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Don't cram plenty people on Zoom. Fluorescent light at office all day long. You know, you probably are gonna work from home.

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Hello and welcome to the next episode, episode 43 of the No Office podcast. We've had a break, but now we're coming back and we'll be coming on a more loser cadence over the next months.

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but we will be recording a podcast so stay subscribed to No Office Podcast and

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make sure that to recommend it to your friends. And this episode already is a

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very special one. It's, as you would paraphrase David Letterman, "My next guest

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needs no introduction because he's David Allen of the Getting Things Done fame

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name, and David Allen, the author of the book, the author of The Movement. And I have a pleasure

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of speaking to him. I met him several times in my life and most recently on the GTD Summit.

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So on a conference for geeks, getting things done, geeks like myself in Amsterdam in 2019.

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right before the pandemic. So then we saw each other. It was a blast. We've had a blast.

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I met lots of like-minded people, many Nozbe users who use Nozbe to implement Getting Things Done.

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With that, now after the pandemic, I convinced David to talk to him and interview him for this

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show to just get an update of what he still thinks, what's going on with GTD, how GTD

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evolved, how the pandemic forced people to use GTD more and to really get organized.

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Also we talked about Holacracy, which is a very interesting subject of making the companies

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self-manage, which is something I've been trying to do in my company.

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David is challenging me.

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He's asking-- I mean, I'm trying to ask questions,

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but he's actually asking me to go one step further.

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So it's a very interesting conversation.

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I hope you'll enjoy it and you'll love it.

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Without much further ado, here's David Allen

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of Getting Things Done.

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So David, thanks for agreeing to talk to you.

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As you mentioned, we have seen each other at the GTT Summit

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in Amsterdam three years ago in 2019,

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So right before the pandemic, it feels like a decade ago.

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- What happened to those three years?

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Geez.

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- So after this decade of three years,

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tell me, what do you think is like the main,

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like, do you see a change in the world of business,

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in the world of getting things done because of the pandemic,

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because of the world happened?

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- It just spreads some things up in terms

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of how many people needed to manage themselves better.

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- Okay. - That's all.

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Okay, so you think that just people realize that they need to get stuff done better?

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Well, it undid a lot of the structures that allowed them to be comfortable, that in that structure they could be told what to do.

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Or they could go to the office and then say, "Okay, I'm in the office, therefore I do these kinds of things."

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If they don't have an office, back to the whole idea of hybrid, like, "Okay, if you're not in the office,

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How do you manage office-level work when you're not in an office?

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And for a lot of people that was quite stressful because they weren't used to that.

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I mean, come on, any salesperson or consultant has lived a hybrid world for years.

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It's their career. So it's not a new event.

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It's just new about how many people have to then deal with that.

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And I remember one of the things that, you know, when I read your book for the first time many, many years ago,

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so the kind of new thing that I learned was then, you know, I mean, I learned many new things and getting things done,

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but one of the most striking thing was the context concept, right, that you work in different contexts.

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And there is the context at home, there's the context at office.

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In the pandemic world, these contexts are very intertwined.

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Yeah, you got a deal?

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Yeah, you got a deal with this.

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And I think for me,

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for example, the surprising thing was when I was talking to business,

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to entrepreneurs, to fellow entrepreneurs,

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what was their surprise

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when the pandemic hit and all that stuff?

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It's like they were surprised that people

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are actually, when being forced

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to juggle it all

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at home and everything,

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they're actually working.

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I mean, when people are forced

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with stress, they have to

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have to just figure it out. And many people did. And I think it was surprising for many

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folks, for many entrepreneurs that their people can actually cope with that and they can work

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pretty effectively even when they don't have to go to the office every day.

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As long as they have keys for managing themselves in terms of their commitments. And

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You know, Michael, given what I teach, you should be able to you want to

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time for kids.

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Great.

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Go to do kids.

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Don't be bothered by the rest of your world time to do work.

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Fine.

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Just don't be bothered by the rest of your world.

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So how do you arrange your life so that whatever you're focused on is not

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distracted by the rest of your world?

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Well, you got to manage the rest of your world so that some part of you can put

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that to bed.

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But again, that's the essence of GTD has been from the beginning.

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Again, I still remember in my first seminar with you, where we met for the first time, I still remember that

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when you said that when you do your weekly review, so you think then, and then you'll know that next week you'll think again.

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But in the meantime, you'll be just executing. So to me, this kind of idea was kind of foreign.

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Like you think once and you prepare everything and then you have the confidence to trust that

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you're going to think again in a week.

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Can you just, you know, I'm right on that.

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No, you said it well, you know, that's it.

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If you're not thinking once a week, you're trying to think all the time, but not finishing it.

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So I go, you know, why waste your time trying to think about what you ought to be, that ought to be thinking about how you ought to be thinking about what you ought to be thinking about how you ought to be thinking about 24/7.

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stop once a week, finish that process so that some part of you could then just trust your intuitive strategic choices about what you do.

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So in this chat, I want to discuss more of this concept of how to teach or introduce GTD in a team, how to work together.

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And one of the things that we did in my company is that on every Friday, we make weekly review kind of mandatory.

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But I mean, not really mandatory because you cannot force anyone to do anything.

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But we encourage people on Fridays to spend the time on a weekly review.

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And we've had mixed successes with that. Not everyone is doing that.

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Have you seen how leaders have tried to introduce weekly review to their teams?

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Or have you seen them struggling with that?

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Do you have any tips for me and for other entrepreneurs how to introduce weekly review to the team?

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The best example I have is a very, very senior guy at Hewlett-Packard HP, big GPD fan.

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And once a week when he had a weekly team meeting, he put up his brain, the brain he used, the mind mapping.

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He said, by the way, guys, here's my world right now.

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Here's what has my attention.

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Here's what I'm doing.

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And he essentially did a weekly review, at least professionally, in terms of all of his

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people.

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He said, so you know why I'm making the decisions I'm making.

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Uh-huh.

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Right?

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He didn't have to do anything else other than that.

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I mean, modeling is the best educational form you can do.

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So if you do that, it might believe you showed up and said, "Hey, guys, let me show you my weekly review,"

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da-da-da-da-da, at least what you're willing to share with them. And here's how I'm doing that.

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If they don't, then they can do it or not do it. But I guarantee you they'll feel a little embarrassed if they're not.

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- Yeah. We have this thing that on our company Slack, people are saying,

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"I've done my weekly review," or "I am about to do," or whatever.

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but I think the sense of embarrassment is not there yet so I think you're totally right I should be more

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transparent with my weekly review exactly so not just that I did it.

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And say guys I don't give a fuck whether you do this or not.

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You know it's like if you want to play my game here's how I play that game

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and if you're not doing a weekly review I'm not sure I'm trusting you and making your priority choices right.

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I'm not sure you're not letting stuff fall to the crack that might need to fall to the crack so

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If you say you're doing this by the way, I had very,

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very senior person at one of the big, uh,

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global news networks, big champion of my stuff. She had my,

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by the way,

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she's the kind of person that I walked into her office and she had my workflow

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diagram under her glass on her desk. Wow.

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She says, David, when I'm nuts, you know, this just makes me sane.

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But what she did was every Friday afternoon, you know,

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once she cleaned the deck, she said all her emails were zeroed

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out. She'd done her review. She said, then she sent a note to

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all of her staff and said, By the way, my email is zeroed. Now

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yours isn't. That was such fun. She made that a kind of a game

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with everybody. But I don't know how you could force people to do

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that. I don't know that I ever would.

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So one of the things we do, actually, I mean, in this vein, this is what we do exactly on Fridays,

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that people who are not doing their weekly review, because, you know, we use Nozbe and we share tasks

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and projects, so they get all the tasks. So everyone else has the tasks, the activity cleaned up,

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but then the ones who don't, don't. So it is kind of a game, you're right.

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this is uh that's that's pretty smart well come on you need to enjoy this it is a game

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no it's like a game to empty my in basket it's like you're like wow it's like sure let me see

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what's that i'm gonna do with that what do i do with that see the problem is if you haven't had

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the game defined it's hard to play the game right and so defining what the game is like

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It's just a critical element to how you make sure those things kind of work.

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Right? So ultimately, when you can define the game, you can be playing the game and say,

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"Hey, guys, here's the game to do," and make it kind of lightweight.

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Don't make it so heavyweight for people.

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- One of the things we practice in this weekly review also, and this is the best part,

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and very often it comes from junior people on our team.

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It's like they create, for example, let's say there is a project,

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and they see that there's a project, but it's completely abandoned.

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and there are no next actions defined, it's just there.

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So what they do is they check who created the project,

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and they create a task for this person.

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For example, to me, let's say, because for example, I

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had this idea, but I just completely

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abandoned the project.

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And there's a task I get from a junior person.

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Michael, are we closing this project or what?

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And then I'm like, aha, so now I have to decide.

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And I think this is kind of this gamification thing

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that we are kind of challenging each other to define the next action or to...

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It's an important game. If you like football,

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football player, soccer player to get on the field, what are the two things?

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Where's the goal? What's the next play? Those are the two things that are the

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drivers of what they do to be successful. And so coaching that

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and just making sure people think, "Great, where's your goal? What's the next play?"

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Yeah, I think so. I think, yeah, I think that, you know, especially then, you know, what's your next play?

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Because, you know, where... I mean, but of course, if you don't know the goal, the same thing.

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Your next play can be anywhere or anything. And I think this is what I... because I read your

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article about, you know, introducing GTD to teams, and we're going to link this in the show notes to

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this podcast episode. And here, link is also on YouTube. So, one of the things you said,

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that to introduce GTD in teams, the important factor is the ownership. So, like you, like,

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so that people have to have their like tasks or ideas or goals or projects, they have to have,

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you know, clear owner. Otherwise, they will not be moved forward, right?

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Well, the purpose of a team is to fulfill some purpose for the team.

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Yeah.

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So who owns that purpose?

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Who knows what it is, the team aware of why they are a team.

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You wouldn't be a team if there wasn't some reason to be a team.

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So too many teams have either lost the vision of what their purpose was or never

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even knew what it was to begin with.

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What's their purpose.

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And then who owns that because who owns that then has to determine a lot of how

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of how the team then manages itself in terms of fulfilling that purpose.

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Exactly. Yeah. And this kind of explains whenever I feel that we are losing focus,

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it's because either me or somebody from my leadership team hasn't determined what's next and the why.

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Yeah. And you can do it either way. You can do, "Well, what's next?" and then, "Why are you doing that as next?"

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and then they get back at it back up to, okay, well here's the purpose of what

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we're trying to accomplish. But you know,

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being involved in Holacracy for the last 10 years, it could have been very,

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very rigorously trained in how do you really,

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really discreetly determine purpose not only of the team,

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but the roles in the team and the people playing those roles and what are the

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purposes of those roles? You know,

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are they supposed to produce correct numbers on a consistent basis in a timely

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way?

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Are they supposed to ensure that feedback from customers has been integrated and

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recalibrated appropriately? Come on. What's the purpose of the team?

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You know,

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and then you've got a senior team and their purpose is going to be to fulfill

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whatever the company's purpose is, you know, as a team.

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But then each one of them probably has their own separate roles that then need

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to be calibrated. So I've, I've, you know,

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for 40 years inside learning role based organizational,

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you know, organization, role-based stuff is great,

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but in the last 10 years, I've gotten much more discreet

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about roles, how critical that is, 'cause, you know,

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you and I can like each other, but if we're unclear

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about what role you have, what role I have,

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and if they overlap, you know, we wanna shoot each other.

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You know?

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(Saul laughs)

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- Right, yeah, I remember on the GTD Summit,

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Holacracy was one of the things that was,

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was kind of, let's say, the secondary theme of the conference, because there was lots of talking about holacracy.

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And especially, I think, in the Netherlands, it's being widely...

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It's pretty popular here.

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And after the conference, when I came back to my team,

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so I read the book and all that stuff, but I didn't know how to

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introduce it gradually to the team.

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You don't you don't forget it either go all in

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or forget it.

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You can't halfway do holacracy.

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It's either you have to give it up Michael and go look I will let the self organized

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organization make the decisions about the company as opposed to me.

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As soon as you pull the founders card,

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you know,

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it doesn't work.

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Uh huh.

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As you say,

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well,

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you should decide that.

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But here's what I'm gonna do.

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Forget it.

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You're not gonna have a self organizing organization.

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So it takes a bit of courage for whoever is the owner founder or whoever

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runs the thing or owns it has to be willing to say I will give over

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to the process and it's quite a rigorous process.

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So you know, I'm not a big, I'm not voting that you or anybody else would

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find this easy.

243
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You have to be called to it.

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Okay.

245
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But it's a trend, you know, you know, come on.

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The trend started when organizations started to flatten.

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people had to be expected to manage themselves a lot more than whatever and

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change was happening faster and faster.

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And so the requirement for people to be able to manage themselves, you know,

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you didn't, you didn't have a lot of resources to have, you know,

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senior people hold your hands to figure out what your team should be doing.

252
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You need to figure that out yourself. So it's a trend that's not going to stop.

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I mean, so I don't know the last statistic, but it's always something like,

254
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I don't know, in the next 10 years, 80% of the US workforce is going to be subcontractors.

255
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Yeah. I mean, so for example, when we developed the application on the developer side, for example, what we did,

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we, okay, so you said full on, I say, we tried to do some of it. So some of it means that in that sense,

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Like, for example, we have a new Nozbe feature that we want to introduce, right?

258
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So we decide together with the team who is the feature owner, so who's the person responsible for this feature.

259
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And then this person, when they are developing the feature and coordinating the whole thing, the design and all that stuff,

260
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they have the last say and they decide what to do.

261
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So even though I am the founder and I am the boss,

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I can give suggestions or whatever, but they ultimately decide when the feature is shipped

263
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and how the feature looks like. I have no say in this. I can only give feedback,

264
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but my feedback is as good as any other person's feedback on that.

265
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So would you say that this is just the beginning of this?

266
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Yeah, that's the idea.

267
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Exactly. So that they know that this is their role. As you said, this is their role.

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their role is to be the leader of this feature, of this part, of this bubble, like it was in the Holacracy.

269
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And they have the last say, and they own this. And this is the process.

270
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Yeah, as long as you don't undermine the process. But you could.

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There's always temptation to do that.

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So my challenge doing that was really to remind them that they are the boss, in that sense.

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that sense. Because kind of, I don't know, so my people are really, as every founder would say, I have the best team. Of course, my people are the best. But what I'm saying is that they are the best. But I think the ingrained kind of the way people were brought up in the professional world is that they have to still adhere to the

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hierarchy of the, you know, of the organization. And so it

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bears reminding them that, you know, you're the boss here. This is your decision. If you

276
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say this is, if you say this, you say this, that this is how we roll.

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And I see that we have to keep on reminding them that to be able to

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make sure that they finally get the message, that it's not easy.

279
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I understand. I just signed a contract. You haven't done that.

280
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Okay. They all know you could pull the plug at any time.

281
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a difference. And I'm not saying you know, you're what you're

282
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doing is great, fabulous. And if it work, good work. I'm just

283
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saying, if you really wanted to do this, you have to sign a

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contract to make sure that you will keep that agreement, that

285
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they make that decision. And by the way, in a holacracy

286
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framework, you could be given all the power you want to make

287
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whatever decisions you want, as long as the organization agrees

288
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to that. Right. So, you know, it's a it's a brand, you know,

289
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came up with it and he's from another planet. I mean, he figured this thing out in detail. How

290
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do you create organizational mind like water? He did it.

291
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So basically what you're saying is that, because what I'm saying is that my concern is that because

292
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people are brought up this way, they are not doing it. What you're saying is that,

293
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Right, but because I haven't signed the contract, so they really have it, like they know,

294
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that's why they don't, they are always kind of, they would be second guessing that may make

295
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:17,280
it not make you not being sure that I might pull the plan.

296
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And by the way, even though I signed the contract, Catherine and I did,

297
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it still took three or four years before people didn't want to go, "Oh, well, yeah, but Dave or

298
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Catherine could still do X, Y, and Z." Okay.

299
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the company. So it took a while for people to really get that we met what we

300
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said because they're, you know, they're still going to go to you, Michael.

301
00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:44,880
Yeah, I'm sorry. They will. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's the way

302
00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:50,720
that's the way that game plays. But if you say yeah, and you know, but I have

303
00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:57,640
agreed in writing, I have agreed in, you know, in principle, I've made a commitment

304
00:21:58,360 --> 00:22:01,920
that the way we've now structured the organization…

305
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:07,160
It sounds like you may have individual relationships with these teams

306
00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:10,960
and with the project, but it's probably not built into the organization.

307
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And I'm not saying you should, again, if you want a total buy-in,

308
00:22:16,120 --> 00:22:18,620
that makes the whole organization function that way.

309
00:22:18,620 --> 00:22:23,120
Otherwise, it's ad hoc, how you're managing that, but sounds like you're doing well.

310
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Yay?

311
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:32,120
Yeah. It's like, again, when we introduced, for example, Mighty Fridays. So Mighty Friday is the

312
00:22:32,120 --> 00:22:40,200
concept we introduced in our company that on Fridays we don't do normal work. We don't do day-to-day

313
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work. On Fridays we do weekly review, and on Fridays we focus on personal development. So you

314
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can read stuff, you can read finally the GTD book, or go through a course, or whatever. So Friday is

315
00:22:52,520 --> 00:23:00,760
is for that, right? And still I see, I feel like I have to slap people's hands every Friday because

316
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:05,480
they kind of go back to just, "I'm gonna just finish this task there. I'm gonna just finish

317
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this thing." Human nature is bad. - I know, come on, but the rules are made when brains run out.

318
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But let people do what they feel like doing. Just say, "Here's a big suggestion. Here's what I'm doing.

319
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Any of you guys don't do this. You're going to be kind of behind my cloud, so

320
00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:26,760
your choice. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out how to

321
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not only motivate them, but first, like, set a good example, but

322
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still kind of challenge them, because

323
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what I'm thinking is... Well, if they don't know what their priorities are and they can't

324
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:42,360
give you a complete current and accurate total up-to-date

325
00:23:42,360 --> 00:23:45,960
project list, fire them.

326
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:50,360
I don't mean to... Look, I'm 77, a little old and cranky right now, but come on,

327
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That's the truth.

328
00:23:50,960 --> 00:23:54,040
You know, you don't have to say, go do GTD.

329
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:55,920
Just go show me your project list.

330
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:58,520
They don't have one called why the hell not.

331
00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:01,080
How are you managing your life?

332
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:04,200
If you don't have a list of all the commitments at these levels.

333
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:05,840
Yeah, completely.

334
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:08,360
So it's a CTD is just good business.

335
00:24:08,360 --> 00:24:10,120
Why would you start a meeting without going?

336
00:24:10,120 --> 00:24:14,160
What are we trying to accomplish by when you would, why would you end a discussion

337
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:14,600
with that thing?

338
00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:15,520
So what's the next action?

339
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:16,000
Who's got it?

340
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:17,560
I mean, this is GPD.

341
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:21,880
just outcome and action thinking, you know, and making sure you manage that appropriately

342
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in terms of organization and reflection and review. So, you know, that's how you get them to do it,

343
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is hold people accountable to their business practices. I mean, use the word GTD, just get

344
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:39,240
out of your vocabulary. Yeah. You know, the thing is that, um, it's like with social media, like,

345
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you know, when you, uh, when you don't know what to do with you, because like you're bored or

346
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something, the first thing you open your phone and you scroll through social media, because it's the

347
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easiest thing to do. It's like you lean on the easiest thing.

348
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:52,280
Yeah, well sometimes that's a cool thing to do because your brain needs a risk. If

349
00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:56,920
you've been spending an hour trying to design a spreadsheet, your brain

350
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:01,560
is toast. Sometimes, hey go to social media, snack on email, if nothing

351
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:05,960
else, why not? There's nothing wrong with that. Just doing that as opposed to

352
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:08,120
something some part of you think you should be

353
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doing. That's where you can run into the problem.

354
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And that's how I feel about these Fridays very often is that

355
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:17,480
that people instead of just figuring out, as you said,

356
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:22,000
figuring out what they should do with the data

357
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:23,640
I'm giving them for personal development,

358
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:26,040
they can do whatever they want.

359
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:27,480
They kind of lean in on the easiest,

360
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:29,640
like, I'm gonna just finish the day-to-day tasks.

361
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:31,600
I'm gonna just still work.

362
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:33,240
- Yeah, I probably would too.

363
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:35,440
Yeah.

364
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:36,260
- Why would you? - You're telling me

365
00:25:36,260 --> 00:25:37,100
to grow my stuff.

366
00:25:37,100 --> 00:25:38,480
I'm not ready to grow my stuff.

367
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:41,040
I'm adult enough, thank you very much.

368
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:42,560
I'm not gonna do this other stuff.

369
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:47,320
So don't well, I don't know up to you if you want to take on the preacher role.

370
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:49,920
It's not only the preacher role.

371
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:51,200
It's like more.

372
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:52,600
Yeah, maybe.

373
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:55,960
Well, you might, you might, I don't know if you've communicated talk guys.

374
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:57,960
Here's why I suggest you do this.

375
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:00,200
Have you written that out really sincerely?

376
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:00,900
Yes, I have.

377
00:26:00,900 --> 00:26:05,080
But maybe we should, maybe I should, I have done it like years ago and maybe I should revisit that.

378
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:05,800
How, how it's

379
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:07,160
or just have a meeting again.

380
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:08,640
And guys, here's what I suggest.

381
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:10,560
How are you guys feeling about this?

382
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:14,120
Should I just stop pinging you about this kind of stuff?

383
00:26:14,120 --> 00:26:14,960
- Yeah.

384
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:16,240
- I don't want to be a bother.

385
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:17,080
- Exactly.

386
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:17,920
- I'm just trying to be an inspiration

387
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:19,840
because it worked for me and whatever.

388
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:22,920
So just be honest and open

389
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,480
and not push on that, Michael.

390
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:26,600
- Yeah.

391
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:29,160
- Because you can be a pushy kind of guy.

392
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:32,080
(laughing)

393
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:33,520
- Yes, I can.

394
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:37,040
But aren't all overachievers like that?

395
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:38,800
- Until they learn better.

396
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:39,640
- Could be.

397
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,040
Yeah, you're right.

398
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,680
Well, they learned to achieve results through more subtle means.

399
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:49,240
Yeah, there is still a lot to learn from you.

400
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:52,240
Me too.

401
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:57,080
So, David, just to wrap it up, so tell me how you've been.

402
00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:03,600
As the company is right now in Holacracy and you're still running it from Amsterdam, right?

403
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:06,560
So, how is this working?

404
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:10,200
I mean, and then people from my company are all over the world right now, as far as I know.

405
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:18,480
It works great. We shrank from 50 people to five because we became pretty much an IP licensing company more than anything else.

406
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:26,400
We still have some digital products and GTD Connect are sort of membership online stuff that we do.

407
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:32,680
But for the most part, I'm supporting all of our licensed partners around the world that are doing what they're doing.

408
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:35,520
And we're represented in 90 countries now.

409
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:40,480
Nice. So a lot of what I do is just, you know, as needed, you know,

410
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:44,160
little ad hoc things show up called, Hey, can you do this? Can you do this?

411
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:47,280
Whatever. And I'm still, now that the pandemic is over,

412
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:52,240
I just did a keynote in Nashville and just been contracted to do

413
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:56,000
another keynote in Virginia, you know, next month.

414
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:58,600
So surprisingly, you know,

415
00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:03,280
my invitation to do my own personal keynote presentations are still

416
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:06,840
kind of a light and well out there at least a little bit.

417
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:09,880
So I'm still doing that. So that's a lot of what's going on.

418
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:14,400
I can't stop doing GTD. Anybody asks like you or anybody else go, Hey,

419
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:17,360
you know, come on. It's great stuff. It does nothing but improve people's lives.

420
00:28:17,360 --> 00:28:22,200
And again at age 77 I don't know how many more years I got to crank this out,

421
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:27,240
but you know, and I thought at some point Michael, you and the, you know,

422
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:32,040
6 million other people who've got GTD and they go, okay, now what? Yeah, well,

423
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:36,280
I'm done, but they keep coming out from under the rocks.

424
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:40,320
I've done 2,000 podcasts and interviews in 2001

425
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:43,860
since the first edition of "Getting Things Done,"

426
00:28:43,860 --> 00:28:47,300
but I still do one or two a week.

427
00:28:47,300 --> 00:28:48,140
- Yeah. - Who knew?

428
00:28:48,140 --> 00:28:48,960
Who knew?

429
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:50,560
- Who knew, right?

430
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:51,520
That's why I invited you,

431
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:53,640
'cause I think it all burns repeating,

432
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:55,200
and it all burns, you know,

433
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:59,560
and I'm sure there will be lots of listeners of this show

434
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,920
to just like, "Okay, so who is this David Holland?

435
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:05,320
What is this GTD? Like, they will be like, they will see it for the first time.

436
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:08,680
Anybody who's read the book, read it again, it'll be a whole different book.

437
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:13,080
Right? But these are the books I keep on coming to, like the GTD book,

438
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:15,720
The Essentialism by Greg McKeown.

439
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:20,280
Like, there are a few, just very few books that I keep on rereading,

440
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:22,960
and keep on reading back, you know?

441
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:27,360
And keep on, and the best part is, with every read, I learn something new.

442
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:28,760
So, yeah.

443
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:32,520
Well, you're a new person every time you read it, so you see it through a different lens.

444
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:36,020
So your different lens notices different things in the information.

445
00:29:36,020 --> 00:29:40,620
Exactly. Well, David, thank you so much. It's been a blast.

446
00:29:40,620 --> 00:29:46,420
Yeah, I'm going to just record the outro later. So just say thank you to everyone.

447
00:29:46,420 --> 00:29:48,560
Yeah. God bless everybody.

448
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:51,760
And thanks, and please send my best regards to Catherine.

449
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:52,920
I will.

450
00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:59,720
Yeah, and hope that maybe we can see each other for a coffee or beer in Amsterdam at some point.

451
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:09,000
Maybe you'll get a new GTD summit conference at some point. We'll see. Never say never.

452
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:16,760
Yeah. Bye-bye. Thanks for tuning in and hi, I hope you enjoyed this conversation with David Allen,

453
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:22,760
the author of the book "Getting Things Done, the Art of Stress-Free Productivity." As you know,

454
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:27,480
"Getting Things Done", this book, was the sole inspiration for me creating Nozbe.

455
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:34,440
And Nozbe was built in 2007 to help me implement "Getting Things Done".

456
00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:39,240
I mean, for example, the view of priority was initially called "Next Actions".

457
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:45,320
And the whole idea of contexts, projects, it was all born there.

458
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:50,280
Now, the new Nozbe that we just introduced a few years back,

459
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:58,840
The new Nozbe is focused on helping not only you get things done, but also the teams get things done together.

460
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:04,840
Because as David said in the conversation, if you don't see other people's project list,

461
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:12,840
and if you don't know their priorities or their next actions, it's hard to say, it's hard to decide what to do and where to go next.

462
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:17,840
That's why with Nozbe, we're trying to make GTD more collaborative,

463
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:22,760
but on the other hand, inspire everyone on the team to do their weekly review on Friday,

464
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:28,000
to review their projects, to review their tasks, and to make sure that they've got the priorities straight

465
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:31,160
and they know what's next for them for next week.

466
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:37,360
So that's it. Thank you so much. And till the next No Office podcast.

467
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:46,160
And if you have any questions or you would like to give feedback, please rate us on iTunes, on the podcast.

468
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:54,160
And also you can comment if you go to nooffice.fm/43 as in 43rd episode of the show.

469
00:31:54,160 --> 00:32:01,660
Over there you'll find this episode also as a video and you will be able to add comments.

470
00:32:01,660 --> 00:32:09,160
And I'll be happy to respond to these comments so make sure to not be a stranger and let me know what you think.

471
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:15,660
And if you have discovered getting things done for the first time make sure to read David's book.

472
00:32:15,660 --> 00:32:19,160
And if you want to implement GTV, use Nozbe.

473
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:21,960
Okay, thank you so much, and till the next one.

474
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:30,960
♪♪

475
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:37,960
♪♪

476
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:49,960
Bye!