2. Step 1 in GTD: Capture

[Music] Hi and welcome to episode number two of the Getting Things on Podcast from the DJD Nordic. I'm Morten Révek and I'm here with my friend and colleague, Lars Roskill Henrichsen. Hello Lars. I'm happy to be here again to this first real diving episode of The Getting Things done from DJD Nordic Podcast. So about this podcast, we are doing this to support all the DJDers in the Nordics and around the world to help you use the GCD methodology to clear your mind, to stay present with what you're doing to achieve stress-free productivity. And we hope once again that you find these episodes valuable regardless of your GCD experience. Okay, this first real episode is going to focus on the first step of the five steps of The Getting Things done methodology. The first step is capture and this is a very important step. It starts off the empty head that you are trying to achieve to get into the stress-free productivity. This stress-free head is as we mentioned in the first episode is really important that it is actually empty. You don't have anything banging around in there. So Lars, can you walk us through how do you capture practically and why on earth is this capture important? Yeah, so as you may remember from the first episode, I really did not have this habit at all. So just simply starting to write things down that really made a huge difference for me. And I think back when I found it, I would basically use whatever tools I had at hand. So it could have been paper that I would later put in one of my inboxes, but it could also just have been digitally. I certainly remember sending myself a lot of emails and I know I've come across a lot of people that did that that would show up to work Monday morning and find seven emails from yourself from over the weekend with various ideas that you had captured during the day. And as part of the capture step, one of the important things is really to get it all out of your head. It's so tempting to only write down the stuff that you, you know, the analytical part of your team's most important, but all this stuff really rolls around your head if you don't get it out. The type of memory that you use for this is not aware of complexity or urgency or importance. It all shows up at the same shelf as I like to say in Denmark. So whether it's by cat food or by a new car, it really is the same to that part of the brain. So in order to silence that part of the mind, we need to get all that stuff out. Yeah. And how do you practically do that? Get it out of your hand. So as soon as something shows up in my world, I write it down. Anything that potentially meaningful to me, I think is how we phrase it in English. It's stuff that I write down. So that means that I have tools for any situation that I might find myself in when I come across something that I want to remember. So I have a, you know, I have my list manager where I write stuff down digitally. We have good old posted notes on the dining room table where if we come out of craft stuff during breakfast, then we use that for writing things down. I have my Apple Watch and iPhone that I speak into stuff that I want to be reminded about both using Siri, but also some more complex workflows. For example, when I'm out running, I get a lot of ideas. It's great to have a place to capture them as well. So again, the watch is handy also when I'm driving. So driving for a speech, driving for a seminar, as I'm sure all the listeners can can recognize a lot of good ideas show up in these transport situations. So having tools to capture in that situation is really important and I don't want to recommend to anyone to start writing things down when you're doing 130 kilometers on the highway. And then Mark certainly have tools to speak things out of your head instead. So I have tools set up that you can use in that context as well. What do you use? Well, I use different tools as you do. Depending on the situation, I have my remarkable notebook, which I use this digital notebook that I use when I'm in meetings with clients. I always captured both ideas but also to do so, or with potential things I need to do something about or something I really commit to do in the remarkable tablet. And I will then toss that tablet itself into my inbox when I go to the office so that I can extract these things later. And I also use my trusted wallet with a notebook and a pad. It's very fast, very easy, analog way of capturing things. I also use, as you do my phone, I use Siri Sum for remind me to call Bob when I leave here, which is one of my favorites. If I get a phone call or I need to do something when I leave a place, I love that feature. I also use my list system to capture things. I use OmniFocus for this. I will quick capture something in the inbox there. Or I will use an app called SanGo, which is an app devised for audio capture. So when I am in the car not in Denmark but in Norway doing 110, I can just tap this icon and I can leave a message to myself that is then packed and sent in an email to myself. This is my normal capture tools. So I have a few of them, but they work really well. And depending on the situation, how and when I use them, I am sure you have the same thing there, Lars. Maybe we should then touch upon why is capture at all important. We talked about in the first episode that you need a clear and empty head to be appropriately engaged and get the right things done. But maybe we should talk a little bit about the science behind something about this. And I might start us off with talk about George Armitage Miller, our old friend George. It was in 1956 at Princeton University, made a big scientific experiment to try to figure out how many things can you have in your brain of complex tasks or to-do's or reminders for yourself at the same time in your short-term memory. And he found that it was between five and nine. His magical number is seven plus minus two is the name of his, his report who made this available to the world. And what happens if you really have many things in your head like you have nine things in your head, you are most likely a lot quite stressed because if you have nine, I must not forget. Nine things that you must do in your head at the same time, you don't have any room to think because you don't have any, you know, there is no room for anything else. And what happens if you get something new inside, then something new comes to your head, then something falls out and we call that to forget. And anyone who's forgot something in your life ever, you will know that this is not a good place to be because if you forget things, you don't feel comfortable about that you're actually appropriately engaged with the thing because you're not really, you will have cognitive dissonance on that. And you will also be quite stressed and anyone who's made a list after being stressed with too many things to think about have felt that the relief as the list may give you. And when you feel relief after writing a list, it might be you also, by the way, might feel a bit anxiety about this. So if I'm going to recommend anything for people who want to try this out, this capture anything, just sit down now, pause this recording, sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil or a pen of some kind and then ask yourself, okay, what is in my head that I potentially need to do something about? What are the things that has my attention right now? Right? Whatever is in your mind, don't focus on importance or if it's work or, you know, personal, just write things down as it comes to your mind. Things you might want to do something about or something you have worries about, anything that has your attention is to be written down and don't organize, don't analyze, but just get it out of your head because it's in the wrong place. And see if you don't feel after this exercise, see if you don't feel a little bit better. You may feel a little bit stressed because you're too many things you have committed to, but that will vanish when you get things under control. And this is the subject for the next two episodes, would be a clarifying organize. So, Lars, do you have anything to add to the scientific part of G2D? Do you have any things to add here? I think that was a very good summary of what I normally add as well. So, let's say I'm doing a speech and people are looking and appearing to pay attention, but when you start to become more experienced at delivering these speeches, you can also tell when when there's nobody home. So, you can see people looking, but they're not really there. The engine is running, but there's nobody behind the wheel. And that's what I also found that G2D helped me with a lot of staying present with what you're doing, because what normally happens is that that's some kind of thought shows up. You're reminded about something, that's that's grain, that means you let your brain have a look around, see what you might not have captured earlier, and change that practice to then write that down. And, you know, as you get more experience with G2D, your brain will also trust that you get back to that, because then that means that you don't start to think about what you just were reminded about. And people always recognize this, I don't normally after about 30 minutes, almost anyone in the room has had a, you know, brief mind journey somewhere outside the presentation. And that, you know, if that was a good place that they went, you know, they they solved some kind of problem that they've been working all day, then that's that's perhaps better than then listening to me for those 10, 15 seconds, but, but as as we all know, it's often a very negative kind of thinking that we do about these things. We're reminded about the the challenges we have, we start to plan, we we are concerned about all the consequences. So, so really maintaining your focus and we know this also scientifically from studies, at least one that I like to refer to is that they were investigating how, you know, how long is your natural focus? So they in 2003, they measured this and we were at 12 seconds. That that was how long your mind would would naturally focus. They repeated it in 2013. We were down to eight seconds. So it's not heading in the right direction. And at least one newspaper I remember that that described this, this study, they compared it to the goldfish, which is at the nine seconds their memory. So it's really not heading in the right direction for us. And perhaps a smartphone is one of the the key things that to blame for this. Yeah, the smartphones are blessing and the curse. I think maybe we will recognize this is the same problem we have with smoking or alcohol. Maybe alcohol is a better comparison, but because if you drink a lot, it's it's not good for you. If you have a glass of red wine to a dinner, it could be great. And it could add to the experience of the dinner. But we need a better balance, I think, for the hour of smartphones. This is my prediction of the future. We will look at the smartphone as a drug after a while because it's really built to all the apps in there that has like your social media apps are built to keep your attention and or grab your attention and keep it as long as they can because as long they can keep your attention the longer they the more money they will make. And the biggest problem with that is as a knowledge worker, your your attention, your ability to focus and to concentrate is what sets you apart from the competition and from the rest of the world. And if you are not able to concentrate and focus, you're not doing your job. And I think a lot of people can can can have a wrong idea about how to to handle that. And that was one of the first things I remember you coached me in a long time ago was to disable as many notifications as I could, as I asked what makes sense to me because I had taken a different approach. I was enabling additional notifications. So I would always have a clear picture of everything that was going on. And if you don't stop to think about what you're doing, then that could make sense. And you know, you're always informed there's always a thing and buzzing when an email comes in. But really that distracts you so much. So really disabling all that stuff. If I was just working with a CEO and he disabled just the basic notifications that you know, he didn't really need those and just that little thing. So that's I think a good tip for the listeners. He went from more than 200 opens of his phone on a daily basis down to I think 70 or something. It was really a huge difference and he really could feel that in his ability to stay present and be more productive. Yeah, I would normally say when we do our seminars is that when you if you have a smartphone turn off all the notification you you can and still have a social life and still have a job everything else and make a qualified judgment on this and don't let's just under the tyranny of the default which is everything is on. Now now most apps are asking for permission to give you a notification and stop thinking really do I really need this really do I need is this so important that it should steal my my attention here and if not then don't don't let it steal your attention. So I like to visualize it. Pretending that it's my my three year old showing up next to me while I'm working and saying whatever the notification is would I would I be happy with him interrupting my work to tell me that I think that visualizes it a bit more for me and so so so now we've we've spoken a bit about the outside input because there are of course both the the internal interruptions all the stuff that your mind interrupts your about and the external ones and really paying attention to the external ones to to make sure that that that you choose when to empty those buckets when to hand those inboxes rather than they showing up at your phone and interrupting you that that really is a big difference for a lot of people. Yes yes indeed so to round this up and go get us back into to capture is you should capture everything that has your attention and you should get into the habit of doing it when things shows up not when it's getting problematic or returning we talk about capture as if you are if you don't capture things when they show up in your head you are regurgitating as a cow at pot you know the cow has the ability to to regurgitate food and it's maybe good for a cow which is not good for you as a human being to to remind me we reminded that your while I have this all sound in my car maybe I should do something about it if you have that more than one time you had it more than you know necessarily because if you note that down that down the the minute you realize well it's a non-sound then you can do something about it it's not in your head it's not calling for your attention and another thing about capture that I find fascinating is that when you are in situations where your your your brain is in what we call free gear where you don't you don't engage in anything like you drive a car or something your your brain will then go to wherever it feels like and the problem with most people's lives is that when they have things they need to do something about they will rethink them and rethink them and David Allen says that everything you're not placed in a place you trust you will see it later it will have a mental copy of that thing inside your head like if you visit your garage or your depot somewhere in your house if you have a room or a cabinet where you have you know we all have these rooms and the cabinets that you really know you should clear out at some point because it's a mess if you don't park that on a somewhere it will make a mental copy of that and every time you walk past that place it will yell at you and going clear me out what kind of human being are you clear me out you know you're a bad person you know this and the problem with these these mental monkeys that you're allow to stay in your head is that they take up valuable place where you can instead of having mental copies of things you need to do you can be creative be problem solving in the moments and it's a lot easier to be problem solving in the moment if you don't have this mental copies present because it's fells up your memory if it fells up your capacity of remembering things so get things out of your head is the most important thing we can teach you today and every actually every episode out will be having this as a theme underneath it if you take the time to clear your mind take your time to to get things off your mind so you can be present and do the right things it's going to be something we will repeat at nausea I think no doubt no doubt and we've crossed the 20 minutes mark maybe a time for a wrap up Lars yeah just one one last bit from my side because I see this a lot from from people that they they benefit more and more from capturing on paper so I remember way back when we when we started in Denmark one very experienced GTD from one of the biggest banks here in Italy. Denmark, he showed up and he proclaimed that he always went to meetings and he only had a note pattern. That was interesting for me because my background in IT being a consultant, I always had my laptop with me. So I would always take notes there. And since then I try to take notes on paper as much as I can. And it really is a difference for me to sit down with paper and capture things. My mind is not you know the challenge when you have your laptop open is that you can do so many things. And you have these even when you try to focus, even when you're good at it, your mind will still remind you, oh well, maybe someone responded on Facebook, maybe someone sent you an email that you could handle. And I used to be a world champion at responding to emails within five minutes, right? Or less around the clock. So really having that piece of paper, there is nothing else you can do. You can write things down and that really just helps your mind focus and that's been a good good tweak on the system for me when we talk about capture. Yeah, yeah. I can totally relate to this really, really. So Lars, where can people find us after the fact if they want to get in touch with us? GCD Nordic.com has a good starting point. So that will lead you to the different countries to Denmark to Norway to the other Scandinavian countries where GCD Nordic is present. And from those pages, you can can sign up to the newsletters. You can find the Facebook pages, various groups, various meetups, various LinkedIn groups and profiles where you can connect with with everyone. So that's a good starting point. GCD Nordic.com. Great. And if people find this episode valuable, if you find this valuable as a listener, please share it with a colleague and rate us on iTunes, if you find us there and help us build a community around this podcast. This is what we dream of, that we will give you value so that you feel good about your life, your, your, the universe and everything to quote a famous book. And that you will think that it has value and share it with others. This is our dream. So until next time, we wish you a great two weeks. If it's still on 14 days schedule, we hope so. So and I hope that you will have find productivity interesting and that you will look into GCD and look us up, see what we can help you with. Okay. Have a great two weeks. Bye, everyone. Take care. Nordic. Bye-bye.