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EVERY SPOKEN WORD
105 min read · 20,556 words- 0:00 – 10:05
Your Mind Is for Having Ideas, Not Holding Them
- TFTim Ferriss
Optimal minimal.
- SPSpeaker
At this altitude, I can run flat-out for a half-mile before my hands start to shake. Can I ask you a personal question?
- TFTim Ferriss
Now would seem an appropriate time.
- TFTim Ferriss
What if I did the opposite?
- TFTim Ferriss
I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
- SPSpeaker
The Tim Ferriss Show.
- TFTim Ferriss
This episode of The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by 99designs. 99designs is a global creative platform that makes it easy for you to find an amazing designer and create designs you'll love. From logos to branding to packaging to books, you name it, they have it, and I've used them for just about everything. 99designs is the go-to creative resource for any budget. I've used them for years now for book covers, for instance mock-ups of The 4-Hour Body, which went on to become a number one New York Times bestseller, illustrations for the multi-volume Tao of Seneca, including the cover, and many other creative projects. I've been very impressed by the quality of their work. Most recently, I used 99designs to update the illustrations and layout of my Five Morning Rituals e-book. The illustrations worked out great. I loved working with the designer we selected, and I plan to work with him on more projects in the future, and that's something you can do. You don't have to start from scratch every time. And right now, my listeners can get $20 off, plus a free $99 upgrade on their first design contest. Simply submit a brief on the site describing what you need, and designers who are interested in your project, often from around the world, will submit concepts for you to choose from. You refine as you go, give feedback, and once you're ready, you choose one to finalize. It's a great way to get started and find the right match, a great designer and a great design at a great price. So head to 99designs.com/tim to learn more or get started today. You can also see examples of some of the work that I have done with designers on 99designs. So check it out, 99designs.com/tim. This episode is brought to you by FreshBooks. I've been talking about FreshBooks for years now, the all-in-one invoicing, payments, and accounting solution. Many entrepreneurs I know, as well as many contractors and freelancers I work with all the time, use it all the time, so I get to see FreshBooks on a weekly basis. FreshBooks makes it super easy to track things like expenses, project time, and client info, and then merge it all into great-looking invoices. FreshBooks can save users up to 200 hours per year on accounting and bookkeeping tasks. I don't know about you, but I like to do as little of that as possible, so 200 hours is a lot of hours. FreshBooks is always releasing new features that make running your business easier, and here are just a few of the major upgrades they've made in the last 12 months alone. Number one, they've redesigned the time tracking feature to create a more intuitive time tracking experience. Number two, they know just how frustrating bank reconciliation can be, so they've automated bank reconciliation, removing the pain. Number three, they've added ACH bank transfers. That means you now have an even faster way to collect payment from your clients. It's easy to see how FreshBooks can grow with your business and also help your business grow. It just gives you more time to focus on growing the business as opposed to running the business and the admin stuff. They have plans to match your needs, no matter the size of your business, from the basic to comprehensive, from small to big, and it all starts at just $15 per month. Right now, they're offering my listeners, that's you guys, a free 30-day trial of FreshBooks. You can try it out with no credit card. No credit card is required. Just go to freshbooks.com/tim and enter Tim Ferriss, that's two Rs, two Ss, in the How Did You Hear About Us section. That's freshbooks.com/tim and enter Tim Ferriss in the How Did You Hear About Us section. Check it out, freshbooks.com/tim. Well, hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. Good day, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you may be, my gorgeous little Mogwai. My guest today is David Allen. You may know of him, the man, the legend. You may worship his systems, or you may not know who he is, so I will tell you who David is. One of the world's most influential thinkers on productivity, David's 35 years experience as a management consultant and executive coach have earned him the titles of personal productivity guru by Fast Company magazine and one of America's top five executive coaches by Forbes magazine. The American Management Association has ranked him among the top 10 business leaders full stop. His best-selling book, Getting Things Done, subtitled The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, has been published in thirty languages, and the GTD methodology, as it's known, that it describes has become a global phenomenon, being taught by training companies in 60 countries, probably more at the time of this reading. David, his company, and his partners are dedicated to teaching people how to stay relaxed and productive in our fast-paced world. You can find him on Twitter @gtdguy, G-T-D guy, G-U-Y, and at gettingthingsdone.com. And without further ado, please enjoy a very wide-ranging, very unexpected in some aspects conversation with David Allen. David, welcome to the show.
- SPSpeaker
Tim, delighted to be here. Thanks for the invitation.
- TFTim Ferriss
My pleasure, and it has been a very, very long time since, since we've had any contact. I know we were chatting before we, we pressed record. It was probably just a few weeks, maybe a month after The 4-Hour Workweek came out in 2007 that I found myself being interviewed by someone, uh, alongside you virtually on the phone, and I was a nervous mess. I was very intimidated because [laughs] I was-- I felt like I was stepping sort of into the arena, uh, with the literal and metaphorical
- TFTim Ferriss
Black belt in the productivity space because also at that time in 2007, GTD, Getting Things Done, was ubiquitous in Silicon Valley. I mean, it was the talk of the town, and 43 Folders, Merlin Mann, and all of these other outlets, Lifehacker, uh, seemed to talk about GTD every day. Uh, and so it's nice to [laughs] it's nice-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
... to have a conversation where-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, catching-
- TFTim Ferriss
... I feel more comfortable asking questions.
- SPSpeaker
Catching up. Well, you know, for folks like you and me, time, time is somewhat irrelevant.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, so.
- TFTim Ferriss
And-
- SPSpeaker
Well, that's what good friends are for, you know? It's like you show up and go, "Hey, what's new?" I, I don't... Two years, 10 years-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... doesn't matter.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, exactly. And I, I was thinking back to that timeframe. 2007 was a, a very, uh, important inflection point for me if, if, if I wanna look at it that way. And, uh, around the same time, somewhere between, I wanna say 2007, 2009, a friend of mine actually interviewed you at South by Southwest in a format that is, uh, very difficult, I think, in some cases for both sides, inside a car. His name is Chase Jarvis. He's a-
- SPSpeaker
Oh, I remember that.
- TFTim Ferriss
He's-
- SPSpeaker
That was such fun. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] He's a, a phenomenal guy, a brilliant photographer, and he was trying to do his best to squeeze out, uh, and you're, of course, you're very good at providing this, but some type of nugget that he could extract in, say, a minute or two minutes or however many m- minutes it was. And I thought we'd begin there because the answer as I remember it was, "Your mind is made for having ideas, not for holding ideas." And I think this is, is so important. I would love to hear you just expand on what that means.
- SPSpeaker
Well, your head's a crappy office, and, you know, most people are still using their head as their office. And your brain did not evolve to remember, remind, prioritize, or manage relationships with more than four things. That's new cognitive science data, by the way. So, you know, how many people are trying to keep track of more than four things and manage the relationship between them and prioritize between them? It's like, excuse me, how about 10,000 [laughs] or-
- TFTim Ferriss
Right
- SPSpeaker
... 1,400 or however, God knows, however many. And you know, I just sort of uncovered years ago, more practically and just on the street, how critical it was to empty your head. And ag- and you know, what the, what then the, you know, in the early days of the new cognitive science field, they call distributed cognition, called get it out of your head.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- 10:05 – 12:47
How Allen Coaches Overwhelmed Executives: Capture First
- TFTim Ferriss
You mentioned coaching, so I'll, I'll jump to that next. I'd love to hear you describe what you do with a, say, corporate client, past, present, hypothetical. When you come in to meet with, say, executives, and they're individually very high-performing people, nonetheless carrying far more than four items in each of their heads, and y- you sit down, what, what are the first questions you ask or exercises you do when you sit down with high-functioning but nonetheless overwhelmed people to work with them? What are, what are some of the first things that you do with them?
- SPSpeaker
Well, aside from establishing rapport [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Which is, you know, "Hi, and why, why, why do you, why did you bring me in here? And what is your presenting issue as best you can describe it? And, you know, and here's a little bit about who I am and kind of what we're gonna do." But, you know, ideally, and over the years, I discovered the less I tell people about what we're gonna do, the better. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Surprise. So, uh, i- i- if I just walked in cold, you know, the, the tabula rasa here is first thing I would do, Tim, with you would be, um, let's get, let's make sure you have an in-tray, a physical in-tray. We have some place to throw stuff until we can make decisions about what it means and what you're gonna do about it, but we need to collect a bunch of stuff first. So that's what we're gonna do first is get some sort of a material version of collection or capturing stuff that has people's attention. So we just get a big stack of printer paper, a favorite pen or pencil, sit them down and say, "Okay. Hmm, what's on your mind? What has your attention?" Oh, I need cat food. Oh, I need a life. Oh, I need a new vice president of marketing. Oh, our next vacation is coming up. Oh, God, my cell phone just, just crapped out. The printer broke. Uh, daddy, daddy, yeah. [laughs] We j- and we literally start writing. They write each one of those items that has their attention on a separate piece of paper, and they toss that into their in-tray. You'd be surprised, by the way, first, first of all, how many people don't have an in-tray, or if they do have one, it's petrified because it's just been sitting there with, you know, crap in it for weeks.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Right.
- SPSpeaker
So we need to have some sort of clear space to just collect all that stuff to begin with. That process, Tim, takes usually, in my experience over all these years, for the mid to senior level professional that we actually coach with this process, it takes one to six hours just to capture what has their attention. Not to organize it, not to prioritize it, not to make decisions about it, just to identify it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. It's so impressive and horrifying, uh, at the same time. And, and I was doing prep for this conversation,
- 12:47 – 19:12
Broken Agreements and the Art of Renegotiating
- TFTim Ferriss
I found one paragraph, uh, that struck me as important that's related to this, I think, in, in some capacity. This is from an, an older piece in Wired, but it reads as the following. So at, at a seminar, Allen asked the audience to try to capture all their stuff by writing a list, and at the end of a few minutes, tells us to look at the list and think about the way it makes us feel. He guesses that our feelings include, and feel free to fact-check any of this, by the way, uh, a mixture of grief and relief. The relief, he suggests, comes from the simple fact of making the list, but where does the grief come from? And this is the, the quote that really caught my attention. "These items represent agreements you haven't kept with yourself," Allen says. "What happens when you break an agreement with yourself is that your self-esteem plummets." Could you speak to this a bit? Uh, because I, I would imagine a lot of folks would say, "I feel guilt," uh, uh perhaps about all the things I haven't done for myself or for other people. But this grief and agreements that you haven't kept with yourself, uh, struck me as, as important, at least got my attention. Could, could you speak to that?
- SPSpeaker
Well, I'm gonna reverse engineer it a little bit-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- SPSpeaker
... and come back to the, the fact that you're breaking of the agreement is because you're keeping track of it in your head, and where you keep track of that has no sense of past or future.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So, so that part of you, that little subliminal part of you thinks you should be buying cat food 24 hours a day-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... or hire a vice president 24 hours a day. That's why it wakes you up at 3:00 o'clock in the morning. "Oh, shit, cat food. Oh, my God." [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- SPSpeaker
"What am I gonna do?" Because that thing has no sense of past or future. So because it doesn't, you can't do it all... You can't do more than one thing at a time. And so there's a part of you that thinks you should be doing all of that all the time, so talk about a ton of broken agreements.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So, you know, but, but you don't have to finish the thing to keep your agreement. You do need to get it out of your head.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
See, ag- agreements, and this is one of the things I learned back in the old personal growth days, you know, agreements, you, uh, there's an automatic price you pay when you break an agreement, is you dis- disintegrate trust, either with other people or with yourself or both. So if you don't wanna, if you don't wanna have a broken agreement, uh, you have three options. One is don't make the agreement. Call, "No, [laughs] I'm not gonna do that."
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- SPSpeaker
Move it to someday, maybe, or something. Uh, keep the agreement. Go buy, go buy the cat food. Go hire the VP. You know, go finish the thing. Or most importantly for most people is renegotiate the agreement.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
If I've made an appointment, you know, today, for instance, Tim, as you... People may hear ambient noise out there. There's construction going on. If that was too loud, I would probably have to try to renegotiate or, and reschedule this, this talk with you.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Um, but, and, and, and then I don't have a broken agreement if I don't do it-
- TFTim Ferriss
Right
- SPSpeaker
... because we renegotiated it. But you can only feel good about what you're not doing when you know what you're not doing, so most people just have just made so many more agreements than they're aware of. So all we do in our coaching is get people aware of what are all the agreements you've made. What are all the would, could, should, need to's, ought to's? And that's one of the reasons people feel good when they make a list, is they look at it and they go, "Well, gee, I can't do all this right now." No kidding. [laughs] Right? And so, you know, uh, that's the, that's the... It comes back to externalizing the stuff out of your head. That's why it's so critical to do that, and most people, I don't think, have really understood or, or certainly managed themselves, uh, unders- with an understanding of that dynamic.
- TFTim Ferriss
I, I'd love to, to underscore and maybe dig into a word that you used that I'm certainly in my own life trying to pay more and more attention to, which is rena- renegotiate. Could you, uh, d- could you share perhaps, uh, any recommendations that you give or, uh, perhaps language you use yourself for renegotiating when need be? What do, what do you say to someone, whether via email or otherwise, when you need to remove a commitment, whether it's forever or simply for another time? Is, is... Do you have any particular suggestions or thoughts related to that?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. Um, well, I, there's probably, I'm, I could probably think of a dozen, but one of the most, uh, interesting ones and, and useful ones sometimes is, uh, to make it really politically correct, it's like, "Wow, you know, what, what you're asking me to do or what I've committed to do is gonna require so much more attention than I have the bandwidth to actually give it the attention it deserves right now. Can we renegotiate that in terms of when it's due or how we're gonna make it happen or if I even need to do it at all?" So that's one way to do it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Is just say, "Hey, you know, that's a cool thing. I don't mean dis- this is not bad about you, not even bad about me. Life, you know, life changes, and sometimes we just have to renegotiate stuff in that way." You know, I think it's important to tell yourself. As I say, you can only feel good about what you're not doing when you know what you're not doing. That's why if, in order for me to be on the, the call with you and be present here, Tim, I, not long ago, I looked at every single thing I might, could, would, should be ought to doing today and say, "No, this is it." Maybe I made a mistake. We'll find out. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
But at least, at l- at least for now, this is the coolest thing to do. It's the best thing to do. It's the only thing to do right now. But I, I just looked at everything else.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
But it's hard to do if you haven't seen everything else, 'cause you don't know what everything else includes.
- 19:12 – 22:37
Where Allen Keeps His Backlog: Paper vs. Digital
- TFTim Ferriss
on the, [laughs] on the backlog, uh, as minimal as, as, as it may be, where does that physically live for you currently? What is the, what, what is the, the holding pen for that for you?
- SPSpeaker
Uh, primarily two and a half places. Uh, one is obviously email. You know, right now I'm, uh, just because of some other stuff that's going on, I have about a screen and a half full of email, which is a little, little too much for my comfort zone, but that's okay. Um, you know, I'll, I'll clean it up sooner than later. Um, my physical in-tray that I'm staring at right now, which happens to be empty, you know. Uh, while I was waiting for the construction site to slow down a little bit out there, I was processing a bunch of, a bunch of receipts that, you know, my wife and I collected the last 24 hours, uh, putting them into Quicken. So that's all zeroed out right now, and the other half place is my little NoteTicker wallet that I carry around with me that has, uh, one note in it that says chiropractor. Okay, so I'm just throwing that into my in-tray right now. So those are the, those are the places I capture really. I don't capture much digitally. I do have an, an iPhone digital capture called Braintoss, a great little program that two GTD-ers, you know, in Amsterdam actually, actually built. Because what it does is it doesn't put it into the black hole of my iPhone. It automatically transfer, uh, transfers it to my email. So if I care to digitalize anything that I'm capturing, some thought, some idea of whatever picture I wanna take of something, whatever, it automatically g- goes to email, which then I clean up like I clean up email regularly. But those are the main places.
- TFTim Ferriss
What are the benefits of, uh, minimizing the digitizing, so to speak? Are, are there benefits? Is it simply a habit that you have continued over time since that's where it started, or are, are there, are there features to using physical paper?
- SPSpeaker
Well, yeah. [laughs] There's, you know, there's two sides to the coin to the digital world. I mean, first of all, it's a great time to be alive if you know what you're doing and you've got a little discipline. Uh, if you don't, it's a black hole, and you're likely to throw stuff in that you uncover, you know, f- f- a, a month later and go, "Oh my God, I should have handled that," or whatever.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
And it's, do you, do you put it in Dropbox? Do you stick it in Evernote? Do you wanna put it in Outlook? You wanna put it in WhatsApp? What, what, where are you gonna stick this stuff? So the plethora of options has made it [laughs] almost more work. You know, come on. Uh, I don't know if you've seen all the studies that say that basically productivity hasn't gone up at all, though technology has gone through the roof. You know, and a lot of that is because the technology hasn't necessarily improved productivity. It's actually complicated people's lives a lot. I know a bunch of high tech people that are going back to paper planners, especially the ADD and ADHD type, because th- there are too many clicks. And out of sight, out of mind, you know, I've got a Thunderbolt screen, but I still don't have the real estate on there that I used to have with my time design paper planner. You can't beat it, 'cause you can see all of that sort of a relationship to each other much easier. It's... There are no clicks. There's no battery, no Wi-Fi required. It has all the downside. I mean, I'm a, I'm a kind of a high tech end user anyway. I like, I, I like all that stuff because of connectivity and so forth. But if... You really need to know what you're doing, otherwise the tech, the tech world can really be quite overwhelming.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm. And, um, I th- I think what
- 22:37 – 34:42
From Shreveport to Berkeley: Allen's Early Life and Path to Consulting
- TFTim Ferriss
I'd love to do is, is rewind the clock a bit, uh, to, to get a better understanding of how you became the c- the current version of, of David Allen. Could you, uh, describe where you were in high school, what you were focused on at the time, if anything, and, and what you wanted to be? What you thought you would be when you grew up, or what you wanted to be when you grew up?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. Well, I have to rewind the tape q- quite a bit. Um, let's see, high school. Mm. Well, first of all, I was an actor as a kid way before high school. When I was 10, 11, 12 years old, I, I took an acting lessons and, and actually became sort of the child star in Shreveport, Louisiana, where I, I pretty much spent most of my growing up years. And, um, so that, that was always kind of a love, uh, w- was that. Then in high school I became a debater, and state champion debater, regional champion debater, whatever. So I enjoyed, I loved debating. That was fun, uh, standing up and trying to make it up, you know, kind of while you're on your feet. And, uh, I thought I was, you know, uh, you know, come on, w- we're talking the '50s and ear- and early '60s, and in Shreveport, Louisiana, if you had any brains at all, you were either a lawyer, a doctor, or a, or a teacher. You know, if you weren't necessarily, uh, you know, in that line of things, you either sold cars or insurance or something like that. That, that was pretty much it. You know, there weren't a whole lot of other op- Consultant? What's that? You know, uh, actor? No, go get a degree, you know, so that you can have a job. So there, there were not a whole lot of options, uh, basically in my head. Uh, it turns out I, I actually had the opportunity. We had an exchange student at our high school that I was going to from Germany, and that kind of, that was of interest to me. And so I actually applied to the American Field Service, AFS- And back then there were not many Americans that, that, that, uh, foreign families or international families would actually take an American for a whole year. Usually Americans went for the summer. But I applied for the whole year. I said, "What the heck?" Um, and turns out I was able to... I got chosen by a family in Zurich, Switzerland. I went and lived with this Swiss family for a whole, for a whole year. And that was eye-opening to say the least.
- TFTim Ferriss
How old were you at the time?
- SPSpeaker
17 and 18.
- TFTim Ferriss
Wow.
- SPSpeaker
Actually, '63, '64. I was over there when Kennedy was shot-
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm
- SPSpeaker
... which was quite traumatic for most of the Europeans anyway, you know, when that happened. But, uh, you know, I went to the... basically the high school that the, the, the boy in the family went to. They... It wasn't an academic program. It was more social, live with the family and see how they lived and so forth. Uh, so I went to Realgymnasium Zürichberg, which happened to be a block up from the Kunsthaus in Zurich that had Monet water lilies throughout... you know, all over the walls. And I was three blocks from the Odeon Cafe, which is where Dadaism started, where Jung and, you know, all kinds of... You know, so I was thrust into the middle of European history and culture just by being there, and that kind of opened my eyes a good bit. Uh, also I had a... it turns out I had a h- I had a half-sister-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- SPSpeaker
... much older than me, who had wound up marrying one of the, the intellectual chroniclers of the Beat Generation, a man named John Clellon Holmes. If you ever looked up John Holmes, John Clellon Holmes, he... you know, he wrote some very interesting books. And they lived in Connecticut. They were very, very hip. My dad died when I was really young, and my mom, when I was nine, took me to visit Lillian and John, her husband. And so I got, I got introduced to probably the hippest of the hip in terms of, of intellectual, you know, culture, New York City, Manhattan, uh, Beat. Matter of fact, my brother-in-law, John, and, and Kerouac coined the term Beat, you know, together. You know, watching somebody kind of beat themselves, you know, walk down Central Park. Anyway, so I got introduced early on to a whole new different world of sophistication and, and, and culture really back then. So I, I wasn't, I wasn't kind of blindsided by the fact that the world was a lot bigger than, you know, my world I was growing up in in Louisiana. So I kinda wanted to get out of there as soon as I could. Uh, nothing, nothing against that. I still love Louisiana. I still go back and, you know, sort of seeing the, the culture and the food and the bayous and so forth and all that. Um, but I... certainly my world had expanded by that point and, you know, I was interested in sort of pursuing that. So I didn't know... I thought law maybe to begin with, but then after being in Switzerland, being around all that culture, then the interest in the liberal arts, philosophy and so forth was mu- you know, was more interesting to me. So when I got into college, that was my focus.
- TFTim Ferriss
And what, uh, what... For those who, who aren't familiar with, uh, the, the career path, uh, so to speak, what did that, what did that look like, uh, sort of from col-
- SPSpeaker
Well, I went to a crazy little college in Florida, they design your own education, no grades, independent study, called New College. And, uh, kind of got bored by the philosophers. They wound up proving their original hypothesis using their original hypothesis. And so, hmm, that kind of, uh, that's kind of a circle thing. Uh, but what's more interesting was the philosophers themselves, and I had a great friend, he turned out to be... He was my academic advisor, turned out to be a good friend, who was an intellectual historian, history of thought. So he turned me on to history of culture, history of thought. And I thought that was really cool. And we didn't even use the word paradigm back then, but that's what I got introduced to. I read Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, which is one of the earliest books, you know, 100, over 100 years ago, talking about cultures having their own psy- psyche, their own geist, and how that affected art, philosophy, math, science, medicine, you know, and everything, because you... there was kind of a, a thumbprint or a signature in the various cultures that you could see through all of those things. So I was fascinated by that. So I guess that was kind of the early stages of me being interested in models. You know? Uh, w- understanding a model. If we could understand a model, well, that, that could help the world make a lot more sense. I, I've always been somewhat attracted to that. Always also been attracted by how the invisible affects the visible. So if you look back at my career, you know, my first job was a magician at age five. On the, on the sidewalks of Palestine, Texas, I charged five cents for my magic show.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
So, you know, [laughs] so you can, you can trace it if you, you know, kind of stretch a little bit, but you could trace it all the way back to there. Now, I w- I've always been fascinated by how if we could understand what's going on invisibly that's affecting everybody and get a hold of it, uh, that could make a huge difference in how you manage your life.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm. And, uh, it, it seems like you tried, uh, your hand at many different types of jobs, and, uh, we, we certainly don't have to trace through all of them, but how did you end up, uh, teaching, say, corporations or productivity? Which, uh, whichever-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
And, and, and that may not be the-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. How, how would you... [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Well, it's, it's, it... I'll, I'll make a very long story very short. Uh, you know, I got, um, [sighs] I got into graduate school, um, in American intellectual history. Now, again, this is Berkeley, 1968. Uh, they say if you can remember being in Berkeley in 1968, you probably weren't there.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
So [laughs] so, so... But that was heady times to be there. And, um, then, you know, at, at some point I realized, wait a minute, I really wanted to get my own enlightenment instead of just study people who had theirs. So I just figured that academia was not the place for it. And so I jumped ship. You know, left that, said okay. And then I got... went on my own personal exploration path. You know, lots of things. You know, lots of drugs, but also martial arts, uh, uh, spiritual stuff. You know, come on, this is the '60s. This is Berkeley. You know, early '70s. So as I studied all of that, I was more interested in finding out who I was and finding out about God, truth, and the universe than having a job. But of course, rice bowl and cave wasn't my style [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
So, so I said, "Okay, I gotta pay the rent, so how do I do that?" Well, so then I had a-- I had several friends who themselves kind of knew what they wanted to do, and they were starting their own businesses and, you know, running small businesses, and so I wound up being a good number two guy.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
So to just, just have a good job, I helped some-- I helped two guys start a, a New Orleans-style restaurant in LA. I helped a friend run a landscape company in San Fernando Valley. Um, I sold mopeds. I... You know, 'cause you could s- you could read the list on Wikipedia. It's a lot of stuff that I did, but I was just... Basically, I would go in and see, "Well, how can I help them do what they're doing, and how much easier can we make this?" 'Cause I'm just a lazy guy. And, and, sh- you know, then I'd help improve their pr- now we call that process improvement, but I was just trying to, you know, not have to work so hard.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
And, uh, then I would fix it, and then I'd get bored, so then I'd go find another job. And then I discovered one day they call those people something, and they pay them. They're called consultant, you know? So-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... 1981, hung out my shingle, Allen Associates. Couldn't spell it, now I are one.
- 34:42 – 37:27
Mentors Behind GTD: Dean Acheson and Russell Bishop
- TFTim Ferriss
I would love to hear a bit more about your mentors. Are there any, uh, particular mentors who were particularly important to the formation of GTD?
- SPSpeaker
There were two, and I just had them on stage with me in Amsterdam, 'cause I invited them to, to... You know, we just did the GTD Global Summit, and I wanted people to sort of hear some of the original DNA of where GTD started. One was Dean Acheson, the other was Russell Bishop. And, uh, Dean was a, had been a 25-year consultant in, in executive consulting in organizational change, and, uh, he had, he had uncovered the techniques that were critical to be able to loosen people up so they were able to make change instead of having a lot of old business prevent them from being able to, to do that. So the whole idea of a mind sweep, getting stuff out of your head, I learned from Dean. He had figured that out, that that was absolutely critical for executives particularly because, you know, if they had all this old business spinning around in their head, for them to buy into some new goal and vision was like swimming in quicksand. So he discovered that getting that stuff out of their head and having them make next action decisions, the very specific next action. So I learned the mind sweep and the next actions from Dean, and those are still core, core elements that anybody needs, you know, to get clarity, you know, get your head clear, you know, in terms of, of your commitments. And Russell Bishop was the, the co-founder of Insight Seminars, which was a sort of personal growth, self-development thing that I got involved in in '78, and, you know, I loved that. I loved that training, and a, a large part of that training were, was about commitments. So I learned about commitments there and how powerful that was, and it was a transformative experience for me. And then I actually became a trainer for Insight Seminars working, working with Russell, and, uh, we were designing some sort of personal productivity workshops, and we were being brought into the corporate world. Back in the '70s, uh, late '70s, early '80s, a lot of the corporate world was g- starting to be interested in sort of what the personal growth had to offer. Actualizations, LifeSpring, Insight, you know, things like that were suddenly being brought into the corporate world. It was a little dangerous because, you know, you had to be a little vulnerable. You know, most corporate cultures were not, you know, not that open for all of that kind of stuff, but it was an interesting, you know, experiment and foray into that world. And so I worked with Russell. We, we created the Insight Consulting Group, and we started to do, you know, s- these... You know, what I had learned both from Dean and, and my own work, we started to do versions of this stuff, uh, in the corporate world, and that's where... You know, Russell was my partner for many years. That's, that's where a lot of that started.
- 37:27 – 43:07
Next Actions, Outcomes, and the Clarifying Process
- TFTim Ferriss
I'd love to dig into next action decisions. Uh, this is, this is a really powerful concept and a really important distinction, uh, uh, that, uh, many people do not, uh, have, have a whole lot of clarity on. Um, so, so could you talk about next action decisions and how they perhaps differ from what a lot of people put on their to-do lists?
- SPSpeaker
Sure. Well, when we talk about next actions, that means as granular as where physically, visibly are you going to go to do what to move the needle on this thing, on this commitment? Uh, is that at your computer to write an email? Is that at your computer to surf a website? Is that at the hardware store to buy nails? Is that at your life partner to have a conversation? What is the very, very next thing you need to do to get clarity on mom's birthday or increasing your bank credit line or hiring a vice president or getting a life? [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
You know, what's the very next action? If you had nothing else to do but that, what would you go do? And people avoid that decision like the plague. They do. Could've fooled me. But, you know, it takes... You know, when we coach people, it takes one to six hours for them to identify all the stuff they have attention on, and then the rest of the day or two to go through each one of those and say, "Okay, what's the very next thing you need to do about cat food, about vice president, about get a life, about should you get divorced or not?" You know, what's the next thing? And, you know, and it takes... People actually have to think to make those decisions. It's not hard. There are actually two aspects a- of getting clarity that, that, you know, that I have to tie together, is what's the very next action, and if one action won't complete whatever this commitment is, what's the project? You know, peop- if you look at most people's to-do lists, you think, you see things like mom, you know, and bank. [laughs] It's like, yeah, well, I'm sure you had a mom, so why is that on the list? Well, her birthday's coming. What are you gonna do about her birthday? I don't know. It's just coming. Yeah, right. So, you know, uh, so taking something like that and then get... Well, you captured the idea, great. So you... That's step one. But then step two is you need to then clarify what exactly you're gonna do about that. Uh, and, you know, what's the final outcome? So give mom a birthday party goes on my project list and call sis, my sis to see, you know, what she thinks we ought to do for mom's birthday as a next action. As simple as that sounds, outcome and action are the zeros and ones of productivity, but most people have not actually identified the outcomes and the specific actions, you know, of the things that have their attention. Could've fooled me. But there are very few people that, that are exceptions to that, and most people have tons of stuff. Anybody listening to this right now, just pull out your to-do list, and I'll show you what I'm talking about. [laughs] You know, and, and you... Most of the things on your to-do list are not the, the very next action you need to take about those, and probably the things on your to-do list are not the complete outcome that you're trying to achieve by whatever you- action you need to take. So it's funny that, that, that zeros to ones of productivity people are avoiding. I mean, getting things done, you need to know what done means. You get to mark it off as complete when what's true, and what does doing look like and where does it happen? Oh, that's a phone call, or that's a thing to buy at the store, or that's a conversation I need to have with somebody. So I know it k- it's kind of a duh, Tim, [laughs] but, but it's, uh, it, it's something that most people are, uh, need to train a cognitive muscle to answer those questions about stuff because it requires thinking.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Thinking's hard.
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, it's, it's, it also requires a, uh, sort of a reframe as to what a, an effective to-do list or next action list looks like, even the label itself, right? Should I be using the term to refer to mom, bank, et cetera, as a to-do list? What does that actually mean when applied to bank-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... in all caps? And-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. In, in, in our case, it would just be your, your capture list.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
You've captured those, good.
- TFTim Ferriss
Great.
- SPSpeaker
Then you need to throw those in your in tray and then go through this decision-making process. Is it actionable, yes or no? If no, it's either reference or trash or incubate. If yes, then it is, okay, so what's the next action? And if one action won't complete it, what's the project? So as simple as those questions are, that's how you get your in basket empty, not by finishing everything. Yeah, anything you can do in two minutes, you should finish right then. That's the two-minute rule. But, uh, but otherwise, you just need to clarify it, and then, you know, step three would be organize the reminders in some appropriate place.
- TFTim Ferriss
I, I would love to talk about, uh, and, and please feel free to, to rephrase this or take a different angle if, if better, but sort of top-down versus bottom-up, uh, systems. And specifically, uh, I looked at a number of, uh, listener questions that, uh, that were posed, and one was related to after doing a mind sweep and sorting the results into do it, discard it, delegate it, defer it, uh, m- some people still having an extremely large list after discarding aggressively and not being sure of how to then eliminate more if, if, uh, i- if there are tasks or items that they can simply discard, things that are not worth doing. I was just going to say how you help people to... If, if they say, "I don't know what is important," or, "I'm not sure how to prioritize things," if, if, if you have any ad- advice or thoughts for those people.
- 43:07 – 48:37
Setting Priorities Through the Six Horizons
- SPSpeaker
Sure. I got a bunch. Uh, one way to think about it is, is from a, um, hierarchical standpoint of priorities. You know, one of the things that, that, you know, I uncovered ov- over all these years is the six horizons that we actually have commitments, and they're at different levels with different content. The top horizon would be what's your life purpose or what's the purpose of your... Now, you can do this iterate, iterated on your company or any enterprise you want, but let's do, let's talk about personal.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So why, why are you on the planet? What are you here to do? You know, what's your purpose? Obviously, that's gonna set your priorities, right? You don't wanna be off purpose, so that's at the top level. Of course, knowing your purpose is not gonna help you decide which email to write first. Mm, a little bit, you know? But then the next level operationally, and I say down not as less, it just means it's more operational, would be what's the vision of your purpose being fulfilled successfully? Five years from now, Tim, where do you wanna be? What does your lifestyle look like? You know, I'm sure living in New York as opposed to Silicon Valley was some part of a vision that you had, as opposed to, you know, you know, just day to day. So you had some sort of a picture about, "Hey, if I really wanna do kind of what I wanna do, here's what it would look, sound, and feel like." So that's the vision level that people have. In companies, that'd be three, four, five-year, you know, long-term plan or vision in terms of where does the company wanna be. Now, knowing the vision that you have in terms of life and career and lifestyle, is that gonna help you decide which email is most important? Yeah, a little bit more. But then there's a next level operationally, which is, uh, down from that, which is goals and objectives. So what do you... If you wanted that vision to actually come true, what do you need to accomplish over the next three to twenty-four months? That'd be usually what people talk about in terms of annual plans and so forth. Yeah, well, I need to make sure my kids get into college. I need to make sure that we, um, you know, that we set up this new division. I need to... You know, I wanna publish the book on, you know, whatever, whatever those things are. Those would be goals that, that are... emerge, uh, as a way to get to your vision. That's... So purpose would be horizon five, horizon four would be op- you know, vision, horizon three would be, uh, goals and objectives. Horizon two, importantly, is all the things that you need to maintain, uh, that are important to you to maintain so that you get there, that you're balanced and you're moving in the right direction. So personally, this would be how's your health? How's your finances? How's your relationships? How's your spiritual life? How's your dog? How's your fun factor? You know, whatever all those things are that you say, "I need to maintain these." You don't finish that. You just need to make sure that they're up to par in terms of getting you where you wanna go. So that's horizon two. In your organizations, that would be your job description. What are the things you're accountable to do well? Asset management, staff development, you know, cu- customer service, project design, you know, yada yada. So that'd be looking at those levels there and saying, "Okay, well, once you defined your job description or once you looked at your aspects of your life, that's gonna help you decide a little bit more about what's the most important email you, you need to send." Then you get more operational and say, "Well, what are all the things you need to finish about any of those things above?" Projects, you know, and most people have between 30 and 100. Get tires on your car, handle the next vacation, hire the person, get a dog, research whether I can give my kids karate lessons or not, yada yada. So then that's the project level. That's horizon one. And then the ground level. Um, we use ground and then one, two, three, four, five like elevators in Europe as opposed to, you know, US [laughs] since we're so international now, so we had to change. In my... The first book I called 5,000... 50,000 feet and 40,000 and so forth, but, uh, they don't use feet in Europe. And so anyway, so h... then the ground level is, is what are all the things you need to do. That's the actions you need to take, and most people have 100 to 200 of those. Emails to send, stuff to buy at the store, stuff to talk to people about, et cetera. So when you say, "How do I set my priorities?" I say, "Well, which one of those horizons is not clear enough to you, needs, needs more work? Or which one do you need to refer back to to then decide what's most important on your list?" So that's a... And that's a big conversation, as you can imagine, for most people to try to figure that out. But I didn't... You know, I tried to get it as simple as I could, but I can't lie to anybody. That is the, the... That's the truth. Those are all things that are either conscious or not. They're still, they're still at effect for everybody. And so being aware of what your content is on all those different levels is gonna help a lot. It'll help a ton. On a more simple, practical level, I just set priorities by saying, "What's most got my attention? What's most got my attention right now? What, what most do I need to handle so I get to clear space again?" And, you know, so at, at this point in my life, I got that kind of simplified.
- TFTim Ferriss
L- let's, uh, let's talk about location for a second because this is, uh, this is something that, uh, I'm certainly very curious about of, uh, d... and think about a fair amount. I'm in New York right now for writing because I have a very set writing routine here in New York, and it's... I'm also pretty isolated in rural New York. Uh, the, the move that I made from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas, was certainly dependent on my answers and descriptions to those higher levels that you described.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And, uh, I, I... I'm sure this is written somewhere, but, um, I didn't want to try to research everything before the conversation.
- 48:37 – 55:27
Moving to Amsterdam and Leaving Ojai
- TFTim Ferriss
Amsterdam, why did you move to Amsterdam? What were the drivers or the reasons behind that?
- SPSpeaker
Well, uh, there's kind of a perfect storm of a lot of factors. One is we wanted to get out of the US. We were a bit tired of US centricity in terms of thinking. Um, and we thought about w- we love Kyoto, we love other places, but Europe, Europe seemed to be the, the, the place to, to go. My... Catherine, my wife, and I don't have kids, and so, you know, we're a lit- little freer to do that. My work was becoming much more virtual and actually much more global. And Amsterdam is much more the center of my world these days than Santa Barbara was. Um, and we'd been to the city a couple of times and fell in love with it. We love the city. It's, it's an eye candy city. I mean, it's just gorgeous. And it's, uh, and it's lovely, and we kind of naively thought, "Well, we- let's spend three months there and six months in Milan and six months in whatever," 'cause now that my work was becoming so virtual, you know, we had the ability to be able to do that. Um, of course [laughs] once we found out what it takes to be legal and get legal residency in any place, you know, there's a lot of hoops to jump through. And it turns out that... And we just kind of threw a dart and said Amsterdam. It was warmer and, and not quite as dark as Copenhagen or Stockholm. A little more foreign, you know, and adventurous than, than London. And everybody here speaks English, so, you know, that was easy. And, you know, once we were here, the quality of life here is just so wonderful, and we just fell in love with the city even more so, and still are five years later. So we intend to stay. As a matter of fact, we want to immigrate, so, you know, gonna be, uh... We love the Dutch. We love the country. Now, by golly, it's just an oasis of, you know, global thinking and openness and whatever. That's kind of rare in the world these days.
- TFTim Ferriss
It is, it is definitely one of my favorite cities in the world. Uh, you mentioned a lot of wonderful places, but a- Amsterdam really does check so many boxes. It's, uh-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... it's a marvel of a city. It really is.
- SPSpeaker
It really is. And it works, you know? We haven't had a car in five years. It just works, you know? Um, and, and, it, it, you know... And we have... Catherine and I both have two bikes apiece. Uh, we walk. Gorgeous parks. It's a very dog friendly city. Our favorite restaurants let, you know, allow dogs. You know, that's worth moving to Amsterdam just for that. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] H- how, how have you found your, uh, state of being, whether it's your emotional state, mental state, uh, if, if it differs at all to differ being, say, in Amsterdam after, uh, a number of years versus being in California?
- SPSpeaker
N- not really that much. Come on. Santa Barbara's a gorgeous place.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] I mean, it's not exactly... Right.
- SPSpeaker
You know, come on. It's, it... Actually, we lived in Ojai for 22 years.
- TFTim Ferriss
The, the heart, the heart streets of Ojai. Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. And, you know, and for 22 years, and we loved it. We thought we were gonna be there permanently. It's a b- beautiful place, wonderful place. Great people. You know, a great style of a, of a, of a sort of a country place to live. And, and so it kind of surprised us that all of a sudden we just felt like we were done. You know? I call it dharma, karma, destiny, whatever it is. It's like somehow just... You know, there are times in our lives when just things just are over. And so we haven't missed anything a- at all. It didn't really change. Quality of life here is just so nice. I mean, that's nice to do. I mean, there are no stray people and no stray dogs here, as opposed to California. You know, so-
- TFTim Ferriss
D- wa- was it a, a s- a lingering desire over time, maybe we should move, maybe we should move? Or was there an event or a day or a conversation where you just said, "This is it. We're done"?
- SPSpeaker
Well, it, it, it kind of was a four or five-year m- move from sort of someday, maybe to, yeah, let's kind of start to see if we can get real about it. We had built our own little sort of jewel box office building in Ojai, uh, so we needed to kind of unhook from that. Um, our house that we, that we bought in 1992 was so gorgeous. It was like God's little acre out on east end of Ojai, and it's just a beautiful little property, and it had old oaks in it, and it was so far... It w- But it was kind of a tear-down house to begin with. We just couldn't afford to tear it down and rebuild, and we discovered that termites don't move that fast.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
So, you know, [laughs] so basically we just built a huge garden around it. You know, we had one acre, and we just built outdoor fireplace. We had a st- a stunning garden. We had a fabulous friend who was a landscape gardener, and there was just... You know, so we just had a great time. We just lived outdoors. So that was, that was wonderful. Then the termites started to win, and we said... You know, with Catherine and my style and our, our, our inclinations, we would have rebuilt it with glass and concrete and, and, and, you know, and iron, you know, in, in that environment. It would've been just gorgeous there. But we didn't have the money to do that. Uh, so we said, "You know, let's just put a price on the house." And it w- the market was crap at the time. We said, "You know, probably nobody is gonna show up at l- But, you know, come on. Let's just put a price on it. What the heck? You know, it'll be an emotional buy anyway." And we sort of figured, eh, maybe one or two years from now. Who knows? Then two weeks later, somebody walked on and said, "I want it." Right for that price. I went, "Mm. This might be a sign."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
So, uh, so we got out from under the house, and we said... But we weren't quite ready to move to Europe at the time. There was still more work I needed to do sort of there and locally with the, the business. Um, and so we said, "Well, let's kind of get trainer wheels." So we then got a townhouse in Santa Barbara f- that, that we were at for three years. And, uh, you know, we, we sort of s- got trainer wheels for Europe. We got Dutch bikes, and we l- lived in a townhouse close to town. We could walk into town and so forth. So, you know, that was kind of our transition move there. And then at a certain point we said, "Okay, let's throw the dart. Time to go." And that's what we did.
- TFTim Ferriss
Off you went. Yeah. It is, uh... It, it, it seems to be landing on the radar of more and more of my American friends as a, as a possible, uh, home base. It's, it's... It really is a wonderful choice.
- SPSpeaker
It's a terrible place. You'd never wanna come.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Stay away. Stay away.
- TFTim Ferriss
It's full. It's full They hate dogs, stray people everywhere
- SPSpeaker
Oh, really?
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, th- there are certain decisions, at least i- in my life, I would imagine in your life, that are, are real chapter changes and, uh, end up informing many, many things that come thereafter. I, I'd love to ask you,
- 55:27 – 1:02:47
Leaving Berkeley: A Life-Changing Decision and a Psychic Mentor
- TFTim Ferriss
what is one of the most worthwhile or the best personal investments you've ever made? And I'll, I'll explain what I mean. That could be money, time, energy, anything else. So for instance, um, if, if I asked Tony Robbins that, he would point to a Jim Rohn seminar that he paid for at the time when he was working as a janitor. If I talk to Amelia Boone, who's a four-time, uh, world champion in, uh, obstacle course racing, she'd say the first time she sort of cobbled together the fees to pay for, uh, one of the larger competitions, which then ended up showcasing how well-built and designed she was for this sport. Does, does, does anything come to mind as a particularly important investment that you made that sort of had long-standing ripple effects?
- SPSpeaker
You know, yeah, I mean, there are probably a dozen. Uh, but I'll tell you one that comes to mind. I don't think I've shared this with many people. But as you mentioned it, the, what c- what pops to mind is, um, I had a guy that became a very good friend of mine and a mentor of mine many, many years a- a- ago that I met in Berkeley, and he was the guy who offered to teach me karate. Uh, and he was quite an interesting guy. Uh, he, he was a Olympic fencer. Uh, he was a Formula racer. He had a black belt in karate. He was just a fascinating guy. He was also psychic. He was studied by the University of Pennsylvania, um, just because of experiences that he had, and things that he saw, and things that he knew, and... Back in the early days when, you know, universities were starting to study this psychic phenomenon and where it came from. And, um, you know, Michael became a very close friend of mine, and as he started to teach me karate, um, I found my life started to change. I, and, and I suddenly... I'd kind of been doing all the things that were, that, that were cool to do and that sort of were expected of me to do. You know, I'd been a straight-A student. I'd gone to a very hip and cool college. Obviously, I got into graduate school. You know, had good grades. Um, married a, you know, beautiful woman. Got a house in Berkeley. I mean, this was, you know, as cool a life as one could have, and then one day I woke up and realized this wasn't the life I wanted, that there was adventure that I, that I was holding myself back from, that there were things I wanted to explore and expand and so forth that I, I wanted to, to do, and that sort of changed me. You know, one day I just decided to not go back to school, and I have no idea what kind of records the University of California at Berkeley has of me, but I just didn't go back. I said, "Not, not for me." So left my marriage, left my life, left all of that, and then, you know, embarked on a, a inner and outer adventure that was quite adventurous. Um, you know, I, I, I, I ran into... You know, you can read a lot of stuff about me out there. I ran into a lot of false starts and a lot of things that didn't work very well, but that was all in my exploration. It wasn't really escape. I was just looking and exploring an awful lot of things, and then found more and more stable ways to, and more inner ways to, to, you know, in, in a, um, with a much, much more consciousness and stability than kind of random and ad hoc. So I kind of grew up from that, you know, over the years and, and sort of my outer life became a lot quieter, even though my inner life was still quite rich. So I, I suppose that that was, that was a hallmark event, you know, was for me to make that decision to sort of leave what people would probably consider was, you know, one of the best and coolest kind of lifestyles you would have, and, you know, go on my own trip.
- TFTim Ferriss
Was that a difficult decision? I mean, and I, I hate to sound like a broken record, but was, was this a kind of-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, it was tough
- TFTim Ferriss
... one day I'm done, or was it something that developed over time? I mean, that's-
- SPSpeaker
Well, it was different-
- TFTim Ferriss
A, a lot of people don't leave situations that-
- SPSpeaker
Well-
- TFTim Ferriss
... they feel they should
- SPSpeaker
... I can't remember exactly whether it was days or weeks or months, but it certainly wasn't... I don't think it was months. I think it was probably weeks that I had that thought. But, you know, I'm, I'm Mr. Approval Suck. I, you know, I like people's approval. I don't, you know, I don't, I don't like sort of being the rebel and being out. You know, I like people to like me, and so that was, that was tough to give all that up.
- TFTim Ferriss
What was the conversation like with, uh, your, your wife, with your partner at the time?
- SPSpeaker
Not fun.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. I mean, was it just short, like, "I'm leaving today," or was it more of a lead time, more lead time than that?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. Yeah. No, it was short. You know, I just, I didn't know. I didn't understand myself well enough, you know, not comfortable enough in my own skin to know how to engage with that, so it was kind of a, you know, it was radical. You know, God bless her. She, she, she endured it as well as anybody could, I suppose. Uh, but it, you know, I, I was not a class act in terms of how I did that, in other words.
- TFTim Ferriss
The, the mentor that you mentioned earlier, uh, my, my listeners will kill me if I don't return to at least one description of, of this mentor. The, the sort of psychic abilities or extra-sensory abilities that, uh, led to him being studied by, uh, as you mentioned, the University of Pennsylvania. Did you observe... Were you able to observe any of this, uh, or to-
- SPSpeaker
Oh, yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
What, what, what types of things did you observe?
- SPSpeaker
Well, he, he would see certain things. In other words, he would have a vision of something and say, "By the way, I know this person did X, Y, and Z," and they... Indeed, that's exactly what they did or what they were gonna do.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
So he just had an extra-sensory perception ability. Um, for that, you know, uh, in, in his own story, uh, he's now dead, but, uh, you know, if he, if he told the story, you know, he, he, he was quite depressed as a kid, um, and didn't know... He just had... was so sensitive and didn't understand why people were doing what they were doing, and so he did all kinds of things to try to compensate for that, you know, all these sports things that he would... was extremely good at. And then one day he went to sleep and was taken out of his body and, you know, was shown other levels of why he'd been going through all the experiences he had and who was gonna be coming toward him, and that, uh, he would have this job, essentially, uh, the karma of being able to share what he had learned with them because he owed them.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So, uh, it turned out I was one of those people, at least according to him.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So-
- TFTim Ferriss
Wow. That's-
- SPSpeaker
... that's, you know, that's-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... kind of in, in woo-woo land, but, you know, there may be some people listening to this that know what I'm talking about.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. No, I appreciate you sharing this story. I, uh... Yeah, this is, this is something we could talk a lot, uh, much longer about. Uh, but I, I will try to sort of keep the thread of the, the last question in the sense that many of the, uh, listeners who asked questions they would hope I would explore with you asked something along the lines of what, uh, Nick Dobos act, which is... Asked, excuse me, which is, how does he deal with things like mental fatigue, motivation, and mood's role in productivity? I'm gonna, I'm going to approach that from a, from a, a, a sideways angle and kind of relate it to my last question, which is, uh,
- 1:02:47 – 1:10:44
A Dark Period, Spirituality, and Meditation
- TFTim Ferriss
could you describe a particularly, uh, difficult period that you faced? Because it's, it's very... You've done a lot of incredible things. You have GTD being taught, as I understand it, in 60-plus countries probably at this point. Massive success on so many objective levels. Um, I, I really like to humanize guests by asking about tougher times and how they got through it or found their way through it. Would, would you be open to describing, uh, any particular tough or dark period, uh, that you went through and how you made your way through it?
- SPSpeaker
Sure. Well, you know, back in my early Berkeley days, I had a, a, a really, uh, interesting time where, um, I, I was having my own kind of sort of psychic or spiritual experiences and didn't understand where they came from, and didn't understand why other people didn't understand them. And so, you know, though I'd been sort of Mr. Nice Guy, suddenly I found myself outcast, and that was, you know, quite painful. So I wound up, uh, you know, involved in sort of aberrated behavior out of my frustration of all that, and they put me away in a mental institution, you know, which I thought was kind of interesting because at, at the time I could see as much about what was going on with the people who put me there as [laughs] as anybody in there. And I thought, "Well, that's kind of fascinating, just to be able to see all that." And I'd read, you know, much of, of the literature about, you know, is crazy really crazy or, you know, are you tapped into something, you know, very different. So I knew I was tapped into something very different, but couldn't get anybody to understand that, so, uh, and then it became quite painful. And at so- a certain point I said, "Well, you know what? This is too painful. I think I'm gonna, uh, decide to cooperate instead of rail against these people that can't see what's going on." So as I say, I never really got cured. You're just looking at a high state of cooperation. So [laughs] so I managed to, to get... And it wasn't very long, but it wa- you know, it, it-
- TFTim Ferriss
How long, how long were you in?
- SPSpeaker
Oh, a couple of weeks.
- TFTim Ferriss
Couple of weeks. Uh, i- if, if I could, if I could interrupt for just a second, what were the behaviors that led you to end up there, and, uh, how, how did you end up there? I mean, was it, uh-
- SPSpeaker
I got-
- TFTim Ferriss
... family, friends?
- SPSpeaker
No, I got really pissed off at my, at my mentor friend, and he knew that, you know, I was, I was... kind of had gone off the rails, and, um, and I threw a brick through his window, and so he called the cops, and the cops put me away. Anyway, that, that's a, it's a much longer, more intricate story than that, but that's the simple version.
- TFTim Ferriss
And so you decided to cooperate, and you get released. What, what, what did your life look like for the, the, the weeks following that experience?
- SPSpeaker
Well, I got a job, uh, you know, and, you know, s- sort of straightened myself up and started to cooperate with the world. And, uh, then that's when I discovered, you know, a whole lot of, uh... I wasn't sure what had happened to me, uh, but, uh, I was walking down the street in Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley and walked into a store called Shambhala Bookstore. And I walked in, I don't know why, just intuitively, and I looked around and I looked down on the shelf and I saw this book that said The Gateways to Spiritual Science by Rudolf Steiner. I said, "Hmm, I wonder if there are people who actually know what all this stuff is really about." And so I spent the next, oh, three or four or five months exploring huge amounts of the esoteric literature of the occult and the, the, you know, the, the White Brotherhood and all kinds of stuff that I didn't know anything about. But there's a whole body of literature, the theosophists to begin with in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Europe, um, that were sort of studying the science of spirituality essentially, and dug into that like crazy. I said, "Oh my God," you know, "I'm not so crazy." [laughs] You know, I tapped into something that... there was something to tap into. So then started to go on an exploration to see if I could find somebody who knew a lot more about that than I did, and that's when I discovered a guy named John Roger, who then wound up being my spiritual coach. I said... So I hung out with him and said, "Well, I'll, I'll see how much I can learn from him," and that was, you know, 45 years. And he was just further down the path than I was, but had a lot of that information. So that, that's when my life s- sort of my outer, my outer life's, you know, got much simpler and much more calm and [laughs] and traditional, and my inner life, you know, got quite rich. You know, at that point
- TFTim Ferriss
What, uh, what does the word spiritual mean, mean to you in, in this context? Or for, for people who don't-
- SPSpeaker
No, stuff you can't... Stuff-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... yeah, stuff you can't see, you know, that's affecting us. And, you know, we all exist on many different levels. Like, you can't see your mental, you can't see your thoughts, you can't see your emotions. I mean, yeah, there are people who can sort of see your energy field around that, but there's a lot of stuff you can't see that's affecting us. And I use spiritual with a small S, and just call it, yeah, there's a lot of worlds out there and, you know, it's possible to experience those worlds. Uh, you know, if you, uh, if you meditate, if you practice certain practices, you can, you know, quiet yourself enough to be able to tap into a lot of the other levels that we actually exist on. So this level is just a schoolroom, you know, but we are much bigger than all that. So you can call it whatever you want, your soul, your spirit, your, your intuition, your gut, whatever you wanna call it. There's, there's still a small voice essentially inside of all of us that's tapped into all of this, and it is part of it. So that, that's a huge universe.
- TFTim Ferriss
What, what does your meditation practice look like these days? Or for people who want to develop a meditation practice but don't have one, what do you recommend? Or maybe those are two different things.
- SPSpeaker
Well, it's a good... [sighs] You know, I don't know that I have a recommendation other than follow your intuition. I think, I think there's a perfect timing for all that for everybody. Everybody's on a spiritual path, whether they know it or not. Everybody's, you know, doing what they're doing, you know, as a way to fulfill, you know, something that they're trying to complete here on the planet. So, you know, and it's all around. It's, it's, it's in everything. So whatever is gonna allow you to be quieter and listen to... As I say, the universe is always on, so meditation is not like stopping the universe or stopping anything. It's just quieting this sort of material loud world out here so you can pay attention to the more subtle voices.
- TFTim Ferriss
What, what have you taken from that, uh, if anything, from that initial experience that landed you in hospital? As you said, you weren't cured, but you be- just became more cooperative [laughs] as a, uh, as a, as a strategy that has informed, uh, what you've done later or, or even what you do today. I mean, were there particular insights or realizations-
- SPSpeaker
Well, yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... that have translated?
- SPSpeaker
Well, not really. I mean, w- more just the strength to get through all that, you know, and to, and to come out the other side and, uh, you know, and, and make life work, you know, in the way that it works for me, so... I, I can't... I don't know that there was any other, you know, particular aha that happened other than, uh, "Hmm, well, I think I will change my attitude [laughs] "
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
"... and, and shift my approach so that it's much more effective." And, um, yeah, so that, that, that helped. I mean, having gone through that, there's not a lot, there's not a whole lot that scares me out here.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, uh, I mean, once you've... Yeah, that's particularly true I find with people who have been, uh, sort of taken to task in the sense of dealing with all that is in here, uh, in addition to all that is out there, if that makes any sense.
- SPSpeaker
Oh, sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh,
- 1:10:44 – 1:16:28
Overwhelm, New Habits, Books, and Daily Routine
- TFTim Ferriss
do you ever feel overwhelmed or unfocused? And if so, what do you, what do you do when you feel either of those things? And I don't wanna s-
- SPSpeaker
Daily. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Okay. Okay.
- SPSpeaker
Are you kidding?
- TFTim Ferriss
I just don't wanna make assumptions.
- SPSpeaker
I fall off my own wagon regularly.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Yeah, okay. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Oh, come on, it's not always... You know, come on. It, it, every vision you have, every creative thought you have, everything you decide to do is gonna throw you out of your comfort zone, 'cause you, you're gonna have to undo what you were doing before and reconfigure everything for the new game. So, you know, it's not like I'm, you know, totally feeling overwhelmed. I just don't let myself go very long before I fix it, you know. But as soon as I, you know... This huge project I'd had, this GTD summit, was quite a g- You know, there were many times that I felt somewhat overwhelmed 'cause I wasn't quite sure what was gonna happen. There were a lot of unknowns and so forth that I, that I didn't feel like I could control that well. And so, you know, but, you know, I eat, eat my own dog food, as we say. So I sit down, write it down, make next action decisions, say, "What can I handle? What can I not handle?" Yeah. So y- y- you know, everybody, it's, it's like surfers. You, you're always gonna fall off. You just want a ankle tether on so you can get back on it real quick, and it allows you to surf bigger waves.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, are, are there any new beliefs or behaviors or habits that have, uh, materially improved your life in the last handful of years? Any, any that come to mind?
- SPSpeaker
Nothing comes to mind except just our wonderful dog that we had to put down a few months ago that we're gonna need to get another. You know, walking your dog and just being quiet, you know, very cool. Uh, and actually I'm reading, I'm reading a brand-new book right now that I was getting, um, I was getting shiatsu, uh, at, at, um, a spa and, um, my shiatsu master who was working on me said, "By the way," you know, 'cause I went to sleep, and he said, "By the, by the way, you have a little bit of sleep apnea." Uh, and he said, "You must read this book." So I am halfway through this book called, uh, The Oxygen Advantage.
- TFTim Ferriss
The Oxygen Advantage.
- SPSpeaker
I had no idea how critical it is to do nasal breathing instead of mouth breathing. It is amazing stuff. Anyway, so-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. You know-
- SPSpeaker
... that's, there, there's a new habit-
- TFTim Ferriss
The Oxygen-
- SPSpeaker
... is sleep- sleeping with, you know... Actually he, he suggests, um, going and getting a adhesive, uh, cloth tape, like a four-inch piece, and putting it over your mouth when you go to sleep so that you, you train yourself and, you know, you build the practice of actually sleeping with nasal breathing. Fascinating stuff
- TFTim Ferriss
The oxygen advantage.
- SPSpeaker
Yep.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh-
- SPSpeaker
So that, that, that's... You mentioned it. I, that's a brand n- brand new habit I just started t- 48 hours ago.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Uh, are there, are there any, uh, particular books that you have, um, uh, outside of y- of your own that you have gifted or recommended often to other people?
- SPSpeaker
Oh, yes. Uh, one of the latest ones called The Antidote. Uh, Oliver Burkeman. Fabulous book. Totally fun. It's happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Oh, you'd love it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
You'd love it, Tim.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
It's great. Uh, it's... The, uh, the content is, is a good bit more serious than what the title sounds like. He's really into, uh, kind of poo-pooing the people that just say, "Oh, don't have any negative thoughts. Just go think positive thoughts. Just da, da, da, da," and not, not accepting reality. And so he, he goes into quite a bit of exploration of stoicism, and the, the, you know, I couldn't agree more with actually his hypothesis and h- and his thinking. Anyway, it's a fun book. My wife just broke out laughing regularly if she was reading the book. It's, it's very well-written. So that's, that's one of my latest recommendations, for sure.
- TFTim Ferriss
The, The Antidote.
- SPSpeaker
Yep.
- 1:16:28 – 1:21:05
The Weekly Review and What GTD Followers Skip
- TFTim Ferriss
what do you wish, uh, GTD, uh, adherents or people who were, say, have read the, have read your books once, once through each would pay more attention to? Are there any particular aspects or concepts or, or details that you, that you wish more people would pay attention to?
- SPSpeaker
Well, I'm not into having anybody change any of the behavior they don't wanna change. You know, my, my job was just to give people information whether they want it or not. I'm, I'm not gonna beat anybody up about it, or I'm not even gonna proselytize about it very much. I say, "Look, you want a clear head? Here's how you get it." Well, then you can do it or not. I don't care. Well, I, I care, otherwise I wouldn't share this information 'cause it's, it's potentially transformational and life-changing for people when they actually get this methodology and capture, clarify, organize, reflect, and engage with their stuff, you know, if they do that. But people can fall off on any one of those. A lot of people just don't write everything down, so they don't trust their head or their lists. A lot of people don't decide next actions and outcomes for stuff, and so their lists are, you know, when they look at them, creating as much stress as they relieve. And a lot of people don't have a trusted organization system that they trust that they, their, their head can absolutely let it go knowing that they're gonna see the right thing at the right time, be reminded of the right stuff. And an awful lot of people don't step back and reflect, you know, what we call the weekly review or, or any kind of a regular reflection review, where you step back and take an hour or two at least once a week and bring up the rear guard and, and, you know, and get current, you know, get clean again, you know, 'cause life's like that. And th- those are all the, the, the, the steps that people don't take. So I'd say, "Hey, guys, read the book again."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
I had somebody read the book 20 times. He said it's a different book every time he read it 'cause you're ready for a different cut on the stuff when you, when you read it again. So there's a, you know... It sounds like it's pretty simple, but it's, it's, you know, quite a habit for most people to change.
- TFTim Ferriss
The weekly review, I'd love to spend, uh, f- just a, a few minutes on that. Could y- could you describe what the weekly review might look like for someone? What is, what are the steps-
- SPSpeaker
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... of the weekly review?
- SPSpeaker
Well, uh, first of all, let's step back a, a second and say if you don't, if you haven't captured, clarified, organized, and reviewed most of the stuff of your life, you don't have the whole thing to review yet. So it, it... The weekly review, the, the ideal weekly review means that, that your system is relatively current. At least it's only a week old in terms of maybe stuff that you haven't brought, brought current yet. Uh, then again, even if you haven't set up a system, just to take an hour a week [laughs] and step back and look at your life, you know, and say, "Hey, what's happened in the last week? What do I need to do about that?" You know, just any kind of a thinking, you know, in a more reflective process is gonna help anybody, you know, at any time. And not just go zone out, you know, or drink or, or even just meditate, but to really focus on your, the, the work of your life. You know, it's a different focus
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- SPSpeaker
Uh, it's, you- where you're thinking about, well, what did I commit to? What's new? What do I need to be aware of? If nothing else, just look at your calendar for the coming up the next two or three weeks. You know, I- everybody's gonna go, "Oh, God, that reminds me." Yeah, no kidding. You know, so any of that kind of, uh, stuff, and again, the more that you have externalized your life and your, your work, the more valuable this review is gonna be.
- TFTim Ferriss
When do you tend to do your weekly reviews?
- SPSpeaker
Mm, I don't have-
- TFTim Ferriss
Is there... You don't have a standard time?
- SPSpeaker
No. No, I don't really. I just, just when sort of ambient anxiety sort of creeps up on me. But it's usually about every seven days. You know, years ago, I actually read somewhere, Tim, that, that, that... Because w- we've always said, we always knew just practically anyway that a weekly review was really kind of critical to keep your system current, alive, and well. You know, and then it grows. If you don't do that, it gets, it gets out of date. You'll fall off the wagon pretty fast and pretty coherently. So but then I read when- somewhere that your brain actually, if, if you try to recall something that happened within the last seven days, you can pretty well recreate the context in your mind. After about seven or eight days, it's kinda like there's a part of your brain that does a Control, Alt, Delete, and it's like, it just, you're trying to recreate something that happened two weeks ago. It's like, can't find it. W- what? Where? So there seems to be some sort of a natural cycle of a seven-day cycle, uh, you know, in, in, in, i- in that kind of thinking. So, you know, I, uh, that is, it, it's probably one of the most challenging habits to set up, uh, but certainly the most rewarding if
- 1:21:05 – 1:29:30
Structure, Freedom, and Creativity
- SPSpeaker
you, if you do.
- TFTim Ferriss
Do you have, uh, any rules or commandments for yourself for th- types of things that you categorically say no to? Uh, and, and the re- the reason I ask this is that I, I, at least in my own life, have, have really tried, uh, and found quite valuable figuring out, trying to figure out the single decisions that remove many, many, many decisions. So for instance, no to all speaking engagements outside of Austin for X period of time, whether it's six months or 12 months, whatever it might be. Are there certain categories of things that you simply say no to as a default?
- SPSpeaker
Not really, except unpleasant people. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
You know, that, I, that's, that's about it. I don't know. I, I, I am, I suppose this will change, but still at 73, I still take advantage of every... I think there's probably two or three or maybe five interviews or podcasts that we've refused because the, the sleaze factor was just too high. But I've done 2,000 since the, since Getting Things Done was published in 2001. I just, I say, "Hey, anybody wants, is interested in this, sure, I'm, I'm here to share it with the world. Here we go." Um, and you know, I, I don't have really, really that deep of pockets. I haven't been that entrepreneurial or aspirational to go, you know, build this huge fortune, you know? And so I still take advantage of work that shows up, and if it seems interesting, it seems like, you know, like something that people are interested in me doing, I go, "Yeah." You know, my price has gone up, so I'm not doing as much, but that's okay.
- TFTim Ferriss
Le- let's return to the unpleasant people for a second. Uh, th- how... What f- if there is, feeling gives you an indicator that someone is a person you want to avoid, or is it more looking at them online, doing a little due diligence and deciding this is not the, the tone of, of person I want to interact with? H- how do you vet and filter those people out?
- SPSpeaker
You know, I don't have to do much of that these days, Tim.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
I mean, I guess given where I am in my life, people usually don't contact me unless they're nice, [laughs] you know, or at least fun to, you know? And I, I'm, I, I have a little bit of the, of the, um, uh, what's his name? I never met a guy that I didn't like. You know, um, Will Rogers. You know, I have a little bit of that in me. You know, I think most people are good people to begin with, and most people just don't come to me with negative stuff. And, uh, you know, I guess maybe in the old days, I, I, I would a little bit, but I kind of just made a joke kind of like, yeah, uh, I, I don't like unpleasant people, but I have a blessed life, and I have nothing but, you know, pretty much pleasant people around me.
- TFTim Ferriss
I'd like to, uh, read a short quote and ask you to, uh, elaborate if, if, if you're able, because it, it seems to allude to something very important. Uh, and this is from a, a Fast Company piece some, some time ago. Uh, this is a, a quote of, of yours that they may have gotten wrong, so you can correct it if, if need be. "People assume that I am a hardworking, left-brained, results-oriented, OCD, A and over-attentive kind of guy," he says with a laugh. "In fact, the reason that I was attracted to this work was that it allowed me to be more creative, more spontaneous, freer. I'm a freedom guy." Uh, could, could you e- explain what you mean by that?
- SPSpeaker
I, I, it's self-explanatory. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, well-
- SPSpeaker
I'm not sure what else I can say. I-
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, in the sense that why, why does the, the... At, at face value, someone might say that there are a lot of rules. This doesn't... And this is, this is what some people ask, like, "Well, it seems like GTD is very rigid and has a lot of process. I want to be able to use my intuition and creativity." So the, the, so it, it may be self-explanatory, but I'd like you to explain it anyway because it doesn't-
- SPSpeaker
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... seem totally obvious to everybody.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. Well, I think it was Faulknér that said, "To be steady and well-ordered in your life, so you can be crazy and spontaneous in your work." That was 120 years ago that he said that. It's funny people say, "I don't want to be so structured." I say, "What do you think about the middle line on the road out there?" You know, it's a constraint. It's a limitation. No, the center line is great. Why? It lets me think about other things while I'm driving as opposed to someone who's gonna hit me. So just enough structure to give you the freedom So I don't, I don't structure anything more than I need. But you do need a certain rigorous structure, you know? Uh, well, throw away your calendar if you don't like lists.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Okay.
- SPSpeaker
You know? Come on.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
It's just the price of missing an appointment is so, is emotionally pretty high. That's why people, you know, maintain that structure pretty well, right? So you just need as much structure as you need. Ask any, you know, ask anybody out there. Was it, was it Picasso that said inspiration is for amateurs?
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] It could have been. It sounds like Picasso.
- SPSpeaker
I think, yeah, it sounds like him.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, I think, I think that was him. It's like, as opposed, you know, butt in chair, paintbrush, paint the canvas, stare at it, you know? Discipline yourself. Anyway, so I, I, I think there is a, the, the degree to which, um, that... Well, I don't know. You know, that, that just seems so self-evident. Most of the people that, that basically, that, that I know, some of the most creative people I know, one of the most creative guys I know, and he just spoke at the summit, by the way. He sent, uh, sent in a video, so I, I know... [laughs] Since he, since he was public about it, I can make him public. Um, probably the most, one of the most successful entrepre- He just won, actually, the, the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year for 2019. Uh, Brad Keywell and Breads. He's on five boards. He teaches entrepreneurialism at the University of Chicago. Uh, he built Groupon and sold it. That's why he has his own jet. Um, his new startup, now it's like, now it's four years old, but e- even two years in, had a $2 billion market cap. This guy is so smart, so creative. You know, he collects modern art. He's, you know, he runs Chicago Ideas Week. He started it. So this is probably one of the most creative people you would ever meet, certainly one of the most productive people you'd ever meet, and I spent a year with him. People say, "Well, why would he bring... Why would he do GTD?" I say, "Well, his presenting issue with David, I'm just up to here." He's, uh, he was 27. He said, "I'm just, just getting my traction, but I, I, I wake up with million-dollar ideas, but I don't know what to do with them or where to put them or who to give them to." So he just ne- needed more room. So, you know, this, what, what GTD does is it provides space. Invariably, if you capture c- you know, if you, you know, capture, clarify, organize, and reflect on all the things that have your attention, it will give you more room. What you do with that room is unique to you. Some people use it to be more creative. Some people use it to be more strategic, some people to be more innovative, some people to be just present, you know, with whatever they're doing. One of my biggest champions, a guy named Howard Stern, you can't find a more creative guy than Howard. You know, he'd tell you it changed his life. It gave him the time to learn to paint, which he always wanted to do, as well as keep Sirius Radio going. So, you know, or, or people like Will Smith or, or Robert Downey Jr., they're big champions of my stuff. I can say their names 'cause they were public about that. So, so, you know, if, if people think that creative people, you know, can't use GTD, I'd say, "Hmm, there are a few people you ought to meet."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] A, a nitty-gritty question about the weekly review, as a few people ask this, uh, and, and I'm curious as well. Is, is the weekly review inherently a solo process, or do you ever involve your staff in-
- SPSpeaker
Hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... weekly reviews?
- SPSpeaker
Well, I know people that would do weekly reviews with their families. Very cool to do. I think you need to do your own private one in any case, no matter what. But then you, if you have groups of people to say, "What are the things that we are all interested in as a group that we can share and update each other with?" So absolutely. You know, that's a great, that's a great time to do that. Probably wouldn't necessarily frame it so much as a weekly review, so much as let's review all the things that have our attention as a team, as a group, as a family, as a couple.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- 1:29:30 – 1:43:55
Email Tools, Letting Go, and Closing Thoughts
- TFTim Ferriss
Do you, uh, manage your email in a task manager, or is it s- is it its own system? Is it simply the email client that you happen to be using? Um, do you have any... Could you describe how the, the tools you use for, for processing email?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. Well, I st- still use IBM Notes, the old Lotus Notes. We still use that in our company. Um, and I actually had my CTO for, gee, 15 years, uh, Eric Mack, built, uh, uh, an app that sits on top of or within, uh, Notes that lets me use email as my task manager. Uh, but you'd have to be using Notes to use it, so it's not publicly available unless you wanna... It's publicly available if you wanted to set up Lo- Lotus Notes or IBM Notes and then get eProductivity stick on it. But that's, you know, basically, um, as I look at my screen, for instance, uh, I have navigator bars on the left-hand side, and they have my action list. There's one of them says projects, one of them says agendas, one of them says calls, one of them says computer, one of them says creative writing, one of them says errands, one of them says home, one of them says online, one of them says someday maybe, and then waiting for. And so I can actually drag an email into any one of those, and it becomes that. Or I can just open that folder and then add anything to that folder that I want. So it's both an email manager as well as a task manager at the same time.
- TFTim Ferriss
Do you use any particular app or program for pulling material like articles or references, uh, off of web browsing into a system of any type?
- SPSpeaker
No, not really.
- TFTim Ferriss
Not so much?
- SPSpeaker
I use Evernote and, uh, you know, I, I've used the Evernote, you know, little function where you can click on something.
- TFTim Ferriss
The, the web... Yeah, the Web Clipper.
- SPSpeaker
The Web Clipper. But I still don't use it that much. I don't, I don't, I don't have that much stuff that I wanna do about that. You know, the problem with things like Evernote, somebody described it as, as write only [laughs] In other words, they spend all their time adding stuff in there and don't even go, go in and look at what they've got.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Yeah. It's a risk with a lot of digital technology. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Write, write only, you know?
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Write only.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Addition, uh, addition and not, uh, sufficiently, uh, well, at least subtraction from an attentional perspective. Uh-
- SPSpeaker
Any of those things will work. You know, all you need are lists basically, and you just need something to be able to cut and paste reference material in. I've got reference material all over Lotus Notes. I've got reference material all over Evernote. I have reference material in, you know, in just in Word files, you know, all over. I don't, I don't have any particular template or any particular suggestion other than, you know, probably not a bad idea to every once in a while, maybe yearly, curate all of that stuff so you don't have a lot of old dead wood in there.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, y- you've mentioned, uh, uh, quite a few quotes. You seem to have a good memory for, for quotes of various types in, in this conversation so far. Are there any quotes that you would consider you try to live your life by or think of often as a, as a mantra/reminder of sorts? Are there any quotes that come to mind, uh, as being particularly important to you?
- SPSpeaker
Well, my screensaver just says, "Let go."
- TFTim Ferriss
Let go?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Control is the master addiction, so not a... It's always a good idea to say, "Hey, drop it."
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Let go.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- SPSpeaker
You know? Let, let life just, you know, be what it is.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm. You know, I, I often ask people d- if you could, if you could, if you could have one gigantic billboard, metaphorically speaking, to get a message out to billions of people or could be a question, could be a quote, could be a word, would that be let go, or would it possibly be something else for you?
- SPSpeaker
I don't know. I don't know. You'd have to give me that billboard, that opportunity. Let me see, let me see what shows up, because I need to let go to be able to see what showed up, as opposed to try to preconceive that. I mean, you know, your, your head's for having ideas, not for holding them. It's not a bad one, you know, just, you know, prac- practical, you know, GTD-esque, you know, quote.
- TFTim Ferriss
You know, I was reading th- uh, a piece in The Atlantic, um, uh, which, which, uh, which, which I, I found, you know, some of it, uh, very fascinating and, uh, this was before you had applied the new labels to the, uh, various vantage points. So th- this was back when we... you were using the, uh, the 30,000-foot view and so on.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
But, um, y- you mentioned at one point in this, and a- again, feel free to fact-check, but-
- SPSpeaker
Is this Tim Fallos' article?
Episode duration: 1:44:01
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Transcript of episode 8ETZJSXK7zs
