Ep. 312: David Allen talks with Marcus Baur

Actually, it's a tip I'd give anybody any time. And those of you familiar with the Getting Things Done methodology will know this already. The Two Minute Tool. The Two Minute Tool basically says, look, any action you've figured out that you could actually complete within two minutes, of where you are in the context you are, in the location you are, you're better off to that right then than to hang up on it, not do it, put it in the backlog or whatever. Frankly, that's the efficiency factor. It would take you less than two minutes to do it, but it would take you longer than two minutes to look at it again and review it and reflect on it later on. So this is a pure efficiency factor of the Two Minute Rule. Anything you can do in less than two minutes, if you need to do it at all then do it right then. And people say, well if I spent my whole day two minute stuff I'd never get anything else done. Well first of all, you'd be amazed as to how many strategic things have just a two minute action that are required on it. And not only that, why should these things still be around? You either delete them, or if they've shown up, then they should be finished in the moment they're there. I never have any backlog of two minute stuff because they're all done. First of all, the key thing is to decide what's the very next action on something I need to do about any of this change that's happening, any of this stuff I'm involved in right now. What would I need to do next? Once you've decided very clearly and specifically what that is if you can do it in less then two minutes, do it right then. Teflon, boom! In and out. You'll be amazed. I've had many executives tell me that was worth the price of admission. Just for that habit, if they didn't have that already. So hopefully you've built that in, or you will build that in. If it takes less then two minutes, do it.

28 Maj 20202min

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Clean Up Your Computer Now if you haven't done this already, and you have some down time, or at home time, or whatever. Then, come on guys, it's like when you get your car washed, or your motorcycle washed, or whatever, it drives better. Well very much the same thing with your computer. Come on, this is like a master tool if you're doing any kind of knowledge work at all. This is reference, this is creativity, this is communications. This is your work. And so it's really nice to make sure that this doesn't become like a black hole. It starts to get clogged up with a lot of old stuff. The more old stuff I found that accumulate in my computer the less anxious, or the less interested I am in looking back for something or going back into that area. But there's a lot of creativity that will show up if you actually do that. Like email, what's your backlog? The bigger your backlog of email, the more any kind of change or surprise is going to be bothersome, even the good stuff. So clean up email. There's a lot of tips you'll see on my YouTube channel about just dealing with email and that backlog. I met somebody with thousands of Evernote notes in there, that they never looked at. As they said it's kinda write-only, as opposed to read-only. You stick stuff in, but you never then get back to it. So it's very important that your reference material, and all that stuff, as best you can, is just brought current. So maybe there's stuff you need to move into the cloud, stuff you need to put into Dropbox. Things you need to reorganize, or reframe, or refresh, or whatever. But a real good idea to just look around, and if you've got some down time, one of the best kind of dummy things to do, is clean up. Clean up your digital world. It will help a ton.

7 Maj 20202min

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Areas of Focus, Responsibility and Interests Revisit or Create an Overview of Your Areas of Focus, Responsibility and Interests It's a different horizon of your commitments. You've got actions you need to take, and you've got projects you need to finish. But the reason you have actions, and projects is because they respond to or they relate to areas of focus and interests. For instance, you may have a project about your kids, well that's because obviously kids and family will be an area of focus. You may have a project about your health, in which case heath and your physical energy is an area of interest or focus. So it's a next level of abstraction, a useful place to visit, especially when things are changing a lot. Where you might need to revisit these different areas and say, how's everything doing? This is like being your own CEO, your own executive, essentially, for your life. Looking across all of your roles, and responsibilities, and accountabilities. If you haven't done this lately, not a bad idea just to brainstorm it. You could just do a mind map. Spiritual Life - Relationships - Fun - My Health - Family It's a way to overview, essentially, sort of the whole context, so that there's a part of you that feels like you're more grounded in space and time, from the larger gestalt. Very helpful thing to do, we've done that over the years, for many thousands of people, who've gone through that exercise. And it's extremely valuable. And it might surprise you, what you'll come up with. If you really identify those things accurately and appropriately and say How am I doing about that? Some of those may be on cruise control, hey that's all fine. Oh, that reminds me, I need to, I better take a look at that, better look at it from that perspective. So getting grounded essentially from that little longer or larger horizon. Very valuable thing to do, especially when things are changing fast. So that some part of you doesn't feel that you're losing your footing, in terms of the whole game.

7 Maj 20202min

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Get Your Cockpit Under Control What I mean by that is, your workspace. Where when you sit down, you are ready to fly, you're ready to go. You don't have to rearrange anything in order to be able to do your best work. There's mine, it's been quite functional for several years, something like this. And I don't mean particularly anal or compulsive about this. You just want to not have to rearrange things, look for things, when you're ready to just go to work. And so sit down and be able to do that. Another important aspect of that is I would highly recommend you do not share that space with anybody else. You don't want them rearranging it for themselves and then you have to come back and rearrange it in order to get work done. You want to lower the barrier of entry to engage. You've got a bright idea, you're in the kitchen, you've suddenly thought about something that you need to send an email about or want to surf the web about, or whatever. You need to be able to run right in, sit down, and hit the controls, right there. So you know, simple stuff, just in basket, computer, tools, scissors, pens and so forth. Certainly a writing instrument, a capture tool, to be able to capture stuff right away. As well as right at hand files and folders, etc. Assess, if you haven't done it lately, you might want to look around. Is your workspace set up so that right at any time, you can go to work? And work, meaning anything you might want to do. Based upon being in your cockpit, central control center. And be able to then, navigate, communicate, coordinate, things from there. Get Your Cockpit Under Control If it's not already, or look at how you might want to enhance it.

7 Maj 20202min

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen One Bad Apple Can Spoil the Barrel So this is a cautionary tale. There are times when one situation, project, or circumstance that's particularly important to you, you're not appropriately engaged with yet can color the whole rest of your life, and make it all feel grey, and solemn, and burdensome. Where as it's really just one situation that you need to get ahold of. You know, our Getting Things Done methodology is a lot about creating appropriate engagement with the things that you're committed to do. Are you appropriately engaged with this project? Or with this relationship? Or with your health, etc. And appropriate engagement just means you've identified what it is, what outcome you're after, the action step you need to take to move it forward. and have a trusted system to hold all that. But any one thing, if you're not doing that yet, if you have not yet gotten to that place of appropriate engagement. Can, as I said, discolor the whole rest of your life, emotionally and everything else. It can then make the whole game feel overwhelming Whereas it's only coming from only one source, or one thing that you need to sort of tackle, and to grapple with. And that is, identify what that thing is, that seems to be coloring everything and get appropriately engaged with it. I'm not saying this is easy, folks come on. If life were easy, you'd never grow or challenge, or expand, or express yourself. It's really about how do I get in the driver's seat about that? So it doesn't color my life and sort of affect all the other things I could be doing. So in a way you need to isolate it, identify it, and get appropriately engaged with it.

7 Maj 20202min

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Renegotiate Your Commitments See a lot of what the Getting Things Done methodology is about has been about inventorying what your commitments are. What have you agreed with yourself you need, would, could, should, ought to be doing, handling or whatever. And so managing those commitments is a whole lot of what the methodology is about to keep yourself clear, so that you don't feel like you're constantly having to do all of those. There's an inherent renegotiation process that needs to happen. Once you've externalized these commitments out of your head You write it down, I need dog food, I need to hire a vice president, I need to figure out where to send my kid to school next year, etc. And those commitments, as you may know, that's very important to make sure get that inventory nice and clear, about what those are. But now in turbulent times, that becomes extra important, to make sure you're looking forward at all those commitments you've got. All those things on your lists. All those appointments that you thought you had. All those relationships that you thought you needed to do something about. How many of those need to be renegotiated right now? And if they're not renegotiated, they will keep spinning on some subliminal level. That's going to undermine your energy, it's going to take wind out of your sails. So it's a real good idea to make sure that you sit down, maybe in a week to review. As we coach in Getting Things Done, at least once a week, step back, take a look across the whole broad spectrum, of your life and work, look at all the commitments you've got, the meetings you've got, the projects you've committed to, and say wait a minute, that goes on someday maybe, or that has to wait until after this situation has been cleared up and changed, or whatever. So, a real good idea to make sure you bring yourself current, bring up the rear guard, with those commitments, and sometimes they're pretty subtle.

7 Maj 20202min

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen Catch Up Your Communications with People Another nice thing to do especially in terms of catching up, it's often times subtle. And depending on your personality style about how much you engage with other people. Who do you owe a thank you to? Who do you owe a communication with to update them? All the best things in my life have actually come from relationships that I've had. Surprising serendipitous stuff. But as a bit of an introvert, I actually am. I often times have to work at making sure that I maintain my communications externally, and that I nurture them and take advantage of that. I highly recommend you think about, what are just some emails to shoot off, simple little things, or come on, get some note cards and write a hand written note. Those things are invaluable, as you probably know. That's another little thing to do, you might want to consider as a project maybe, is you catch up on all of those communications, with family, with friends with network, professional associates, etc. Especially these days when everybody is locked in and not available there. Those kinds of things could have tremendous value. Just in terms of keeping the network warm, and not feeling so mechanical and that we're all so locked down, and out of touch with each other.

6 Maj 20201min

Two-minute Tips for Turbulent Times with David Allen What's Really Got Your Attention? Many of my tips are about sort of catching up, and simple things to do kind of keep your energy up, clean things up, catch up. This one is a big one. What circumstance, situation that you're in right now, if that were put onto cruise control, or if you were appropriately engaged with that would make the biggest difference? Would give you the most physic space essentially. Would relieve the most pressure on you. Sometimes that's the thing you need to grapple with. Interestingly, what you think may have your most attention...Once you recognize what has your attention, you may then discover what really has your attention. It can go to some pretty subtle and sublime and deep levels, if you allow it to. Nothing wrong with that, nothing bad about that, as a matter of fact, it's a very powerful thing to do, and to think about. So I highly recommend that you take a little bit of time and say "What most has your attention?" And then "What do you need to do to appropriately engage with that?" So it gets off your mind, gets onto cruise control, gets onto wherever it needs to be. And as you know, if you're a Getting Things Done practitioner, it's all about what's the outcome you're after, and what's the action step you need to take, to move forward on that. Powerful stuff, I have to hold myself to this regularly as well. Even after all these years of working with the materials, I'm a fellow student. What most has your attention? Define what that is, define what you need to do about that, to put that onto cruise control. That could give you the most freedom, the most space of anything else you might be able to do.

6 Maj 20202min