Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:34: Obstacles to getting things done

00:02:18: Open loops

00:05:17: Creating follow-on actions

00:07:05: Learning from those that do

00:08:56: Prioritising: the two-minute rule

00:12:12: The weekly review

00:14:38: Impact of relevant technology

00:16:00: The recommended tools to use

00:17:56: Getting things done in teams

00:19:44: David's career advice

00:23:23: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah and this is the Squiggly Careers podcast.  This week is one of our Ask the Expert episodes and you'll hear me in conversation with David Allen.  David is the pioneer and creator of Getting Things Done, a system really designed to improve your productivity to make sure not only that you get things done, but I guess most importantly that you get the right things done. 

And I was re-familiarising myself with his work and I wasn't sure how I would feel about it, because I'm not a productivity guru, I'm quite messy, I don't like the idea of having to do lots of the same things or perhaps being constrained by systems; that kind of brings out maybe the inner rebel in me.  But the more time I've spent with David and learning about some of David's work, the more useful I found it.

It definitely is one of those episodes where I have done things differently as a result of going back and looking back at some of the tools, techniques, frameworks, figuring out what I already do well, but just spotting some gaps where actually if I spent some time sorting these things, it would make my life easier and free my brain up for the things I really want to spend time on.  So, I hope you enjoy the conversation today and find it as practical and useful as I did, and I'll be back at the end to say goodbye. David, thank you so much for joining us today on the Squiggly Careers podcast.  I'm really looking forward to our conversation together.

David Allen: Thanks for the invitation, Sarah.  Delighted to be here.

Sarah Ellis: So, I'm going to dive straight in with this idea of getting things done.  And I want to know from all of your years of work and expertise and insight in this area, why do people not get things done?  What do you see as the biggest barriers or the obstacles that get in our way; and are they universal or do they end up being very individual?  So, yeah, what gets in the way of getting things done?

David Allen: Universally, people are trying to use their head as their office and it's a crappy office.

Sarah Ellis: And I was re-reading your book over the weekend and worked out that's me.  There are 50% of the things that you recommend that I do well, and I think that means that I get some things done.  But one of the reasons, I think, where I get in my own way is I hold a lot in my head.  And you introduced me to this idea of open , and I hadn't come across that term before, that was new to me, so perhaps you could talk to our listeners a bit more about this idea of open loops?

David Allen: Yeah.  When you have an agreement with yourself and you haven't finished that, it's an open loop, it's a loop that's spinning around.  And most of what creates a whole lot of the stress for people is not so much being overwhelmed, you tend to handle overwhelm because you're overwhelmed so you need to get out of it.  The biggest issue is what I refer to as ambient anxiety. 

The ambient anxiety are those open loops, "Oh, I told myself I should.  What if I need to?  Oh, you know, I ought to", etc, and this litany of things that go on subliminally, and if you've only got them in your head.  See, the cognitive scientists have basically proven what I discovered 40 years ago, which is your head is for having ideas not for holding them.  As a matter of fact, cognitive research has proven that the number of things you can hold just in your head and be optimal with them is, in terms of remembering, reminding, managing relationships between them, etc, is four; that's it.  As soon as you have more than four things on your mind, you're going to not take a test as well, you're not going to be as present with your seven-year-old as you'd like to, you're just not going to be there as much as you could be if your head was empty or had very few things in it. So, a whole lot of what I discovered over all these years is, how do I ensure that I have nothing on my mind except what I'm doing?  That's a lovely place to operate from.

Sarah Ellis: That does sound like a lovely place to operate from.  You had a great phrase in the book, the one that really stuck out to me, where you say, "You have to use your mind to get things off your mind".

David Allen: Correct.

Sarah Ellis: And I recognise that not only do I have these open loops, and I'm sure you see this in lots of people, I think lots of my open loops feel like they're on repeat.  So, as you said, probably because I can only hold the four things, I have a thought or I'm worrying, and then it comes back to me in a week's time.

David Allen: Sarah, you're just not appropriately engaged with those things.  That's why they're still on your mind.  Appropriate engagement doesn't mean you finish them, it means you actually have applied your mind to think, "What is that?  Is that something I'm committed to move on or not?"  If it's not, it's trash, it's reference material or it's incubate on hold.  If it is something that you need to move on, then what's the next action; what would moving look like; where will it happen?  And if one action won't finish it, what's your project?  That's the thinking that has to be applied in order to get these things off your mind.  And then of course you need to organise the results of that thinking in some trusted place that you or some person you trust will see in the right time and context.  Then it's off your mind. See, there are a lot of things here that are not on your mind right now, because they're on cruise control for you.  So, anything that's on your mind means it ain't on cruise control.

Sarah Ellis: And you mentioned there this idea of next actions, and this might be something that people have come across before, maybe they do or don't know that it originated from your work.  But you actually, towards the end of your book, your most recent updated edition which I was reading, you make this statement or at least provocation around, you would love every meeting, or just really interactions where these things matter, to end by saying, "What's the next action?"  Is that one of the ideas that has really stuck with people, because it really stands out for me as a simple thing that actually could have a big impact in terms of this idea of creating clarity?

David Allen: You know, quite simply, if you want to get things done, you need to decide what done means, what's the desired outcome, and what does doing look like, and where does that happen?  And those two things, the zeros and ones of productivity, what am I trying to accomplish and how do I allocate or reallocate resources and attention to actually make it happen, I didn't make that up, I just recognised it.  I just read that that's actually how you get things done, is "done" means mum's birthday is handled; done means equity line is increased; done means I've joined the yoga class; done is whatever the project is. 

And again, I have a radical definition of project: anything you can't finish in one action step that you can finish within a year.  And most people haven't a clue what all those things are. 

And I don't tell them what they should be, I just ask them, "What is it?  What's got your attention?  What would you do next toward this thing?"  So, it's kind of a "duh" factor, but very few people have actually really applied this across the totality of their life.  I did.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I was going to say, let's talk about some of those people that have.  So, if I'm going to learn from the best, if I'm going to learn from you and from other people where you've seen, "Actually, do you know what, they really have cracked this now, this really works for them, so they are getting things done and they're doing that consistently with clarity and with clear outcomes, that comes through as something that's really important, what makes those people different?  Is it just their commitment to it?  Is it that they've practised it?  Is it like any learnable skill, they come back to it every week and they never deprioritise it?  What's the difference between me at a 50% and those brilliant people where you've worked hard with them and you can see now it's part of their day-to-day?

David Allen: The people who really stick with this and who really take to it, the strange paradox, Sarah, is that the people who are most interested in this are the people who need it the least.  They're already the most organised, productive, aspirational, already know the value of system, already know the value of organisation, they already know the value they could create because that got them where they are.  They just run out of room, they don't have more space.  They wake up with million-dollar ideas and don't know where to put them or what to do with them because they don't have any room left.  They're full up.  So, a lot of the most sophisticated people that I work with and engage with are the people that are just out of room, that know they could produce a whole lot more if they had more space. 

But you don't need more time, you just need more room.  How much time does it take to have a good idea?  Zero.  How much time does it take to be strategic?  Zero.  How much time does it take to be creative or innovative?  How much time does it take to be present?  Zero.  Those don't require time, what they do require very importantly is room.  If your head is distracted, you can't be creative, innovative, strategic or present, period.  And don't shoot the messenger.

Sarah Ellis: And that reminds me of one of the things that really struck me when I was thinking about your work, was a challenge that I suspect lots of our listeners will recognise, is everything feels important, "I've got too much to do, not enough time, I've got these endless to-do lists".  We would hear that as a reality from a lot of people.  And you talked about this idea of both context, but then managing your time and your energy, sort of recognising if you're going to do something, how much time is it going to take? 

But beyond time, I think the bit that really struck me was this point about energy, have you got the right energy to do that task, in that moment?  So, you're in the right place to do it.  Have you got enough time; is this an hour; is this a two-minute job; is this a ten-minute job?  But also, are you in the right mindset? 

Are you brilliant at the start of the day, at the end of the day?  I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about how people have used that and whether, I suppose, my articulation of reading that was, that would really help me to prioritise, because I see that that is a continual challenge from people.  Everyone knows that we should prioritise, but perhaps you end up doing the wrong things in the wrong order, and I felt like that might be a smarter way to prioritise potentially.

David Allen: Well, don't have a radical approach, you just need to trust your intuition.  See, if you're toast, you've got the flu, you've got COVID long form, or whatever, and you're just wasted, there's still some things you could do, you just can't do a lot of them because you don't have the energy to do it.  But you could clean up your computer, you could take the trash out, you could vacuum your floor probably if you had a little energy to do that.  I mean, there are a lot of things you're going to need to do, otherwise it wouldn't be on your list or on your mind to begin with.  So, the two-minute rule, people say, "Gee, David, if I only did two-minute things, I'd never get anything else done". 

I'd say, "Excuse me, are you going to do them at all?  If not, delete them.  If you are, then do them right away so you don't have them hanging around your neck".  Most of those things would take you longer to organise them and review them than to do them.  So, that's why the two-minute rule is so magical. A lot of people think, "Well, gee, the two-minute stuff is not that important".  Oh, yeah?  If you've figured out your next action on your most strategic stuff, you'd be surprised how many of those are two-minute actions, "Oh, that's just an email I need to send off to Jose.  Oh, that's just something I need to jot down some ideas about", come on.

Sarah Ellis: And you mentioned the two-minute rule there, and I said to you before, somebody actually once shared that with me in a taxi in London, where I was I was chatting to them and they said to me, "Oh, I'm going to send you this book, Sarah".  And then they said, "Do you know what, that's less than a two-minute job, so I'm going to do that now", and then they said to me, "You know, because of the two-minute rule", and this was the first time I'd come across it.  And I am definitely someone who potentially could put off two-minute tasks, because I would think, "Oh, okay, well that can wait".  But then they all stack it up and then they stay in my brain, back to that point about I probably hold too much in my mind.  And like you said, it is actually one of those simple pieces of magic where you're like, "Well, if I can make this introduction to this person, if I said I'm going to do that, I'll just do it now because I can do that in two minutes". 

And then, like you say, that's it, it's done. The other idea, which I haven't tried yet, but I read about, which I wanted to explore a bit more, was this idea of a weekly review.  So, I wondered if you could talk through, if our listeners wanted to have a go at doing a weekly review, maybe what are some of the questions they would ask themselves or what might that look like?

David Allen: You know, in the last seven days, you've probably had stuff show up in your life and work that you know you need to do something about; you just haven't taken the time to decide exactly what that is or what you need to do about it, but you've got it.  So, when are you going to catch up?  When are you going to apply that thinking process and get current?  When are you going to do that?  That won't happen by itself.  You actually have to take an hour or two at the end of every week and sit down and catch up.  The first thing to do is look at your calendar for the last two or three weeks and see what you missed, "Oh God, that reminds me. 

Oh yeah, I told them I would".  So, just doing that.  And then look at your calendar for the next three or four months, "Oh, oh my God, that trip, oh, I ought to".  So, even just calendar review, that's what I do first in my weekly review, is I just look to see if there's anything I've missed because I've been moving so fast.  And then, what's coming up.

Then I go through all my lists and say, "What have I finished I haven't had time to even mark off as done yet?"  Because a lot of times I'm moving so quickly, there's things I've been able to just complete, they're still on my list.  I go, "Okay, let me get my list current".  So, I need to delete all of those or move them somewhere. 

And then, what new things have shown up that's not on my list yet, then I need to then catch those up, and that's pretty much it.  So, it doesn't have to be a big deal.  It depends on how complex and busy your life is, as to how long it might take to catch you up.  I've had times in my life where I had to do something like a weekly review almost every day or two, because things were happening so fast, changing so much.  I read somewhere some brain research that says, "After about seven or eight days, your brain does a control-alt-delete trying to remember what you did two weeks ago".  You can't do that.  But if you could grab it within the next seven days, "Oh yeah, that's what happened in the meeting and I told them I was going to do that", etc. So, there is some, I think even neurological or physiological reason to have an every-seven-day regroup, you know, recouping in terms of your consciousness and your psyche.

Sarah Ellis: Since you first created and started sharing this system, lots of technology and digital technology has come our way, designed to potentially help us get better at getting things done.  What's your view on the myriad of apps and everything that now exists?  Has that added to the overwhelm, or have you seen lots of examples of actually using this technology in the right way can really assist with us having the right systems?

David Allen: Yes, but more the former than the latter.  Usually it's more complicated, "Oh my God, we just installed Teams, Microsoft Teams on our computer.  How do I use this?  What do we use this for?  Oh my God, I'm going to take me six months to even learn how to use this app, and what our protocols are for using it as a team".  Hard to do. 

But really, nothing much has changed since the word processor and spreadsheets.  Those changed the world.  And all the apps out there for organisation, and there are, last count, over 300 apps that have been modelled on the GTD process.  They're all just list managers.  I don't want to make a list.  Different bells and whistles on them, but that's all they are.  I just use the to-dos inside of Microsoft now, just a simple list manager, fine with me.  It's pretty sufficient.

Sarah Ellis: So, from all of the different ideas and tools that you've shared with people over the years, I'm guessing we might have talked about a few that have really stood out to people.  You must get a lot of feedback of, "I've done this, it's made a big difference", the two-minute rule, the next action.  Are there any others that we've not talked about today where you see and you hear consistently that this actually has a really big impact on people's ability to get things done?

David Allen: Well, they go together; the project list and the weekly review are real key success elements for keeping your head empty.  The project list, very few people have a project list, or it's not current or complete.  They think projects are these big things out there and they say, "No, I don't have big things".  Getting tyres on your car, researching a new cell phone thing, seeing whether your daughter should take karate lessons or not, those are all projects, given my broad definition of those. 

And very few people have tracked all those things.  Maybe next actions, but even then, what's that action supposed to complete?  If one action won't finish something, then you've got a project, you have something that you need to accomplish.  But even if you take that one action, it's still an open loop.  Very few people have that list complete.  So, there's still a lot of stuff banging around subliminally that they know they need to be aware of.  And so, they don't have that inventory.  So, getting that inventory complete and current and keeping it that way weekly, just making sure that it's still current and your inventory is exactly what it needs to be. See, Sarah, you can only feel good about what you're not doing when you know what you're not doing.  And very few people know everything they're not doing.  They've got them internally, they're spinning in there, but you can only remember one at a time and oftentimes, they show up in weird and strange ways.  Like again, your mind doesn't have one, it reminds you of something and you can't do anything about it.

Sarah Ellis: And my last question, before we do our final thought for listeners, is a lot of what you talk about, I think, is individuals taking accountability and control for their own system for getting things done.  How have you seen your work be used maybe more by teams or even by organisations?  Because I know that's one of the things that you do mention, that you've started to observe probably, I guess, as people individually start doing these things.  Obviously, you start sharing it internally and you're like, "Oh, this has been really useful".  And I would imagine that actually, the more people in an organisation that actually took this approach, not only do you achieve your own individual outcomes, but obviously you achieve team outcomes and organisational goals.  So, have you started to see more of that?

David Allen: Yes.  As a matter of fact, we have a new book launching end of May, called Team: Getting Things Done with Others.  Because there's been a big gap.  People get this, they say, "Geez, I wish people around me got this, it would make life at work so much easier", and I've never really had the bandwidth or the opportunity to really create that context.  But my co-author, my partner, GTD partner in the UK actually, Ed Lamont, about three years ago we decided, "Okay, let's write the book". 

Because he spent a lot of time with senior teams who've been trained personally in the Getting Things Done process and watching how that affected their culture.  So, as opposed to making that ad hoc, we said, "Okay, let's create what the formula is.  What are the functional things and dysfunctional things on teams?"  So, we've written the manual.  So, it will be out the end of May.

Sarah Ellis: Well, that was almost like we planned it, but we totally didn't, so that's amazing!  And we will make sure, again for our listeners all across the world, we'll put some links so that you can find both the website, but also that new book as and when it comes out. We always finish our interviews, David, by asking you for a final bit of career advice that you would share with all of our listeners.  It might be advice that you've had that served you really well, just some words of wisdom, or just something that you think if everybody listening went away and did something with, it would just help them be that little bit better in their Squiggly Career.

David Allen: The thing I wish I'd learned in my early 20s that I didn't learn really until I was in my 30s was trusting my intuition.  I didn't pay much attention to the still small voice inside of me that was always there, loves me dearly, doesn't care what I do, whether I pay attention to it or not, it's still there and available whenever I decide to access it.  You can call it whatever you want, your high self, your soul.  I just call it that intuitive, still small voice that we all have.  But I'd say whatever you need to do to relax, first of all, just implementing Getting Things Done methodology so that you've got a clearer head, will allow you to have better meditation, allow you to do better reflection, better to be able to just relax and not worry about this.  It's always a good idea to have an ideal outcome in mind, "Gee, my success for me three years from now would look like what, in terms of career, lifestyle?" or five years, or whatever kind of timeframe you want to pick out there.

By the way, the future never happens.  Have you ever noticed it's always today, always now?  But it's a handy illusion because holding a picture of the future allows your brain to say, "Oh, let me see things about that that I wouldn't have noticed before.  So you'll notice, if you actually have a real clear vision of where you'd like to be and how you'd like to be, you'll notice people across a crowded room you wouldn't have noticed before.  And all the coolest things that have happened for me in my life had been because I was willing to step out of my comfort zone and meet people I've never met before.  So, there are a lot of tricks like that, but mostly just get a clear head and relax, and then start to pay attention to what might be moving you on a more subtle level.

Sarah Ellis: That sounds like very good advice.  And as you say, maybe counterintuitive what people might think that you might be like to actually telling people to relax, get the system in place, and then you can relax, right?  Freedom in a framework.

David Allen: Well, you can relax anytime.  You can relax and then put the system into play.  But if you really do implement this, it'll take relaxation to a whole new level.

Sarah Ellis: Thank you so much.  And if any of our listeners do read the book, one of the things that I would really recommend that I did, I was reading David's most recent updated version of the book, I think I've got the previous one as well, I actually did some of the ideas and exercises as I went through, and I found that really effective.  Because I think I was basically taking some of those open loops and I was like, "Right, okay, yeah, I can't hold all of these things in my head", noting what I did that actually does work well, so it wasn't all a complete disaster because I do get some things done, and I think just then figuring out how this can work best for you.  So, it is a very practical and useful approach that I think you can implement very quickly.  I was implementing as I was reading.  I'm not sure if that's how people usually do it, but that was certainly my approach.

David Allen: No, that's great.  I've had people just pick up the book and take a weekend and implement the whole thing and change their life.  It's fascinating how they do that.

Sarah Ellis: Well, David, thank you so much for spending your time with us today.  I really appreciate it.  And it is so nice to talk to someone who, like I said at the start, I feel like I've heard your work and then implemented your work for so many years now.  So, the reality of getting to actually talk directly to you and hear your experiences and your insight has been a real privilege.  So, thank you.

David Allen: Yay!  My pleasure, Sarah, thank you.

Sarah Ellis: Hello everyone, Sarah just diving back in at the end of your podcast to say thank you for listening.  If you want to find some free resources, gettingthingsdone.com is David's website, David's company's website, and they have a whole free resources section, so lots more to learn there.  Definitely spend some time reading his book, and he's got a new book coming out, all about how teams can get things done, as well in May this year, so I'm looking forward to reading that.  But thank you again for listening.  We'll be back with you again soon and bye for now.