made more money this year if I had just executed the idea now? And then which of the ideas are most more important, you know, which promo idea is going to land and you can't test them all. You test as many as you can.

So that's kind of, that was the second issue I was gonna bring up, but it connects to the Someday Maybe list

why maybe some of my actions are going into the wrong place.

Todd Brown (16:19)
I so love what you just said about

how this all fits for you when you're working on the TV show, as you said, because what you've really, think, in that example is you've sort of solidified the point in a lot of ways of the work we do. So what you said was, look, I don't need to think about where I'm standing, what I need to say, the words I need to say, because that's in the script.

⁓ I don't need to worry about when I eat blah. So all of that's been taking off your mind as it were. And what that leaves for you then is all of your creative energy to figure out, okay, how do I deliver this line? What exactly does this look like? And that in a nutshell is it's not only sort of the point of GTD, right? How can we reduce the cognitive load we have of all of the things that we could at any given moment be thinking about so that we can focus completely on the thing

which should have our attention. I absolutely, you know, absolutely love that as an example. And the other thing that comes to mind for me as you're talking about it is, you some people who are like you in creative industries, right? When they first get exposed to GTD, sometimes there's this hesitation. There's this, is this for me? Is this too much structure? Is this really what I want to be doing as a creative person?

And the feedback that we've gotten over the years, and ⁓ I think we've just gotten from you as well, is what GTD does is it creates the space for you to bring your complete creative self to whatever it is you're doing. And that's one of the big pluses of GTD. So ⁓ thank you. think you've made some really, really powerful points about, as I say, the advantages that the ⁓ methodology brings. ⁓

Coming back to your other question about ⁓ kind of how in these situations where you have more choice, right, about what to focus on and not just how do I deliver the line is down to you, but all of these other considerations, then comes the question, how do you make those priority calls in those moments, right? What's the right thing for you to focus on?

Robert, what's in your mind about this? I'm sorry, this is a little bit of a punting it to you and I'm very happy to take your time on my own thoughts on this, but I'm just curious.

Robert Peake (18:44)
You

I'm like,

I'm wringing my hands here. This is my territory really in a lot of ways. you know, I I work for myself too, but to be honest, that's only one part of my life. have sort of endless curiosity about many, many other topics outside of work as well, which is why my Someday Maybe list grows to hundreds of items. ⁓ So there's a couple other things, first of all, that you may want to consider implementing that can help you.

within your GTD system. When you talked about new releases and the fact that actually that's something to be considering ongoing, you might look at something called checklists. This is something a buddy of mine who's a music producer loves and lives by. Coached him years and years ago and he's like, checklists, man. Yeah, anything that happens in a routine way, get that into a routine and then improve it and revise it over time so you've got really solid lists you're running by.

That'll give you a little more of that, hey, I've got a script, I've got craft services, I've got, you know, I'm being taken care of, I can do my talent thing. Another is projects deferred. And that's the idea that you are committed to it, but you're not committed to it right now. Like this is a project you're gonna do, or someday maybe is a good idea. Cool idea, interesting idea, I've got a place to put cool ideas. Projects deferred is, you know, not now.

not within the next probably three to six months even, but I'll look at that and I'll potentially promote things either direction, right? And I do this a lot, stuff that starts out as a project, I get into it a bit, I go, you know what, this is not really worth it, back to Someday Maybe, back to maybe projects deferred, other stuff comes up. So there's a pressure regulation system built in between definitely committed to projects, projects deferred.

and Someday Maybe ideas that are not commitments at all. And things should be flowing between those three in the weekly review.

Marcelo Cervone (20:50)
Did you say that you're also running more than one Someday Maybe be List

Robert Peake (20:56)
So I do have my someday Maybe list subdivided because there's so much there. And sometimes I wanna look at particular ideas rather than others, stuff that's more about business ideas or stuff that's just more about kicking back and doing something new and creative outside of business, yeah.

Marcelo Cervone (21:13)
There's

two things you've inspired me to do here. First of all, you're the second person to suggest checklists in about a month. One of them is a member of my band. Again, very successful. He's a lead guitarist at the band, but he also works in... It's one of those things as an outsider, I find it hard to describe, but I think it's machine learning and he teaches how to teach it, if that makes sense. anyway, I see him, his name is Liam, as a very successful kind of person who's got like their...

Robert Peake (21:30)
Mm-hmm.

Marcelo Cervone (21:42)
their eggs all kind of lined up. And one time we were performing, I I forgot that gear. And he's like, man, you got to have a checklist. Yeah, I really got to get a checklist. So like, a checklist for gear, a checklist for releases, and which it seems so obvious, but genuinely, I don't actually have checklists, you know, so I should. ⁓ But I like the idea of a ⁓ releases Someday Maybe list, because there's a lot of creative brainstorming that happens for

for in a band, for example, we were like, that is such a good idea as to how to market this song. But it would actually fit better with that song that we're not planning to release for another six months. So then you park it in the before you start releasing strategizing again, look at this ⁓ release, Someday Maybe list, which would be a cool way to review that. But to put into context, I'm looking at this list, some of these tasks have actually been done, which harks back to the whole GTD thing where it stays in your subconscious, there's something about the language

in a way that like before having a system, it would just disappear. Whereas now that I have a GTD system, sometimes even when I write it down, it's almost like I inadvertently even accidentally start working towards it and I might not be aware that I'm doing that. So I'm like, I've been so put off on my own Someday Maybe list that I hadn't looked at in ages. And a lot of these things have actually been done, which are probably the things that were more pertinent shouldn't have been on this list in the first place. ⁓ But anyway, so I like those two ideas will be two key takeaways there for sure.

Robert Peake (22:55)
Totally.

Todd Brown (23:12)
As you're talking through something else, and I think this is kind of an umbrella theme, I would say about a lot of what we've been talking about is the contents of your system. And this could be your someday Maybe list or it could be anything else in your system is really just your best guess about what's relevant at the moment. And I think one thing I'd also encourage you to do, and this has kind of been something that both Robert and I talked about is

just be willing to say, okay, when I put this on my someday Maybe list, whenever that was, last year, last month, that was my best guess at the moment that it was something that was relevant. You know what? It's not, right? David, David Allen talks about things on your someday Maybe list can become someday never. And just be open to that, right? Just be open to the fact that there might be some things there where you just go, look, know, Marcelo who was six months ago thought this was a great idea.

Today, I know better, right? And of course, you in the present are gonna be way smarter than you in the past, right? So, yeah, just don't be shy, I would say, and this goes for any elements of your system. Don't be shy about saying, yeah, I thought this was a good idea. This was something that I was committed to, and now, just not happening, just not happening.

Marcelo Cervone (24:29)
Yeah, I like that.

Robert Peake (24:30)
important

and super hard for highly creative beings, right? You know, they're all good ideas. I only got one life to live. But when you put that second part in there, you know, you really, you really have some opportunity that as things have been flow, you're getting more data all the time about what works and what doesn't. Present you smarter than past you and future you is going to be smarter than present you. And so you got to. Yeah, I'm totally with you, Todd. Yeah.

Marcelo Cervone (24:47)
Thanks

Something that's coming up here that makes me think could be really relevant to any listeners out there who are creatives or who have creative projects on the side on top of their regular jobs. I feel like working into your weekly review, a true North check-in, right? That's something that's slowly been creeping up, but a bit like the checklist seems so obvious, doing it on purpose and with like, let's make that a structure might make a big difference. ⁓

Robert Peake (25:10)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Marcelo Cervone (25:22)
a moment within where you go full top out into your career, like full bird's eye view and you go, am I still moving vaguely in a direction I want to move in? And if that happens on a weekly basis, feel like you'd be unstoppable because then it'd be much easier to, without shame, cutting out things that, yeah, that's not relevant anymore, no worries there. And prioritization. I think Maybe that's the thing. Maybe I don't often enough and I haven't

made an effort to do that top view on a weekly basis. I don't often enough take that view so as to go, that's still the true north, in which case all these things that are great ideas aren't priorities right now. know, I suppose companies are structured in a way to do that. And when you when you're a sole trader, you think, yeah, I'm my own company, you know, I pay my taxes, I do my thing, I'm making it happen. But actually, Maybe some of these fundamental structures that go into business practice, you

are fundamentals that you make assumptions you forget to include and actually that's where as an independent person you should go yeah let's do our AGM but it's a check-in with yourself you know

Robert Peake (26:31)
Absolutely

right. Yeah. Have a look at the areas of focus. Revisit that part of things, you know, because jobs come with job descriptions, but your life doesn't necessarily. But if you identify what are the different things to maintain and support and look after, and are they the right things that I've accepted in or not, that's the next kind of level up, you know, and exactly as you say, but there's a clue in the phrase AGM, right? That's an annual. So you don't want to be looking at your five-year plan every week, but

once a year, definitely, and also an amazing thing to do with a partner, with a band, with those people that are really important in your life too. So yeah, as people get more into the prioritization game, moving up those, what we call the horizons of focus, into what are your ongoing areas of focus that influence which projects you should be taking on, into your kind of goals and vision for the long term and how that influences what this year's projects should be.

That's a big key for prioritization, definitely.

Todd Brown (27:32)
I'm really sorry to say this and the time has absolutely flown. Marcelo, thank you so much for being a guest today. I hope what we've managed to impart in the time that we had was helpful and will help you out a bit in terms of refining what you're doing already. It sounds like you're an awful lot of the GTD boxes and things that are helping, which is great. ⁓ But look, we're all on a journey.

Robert Peake (27:37)
Totally fine by me.

Todd Brown (27:55)
And we are all sort of constantly asking questions about how can I do it faster? How can I do it with more ease? How can I do it with less stress? So yeah, again, thank you very, very much for being a part of it.

Marcelo Cervone (28:07)
Thank you so much for having me and definitely feel very inspired to carry on this journey as you said.

Todd Brown (28:13)
And thanks to all of you out there who've been with us for this Change Your Game with GTD podcast. Please do like and subscribe so that you'll hear about future episodes. And in the meantime, if there's anything in particular that you would like us to be talking about in these, then please do let us know that too. So for now, for Robert, for Marcelo, and for myself, thank you very much for being part of it and we'll see you next time.

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