BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 117: Maximizing Productivity to Get Things Done with David Allen

Episode Date: April 9, 2015

Real estate entrepreneurs are busy people… but this doesn’t have to mean getting overwhelmed! In this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast, we sit down with world-famous productivity author David Allen to learn tips and tricks for getting more things done in your life. You’ll learn how to accomplish more things, in less time, with less stress using the Getting Things Done (GTD) system. This show will inspire and encourage you to do even more in your business. Whether you’re just starting out as an entrepreneur, or you just want to run your business more effectively and seamlessly, you’ll definitely get something valuable out of this episode! In This Episode We Cover: David Allen’s backstory The two elements of self management you should know What hats you should learn to wear Areas in life you need to make sure you’re keeping an eye on How to keep yourself oriented in the right direction What exactly an “external brain” is and how to build it What you need to know about Getting Things Done Important notes on research and development The 5 steps of the GTD system The big question: What is the next actionable step? The ins and outs of the 2-minute rule The importance of making a mess And SO much more! Books Mentioned in this Show Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (revised edition) by David Allen The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload by Daniel J. Levitin BrainChains by Dr Theo Compernolle Tweetable Topics: “You need to make sure you have the map, but you’ve got to have a good map with all the right data on it.” (Tweet This!) “It’s terrible to go play soccer without a goal.” (Tweet This!) “If you can take the action step in two minutes or less, do it right then.” (Tweet This!) “You’re going to learn more doing it than reading a book.” (Tweet This!) “The core key in getting in control and focused is the weekly review.” (Tweet This!) “If you don’t spend any time on reviewing, you will just go fumble around and be driven by the latest and loudest.” (Tweet This!) “You’re most creative when you have a space to make a mess.” (Tweet This!) “Your head is for having ideas, not for holding them.” (Tweet This!) Connect with David David’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast, show 117. The way you get things done is define what done means and what doing looks like and where it happens. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everybody? This is Josh Dorkin.

Host to the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Brandon Turner. What's up, B? Hey, what's up, Jay? How you doing? Oh, man, I'm good. I'm good. It's a beautiful snowy winter day here in Denver, and we've got a really kind of a cool and unique show planned today. We do, yeah. Today is something totally different than people have ever heard before here on the show.

We're actually talking to somebody who is not a real estate investor. But he's got some... Where are they in the real estate business? Period. Yeah, period. But he is also one of the, I guess, most successful business authors in American history, at least. Yeah. The guy's amazing.

He's cool. He's funny. He's smart. Did I say he's smart? He's really smart. I mean, like talking about some kind of cognitive science and all sorts of stuff that's fascinating. But we're going to get into that in a second. Before we do, we've got today's quick tip.

All right, this week's quick tip is, stay tuned. The new podcast from Bigger Pockets is coming very soon, hopefully next week or two. So we talked about it a few weeks ago, and it is still coming. I'm just putting the final touches on it. So stay tuned for that. I think you're going to like it. All right, guys. So listen, today's guest is David Allen.

He's the author of Getting Things Done. This book is phenomenal. The GTD, Getting Things Done, System is one that really can help. you manage your life, manage your business, manage pretty much anything and everything in your existence. And it's phenomenal. We're honored to have David as a guest. Unfortunately, the show is not as long as we'd like it to be. So, you know, listen up. It's going to be quick, but there's going to be a whole lot of stuff. And we definitely encourage you to get out there and check out his book afterwards. What I'm going to pass it off to Brandon here. Yeah, well, one of the things I did not get to ask him in the show

when I really wanted to, but we just, we were short on time, but was why, why should somebody get into getting things done? And so instead of asking him, I just actually, let me ask, let me answer, let me ask the question. I mean, Brent, yeah, I mean, you're, you're somebody who uses getting things done. You know, how does it change your life? How is it affecting you? All right. So to answer this question, I'm going to read straight out of getting things done, the first paragraph of the book. And here's what it says, welcome to a gold mine of insights into strategies for how to have more energy, be more relaxed, and get a lot more accomplished with much less effort.

If you're like me, you like getting things done and doing them well, and yet you also want to savor life in ways that seem increasingly elusive, if not downright, impossible if you're working too hard. This doesn't have to be an either-or proposition. It is possible to be effectively doing while you are delightfully being in your ordinary work-or-day world. I love that. That's why getting things done.

Get more done, be more happy, less stress, more productive, all those awesome things because of getting things done. And that definitely has happened in my life and they'll have last few years since I read GDD originally. Yeah, great stuff. You guys are going to love this. Yeah. And this has been recommended by a bunch of our guests on the podcast. And really, this is a skill that it doesn't matter who you are, what you do, whether you're an investor, an agent, or even if you're not even in the business or in, you know, in any business. You know, this, the system can really, really help you manage your life. So. And get things done. And get it done.

Yeah, yeah. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling vendors, tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties, and maybe a few HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off, and suddenly your day is all clean up, no progress.

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income upwards. Here's the twist. You can go on a trip and actually earn money. Airbnb makes that possible with the co-host network. If you're away for a while or have a secondary property, you can hire a vetted local co-host with real hosting experience to handle it all. A co-host can handle guest communications. It can manage reservations and keep things running smoothly so you don't have to check your phone between beach days. That means less stress and more time enjoying your trip. You can relax, knowing guests are taken care of and your place is in good hands. You travel, your house works. Everyone wins. If you're ready to host but could use some help, find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. Have you ever lost a DSCR deal because the financing just took too long?

Red flags popped up late. The lender needed to be a lot. The lender needed. more time. The deal fell apart. Well, our friends at Dominion Financial just launched a program to help prevent that. With their new express rental loan, you can close in 10 days or less. And they still offer their price beat guarantee so you can get great pricing and a timeline you can count on. Fast, simple, reliable. That's Dominion Financial. Check them out at biggerpockets.com slash dominion. That's biggerpockets.com slash dominion. Well, with that, why don't we bring on our honored and distinguished guest, Mr. David Allen. So David, welcome to the show. It's good to have you here. Yeah, delighted to be here, guys. Yeah. Great, great. So David Allen, you wrote the getting things done,

the book getting things done, which was one of the best business books I've ever read. I've talked about it numerous times. We've actually had numerous people on the show recommend the book over and over and over. And this thing came out, what, 14, 15 years ago, something like that? Oh, one, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it originally was published a while ago, but it has this, like, stain power that, you know, I want to get into today. But maybe before we do, you know, we can kind of ask you. I mean, what's your story? Where are you from?

How did you get to where you are today? Well, I grew up in Louisiana. I went to school in Florida, got into grad school in Berkeley. So I was in Berkeley, 68. Good time. Heady time to be there. Figured that ultimately, instead of

studying people who were enlightened, I wanted my own. So I hopped off and went and explored God truth in the universe for lots of years doing all kinds of things. And, you know, got into the martial arts, wound up helping a lot of friends of mine start businesses. They had the vision. I was a good number two guy.

I just kind of, you know, I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up. So I walked in and sort of helped them streamline and become more effective about what they were doing, discovering some common denominators among the sort of entrepreneurs and small business owners that could be improved. And then that one day I just hung out my own shingle because I realized they actually paid people to do stuff like that. They call them consultants, so now I are one. In 1981, I said, okay, cross my fingers and said, well, how far from bankruptcy can I be?

You work for yourself, that's kind of, that's always the equation. And never been bankrupt, so it's been a good ride since then. But, of course, I got very hungry to find out what are some great models? Because I was just sort of just showing up and winging it. I said, there's got to be some models to explore. I've always loved models. You know, hey, look, not have to, without having to transform yourself as a human being, what if I operate this way, what if I think this way, do I produce a different result?

And long story short, discovered some really powerful techniques for myself first, because I needed them. I always say you teach what you need to learn the most. So I was the most out of control, unfocused guy you ever met. So I needed all the help I could get when I wanted to sort of improve my financial and professional circumstances. So I looked for those kinds of things. and had some great mentors and began to cobble together what then ultimately 25 years later became GTT or getting things done. I didn't start 25 years later. It was really 25 years of putting one foot in front of the other and utilizing various different components of what was to then become a whole system for people to utilize.

And it always worked without fail. Anybody who sat down and got stuff out of their head decided sooner the later what it meant, organize the results into effective, you know, categories, step back and looked at the whole game, always had a greater sense of control and focus. And those are the two elements of self-management. I need to just have things under controls or have stability and traction. And I need to be pointed in the right direction.

You know, so it wasn't in a way, it wasn't rocket science in a way, but most people aren't born actually doing those behaviors. You know, those are actually learned behaviors that you actually have to invest cognitive of horsepower to actually do it. They're not a natural or an automatic thing that your brain actually does. So you have to train yourself to do it. So I just discovered what that was. I didn't wake up one morning with the whole model.

It was a long string of epiphanets. And then I cobbled together. And then at a certain point, I realized it took me 25 years to figure out that I'd figured out something unique. Nobody else had done it. And that it was totally bulletproof. So I wrote them manual. Nice.

That's great. That's great. And you even came up with your own word, epiphanets. Yeah, well, it's kind of what it is. They're little tiny ahas. Yeah, yeah. I like it. That's great.

Yeah, I mean, nothing brilliant happens overnight, at least I believe in that. I mean, you know, things like what you've created are the product of your experiences, right? I mean, you're not going to just suddenly wake up and be a genius. You know, there's something, something that kind of comes together and creates, you know, these experiences that lead to the system. And it's really cool to hear, I mean, you've bounced around. I mean, I was looking at your bio and, I mean, the jobs you've held, you know, moped salesman, a magician, fascinating. Yeah, that was age five.

That was the first career. Look, I was Mr. Lazy. I was always fascinated by how do you make, how can you utilize the power of something that's invisible you can't see to actually make your visible stuff work? So that's why I was attracted to find out. God, if I could just think about something and have it moved, that would be really cool.

I've never sort of given up that game. It's just, you know, I got more or better sophisticated ways to, you know, to sort of carry that, you know, ride that Trojan horse in. That's funny. I actually, I did a magic show for my whole family back when I was probably five or six years old and made a table at a cardboard, you know, I had little holes in it. And that was, I was pretty cool. All right, well, moving on.

We, you know, so a lot of our audience are people who are real estate investors or entrepreneurs that are trying to build a real estate business, whether that's flipping, whether they want to be a landlord, want to buy rental property, whatever. But as such, those people are, you know, working two jobs at once,

so to speak, right? They have their day job where they're, you know, stockbrokers, they're teachers, doctors,

lawyers, whatever. And they're trying to start these side businesses. So, you know, before we actually get into the specifics of what getting things done actually is,

I mean, maybe, can you talk to, like, do you have any good advice for people that are in that kind of state, like where they're trying to do so many,

wear so many different hats at one time? define all the hats first. You need to make sure you know the templates, essentially, and I use that as a plural, of all the different areas of focus and accountability that you need to manage or maintain at some level. Personally, for instance, your finances, your health, your relationships, your fun, your creativity, your own career development. You know, those are things you don't finish.

Those are things that tend to be the areas that you need to make sure you're watching that things stay healthy and in balance in terms of the enterprise. And then the same is true with both your current work. You better define what those hats are, because if you're going to leave it, you better leave it in a good shape. So you better know what are you held accountable to be doing well. And then for your own business, you better define what those hats are. What do you need to make sure you do well so that that enterprise

starts to get off in a healthy balanced way? You know, staff development, finances, admin, or whatever. And you're going to wear all those hats probably to begin with, It's a good idea to define what they are. Because when you're wearing your finance hat, that's very different than your party PR hat. You have to shift gears very fast. So orientation tools and entrepreneurs and small entrepreneurs and startups, they need that as much as everybody needs it. But those are usually the biggest pain points when you're in a transition and when you're trying to do startup stuff,

you need to be able to keep your orientation map. It's kind of like you need to start out in a boat you haven't been in before. You better go down and grab all the maps down in the map room and get them up there and have the ones that you need to see when you need to see them and you hit something, you better go pull the right map out and go, what am I just hit? And where do I need to be? So keeping yourself oriented, that's going to be the biggest challenge. Hey, David, so, you know, to me it seems like, you know, we talk to a lot of these real estate

investors, you know, on our show, we see them on our website. And one of the things that I seem to notice with them, and I think you probably can say, you know, whether or not this happens across the board with everybody, in most businesses, but it seems like people don't put everything down, right? And that's kind of the basis of what you're talking about is, you know, get your life in order by putting your life on paper, essentially. You know, put it down, plan it, map it, you know, don't keep anything in your brain. Don't run your business and your financial life and your other lives in your head. Run them on a sheet of paper and make sure that you could kind of have something that you could

go back to and refer to and glance that. And that'll keep you kind of, as you said, are orientated. Yeah, well, the cognitive scientist now in the last 20 years have basically validated this whole methodology. You call it the external brain. It's like putting your keys in the same place so your brain doesn't have to keep track of where your keys are. That's building an external brain. It's like letting life be able to remind you at the right time as opposed to your head. Your head is a crappy office. It is.

You'll be driven by latest and loudest if it's in your head. And I've never seen an exception to that. Interesting. Interesting. Well, you know, one of the things that stood out to me, when I read getting things done originally back probably six years ago now or whatever, the kind of like best, I don't know, in my mind's summary of what I learned was you mentioned in that book. I think it was somewhere in there. And I'm going to do a terrible job of paraphrasing this. But you said something like, you know, trying to make your brain remember to get milk when you're actually at the store in front of the milk. I mean, that's something that just eats up so much of that brain power continually, right? Like, and so by by taking that part out and by letting that external brain. brain be able to manage that part for you. I mean, that's, like, when I read that, I'm like, that makes so much sense. Like, this is why I'm so stressed. This is why I get so, I don't know, like I always to joke like my mind was like a small glass of water, right? And you put a little bit of something in there and something else will come out because like I can only take so much.

You know, so is that, is that kind of the essential of GTD for you or how maybe you can just summarize what is getting things done for people? And what is it? No, you, you, you, you, you said it really well. I mean, there, there are more subtle and suburb. line components of it as well. I mean, the way you get things done is define what done means and what doing looks like and where it happens. And those, by the way, that's a mouthful. What is done mean, especially if you're trying to get into the real estate business, what does done mean? Yeah. What is that new property? Done means what? You get to mark this off as done when what's true. When the apartment house is on cruise control, when will you know that?

Right. If you're trying to sell a house, when is this done? When you, truly sell it or when you get to the point that you either decide to sell it or keep it. These are subtle things. But again, keeping track of what your work is can be more subtle than it might seem obvious. But you're right. It truly is those kinds of things. You just need to build an external brain. But what's in that brain in terms of the content, that's another story.

You need to make sure you have the map, but you better have a good map with all the right data on it. Like a project list, a list of all of those more than one-step things that you're committed to finish or complete within the next year. Very few people have that map, and it's the most important one to have. If you're going to keep some sort of operational control in your life. So it easily said, call, yeah, keep this stuff out of your head, but it's a lifelong lifestyle process in terms of how do you manage the flow of life's work, which is really what GTT is about,

building an ecosystem, if you will, that manages, no matter what happens. and no matter what surprise or change happens, you have an ankle tether on your surfboard. How do you define that? So I'm looking at, you know, buying, you know, some 16-unit apartment building, and how would I go ahead as a listener, right, and define, you know what, what is done on that project going to be for me?

Is it, you know, is it like you said, is it getting renters and having it a manager and having it be stable? Is it the end-all, be-all 30 years later? Is that done when I've, you know, gotten rid of it? do I need to really set my goals and say, hey, this is what completion means on any of these things, and these are the alternatives to completion and kind of keep coming back to those alternatives until something is truly, truly done? Well, a very simple distinction that helps a lot is, are you sure that you're going to sell it?

Are you sure that you're going to set it up? So you always need to give yourself a gain you can win. And if you're not sure, because there's still more data, there's still more things to explore, there's still more possibilities that may show up, that may make it not something that happens, then I just have a shorthand call R&D, research and development. That's my shorthand for look into. So I'm looking into the possibility of this relationship. And then once I get to some place called, I've got closure on this call, there's no way on God's Green Earth,

this is worth the money. I quit. I get to mark that off as a successfully. done project because I didn't make the project, you know, to buy it, the project was to get to the point to make a go or no go decision. And once I did that, then that's the, and that, but see, a lot of people don't make that subtle distinction. You don't, you won't call it a project until you actually say, it's going to happen. Like, I got all kinds of projects that I don't know they're going to happen or not, but I still need to define for myself,

what am I, what am I committed to finish or complete or get to as an end game. So it's, you know, it's terrible to go play soccer without a goal. I know people can just go kick the ball around, but it's no fun, really, unless you've got to see a goal down there. And all you need is a goal and the next play. So project and next action. Makes sense. That's really all the game is about.

But I say all the game is about. Almost nobody makes those decisions when things first show up in their world. They make it when things first blow up in their world. So most people are waiting to make those kinds of distinctions when the heat or pressure forces you to. And then that decision comes from the limbic or reptilian part of your brain instead of the executive part. And so you ain't going to be that smart if you don't make these decisions on the front. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Well, let's get into the five steps of the GTD system. I believe the first is capture. Is that correct? Yeah, you need to identify what's not on cruise control. In other words, what's got my attention right now? Oh, bank credit line. Oh, we're going to buy a dog or we're looking into a dog. for the kids. You know, you got to, whatever's not on cruise control that you need to capture,

collect, or identify. So that's the first step is just get the stuff, you know, grab it from out of your head and around your environment and, you know, get a dump list, basically. So you create, do a mind sweep as we call it. Get your head empty to begin with. And you're talking about physically, like take out a piece of paper, do that, or is it something more technological, you know, in nature? No, any of that. Well, just look around, say there's, there's, you know, what, whatever's on your desk or around your environment. If you guys look around where you are right now,

what doesn't belong there permanently? Anything that's not supplies or reference material of decoration or equipment. Yeah. That means it's in process, you know, and so identifying what's in process, you know. So, Joshua, if it's just you, it's called fulfilled destiny as human spirit on planet.

You got a project. You got something incomplete there, understood. So that's actually, you know, when we coach people, desk side with this stuff. That's the first thing we do is look around your environment. What does that tell us that's not on cruise control? Something's in process. Something's incomplete. Something's in motion. So pieces of paper would represent that, you know, flashlights with dead batteries in them, post it stuck on your screens, you know, all that. And there's nothing wrong with that. Those are just those are just placeholders for stuff

that you need to decide or do something about, right? So we just gather all the physical triggers for that, the icons for that to begin with. And then what else is in your head that's not in the pile? Because we put all that stuff back in your end basket. First of all, we get you an in basket. It's amazing how many people don't have one. And actually, you all have an in basket. If you don't have a

physical one, then your life is your end basket. So you just need to make it smaller. When I first did GDD getting things done, I made that list like that brain dump. And I spent a good like two hours on it probably. And I think I had like 300 things written down on that I mean, it was multiple pages of just stuff that was in here.

And like, I can't tell you the sense of relief when it's all on paper. Because all of a sudden it wasn't like, I mean, it wasn't organized yet. We haven't even gotten to that. But it was just like getting it out of my head and knowing that like I was working on that. It was both overwhelming and it was just amazing. It creates a combination of grief and relief. Yeah. Ctharsis.

Yeah. Well, what you're looking at is a lot of agreements with yourself unkept. And that's what pisses you often creates frustration and stress is not not keeping agreement. with yourself. But then the reason you get relief right away is you get you get it out of your head and you go, hmm, that's okay. I'm not doing that. You just renegotiated that agreement. Now it's no longer a broken agreement. But in your head, your head has no sense of past or future. That's why it thinks you should have been doing all those all the time until you got it out of your head. Just a strange way that part of us works. So it's actually just a mechanical, it's just a mechanical process.

But you're right. What you can't do is sit there and try to organize or prioritize it to begin with. You won't have the freedom to get it all out. And by the way, that's a brand of that's a typical amount. Usually it takes one to six hours to get that inventory. And 300, that's on the smaller side. Wow. Wow. You're a small man, Brennan.

I'm a giant man. I just have a small brain. Different. All right. Well, you probably didn't open every drawer, every closet. It didn't have a follow of those things as well. He's got some sealed closets. I'm working on that.

Well, what's next thing is clarify, yeah? Yeah, well, now you got all that stuff out of your head. If I were to coach you desk side, you would have written not one list. You would have written each one of those items on a separate piece of paper. And so they'd all be separate particles now sitting in your in tray, because then we're going to deal with them one at a time. And it comes out and does not go back into the entry, and we're going to get your in tray empty.

Because now we're going to put that process through the drill of each one of those items you need to now start to clarify and make some executive decisions about it. Because if you wrote down mom or bank or doctor, that's usually what a to-do list looks like. It's like, Mom, you probably had one. Good historical day. Why'd you write it down? Oh, it's their birthday coming.

What are you going to do? I don't know what I mean. That's right. Most people feel crappy about their list because they're still being reminded of decisions and thinking that have not been finished yet about what you need to do. So that's why you need to move this to the next stage.

Otherwise, you just become a compulsive list maker and the stuff still doesn't get out of your head. Yeah. So you've got to identify the stuff and then put it into the process and grind it through. Is this when the next actionable step comes into play? Correct. First thing is, is it an actionable item?

Yes or no? And if not, you get a lot of non-actual stuff coming into your email and otherwise, then you toss it, tickle it, or file it for reference. So those are what you do with those. But the actionable stuff, that's where the key question is, okay, what's the very next action on this? And if that one action won't finish whatever this is about, what's the project? So those become the really critical zeros and one.

essentially of the thought process is outcome and action. Okay, what's the outcome that you're committed to? If more than one step is needed and that's, oh, I need to, you know, repair this watch. Great, you got a project. What's the next step? Oh, God, I guess I just got to take it to the jeweler. Great. You got an errand.

Right. And that's how, that's about how long it takes once you get good at this to make these decisions, but those decisions don't show up by themselves. Yeah. You know, when I read the book, like, if I had to pick one of the most influential parts of getting things done, I mean, hands down it was. was the idea of the next action step. I don't know why nobody explained to me that growing up, why that was not like I think taught in high school. But when that like got in my brain and I

understood it, like my world like exploded because everything I do now. I mean, Josh can testify to this, right? Like I say that all the time. Like, okay, what's the next? He's very annoying. What is the next? I know. It's a pain in the pot. I know it is. Right. Yeah, because otherwise it's like, okay, well, what's your goal in life? Right. Like I want to flip a house. Right. Like, people say, I want to flip a house. Okay, well, what is the next actionable step to do that? Well, I'm going to flip a house. No, that is not an actionable next step. What's the next actionable step?

It might be picking up a book to go read it. It might be getting in your car, maybe drive around. I mean, maybe you could get more specific than that. It might be to go find your keys so you can get in your car to go drive around. I don't know, like, how detailed you think people should get. But yeah, that concept is, I mean, one of the most influential things in my life. So I'll publicly say thank you for that. Oh, good.

Me too. Hey, and I didn't make that up. I was trained by a mentor of mine who taught me that, who had uncovered that technique, working with executives that were so frustrating. that they get hung up on stuff. And he finally got frustrated with them. They wouldn't decide about something. He just started picking stuff up and saying,

what's the very next action on this? And he watched magic happen. Yep. So he built that into a whole process, part of a process of organizational change. But when I work with Dean, and I credit him in the book, you know, that was such a powerful thing to learn.

I wasn't, we're not born doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. If you own a large or complex rental property, congrats. And I'm also, sorry. One day you're building a portfolio. The next, you're reconciling six accounts,

five states, four LLCs, three partners, two property managers, and running your portfolio starts to feel like running a median size accounting firm. And if you got into this to get your time back, that's not ideal. That's when you need Stessa Pro. Stessa Pro is built for investors who've outgrown other tools. One dashboard, every property, every entity, real-time performance, clean reporting, tax-ready documents in a click. If your portfolio has grown up, it's time your tools did so too. Go to stessa.com slash mkTG slash bigger pockets to try Stessa Pro and get six months free. Did you know your house gets bored when you leave?

I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action, the footsteps, the late-night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there. in the dark thinking, I could be contributing right now. Your side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be networking. You're on vacation, spending money like it's a sport, while your staircase at home is fully capable of sending your income upwards.

Here's the twist. You can go on a trip and actually earn money. Airbnb makes that possible with the co-host network. If you're away for a while or have a secondary property, you can hire a vetted local co-host with real hosting experience to handle it all. A co-host can handle guest communications. It can manage reservations and keep things running smoothly

so you don't have to check your phone between beach days. That means less stress and more time enjoying your trip. You can relax, knowing guests are taken care of, and your place is in good hands. You travel, your house works. Everyone wins. If you're ready to host but could use some help, find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host.

Wouldn't it be great if your house plans paid rent while you were out of town? I mean, they've got the whole place to themselves, lots of sunlight, zero responsibilities. But no, they just sit there waiting for someone to spray them with some cool mist like a bunch of leafy loafers. But guess what? Your home actually could be earning you money while you're not there. Airbnb has a great feature called the co-host network, which makes hosting your home so easy. If you live far from your property or are away for extended periods, you can hire a local co-host to take care of the hosting for you. These co-hosts are vetted locals who already have experience hosting on Airbnb. A co-host can handle all the details.

like messaging guests, creating your host space, and managing reservations. So everything runs smoothly. It's a practical way to earn a little extra money, maybe even some cash toward your next trip. Plus, you get to share your place with someone traveling to your area while you're off making memories somewhere else. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. Tax season reminder for all the real estate investors listening.

If you own rental properties, short-term rentals, commercial buildings, basically anything that's not your primary residence, you need. need to know about cost segregation. It's an IRS compliance strategy that lets you accelerate depreciation on your properties, which means you're paying less in taxes this year and keeping more cash in your pocket for your next deal. Cost segregation guys is the go-to firm, having done over 12,000 of these studies with 500 million in total depreciation identified. Head to Costsegregationguise.com slash BP to get a free proposal and see your potential tax savings. Makes sense. Well, so from there, we've got the next actionable step.

You know, we've got this big, fat list of all these things, and we've got the next actionable step. But we've got all this other junk, too, right? So now what do we need to do? Well, once you make the decision about what stuff means, you just park it where those things go. If it's reference, you put it where reference is. If it's trash, you trash it. If it's stuff that I can't decide yet, I'll decide in two weeks. You need to park it someplace. Then in two weeks, you'll see it. Now, if it's an action step, you know, first of all, if you can take the action step in two, minutes or less, do it right then instead of organize it. That's the two minute rule. I love that.

That's worth its weight and goal. If people listen to this, that's the only thing you get out of this. If you haven't built that habit already, it's worth listen to me for 10 hours. No, come on. It'll give an extra six months to your life. If you do the two minute rule. Now, if it takes longer than two minutes to do it, then you'd need to ask yourself,

can I give this to somebody else to do? And that's the delegate step. If you can, ideally do it right then. And then what you did that need to organize is you know, is something on a list called waiting for. What am I waiting on to come back now for something I've delegated? And you'll need to then organize that reminder and trigger. But if it's something that takes longer than two minutes and you have to do the action,

that's what you then need to organize into some reminder of lists of actions you need to take. Phone calls you need to make, errands you need to run, stuff to talk to your life partner about, stuff to talk to your banker about, things you need to buy at the hardware store, stuff you need to do at your computer. And that's then, you know, most people have over 150 of those next actions. So getting those organized in some coherent place so that you see them when you need to see them. And back to your point, Joshua, you know, so I don't have to think of the milk, you know, when I'm there with milk is. Oh, Brandon, sorry, yeah, one of you guys, you need to park this stuff out there.

So that's then becomes a lot of the major content of your external brain. And then those become, fine, you know, for the most part, just lists. But you could keep stuff in a folder. You could keep stuff in a digital list. you can keep it in a paper-based plan or any of that works, as long as you've got all the right content in there, as well as a list of all the projects that are driving many of those actions. So that's the organized piece,

is just parking these things where they belong. I mean, if it's not rocket science, it's like, duh. I don't want to have to keep rethinking what to do on it. I've decided that. I just need to pick up the list and then use that as an orientation map about what to do. That's organized things. I think Brandon was the one who brought this to me at some point. the two minute rule, he took it and he's like, Josh, you know what, we should have, I'm going to start applying it to food. And we talked about this. This was a couple of years ago. And ever since he told me about that, I started applying it. And it's amazing. Because you go to a restaurant, you sit there. You got a menu of all these items and you literally sit and perseverate about it. And like, what am I going to do? What am I? And you could look at a menu for 20 minutes. Pick something, decide and do it. I mean, that two minute thing is so powerful. That's so power. And you apply it to every other part of your life. And it's amazing.

Well, actually, one of the reasons it's so amazing is it actually starts to implicitly train you to think what's the next action. So it actually starts to put you in the driver's seat and give you training in the executive thinking function. So there's more to it. There's more to it than meets the eye. I love it. All right. Well, we covered capture, clarify, and organize. Fourth, we got, I think, reflect.

Is that right? Yeah. Well, even if you got everything out of your head, decided all the stuff you need to do about it, park it in the right places. If you don't look at it, it all crawled back up in your head anyway. So the paradox is you actually have to use your mind to shut your mind up. In other words, you actually have to look at this stuff and say, okay, that'll wait, that'll wait, oh, that won't. And then in order to be able to have your mind be quieted about all the stuff

you're not doing, you better keep reviewing everything you're not doing on some consistent enough basis to feel okay about what you are doing and what you're not doing. And that doesn't happen by itself. You actually have to then engage in a reflection process and a review process. I need to step back, take a look at the bigger picture. let me see all the 16 phone calls I need to make instead of just being driven by the one I remember to make. One of the things you talk about is your stress is caused from when you don't trust the system and you don't trust what you've set up. So you can do the first three steps of here.

But if you don't trust it and have a system for reflecting on that, you're just going to be just a stress because then your brain's constantly worried about not accomplishing those things. Sure. Well, you need to see the inventory of what's in there and you need to keep that inventory current. That's why, as you guys know, the core key success factor for, you know, getting in control and focused is the, weekly review. For the most people listening to this, that's probably the thing they're doing the least and the thing they need to do the most if they're going to surf on top of this confusing, ever-changing, surprising world that they're trying to create. And that means once a week you better close the door and for two hours, pull up the rear guard, sit down and get your

list current, you know, clarify what's shown up in the last, you know, a little while, you know, get your head empty again, get all this stuff current. I mean, life happens much too fast for all of us and stay totally pristine and clean all the time, but you'd better not let it go too long. I don't take a shower 24 hours a day, but I don't go longer than a day. Every Sunday night is my weekly review. I do it every Sunday,

and it totally makes my entire week. And like, I mean, everything in my life easier. I think that Sunday night review is just fantastic. So love it. Sure. Good for you. It requires, I mean, but it's a commitment. I mean, I think a lot of people are going to stop and say,

hey, I, you know, I really need to be committed. I mean, I got to sit for an hour and go through, Like everything I did, you know, does it work? Yeah. Does it work not to? No. Of course not. You know, nothing's free, dude.

Yeah. It's a lot cheaper than you think. It'll be the best hour or two hours you spend that week. I agree. I agree. You know, come on, anybody got favorite sports teams out there? How much of the? Seahawks, Mets.

Okay. I got loose. I got the Knicks. I got the Mets. They all suck. Yeah. Well, I don't care whether they suck or their winners. how much of their work week do you think they spend planning for their work?

Good point. So if you spent seven hours of your day reviewing and reflecting, your last hour is going to be hot. Yeah. I love that. And if you don't spend any time, you're just going to fumble around and be drilling my latest and loudest. So, you know,

you love it. You decide. A lot of us just kind of go through the day based on our inbox, and it's a bitch. Yeah. I mean, we all can do that too. The idea is you don't want to be too anal about this, but the smaller your backlog of unprocessed stuff,

the more than you can take surprise and interruptions, not as interruptions, but it's just new input. But if you've got 3,000 unprocessed emails, you know, anything's going to feel like a bitch that lands in your world. If it's clean, you know, my inbox is, you know, every 24 to 48 hours is pretty much zeroed out all over, which means that when new stuff comes in, I'm not disturbed by that's disturbing my world.

I can evaluate it against all the other stuff I've got to do. and make smarter decisions about whether to do it or placehold it. So keeping your backlog as zeroed out as possible makes life a lot easier. Makes sense. Make sense. Hey, really quick, guys, this is show 117 of the BiggerPockets podcast. Definitely get out there and check out our show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 117. Let's get to the last step, which is, I believe, engage, yes?

Yep. Last step is, okay, now where do you point your attention on your resources based upon all that? So the best practice of the stage five is to have done the best practices of the four stages captured and clarified, organized and reviewed everything so that then when you decide whether to take a nap or have a beer or call the bank, that's an intuitive judgment call that you trust

as opposed to, I hope this is the thing to do. That's really where you want to get to. So how does somebody avoid the shiny object syndrome of wanting to suddenly, you know, every time something new and exciting kind of pops into their head, like jump and do that. I mean, you know, and not put that at the top of the list. do all this stuff and then then snack on email is fun

I like it I don't ever find out to be fun don't stop there's nothing wrong with come on that's how created my life is banging around and following bright baubles I just needed to make sure I did enough of the basic stuff so that you know it's kind of hard to make the distinction between following a bright bubble that's a good intuitive hit versus following a bright bubble as a way to avoid something else I should be doing

so how well do you know yourself that makes sense that makes sense yeah and we we have that all the time at our company. I mean, Brandon and I every day come up with like 25 new ideas. And it's just like, you know, we then immediately go through them and say, oh, you know what? We've got a later list. We've got a

possible list and we've got all these things that we throw them in there and, yeah, you get to them where you don't and they're out of your head and you're done. You're most creative when you have the space to make a mess. Yeah. The problem is if you're in a mess, you can't make one. So that's why when I'm not doing anything else, I'm cleaning up

because I'm getting ready for the next surprise that I can't see and I want to have the freedom to make a mess when it shows up and deal with whatever I need to deal with in that way. I love it. Love it. Yeah, that's great. Well, before we wrap up, I guess my last kind of question here is for all the things we talked about today, what would you say is probably the most important that people should

leave this, you know, conversation with? Like, what do you want people to know if you could just sum everything up? That a revised version of GTD brought up to 2015 is launching March 17. to the U.S. So that's what they should know, because that's what they need. Nice plug. Yeah. That's what they need to go.

Cool. And basically, you know, and it's all it's going to do is you're going to hear the Greek chorus going, your head is for having ideas, not for holding them. I love it. That's great. I love it. And that's about the time that this is coming out, this podcast. So that's good timing.

Perfect. Hey. Cool. Good deal. All right. Is you famous? All right, moving on to the world famous. Famous for.

So these questions we ask every guest, and we tweet them a little. little bit for you, the first question. Normally asked, what are your favorite real estate books? But since you're not, I don't think anywhere, you're not a real estate investor, right? No. So I tweaked it a little bit to just say, you should be, by the way. Yeah, you should be. Bigger Pockets podcast. You might pick up a thing or two. But we're going to tweak this a little bit to go, I'm going to say, what is your favorite business or productivity book besides your own? Do you have any book recommendations you'd like people to read? I have two brand new ones because they're hot on my mind and they have a lot to do with what we've been talking about. And they're both

aggregations of cognitive science research that have shown up about and they're both great manuals for your brain and how it works and how it doesn't work. The first is called the organized mind by Dan Leventon, L-E-V-I-T-I-N. The second one is called brain chains, two words, chains as in chains around your brain that are keeping you from being optimally productive. And that's by Theo Comproneale, C-O-M-P-E-R-N-O-L-L-E. They are fabulous. and they are going to say, oh, my external brain, no kidding. And that's, so those are the, I've, you know, there's a gazillion books I could have picked, but those are hot right now in my brain, and I'm recommending them to anybody who has ears

to hear for that. You can get them both in Amazon and all those kind of places. Cool. That's great. Love it. And we'll link to those in our show notes, which, of course, you can get at biggerpockets.com slash show 117. What about hobbies?

What do you do for fun, David? I do Ikebana flower arranging. And what I'd most like to do for fun is walk with my wonderful wife, Catherine, and my gorgeous little Cavalier Luther King Charles Spaniel around Amsterdam doing nothing. Nice. And just enjoying the charm of a magical city. You know, good food and wine. We're foodies.

I love that stuff. And yeah, those are it. Cool. That's great. And really quick, why did you end up relocating to Amsterdam? We fell in love with the city. It's the San Francisco of Europe. And it's kind of edgy and it's really fun.

and just intuition. And we wanted a kind of a lifestyle change and get out of U.S. centricity in terms of our perspectives. So, you know, somewhere in Europe could have been pretty much anywhere, but we've been to the city two or three times and absolutely loved it.

And we're still a lot of it. We've been here 10 months, and it's a fabulous place. That's great. Yeah, very cool. All right. Well, what do you believe sets apart successful people,

whether it's entrepreneurs, investors, business owners, from those who give up, fail, or can never seem to get started? people who relax and go inside to listen to the still small voice of who they really are and do the best they can to keep listening to that and paying attention to it. I like it. That's great.

Deep. Yeah. All right. Josh, you wouldn't end it. So where can people find out more about you? And I'm sure you've got a website. I know you've got the book. We plug that.

But where can they find you? Getting Things Done.com. Fabulous. Fabulous. All right, David. Well, listen, thank you so much. This has been really, really interesting. And to everybody listening, we definitely recommend you go and pick up a copy of getting things done.

It's definitely a great book. And there's all sorts of really cool systems that people have built software and all sorts of stuff just to try and help you run your life through this getting things done system. And there's different ways to do it. And we recommend you guys get out and explore it. But David, thank you so much for being on the show. We really, really do appreciate it. Hey, Joshua, Brandon.

My pleasure. All right, thanks. Take care. All right, guys, this is show 117 to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Definitely make sure to check out the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 117. And also, you can find links there to iTunes where you can rate and review the show. We definitely would appreciate it if you did that for us. Guys, that was David Allen.

I don't know about you, but I'm about to start making some lists. I've got lots of lists, but I'm about to make more. I don't know. I just want to do it. Go to your brain dump. I think that's the next action. right. There you go. Go to your brain dump. Go to your brain dump. It really is a fan. Like, I was not just like, you know, blowing smoke. I mean, like, it really like changed my life was doing

that list of just writing everything down. Like, there's this like peace you get. Like, I'm actually taking care of the stuff. And he explained why that is, right? Like, you're, you're renegotiating with yourself and I will get these things done. And here's a process and a system for getting them done. I love it. Yeah. Well, think about it. The average person is thinking about like, hey, I've got that doctor's appointment. Hey, it's so-and-so. birthday. Hey, I've got 72 things on my job that I need to do. I've got my job. I've got my real estate business. How do you organize that? You can't just keep it all in your head. You have to get it out. You really, really do. And this whole system is a great way to do that. So again,

big thanks to Mr. Allen for coming on the show. And like he's, like he said, the book is now out. When this show comes out, this book is officially relaunched in America right now, the 2015 updated version. So I'll be picking up a copy of that. We're recording this beforehand, but it'll be out by time it's recording this. And I'm excited to read the new and expanded updated version. So pick up a copy of that. We will have a link to it in the show notes, which you can get at biggerpockets.com slash show 117. Yes, yes, yes. And as for you guys, next actionable step, go make a list, go brain dump. And then at the top of that brain dump should be something that says jump on bigger Pockets and share what you thought about this episode on the show notes at biggerpockets.com

slash show 116. We'd love to hear what you guys thought. So with that, thanks so much for listening. We definitely appreciate it. And we hope you enjoyed. And we'll look forward to talking to you next week on the Bigger Pockets podcast. I'm Josh Dorkin. Signing off.

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