The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 123: David Allen – How To Get Things Done

Starting point is 00:00:00 They said, David, write a selling business book. And I went, ah, I don't know how to do that. I'd never done that before. And so I'd sort of had it as a someday maybe back in the closet, but at some point, that probably would be a good idea for me to sit down and put what I had learned into writing. Because I never had enough time to tell everybody all the implications and applications and ends and outs of what I had uncovered with this model over the years. So I said, in case I get run over by bus, I'll write the manual.

Starting point is 00:00:27 So at some point, somebody would figure it out. but at least I'd have it in print out there. So I kind of threw the kitchen sink and everything into it. As a matter of fact, it's why the book is oftentimes a lot of people will perceive it as overwhelming when they look at it because it looks like there's a lot of stuff to do in there. I just put everything in there that I had learned in my, you know, 25, 30 years of working with this material because I couldn't short sheet anybody. I said, look, here's the manual.

Starting point is 00:00:54 I'm not going to teach you how to play tennis and not teach you how to hit a backhand, you know. Come on, that's silly. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey, everyone, it's Ryan. I wanted to make a quick announcement.

Starting point is 00:01:29 A number of you had sent me emails in regards to asking for a place to further this dialogue with like-minded people. other listeners, fans, and friends of the Learning Leader Show. So I set up a group on Facebook. It's Facebook.com slash groups slash learning leader. It's a closed group. But if you'd like an invite, simply shoot me a quick note, and I'd be happy to bring you into the group. This is a place where we can freely communicate and discuss leadership, learning, creative

Starting point is 00:01:58 ideas, podcasting, and new and innovative ways of thinking a place where we could potentially argue a little bit, have an open mind, and have control. constructive dialogue. I've loved the early response from the people who are already in the group, but simply send me a note. I'll add you to it. I look forward to talking with more of you very soon. Hey, and welcome to The Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Absolutely thrilled with tonight's featured leaders with the legendary David Allen. For more than 30 years, David has been a management consultant and executive coach. His first book titled Getting Things Done, The Art of Stress Free Productivity was originally published in 2001 and has become a national bestseller selling millions and millions of copies of books, which is extremely rare.

Starting point is 00:02:54 He has been called a personal productivity guru whose work has been featured in Fast Company, Fortune, the LA Times, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, among many others. During this really cool talk tonight, a few of the things we got into. how the best leaders have a mix of strong ego balanced with humility. David describes that in more detail and how his experimentation with heroin many years ago has impacted his life. That was a crazy part of this conversation. And then he describes an action plan that we all can do. It's called the five eyes, information, inspiration, installation, implementation, and finally

Starting point is 00:03:37 integration. Gentlemen, without further ado, it's David Allen. David, it's so great to have you here on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome to the podcast. Delighted to be here, Ryan. Thanks for asking. Question to get us rolling, and that's around leaders who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time. You've spent a great deal of time around these types of people.

Starting point is 00:04:07 You obviously are one yourself. I'm curious. What are some of the common characteristics that those people all share? I think one is authenticity. There's just a reality about being with them. You don't feel like they're putting on a face. You don't feel like, you know, what you see is what you get in a way. And I think that comes across in everything that they do.

Starting point is 00:04:32 I think tied with that would be a level of interesting, sort of the paradoxical mix of strong ego and humility. That is, you know, the strength to be able to step out into unknown territory, at the same time, kind of being a lifelong learner. So I think authenticity and lifelong learning are, you know, openness to whatever is next and being willing to say, basically playing a big enough game that they need all the help they can get. And they're open to that.

Starting point is 00:05:05 Absolutely. I love it, especially goes pretty well with my show. I appreciate you saying that. And I absolutely agree. Who are the first people that come to mind when you think of the phrase sustained excellence? Oh, gee. Well, there are a lot of people you may not know. That's okay. I've worked one-on-one with quite a number of people, you know, that I've had a chance to hang

Starting point is 00:05:30 with and be engaged with regularly. One's a really good friend of big, actually a lot of these people sort of became really good friends of mine, the head of advanced research for, for McDonald-Douglas in Boeing. He's retired now, but he became a lifelong sort of champion of. my work and also just a great teacher, trainer of other people. And, you know, he never left to that. And, you know, he was fun and a lifelong learner himself and quite authentic. So he certainly fit that bill.

Starting point is 00:06:02 Another guy who comes to mind also became a really good friend, Andy Hoxey, who's the managing partner of a winery in Napa Valley, who's just another one of those people that, you know, has those characteristics. There's, you know, bunches of them. Yeah, absolutely. So I want to dig in, David, to your story. And I think the overwhelming majority of people probably have heard of it, at minimum, have heard of getting things done. And I'd say if there's a brand, when you think of David Allen, you think of the GTD guy, the getting things done guy.

Starting point is 00:06:40 and I love to hear from you, your perspective on how that became synonymous with you and what led up to you writing that book that's had millions and millions of copies sold all over the world and some of the actions and things in your life that led up to that moment and then what has happened since. Well, it took me 25 years, Ryan, to figure out what I'd figured out and that it was unique and that nobody else seemed to have done it like I did it, and that it was bulletproof. So I wasn't one of those big, hey, I'm just, ta-da.

Starting point is 00:07:15 I'm not a ta-da kind of guy. I jump out and just start, you know, parading something. If I didn't know, it was absolutely rock-solid. And it took me really that long. Come on, I thought I was the last guy in the world to learn this stuff. And I was not, you know, I wasn't particularly entrepreneurial or aspirational and certainly didn't have a lot of experience in the big corporate world. And as I started to get involved in that world and being invited into that world with my methodology,

Starting point is 00:07:38 I thought, well, the higher up the food chain, I went, you know, in the hierarchy, the less people would be interested in this because they're more sophisticated. They're making more money in a year than I'd probably seen in my life. And then I found out that just the opposite. As a matter of fact, those folks were the ones who were the most buried, the most hungry for what I had to teach and share. And so, and again, it took me a long time to really figure out the uniqueness of what it was and to explore it myself. And so after 25 years, and literally, you know, Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours is nothing to the numbers that I have spent truly deskside one-on-one with some of the best and brightest and busiest people on the planet, you know, working this methodology with them and watching how it works and being part of their transformation as they started to apply it. And so at a certain point, I said, look, I guess, and I had some advisors as I was sort of reconfiguring my business, just a small consulting and training business as I brought. out a couple of partners and decided that I needed to, you know, kind of take out on my own with

Starting point is 00:08:40 it. They said, David, write a selling business book. And I went, ah, I don't know how to do that. You know, I'd never done that before, you know. And so I'd sort of had it as a someday, maybe, back in the closet, but at some point, that probably would be a good idea for me to sit down and put what I had learned into writing because I never had enough time to tell everybody, all the implications and applications and ends and outs of what I had uncovered, you know, with this model over the years. So I said in case I get run over by bus, I'll write the manual. So, you know, at some point somebody would figure it out, but at least I'd have it in print out there. So I kind of threw, I threw the kitchen sink and everything into it. As a matter of fact, that's,

Starting point is 00:09:15 it's why the book is oftentimes a lot of people will perceive it as overwhelming when they look at it because it looks like there's a lot of stuff to do in there. I just put everything in there that I had learned in my, you know, 25, 30 years of working with this material because I couldn't short sheet anybody. I said, look, here's the thing. I said, look, here's manual. I'm not going to teach you how to play tennis and not teach you how to hit a backhand. You know, come on, that's silly. So I put it all in there. So that's what happened. It took me four years, actually, from the time I pulled the trigger to get the book onto the shelf, you know, in 2001. How did your life change once it came out? Well, you know, there wasn't, it wasn't like

Starting point is 00:09:59 a really, really big, big change because it was a book that sort of began to just cook slowly. And, you know, Penguin and the publisher had not so much warned me, but they had given me a heads up. They said that, you know, oftentimes the best business books, the ever green ones, they'd built slowly over two to three years. That was true with getting to yes. You know, they also published, you know, took a couple of years for that to really take off. And it's now sold, you know, millions of copies over, you know, 20 years. It's just been that way. And mine turned out to be the same thing. You know, the first year it did, you know, I think it sold 70 or 80,000 copies, which is in the U.S. anyway, considered the best seller in the nonfiction world. So they

Starting point is 00:10:43 kept it in a hardback for a couple of years just because they make more money, you know, doing that. And then it went to paper in 2003. So it didn't really change. There wasn't a whole lot that changed. I had been getting a good bit of press anyway, you know, Fast Company and Forbes and other people had been sort of uncovered some of my stuff and were writing about it. And so, You know, that, yeah, it certainly spread my brand out there. And, you know, probably the biggest thing for me personally was that it was a, I think it was a milestone that I said, look, I have now taken, you know, pretty much my career and put it into a book. And it will keep, it will keep changing the world out there, even when I'm gone. You know, to me, the big milestone was the first weekend that it was in print.

Starting point is 00:11:26 I got an email from a woman who said, gee, David, I picked up your book. I applied it this weekend and it changed my life. Okay, that's the first time that I actually had feedback that somebody could actually get value out of that without me being physically present, that I actually could get the value into the book itself. And that all it took was one person to say, okay, now that's there. So, you know, even after I'm gone and, you know, our company sort of working on the seven-generation idea, you know, that we built something that was strong and evergreen and, you know, would hold water

Starting point is 00:12:01 you know, 100 years from now. So that's how I think that was a big change. I think I could have quit at that point. Okay. It took me that long to figure out what I'd figured out and then to get it into print. And then I figured to take the rest of my life to figure out how to spread this around and scale it

Starting point is 00:12:15 and get it to stick for people. Getting the feedback from people that work that you have created or curated in some cases, for me, I'm not sure there's a better feeling when it comes to work. And I'm very fortunate to have this happen. I love it. My listeners know I love it when I get emails from them, that they've been able to take something away, and it's positively impacted their life. And so you mentioned that that was a moment, a moment for you in your life where you could have finished when you heard directly from someone who read your work that it impacted them in a positive way.

Starting point is 00:12:48 Do you still get those feelings? I mean, because now it's millions of people all over the world. How does it feel now when somebody reaches out to you and tells you how it's impacted them? Or maybe when you see them in person, if you're just walking. on the street or you're doing a seminar. I'm curious as to how it's changed from that very first email from that woman that you helped to today. Well, you know, it's not that I guess I guess you could say I've sort of gotten used to it. In another way, I still love it as much as ever because I never know what sticks out there. And it's always delightful to hear it because, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:22 this material is for anyone but not for everyone. So it's always fascinating to me to see who got it, who implemented it, you know, and, and hear the success stories from people. So I still love it. You know, they're a legion for sure, but I still get them, you know, almost daily. I get, you know, I get stuff from all over the world. So, yeah, it's very satisfying. And, you know, I feel very blessed to have, you know, now built a life and a career and something that, you know, is so beneficial to everybody who applies it. And, you know, it's global. So, It's like, wow, how cool is that? I'd be sharing this stuff with people even if I, you know, even if you didn't pay me.

Starting point is 00:14:05 Yeah. Because I couldn't stop. It's, to me, it's just real, real, gee, if I, if somebody, if I care that somebody sort of improved their condition, anything that may not know yet, you know, this is what I'd share with them. So I still do that. Let's take a step back for the people listening who have not read the book and aren't fully aware of GPD and getting things done.

Starting point is 00:14:28 the art of stress-free productivity. If you had to distill it down, we're not going to do a book report here, but if you had to distill it down and give a very many TED talk, which I watched your TED talk earlier today, it's very good, or one of your TED talks at least, how would you describe getting things done to the person who's never heard of you before? Yeah. Well, it's a set of best practices of behaviors that if you implement them, they allow you to experience a whole lot more space in your.

Starting point is 00:14:58 head, more room to think, more room to focus, more clarity, more peacefulness, more freedom inside your head to focus on the most meaningful stuff in creative ways. And it creates that space by basically it's a set of practices that have you externalize, capture everything that's potentially meaningful in your psyche, get it out of your head, soon and then later decide exactly what it means to you and what you're going to do about it, if anything. Park the results of that thinking and decision making, you know, inappropriate lists or categories so that you can step back on a regular basis, sort of see the whole gestalt,

Starting point is 00:15:32 the whole field, if you will, of your work at hand, you know, at multiple horizons. So then you're making a good, conscious, intelligent, intuitive choice about, you know, what you're doing moment to moment. So let's get practical, David, people, the listeners know I do this often. I love to really put this into play or at least try to have somebody hear how it could be put in play. The philosophy is phenomenal. It's great.

Starting point is 00:15:56 but then the practicality and actually implementation of it is even more important. The execution is everything. Ideas are great. There are a lot of ideas, but execution's vital for our success. So let's say somebody listening is a 42-year-old mother of three children. They have a full-time job. They have a spouse who also has a full-time job. They have two car payments, a mortgage.

Starting point is 00:16:20 They have the regular bills that most people have. Good jobs, make pretty good money, not rich. not poor, middle class, and they email you or they call you or they see you and they say, David, I have so many things on my plate. I feel like I'm just barely getting by. I'm barely there for my kids. I'm barely there for my job. I'm barely there for my spouse.

Starting point is 00:16:42 I'm doing an okay job at everything. I'm not doing a great job at anything. What can you do to help me? How would you help that person? Well, the best thing for that person to do would be to use me or one of our coaches for a two-day implementation session of this methodology with them real time about their real stuff. So if I were coaching you, Ryan, for instance, I would just go to wherever your workstation is. I could be at home or at work if those are different places, wherever you do most of the work you do. And the first thing we do is make sure you have an end basket, a physical in-tray.

Starting point is 00:17:21 then we're going to look around and say, what around your space here does not belong here permanently? You know, what's not supplies or reference material or decoration and equipment? Those are the only things that belong there where they are. Everything else is something in motion, something in process, something that has your attention, something that's quietly yelling at you, do something with me, decide something about me, handle me, do whatever it is. And we're just going to regather all that. That's the first place to start to find the things that have your attention that are potentially meaningful

Starting point is 00:17:49 that you know you still need to do something. about or decide something about. We just gather that together. I don't tell you what's incomplete. I just ask. I say, hey, Ryan, what's that piece? Oh, yeah, I got to call that guy. Great. We just throw that back in your entry. And then we get a big stack of paper and then say, okay, Ryan, anything else on your mind that's not in this stack yet. And you go, oh, God, I got to call Bill Smith. Oh, you know, I need to finalize my taxes. You know, I need to really look into extending my credit line. You know, I think about getting the kids a dog. We just get everything. Little big, personal professional. That whole process takes one to six hours, by the way,

Starting point is 00:18:21 the typical mid to senior level professional. Most people have on a clue of how many things they've actually wrapped their brain around. So we just unwrap it and just throw it back out. And that then, now that's kind of like what people's to-do list sort of look like, but this is on steroids. And then what you do is you go through each one of those things

Starting point is 00:18:38 and then empty out that end basket, going through each of those items one at a time. Go, Ryan, what exactly is that? And what's the very next action step on that, if there is one? And then you're going to decide if that an email to send, is that something to buy it to hardware store or something to talk to your life partner about.

Starting point is 00:18:52 You know, something, what are you actually going to do to move the needle on that thing? If you had nothing else to do but finish that, what would you do and get you to make those decisions? As well as, or if any of those things, if one action won't finish any of those things, what's the project you need to keep track of until it is done? Oh, I need to hire the assistant. Oh, I need to research increasing the credit line. Oh, I need to handle the next vacation that families going on. Those are projects.

Starting point is 00:19:17 And that would take, by the way, just to have you make those executive decisions, that's step two of clarifying what you've actually collected. So there's the capture step first. And then we're going to clarify it, meaning I'm going to hold you to making those decisions. What is it? Is it reference? Is it trash? If it is actionable, what's the next action? And is there a project embedded in this?

Starting point is 00:19:38 I get you to make those decisions. Then we would work to customize, okay, Ryan, where are you going to keep track of the phone calls you've come up with that you need to make? We're going to keep track a list of all of these projects. And that's where we would customize some sort of a list manager for you, either digital or paper-based, whatever your preference is. And then, you know, that's essentially the operational way that you would start with this thing. And then, of course, on a weekly or consistent basis, you need to make sure you keep going with that process so you don't let stuff mount up into a big backlog again. So it's, and it's obviously has to be ongoing. It has to become part of your habits, I would assume.

Starting point is 00:20:14 Yeah. And that can take a couple of years. Yeah. You'll get value out of this in 60 seconds. Just write down the top 10, first 10 things that come to mind and then figure out the next action in each one. And you'll find yourself getting more in control and more focused and a little more clarity. So you get value out of this immediately. But making sure that you don't let that stuff backlog on you.

Starting point is 00:20:34 And you're making those decisions when things first show up instead of when they first blow up. That's a habit change. And that can take a while. When did you start doing this and then kind of get your mind wrapped around exactly what it is you were doing? so that you could teach it because I think of a great math, or I'm not, not great. I'm thinking someone who is a math teacher in high school. They are great at math, but they aren't great at teaching others to do math. I actually had this happen to me.

Starting point is 00:21:04 So that's why I use this story often when I speak to people because there's a difference. And so some people say, well, I just kind of created systems for myself. And then I thought, well, other people could use this. And then they go from there. but they're not really great at teaching or helping others implement and, as I mentioned before, execute, which is vital. So when did this happen for you where you came at, I assume you created this for yourself first? And then you thought, you know what, this could help others and you became more of a teacher. I did. They were almost simultaneous.

Starting point is 00:21:35 I had a mentor who taught me a couple of the key aspects of this methodology when I first started my own consulting practice. And he was a much more seasoned consultant than I was. And I got to hang with him for a couple of years and do a lot of work with him with clients. And so he taught me some of the basics of this. I turned right around and started using some of this material, not only for myself, but almost right away with the various people that I was coaching or consulting at that time as well. And so he had exactly the same kind of benefit. So both of those things happen, though for the most part, I was just doing that on a one-to-one basis or as part of a consulting game that I was involved in. And then I had the head of human resources for Lockheed.

Starting point is 00:22:18 I actually saw what I was doing. And he said, wow, that kind of result is what we need in our whole culture. And he invited me to come in and work with his team to design a two-day pilot program on personal productivity for, we did a thousand executives and managers over a year's period of time in various groupings. So I was sort of challenged, okay, if I was going to put this into a seminar and an educational format, how would I do that? So, you know, I had helped, first of all, that it was a great client, had asked me to do that work. So I got, I sat down and then started doing that. And that was 1983, 84. So, you know, that was, golly, how many years ago was that?

Starting point is 00:22:56 30, 33 years ago. So that's when, that's when, you know, and it worked. I was like, God, it was one of the most successful seminars that they'd ever had in the, in the corporation. And so I still hadn't figured out because I wasn't that familiar with the big corporate training world. So I was kind of scratching my head going, hmm, I just thought this was, you know, just my stuff, but it kind of blew me away how popular it was and that it hit a nerve out there. So then I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and just purely just on a referral basis, went from there to the Social Security Administration, went from there to the Navy, went from there to,

Starting point is 00:23:30 you know, all kinds of places, but that people sort of internally, there would be champions who caught my stuff and then they had the opportunity to bring me in and slot me into their into their training curriculum. So I've spent a lot of years, you know, up in front of groups and with thousands and thousands and thousands of people, you know, doing this and, you know, and building new iterations of it. Now that we're franchising our work globally, we spent the last three years building a global curriculum of this training material that could be easily translated and, you know, across all the cultures and, you know, and all that stuff.

Starting point is 00:24:04 So I'm still at it. So you mentioned at that time at Lockheed, 1983, 1984, the phrase you used is, and it worked. And I speak with my dad about this often, who my dad's had a lot of success in his career. And one of the things we've both agreed on is that a lot of the type of people who listen to this show, which are the podcast listeners and the ones that I hear from, typically are people in their careers who are on the verge or are already doing big things. They're smart, intelligent. They're looking to grow. And one of the things that those types of people do, and I'll want myself in this group, is that we go to seminars.

Starting point is 00:24:46 We go and get trained. We're very good at taking notes. We are seeking out new ideas and better ways to do things. However, once we leave the seminar or we leave the training and we go back to our desk or our office, our notebook a lot of times stays in. you know, a piece of luggage or the bat, you know, your bag, and you don't really pull it out. And what I mean by that is the fact that we do a good job of seeking information to get better. However, where we fail is when we implement and execute.

Starting point is 00:25:21 And so you said it worked at Lockheed. How do you measure if something has worked? Well, they want you back and they want all their staff to take it before anybody else. So, you know, primarily it's just like, well, this is so obvious. I mean, when you do it, it's just so obviously the stuff you need to do. It's not offline things. You actually get real work done doing it. Right.

Starting point is 00:25:45 You know, it's not, you're not, you're not doing some sort of artificial simulation. Right. This is real work. And when that happens, you go, God, that's good. And that really helps. And not only that, my kids need this. My spouse needs this. You know, my housekeeper needs this.

Starting point is 00:26:00 My dad needs this. You know, so it, you know, and we haven't, and actually Lockheed actually did a survey. It was still subjective, but they, you know, essentially for the several thousand people that we had trained in there, they actually did a survey of them. And the average self-assessed gain of time that the survey indicated was an hour a day. So now that they just self-assessed that. What they did with that hour, I don't know, but, you know, hey, could anybody else use an hour a day extra? You know, what would you do with it? So just the efficiency factor.

Starting point is 00:26:31 You know, and as opposed to, you know, as you say, your seminar notes will landing the stacks. Right. I think the key is the actual doing it, right? It's just, and it's kind of, I guess we're getting a little meta here because of what you teach and what you've preached for 30 years or more is the act of putting it into practice and not just having in your mind as, oh, yeah, that sounds like a good thing. I should do that.

Starting point is 00:26:56 And then never doing it. It's the act of putting it into practice and having it create. create a habit? Well, there's the five eyes of learning. First of all, you get the information about it, and then you might get the inspiration about it once you get the information. Because the inspiration says, hey, that sounds like a good idea, and I think I could do that, and that'll create inspiration, hope, if you will. And then you have the installation.

Starting point is 00:27:22 Okay, now I have to go start, let me go start to get an in basket, let me go start to write things down, out of my head, let me go start to build a list manager in some way. And then you have the implementation where you actually fill this stuff out with all the content. You actually have a list of all the phone calls you need to make. You actually have a list of the 30 to 100 projects most people have. And you actually have that stuff filled out. So there's the information turning the inspiration, then moves to installation, and then you have the implementation of it, and then you have the integration of it where you can't remember when you didn't do this.

Starting point is 00:27:56 and it was just a habit. So those five eyes, you know, actually each one is valuable. You know, come on. Even if you just have the information, just get the book. Hey, in case I'm ever really out of control, I'll pick up David's book and follow his directions until then I'm fine. So, you know, I'm fine with that. You know, I'd have burned out a long time ago if I expected everybody to go implement all this stuff. I had a guy to leave a seminar and he was so excited.

Starting point is 00:28:21 He said, David, this is really cool. So I said, well, tell me about it. And said, well, David, it's like you let me know that heaven exists. I don't think I'm going to do what I need to do to get into heaven, but I'm just really glad to know it's there. I thought, you know, that was kind of a milestone for me, because then I didn't have to worry too much that people really did implement this, as long as I define the game. So that's what I did. I mean, probably that was my real contribution was I defined this game. I created the blueprint.

Starting point is 00:28:47 I am not an instructional designer, and I'm not a motivational speaker, and I'm not, you know, I'm not that good a trainer. You know, go train yourself, you know. But I created the model so that then you could, if you had the inspiration or you had someone who could hold your hand and walk you through it, it works. You describe your system as bottom up. What does that mean? Well, we start with where people are, not with where you should be. Okay. All right.

Starting point is 00:29:13 If you can't handle, if you can't get cat food, don't try to work. A lot of people don't need to step goals. They need to clean their toilet. You know, come on. If you can't handle today, you know, don't try to go, you know, add more stuff to your, all you're going to do is add more guilt and more frustration and more overwhelmed to yourself. Now, if where you are right now, if I had you, Ryan, if I had you write down the first 20 things that come to your mind that have your attention, you know, I've had almost nobody in these 35 years, you know, ever write as one of the first things they wrote down, fulfilled destiny as human spirit on the planet. And yet that's the only thing they're here to do. That is the only project you have.

Starting point is 00:29:53 But nobody writes that down. What they write down is babysitter, cat food, holiday, you know, bank, doctor's appointment, you know, stuff like that. Because that's where people are. So that's, I think, a little bit unique about our methodology as we start with where you are. And by the way, if the first thing is on your mind is your strategic plan or the vision for your company, absolutely, let's start there. Because I do indicate there are at least six horizons of our commitments with each, you know,

Starting point is 00:30:18 with ourselves that we have and that you fully need to, you know, clarify and objectify if you're going to really do this game fully. So, you know, you need your actions, you know, are tied to projects, which are there because you have areas of accountability, you know, in your life and your work. You have placed things that you, you know, want to accomplish over the next three to 24 months. You have some vision about life and career in terms of the long term. And, you know, you basically have a real purpose. Why are you on the planet? What, you know, what are you about? and what really matters to you in terms of your values. So those are all very real conversations that I'm willing to have with people if that's where they are ready to go.

Starting point is 00:30:56 Most people are not ready to go there, though, because on the ground, they're out of control. And if that's out of control, you have no traction to even think about the bigger games. What's your thought process on goal setting? Well, you know, I don't really recommend goal setting unless you need to set a goal to get something off your mind. Paul McCartney said he never had a plan or a goal. He did all right. So have you ever sat down and set goals for yourself? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:31:25 Yeah. What are some of the examples of those? Oh, just some of the things I wanted to do with the company. You know, right now we set a goal, you know, my wife and I to sell a building that we built, a little office building in California. And, you know, my wife and I, we don't spend a long time on it. At the end of the year, we do a nice little exercise. We take a half an hour and sit down and make a list of all the cool things.

Starting point is 00:31:48 neat things, new things we did and accomplished and finished that year. It's a great closure exercise to do that. But we went to this country and we hired this person and you know, we did X, Y, and Z and we accomplished this and here's, you know, the money that the company made and whatever. And then we turn around and say, what will we like to have on the list next year, you know, when we do it and we make that list again. And that's pretty much about all the horsepower that we put into that. But it's a fascinating, as you probably know, all you have to do is just have that. that real conversation with yourself and any other key people, you know, capture it somewhere. And that, you know, that starts to put an unconscious, you know, mechanism in the brain that, that starts to guide you in those directions.

Starting point is 00:32:30 So I don't sweat a lot about it. Okay. You moved to Amsterdam a couple years ago. Why do you do that? Why not? It was just one of those lifestyle, you know, time for a change. Really? I mean, was it really that little thought put into it or?

Starting point is 00:32:47 No, no, no. we thought about it for a while. My wife has never lived, you know, for any length of time outside the country. We don't have kids. And, you know, I'm 70. She's 56. And we saw people slightly older than us that were getting a little too sedentary for our taste. And we said, you know, come on while we still have great energy. And our work is now going global. We said, let's just go be global citizens now. And we'd fallen in love with Amsterdam. And we'd been here a couple of times before. And we'd fallen in love with the Dutch and the Dutch culture. We really love that. So I could have really moved anywhere because I'm, you know, I fly all over the world doing. my doing my work now. And quite frankly, Amsterdam and the Netherlands is much more the center of the universe than Santa Barbara was. There's just being able to get to, you know, multiple places easily. Do you plan to stay there for a while? I think so.

Starting point is 00:33:33 Yeah. We're trying to plan as little as we can get by with, you know, and avoid decisions to the last responsible moments. Speaking, yeah. Just to see what shows up. Of course. Speaking of your, your wife, how does getting things done impact your, you're personal relationship with your with your spouse well it's kind of hard for me to speak

Starting point is 00:33:53 because Catherine met me in in a seminar I gave to her company you know probably 40 35 years ago and then she actually so she started to implementing this stuff been her early 20s so even before she and I were together we were married to separate people and different people at the time and happily so and then over the years you know things changed and whatever she actually started to work for the company I was working with a small consulting group in Los Angeles. So she's been around this material for, golly, half her life. So when we got together, you know, there's just no, no, it's, it's one of those things that you don't even need to think about. You just do it. You know, I know where

Starting point is 00:34:32 her in basket is. I can see it right now and she knows where mine is. I have no idea what her system is or what she does. I don't care. 25 years I've never looked. I just know, I keep track of stuff she's supposed to do and she knows how to communicate to me. Yeah. When you say, straight up stuff. In basket. Is that like literally a physical basket that is sitting on your desk somewhere? It's a physical in tray, like a tray. Okay.

Starting point is 00:34:56 Metal tray that holds. I'm looking at, oh, right now, man, I've got about, you know, 22 things in there. Really? Like, what are some of the things with those 22 things? Well, let's see. I'm picking this up. This is the building we're trying to sell. There's an LLC we created that owns the building.

Starting point is 00:35:16 So I now have that file, which I just threw in here because I had to scan some material for the realtor that's selling it. There's a potential buyer, but they need copies of the operational agreement of the LLC. So I did that, but I just threw the thing back in my end basket because I needed to think about it again to see if there was anything else. I need to capture what else. There's doggy poop bags because I just came back from a walk with my dog and emptied my pocket through the poop bag. in there because I didn't feel like I was too lazy to get up and put it where they go yet. I got there's a receipt what's that receipt for there's a yeah a little note from my notepad let's see what is it say Brad two-hour interview oh that's right a client of mine I want to

Starting point is 00:36:02 send a copy of a two-hour interview I think anyway I made a little note about that yeah and so yeah that's all the miscellany that's just you know that's why the end basket is such a fabulous tool because I don't have to then decide about all this stuff I just collect it. And then when I'm ready to sit down and empty it, then that has me make all the decisions about, okay, is that a real good idea? What do I need to do next on that?

Starting point is 00:36:24 What do I need to do? And that then gets me appropriately engaged with all of that stuff, so it's off my mind. But it's off my mind now because this stuff is in the system. I still haven't decided what I need to decide about some of that stuff, but it's in the right place. And I have the behavior already built in as a habit that I will zero that out soon enough.

Starting point is 00:36:43 You know, David, I was, as I was preparing for a time, I did a lot of research and found your story to be fascinating, particularly a time earlier in your life when you met an individual who potentially, I don't know how you would describe it now, but led you down a path that a lot of people would say isn't very healthy, where there was drug use, heroin, and you were eventually admitted, basically, I guess, a mental institution, if that's, if what I'm reading is accurate. But how did those earlier times in your life affect what you eventually created, you know, years later? Oh, they were fabulous. Are you kidding? I mean, come on, this is 60s in Berkeley. You know, come on. But I wasn't doing any of that stuff to escape.

Starting point is 00:37:33 I was doing it to explore because I was very much interested in the, you know, what are the powers in the universe that make things actually happen? I've always been fascinated by the invisible and the visible and how it affects those. So a lot of that was just exploration. As soon as I found out that it wasn't healthy, and as soon as I found out that, hey, wait a minute, that's kind of a glass wall. You might see some new horizons, but you can't get there. There's a big glass wall between you and it. And so sort of more discovering the more sort of healthy spiritual aspects of this in terms of internal practices and meditation practices,

Starting point is 00:38:07 that there were better ways to achieve all that. Hey, I gave all that other stuff up. But yeah, it was some weird stuff. So, no, I wouldn't give anything for all the experiences I've had. They all added up to where I am right now, which, you know, ain't bad. And, yeah, probably in a practical terms, what I learned was instead of trying to rail against the world because the world just didn't really understand where I was, and that sort of pissed me off. And one of the reasons I kind of flew off the handle.

Starting point is 00:38:36 and then I realize the world is much bigger that I'm going to change. So I think I will cooperate with the world. That's a better approach. And so, you know, I don't think I've ever been cured. You're just looking at a high state of cooperation. So, you know. Yeah. What would you?

Starting point is 00:38:55 We all have to have a little craziness in it. Yeah. I'm curious if a 21-year-old, a college student is listening and they hear about some experimentation that you did, you wanted to, I guess, experience those things in using, you know, drugs. How would, what advice would you give to a 21-year-old today of perhaps maybe there's a better way to do that? Or maybe there's not. Maybe there's not.

Starting point is 00:39:23 I don't know. I'm curious. Very simple. Don't. They're going to say, but you did and look what happened. Yeah. Well, it also took me about seven years to clean up my nervous system from just, just from smoking grass.

Starting point is 00:39:36 Really? You know, I really wasn't aware of how much it sort of disconnected you in your consciousness. Yeah, you know, it was fun to give you, you know, a different perspective on the world sometimes, which, which might be healthy. But in terms of, ultimately, that's why I say it's like a glass wall. Yeah, yeah, oh, I can see it, but I can't get to it, you know, so there's a, there are much healthier ways to do it. And there are people that I trusted who were able to see much more psychically and intuitively

Starting point is 00:40:01 into into what all that stuff was all about. and, you know, their advice was very trustworthy, and they were very trustworthy people. So I took it. And so, you know, my last recreational drug was in 1971. So, you know, I'd say, don't. There are a lot of other ways to explore and experience that stuff that's much more sustainable. Yeah, absolutely. Agreed.

Starting point is 00:40:25 Another aspect, I know I'm shifting around a little bit here, but I found so many things interesting. And, you know, your name came up when I was actually speaking with Clayton Morris on an earlier episode. I'm not sure. Have you met Clayton by chance? That guy is so familiar, but remind me. So he's on Fox News, a regular guy on TV, and he also is a big-time real estate investor. So he does. No, no, I haven't met him.

Starting point is 00:40:53 So he brought your name up multiple times on the episode that we did together. And one of the first things he said that has had such a massive impact on his life, is that any task that requires two minutes or less he handles immediately. And he said that's all from David Allen, obviously, in getting things done. Talk about that specific implementable idea that people can do right now. Well, actually, it's just a very practical tactical technique. If you're cleaning up your in-basket, and that could be email or your paper in-basket or whatever, and you decide what's the next action on this, if you could take that action, if you're ever going to do that action at all,

Starting point is 00:41:37 and you could take it in less than two minutes, it would take you longer to organize it than to do it. So it's a purely tactical, you know, pragmatic thing that says do that. It has such power because it actually trains you to do next action thinking and sort of, you know, turn you more into Teflon, call don't let it stick. Don't let that stuff just hang around. If you can whip it out very fast, don't let it stick around. You've got enough backlog. So keeping things nice and clean and fresh. So it was just a handy, practical technique that we came up with.

Starting point is 00:42:09 You know, if I'm on the plane, I'll be on the plane to wherever I fly next, you know, for 10 hours. You know, I don't hold the two-minute rule. I maybe hold the 20-minute rule. I'll do something and just finish it in 20 minutes because I got 10 hours. Why not? The whole idea of the two-minute rule is so that you can get your backlog zeroed out as fast as you can. You don't want to run down rabbit trails of stuff halfway through your end basket because there may be more important stuff down the bottom So you want to be able to get down to that as fast as you can

Starting point is 00:42:35 It's just that you know it's the practical question that says yeah, but if it is less than two minutes you just finish the thing don't let us stick around Couple more thoughts one of the very common I guess actions that people are dealing with literally 24-7 is email and and people People struggle with the best way I certainly do. Best way to handle email to not always just be reactive. I just had a great writer, Cal Newport on, who said, you know, you could show up at the office and just do email pretty much all day, every day. I never really get anything accomplished in a reactive mode, depending on what your job is. What's your specific strategy towards email?

Starting point is 00:43:21 Mine personally. Well, I just zero it out every 24 to 48 hours. How do you do that? You go through them one at a time and say, hi, what is this? What's the very next action on this? Do it in two minutes if you can. If you can't do it in two minutes, then you clarify what the action is and then park that on some sort of an appropriate action list.

Starting point is 00:43:39 So you can see it along with all the other stuff that you need to do. Do you think that can get in the way or put you into a reactive mode instead of a proactive mode? Well, if you keep your backlog zeroed out, I don't need to look at email, but once or twice a day. You know, most people are in emergency scan mode because they never clean it up. They're always gawking at it, you know, and it's also quite addictive. Yeah. So, you know, that's just not an issue that I have. So I don't have to look at it because it's zeroed out regularly.

Starting point is 00:44:10 People can, if there's an emergency, they know how to reach me. Yeah. So I barely even take my phone with me, you know, if I go out for the, well, I take my phone with me actually because there's some cool pictures sometimes with my dog. But that's the only reason. I don't do any work on those, you know, tiny little, gadgets. That's not where to work. You know, so I work on a big screen. And, you know, basically, and a lot of that, come on, Ryan, that comes back to what's the, what's the content of

Starting point is 00:44:35 your email? That's where most of our work actually happens is in email. Yeah. You know, so come on. You know, it's funny. I like Tony Shea, you know, the guy who runs Zappos. He has, he has, what he calls the, what's it, next day in, or something like that. Anyway, he doesn't answer emails on that day, he answers them the next day. The reason is, at the end of the day, he can see how many he has. So then he can organize his day, so he spends two hours or three hours or four hours or one hour or whatever the next day with no surprise. So he's just, he's just 24 hours behind, but he just manages his inventory. Yeah. Kind of smart. Well, and the people who communicate with him get used to his patterns in the way that he operates. And so they understand

Starting point is 00:45:18 implicitly that that's just the way Tony does it. And I think a lot of us could adopt thoughts like that. Yeah, and look, come on, if you shouldn't be getting the email, stop them. If you should, they're part of your work or your life, right? So what's the difference between somebody stopping in the hall and saying, hey, why in would you handle this or sending you an email? What's the difference? There's no difference except the medium. Yeah. I understand email's a beast because of the volume out there and it's so easy to get CCed and BCC'd on all kinds of crap out there that you don't need. Yeah. So you just need to get quick with that stuff and not let it, not let your backlog start to, start to clog up, you know, your life. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:45:55 Absolutely. And it takes much less energy to maintain at zero than it does to maintain at 3,000. That's for sure. And if the good ferry showed up and disappeared, everybody's emailed in Baskas to zero right now in two or three weeks, everybody'd have exactly the number they have because it has nothing to do with your volume. It has to do with your comfort zone of how much unprocessed backlog you're willing to tolerate. Mine is zero. It's never zero.

Starting point is 00:46:20 There's always stuff coming in. And I'm getting dirtier right now as we speak because I only took a shower this morning. But I'm not going to wait very long before I take another one. And I'd literally zero out my end basket and do weekly reviews of all of my inventory of work simply for the same reason that I'd take showers and brush my teeth. If I didn't, the scuzz factor gets too high. It's just psychic scus, but it's the same thing. Absolutely. I love it, man.

Starting point is 00:46:44 Dave, this is a phenomenal. One more question. When you hear the phrase learning leader, what's the first thought that pops into your mind? leaders don't call themselves leaders they do not no what do they call themselves they don't call themselves anything

Starting point is 00:47:03 they're too busy interesting can you expand on that why wasn't that clear it was very clear I think sometimes the shorter the answer the more

Starting point is 00:47:15 intrigue it creates and makes people want to hear more well come on you know anytime you think I'm gonna go be a leader Well, right, how do you do that? It's like, I'm going to go be innovative. Right. You know, come on. Innovative stuff wasn't created by people who went out to be innovative. It went out because somebody wanted to solve something that hadn't been solved before. Right. And then they wound up doing stuff that people looked at and said, wow, that's innovative. And really, really good leaders don't think about being leaders. They just, they are authentic. They're very much engaged with what they do. They're lifelong learners. They share with people around them because they know that's a huge value in their life and in their work. And they don't.

Starting point is 00:47:54 think of themselves as leaders. It's only other people that call them leaders. Are you a leader? I don't know. I mean, I don't know what you mean by a leader. Tell me what you mean and I'll tell you whether I think I am or not. Simon Siddick said,

Starting point is 00:48:10 if you care to see other people succeed, that is why you lead and that's the definition of a leader. Thinking of that one sentence, what do you think? Oh, sure. That's my lifelong, you know, stuff. I'm an educator. I love doing nothing but, you know, adding value to people's lives.

Starting point is 00:48:28 Absolutely. No, I mean, I obviously view you in that way, David, and I love the fact that how thoughtful you are when it comes to this conversation as a whole, but specifically on parts on leadership, because that's a big, big aspect of my show. So I'm very appreciative of you investing your time with me as well as the great listeners here at the Learning Leader Show. So where would you send the great listeners to find more about you online? Getting Things Done.com. Get Anythingsdone.com. I'll make sure that's linked up in the show notes. Everyone listening can go there.

Starting point is 00:49:05 Thanks again, David, for being. I really appreciate it. It's been a blast man. I'd love to potentially do this one again, maybe six months a year from now and see where we're both at at that point. Happy to do it, Brian. This is great. It was fun. And your radio voice is even better than mine.

Starting point is 00:49:21 Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, you're fun to listen to. Yeah. Cool. All right, man. Thank you. Bye. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learning Leadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO,

Starting point is 00:49:40 world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on the Learning Learline. The Peter Show.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 123: David Allen – How To Get Things Done

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.