0:01

Hi everyone, I'm Dave

0:03

Edwards and I'm with the other Dave,

0:05

the well-known David Allen

0:10

of

0:17

GTD fame. David, always

0:19

great to talk to you. Hi Dave, always

0:21

fun. Yay. Let's see

0:23

where it goes. Yeah, absolutely. You

0:26

and I were just talking seconds before we

0:28

hit record here about how

0:30

you and I both have one thing

0:32

in common and that is we took

0:35

our first plane trip in

0:37

like two or three years

0:39

and all of the added stress that

0:42

now you have to go through. And you,

0:44

because you were traveling internationally, had

0:46

even another layer of

0:50

angst and anxiety that goes along with it.

0:52

How was it? Anxious. It's

0:58

so funny when you teach this stuff, stress-free productivity,

1:00

and then you get

1:01

so stressed out like I was

1:03

about that.

1:06

But

1:09

I wasn't in my groove.

1:11

As I said, in my previous life, I traveled 200 days

1:13

a year and so I had my road warrior grooves

1:21

all set up, so it

1:22

wasn't a big deal. Another trip,

1:24

okay, I'm on.

1:26

And I had all the stuff

1:28

that I needed to pack, whatever. This time though,

1:31

the worst thing was that

1:34

because I changed my operating

1:36

system from Lotus Notes to Office 365,

1:41

in the process somewhere I lost my travel

1:43

checklist. Oh no. Yeah.

1:47

So I had to try to recreate another one. And

1:50

even so,

1:51

business cards, oh, they

1:53

weren't on the list. And I wound

1:56

up at a conference that had no business cards and I was

1:58

like, okay, well,

1:59

That's how you create a travel checklist

2:02

is you you forget everything once You

2:04

know, so then you add it to the list so you don't forget

2:06

it next time So that was that was funny.

2:08

It's kind of like starting out as a beginner

2:11

in travel and of course

2:13

all the kovat stuff, you know and

2:16

not being sure What was

2:18

gonna happen and also that you have to get

2:20

it that you have to get a negative

2:22

on the on your test within 24 hours

2:25

of leaving both

2:27

leaving For the US and

2:29

leaving from the US back

2:31

to the Netherlands So I had to I

2:34

had to then arrange I had to

2:36

arrange those appointments and those

2:38

you know Those things ahead

2:40

of time and then not sure what the results

2:42

were gonna be and oh my god if I if I show

2:44

up positive then Yeah,

2:50

then what you know that I'm gonna have to stay somewhere

2:52

or cancel my participation in

2:54

the conference that I was in But

2:56

anyway, so yeah, but it

2:59

all worked out Well, maybe maybe you

3:01

needed that kind of humbling experience after

3:03

being actual travel I don't

3:05

need it. I didn't need any more humbling experiences.

3:07

They've come up 76 you

3:10

know, I know I Should

3:13

be mr. Humility by now So,

3:18

you know now that we are I think

3:20

the travel restrictions are Lifting

3:23

I think more and more people will be doing travel

3:26

will be traveling again For

3:28

pleasure and and for business and that's

3:30

really why I wanted to talk to you about You

3:33

know GTD on the go and and you

3:35

were as you said, you know a guy who was traveling

3:39

200 times a year which just is exhausting

3:42

for me just to think about But

3:44

there are so many people who who have

3:46

done that for so many years. It's just part of their

3:48

lifestyle And and I'm

3:51

just wondering if I mean Over

3:55

time you were probably able to develop

3:58

your GTD system so that it was flexible

4:00

enough to be with you and

4:02

be effective whether you were in your home base

4:05

or whether you were on an airplane. But

4:08

walk us through that a little bit. What are the key

4:11

things that that we need to think about? So

4:14

that we have an effective system

4:16

no matter where we are whether we're 30,000 feet

4:19

in the air sitting at our desk. Well,

4:22

you know over time, you know one

4:25

small little example is the fact

4:27

that I I split

4:29

my computer context

4:32

of next actions into online

4:34

and not online.

4:37

Because even now still,

4:39

you know, kind of funky connections

4:41

when you're on a plane. And since I spent

4:44

so many hours on the plane and they were actually

4:46

very constructive times because it's

4:48

like their plane

4:51

time was actually some of my more productive

4:55

time in terms of being able

4:57

to have the right context for doing

5:00

both creative writing, doing weekly reviews,

5:02

doing updating, you know all kinds of

5:04

things as well as watching

5:07

new movies. But

5:09

I hadn't had time to watch if I was

5:11

on a across the pond,

5:14

you know, long plane trip. So

5:19

yeah, so that was an example because

5:21

on the plane I didn't

5:24

need to even look at my online list, you

5:26

know, of things that I needed to do online. So

5:29

what was an example? And obviously

5:31

a travel checklist, you know,

5:33

that

5:34

took me I don't know how long

5:37

travel checklist. Dave, I think you forgot.

5:41

I know, I know. And again,

5:44

as I mentioned, I,

5:46

you know, when as we shifted our operating

5:48

systems, I somehow lost my travel checklist

5:51

and worked. Yeah. So I had to create

5:53

a new one and still forgot three

5:55

or four, you know, relatively important

5:58

things that had to start

6:00

another travel checklist. Just given that.

6:02

But even once I had that done, there

6:08

are times, especially when I went on a short trip,

6:10

like one day or a day and a

6:13

half or whatever, and I'm going to fly right out and

6:15

then fly right back. I said, I don't need a travel

6:17

checklist. I went to throw in my little travel log.

6:20

And I still forgot stuff. It took me a

6:22

long time to even train myself to say, David,

6:25

come on. I

6:27

don't care how short the trip is. Print the travel

6:29

checklist out and run through it

6:31

real quick to make sure you don't forget anything.

6:34

I still had to train myself

6:37

even after all that time to make sure I use

6:40

my own system. It's been

6:42

relaxing too much and a trusting that I knew

6:45

what to do because I've done it so much. Wrong

6:47

answer. One

6:50

of the things that has been

6:52

key to your system are the different

6:55

folders that you have maintained and have

6:58

advised people to maintain, whether

7:01

they are sort of an inbox folder

7:04

versus an

7:07

action support list folder.

7:11

Have you basically used the same folders

7:13

at your home desk and that when you travel, you

7:15

just kind of move them into your briefcase?

7:18

Travel. There it is.

7:21

Travel because I don't care. I'm

7:24

just old and cranky and I don't trust the

7:27

digital phone to hold all my documents.

7:30

Okay. So Catherine

7:34

and I now have a trip coming

7:36

up. We're now doing trains. She

7:40

loves the train. I love the train. So we're doing a train trip

7:42

to Berlin and to Basel. And

7:45

so those are printed out. Those

7:48

tickets are in here as well as any relevant

7:50

document for the trip that

7:53

I might need that I only need to see once I'm on

7:56

the road or traveling. So yeah,

7:58

basically a travel checklist. and you'll see it's

8:02

on the top and it's also titled on

8:04

the bottom because it sits inside

8:06

my second folder,

8:09

my sort of pending folder, so that

8:11

I don't have to see the open thing.

8:14

I just see the bottom

8:16

smart. So it's much, much easier to do

8:18

that as well as action support, as well

8:20

as my waiting for support. And those

8:23

are, you know, plastic folders that

8:26

I've just created because there's very, I still

8:29

need relevant documents even here in

8:31

the Netherlands, you know, action

8:33

support, you know, even

8:35

though I've got the appointment, you

8:37

know, to go do it, to

8:40

pick up my renewed driver's license, for

8:43

instance, I just was there yesterday, you

8:47

know, at the

8:49

city government offices

8:52

to apply for my new,

8:55

re-up my license, my Dutch license

8:58

just expired, or will expire in June, so I

9:00

needed to re-up. So, you

9:02

know, so I've got the appropriate documents

9:04

for that and an appropriate document

9:06

for picking up a refilling

9:10

antibiotic cream thing,

9:12

whatever. And I've got, there's

9:15

still a good reason to have physical

9:17

folders. This is much easier than trying to find

9:20

any of that stuff digitally. I mean,

9:22

that's crazy. And I don't know that you need to print out

9:24

stuff, certainly over here every

9:27

once in a while. So, you know,

9:29

being equally comfortable with

9:32

paper and digital is, I think,

9:34

critical for, you know, any of that.

9:36

I don't think you're going to get rid of, you know, you're not going

9:38

to get rid of that anytime soon. So

9:41

now the, let's, excuse me, let's

9:44

use your action support folder as an example

9:46

there. Now, obviously you have a lot of stuff in there that,

9:48

you know, relates to your life,

9:51

you know, in the Netherlands. When you and your

9:53

wife go on that train trip, will you

9:55

take that entire folder with you just in case

9:58

someone comes up? No.

9:59

No, that would just go on my travel folder

10:02

that I would have with me. I'd

10:05

look through this and say, is there

10:07

any of this action support stuff that I might need? If

10:10

I was going on a long trip where I might need some

10:13

of that. Well, I'm just thinking

10:15

back to the days when you were traveling

10:17

for GTD consistently and you

10:20

were going to workshops, conferences, and you

10:22

might be coaching an executive along the way.

10:26

Did you find yourself bringing a lot of the

10:28

folders that

10:31

related to non-conference

10:33

or non-like

10:35

you were going there to speak to a conference.

10:38

You maybe had a folder with your script and things like

10:40

that in there. But did

10:42

you also bring other action support things just

10:44

in case you were on the plane and you had a chance

10:46

to work on a project? How would you balance

10:49

what you brought and what you did? I don't think

10:51

I ever did that because anything I was

10:53

doing that was non-specific to clients or

10:56

events would be

10:58

in my computer. If

11:01

I did, I would have it for sure. How

11:06

did you balance what you kept in paper versus

11:08

what you kept on your computer? Whatever

11:11

was the easiest, whichever one that I was

11:13

the easiest to access if

11:16

I needed it. It

11:19

didn't make much difference to me. Obviously,

11:21

as the world became more digitalized

11:23

and PDF'd, then

11:26

a lot of that I only

11:28

needed on the computer. But many times, especially

11:30

if you're walking around or you're face-to-face whatever,

11:32

the computer and the phone

11:35

is not the place to have critical

11:37

documents that you might need for

11:41

the meeting or for the appointment. My

11:47

second booster shot, by the way, I

11:49

just got this registration

11:53

that they hand out once

11:57

you get it. Now, I've

11:59

got this. And so,

12:02

I'm not sure that I need this yet at all,

12:04

but it's sitting in pending because one of the things

12:06

I need to do is detect to see whether I can get

12:09

a, whether I need to get a QR code

12:11

for my second booster shot that

12:13

I don't know yet. Yeah. So that's

12:15

still sitting here. That's a whole lot easier to be reminded by

12:17

having this thing here. Or I

12:20

can just stick that in my passport

12:24

folder. Because

12:28

in the passport folder, in case I'm traveling

12:30

and in case I need that kind

12:32

of documentation, I've

12:35

got this in here that also has my international

12:38

QR code that I've been

12:41

booster shot. So in case

12:43

I need that to get into whatever country I might need

12:46

to go to. So you can't beat

12:48

that paper-based. Right.

12:52

I mean, that's the

12:54

way to do that, at least for me. Yeah.

12:58

So what I find very interesting is that there was

13:00

a period of time, and I think it

13:02

was because all new tools were coming out, that

13:04

everybody decided they wanted to be paperless. And

13:08

I will admit, in fact, I will tell you my story

13:10

and maybe you had a better solution for me

13:12

that I didn't think about. There

13:15

was a time when, of course, I'm based here

13:17

in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, center of the United

13:19

States, but I was chairing

13:22

the board of directors of NPR in Washington.

13:25

And I was, on average, about once a week

13:27

flying back and forth. And

13:29

my system was paper-based. And I was

13:31

continually having a problem where

13:33

I would be in Washington, D.C., and

13:35

needed a document that was in my Milwaukee

13:38

office or vice versa. So I kind

13:40

of gradually moved everything into

13:42

Evernote. And a lot of

13:44

my peers did the same thing. But I'm now beginning

13:47

to sense that people are kind

13:49

of moving back to paper, even such things

13:52

as a calendar. I mean, I

13:55

have a digital calendar. But a lot of my

13:57

friends now, you set up a meeting with them, they bring

13:59

out a paper cylinder do it. So we're maybe

14:01

going through a transition. Yeah,

14:04

well, especially if people have

14:09

attention issues, the

14:12

number of clicks that you have to do on

14:14

any kind of digital device, you

14:18

know, drops for every click,

14:20

you drop about 60% interest

14:23

in participation. You know,

14:26

it takes too much work to look to find whatever

14:29

I got to turn it on, I got to turn on my phone, I have to

14:31

hit this after then turn it like a password

14:33

or put a face ID or whatever.

14:35

And then I think can be can be able to do that. I

14:38

do that. And I do that now

14:40

too, because it's just easier. It's just

14:42

easier to do that. But again, there, there are

14:45

as many or more steps, sometimes

14:48

digitally to manage your data and retrieve

14:50

it digitally,

14:53

then then it is to have it paper

14:55

based and paper basis in your face, it's right there.

14:58

It's, you know, staring at you, whatever.

15:01

And I doubt if your calendar is staring at you

15:03

right now, Dave.

15:04

No, it's not. Yeah. And

15:06

so, so

15:08

there are people that even

15:11

people that are very high tech, I know,

15:13

have gone back to paper for a lot of product,

15:16

both calendar and list and

15:19

list management. They still right or wrong.

15:22

Okay, which one has

15:24

the smoothest sailing, you

15:26

know, when you're moving around and doing what you're

15:28

doing, you know, and to

15:30

your point of,

15:31

you know, flying back and forth to DC with your meetings.

15:35

One thing on my travel checklist was what documents

15:37

do I need

15:38

on this trip,

15:39

relative to people I'm meeting with, you

15:42

know, things that may be may be going

15:44

on, on the trip, that

15:46

I might need those that stuff in hand, you

15:48

know, or have it available to me. So

15:50

that was just another item.

15:53

Sometimes it was nothing, but sometimes, oh,

15:56

I really need to print that out and then carry that

15:58

with me. Right. My

16:01

inbox here is actually kind of full because

16:04

I have an empty in a few days. But

16:08

that's always been a problem for me when I

16:10

travel because a lot

16:12

of things are kind of thrown at you from meeting

16:15

notes to receipts to

16:18

whatever. How have

16:20

you managed that to keep

16:22

yourself sane while you're traveling? As

16:24

I have for years. So

16:28

you have an inbox tray

16:31

on your desk, but when you travel you take

16:34

that folder. Correct. Okay.

16:37

And it might be now because

16:39

I'm in Europe sometimes

16:47

it looks like that.

16:52

Yeah. Okay. Because

16:55

you got funky little receipts or whatever

16:57

they stick better in a plastic,

17:01

sort of an enclosed step little

17:03

plastic folder. Yeah. It's

17:05

all those little things that are easy to be lost

17:07

in even in a regular file folder.

17:10

Yeah. And this is my last

17:12

trip, by the way, I didn't take a briefcase. I

17:14

took my pack. And

17:19

what do you mean? A backpack. You mean a backpack?

17:22

A backpack. Yeah. Because

17:24

my, you know, my laptop fits in that. And

17:27

given that I was a lot of

17:29

different reasons, I decided to not

17:32

bother with a carry on, but check

17:35

my stuff. And

17:38

so, you know, my travel folder,

17:40

you know, I have a version of that in travel documents

17:43

because that can sit in my backpack like that.

17:46

Whereas the open file

17:48

folders don't. Right. So

17:50

I just, I just, so I just kind of manage, you

17:52

know, the little sort of low tech versions

17:55

of how do I manage whatever documentation

17:57

I need. And it's not that complex. I

17:59

mean. Yeah, but

18:01

that little snap makes a big difference, I think,

18:03

for keeping things together. Yeah,

18:07

it can. Well, certainly if you have to turn it

18:09

sideways. Right. In a back-pack.

18:12

What other folders do you typically

18:14

carry with you when you are on the road

18:17

or have been on the road? Not

18:19

much. As little as possible.

18:22

Basically, that travel

18:25

checklist, my travel, I carry

18:27

anything. If

18:31

it's not a big trip, I'll usually put everything

18:33

in there that I might need during the trip. Sure.

18:36

That's how I

18:38

do

18:40

that.

18:42

Okay. You

18:45

said something in a video that you recorded

18:47

many, many, many years ago, probably when you were

18:49

in the midst of all of your

18:52

extensive travel, that one of the

18:54

most important things you can do is when

18:57

you return from a trip, literally

18:59

take your briefcase and just

19:01

dump everything out of it. I have to tell you, that

19:04

has saved my bacon so many different

19:06

times. It's the thing

19:08

I hate the most, but to your point,

19:10

is extremely valuable. When

19:13

I came back with my pack after this

19:15

trip to just unload and decompress

19:17

all the stuff that I collected

19:20

in it and around it, and

19:23

these was unnecessary

19:26

evil. To

19:28

your point, that's great. The

19:33

loose ends, the weird, strange

19:35

little loose ends after doing

19:39

travel are the things that leave you alive.

19:42

To your point, it is salvation

19:45

to have the habit to make sure

19:47

that you don't have any loose ends. It's

19:50

like your nine-year-old that comes back with a pack at

19:53

the end of the week and unloads the stuff

19:55

that the teacher gave them their mom needs to sign. Same

19:58

thing. Yeah. You

20:01

know, one of the things that when you recorded that video

20:03

that I was tremendously jealous

20:05

of you is you had this wonderful

20:08

leather to me bag, which

20:11

I lusted after but couldn't afford

20:13

it was way too expensive for my for

20:15

my budget at the time. But the one

20:17

thing I also realized is that, you

20:19

know, if you have a really large briefcase,

20:22

you're just going to put more garbage in there and

20:24

it's going to be heavier to carry and and

20:26

so I'm always looking for ways to kind of, you

20:29

know, narrow as you said, just bring

20:31

what you want to have to have and

20:33

just don't worry about the rest of the stuff. Yeah,

20:37

me too. But that too me briefly, I still can

20:39

use it on a big trip

20:41

because it fits the iPad. If it's

20:43

the laptop, it fits my phone, it fits

20:46

all these travel folders that I might

20:48

need. If it's it fits dental floss,

20:50

it fits, you know, all

20:54

the chargers that you might need on the train.

20:57

So sometimes you just need that.

20:59

Ryan, that's comfortable. Right,

21:02

right. So I want to I want to shift

21:05

now to a slightly different topic, but

21:07

also about how you can use GTD to kind

21:09

of keep yourself sane. And that's how

21:11

to manage, you know,

21:13

major projects that may not be work oriented. I

21:15

was thinking about your, you know,

21:17

how your life has evolved. I mean, not only

21:19

the move that you made from the States to to

21:22

to the Netherlands, but also, you

21:24

know, recently you just you've moved to a new

21:26

place. You've got a wonderful apartment

21:29

there. And how did you

21:31

use GTD to manage

21:34

all of the little things that went into

21:38

uprooting your life and moving it? I mean,

21:40

everything from dealing with contractors to movers

21:42

to just things you had to do. What do you

21:44

do to structure things? Well,

21:47

my wife and I share a database, you

21:50

know, that has that we that

21:52

we use to keep track of things

21:54

we're still waiting to happen, things

21:56

that we've ordered that haven't come yet.

21:59

I keep an Excel spreadsheet

22:02

in terms of keeping track of all the expenses for

22:04

all that. So it's just a matter

22:06

of, okay, what data might I find useful

22:09

in the process of doing it? And

22:12

many times, a lot of those projects were not

22:14

mine. For

22:16

instance, I had a project called Set Up My Own

22:19

Little Office here in the apartment.

22:21

And

22:23

that was just on my project list. And I had

22:25

waiting for us from the things

22:27

that I was waiting on for other people to do. And

22:30

things that need to be delivered so

22:32

that I could find this thing. Okay, done.

22:35

And that was on my project list

22:37

from G for the last

22:40

nine months. And finally, I got

22:42

to check it off because I finally got all the last

22:44

two pieces that I needed to set

22:46

up my office the way I wanted it. So

22:49

I just, most of those were,

22:52

I treated as sort of individual projects,

22:54

not like one huge project. That

22:57

was just such a big thing anyway

23:00

to renovate and finish

23:02

the renovation for the apartment. That

23:06

was just such an obvious thing anyway as a

23:09

goal. Because

23:11

we bought this place January

23:13

of last year. So it's been 14, 15 months.

23:19

And there's still a couple

23:22

of significant pieces that haven't finished yet. I

23:26

haven't bothered to keep track of all

23:28

of that because we hired somebody

23:30

to manage all the

23:35

construction and renovation pieces.

23:38

And

23:39

trusting him to be able to manage

23:42

that as appropriate. And then as

23:44

things show up, then we can ping him and then manage

23:46

that. And then those show up then

23:49

as individual little projects, individual

23:51

things to contract it. I

23:54

just don't have that complex

23:57

of life now. where

24:00

I've got 45 of such projects.

24:03

That's like just one of maybe 12

24:06

or 15 significance

24:09

right now that I'm keeping track of and managing status

24:12

on. So I don't need to do

24:14

a whole lot of traction because it's just so obvious

24:16

because I live here. So it's obvious

24:18

I just walk around going, how's that? Yeah,

24:21

every day. Yeah, and

24:23

my wife, Catherine, just manages a whole lot

24:25

of those pieces anyway.

24:27

So.

24:28

Yay, Catherine. Yay. Well,

24:32

it's a quintos in terms of

24:34

do you trust this? Do you trust that life

24:36

as it's gonna happen is sufficient

24:39

reminder for you? Or do

24:41

you need to have some sort of external trigger

24:43

to make sure that something doesn't fall through a crack

24:45

or that you feel comfortable about what's going on? Yeah.