145 What Mindfulness and Daydreaming Have to Do with Getting Things Done with David Allen

"Decide outcomes and actions when things show up instead of when they blow up." - David Allen If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at www.lewishowes.com/145. Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 145 with David Allen.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Now I'm super pumped to introduce you to today's guest. His name is Mr. David Allen. And for those that do not know who David is, he's the author of a huge bestseller called Getting Things Done, The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. And who doesn't want to be stress-free and super productive? I know I do. Now Getting Things Done has been nothing short of a global phenomenon. For over a decade, the Getting Things Done book has been a bestseller around the world and is the foundation for a wide range of offerings from the David Allen Company by individuals and organizations implementing the proven techniques and best practices.

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  This groundbreaking work-life management system transforms personal overwhelm and overload into an integrated system of stress-free productivity. Now it doesn't matter if you are an executive, a student, or run your own business or household, the Getting Things Done system will teach you the tips and tricks on how to get, stay, and be on top of it all. So I'm super pumped to bring you today's guest because I had a great time talking with him. Now let's go ahead and dive in with the one, the only, Mr. David Allen.

• 1:50Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. I'm excited today because we've got a new guest on. His name is Mr. David Allen. How are you doing, David?

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Terrific, Louis. Thanks. Glad to be here.

• 2:01Lewis Howes?

  I've been wanting to actually get you on for a while, but you didn't have a book coming out. So we said, let's wait until, you know, a book comes out and now you, we don't have a new book coming out, but you've got an updated book of getting things done, The Art of Stress-Free Productivity that is coming out. And why did you decide to update this and re-release it?

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Well, several reasons. I mean, the core methodology that I identified back in the first book is bulletproof and it's still there. It's evergreen. But there, you know, some of the languaging, some of the positioning, some of the, just some of the spin about getting things done and who it's good for and the depth of it has really, I've learned a lot, you know, since it was first published, gee, 15, almost 15 years ago. And, you know, what's changed is probably how many more people, this is a must-have instead of a nice-to-have in terms of surfing through their world these days. So, you know, the world has changed a lot, but not, not the principles that you have to apply to thread through it. But it's

• 3:06Speaker 02

  just getting more complicated and more necessary to keep your head clear and to maintain space, you know, in your, in your head so that you can think creatively and strategically and focus on the meaningful stuff. So that's just getting a little harder, you know, given the ubiquity of the technology and, you know, information and communication flows that are going on now.

• 3:26Lewis Howes?

  Would you say that, you know, smartphones and the internet has been, you know, the biggest challenge for anyone in getting things done?

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Well, it's, it's good and bad news in spades. You know, it's like, God, what a great time to be alive that we can do all that and be that virtual and, you know, connect in when we need to, the way we want to. And, you know, that's, I've been, gee, I've been on email since 1983.

• 3:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  Before a lot of people listen because we're born, yeah.

• 3:57Lewis Howes?

  That's when I was born that year.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  No, I had, that was Western Union's Easy Link and I had an IBM XT computer desktop and a Radio Shack Model 100 thing I traveled around with and you could, that's when, that's when you had to hook it in. Well, you had to hook in your, you had to hook in your modem, you know, was like a, I don't know, it was like a four point something modem and you had to take alligator clips with you so you could clip into the wall.

• 4:21Lewis Howes?

  Oh my goodness.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  And to the phone, you know, and I had to walk sixteen miles in the snow.

• 4:26Lewis Howes?

  Barely.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  You know, it's really funny, really funny. Well, but, you know, so, you know, thank goodness. I mean, my whole lifestyle and work style wouldn't exist without that technology. But it is challenging because, first of all, and there's a lot of new brain science out. That's also what's changed is how much scientific, cognitive science and research has validated what the getting things done methodology is, which is your heads for having ideas but not for holding them. However, all that dinging and all the email and all the pinging and all the constant ever on this is creating huge, huge addictions for people that are into that. And what it's preventing is people having, you know, real conversations and doing

• 5:09Speaker 02

  real thinking and doing and reflecting, which has always been an issue for people, but now it's even more so. And, you know, the addictive quality of the pings, even just thinking who might be calling you and might, maybe you should pick it up or who should be, you know, you know, what kind of texting should you be doing or what's going on in social media? Even just thinking about it, the studies have now shown will diminish your performance.

• 5:32Lewis Howes?

  It's almost like, yeah, it's almost like the anxiety of, you know, should I text back right away? Do I need to text back right now? And if it vibrates, there's a different reaction. If it dings, there's a different reaction. You know, and it ruins people's sleep patterns because, you know, I remember I used to have my phone on me constantly and I would have phantom vibrations on my leg. When I didn't have it on me, I was like, did it just vibrate? Did it vibrate? Who's texting me?

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know.

• 6:02Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if you've ever experienced that, where you have phantom vibrations, but...

• 6:05Speaker 02

  No, no, I haven't. But then, by the way, there's a brand new book out, not mine, but boy, it is, it's a mind blower. It's called Brain Chains. Two words, brain chains and chains around your brain. And it's by a man named Theo, T H E O, Compernolle, C O M P E R N O L L E. He's Dutch, but he's aggregated and all a whole lot of the new research. Basically, poo pooing, you know, that, that, that multitasking makes you efficient is total bunk, total bunk. And that's all the information about that. And the new wired digital generation. They're no better than anybody else. In terms of all that and are more likely to be addicted in that way.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  And so it's fascinating stuff. So I would highly recommend that read for anybody. Uh, just in terms of it's a manual for, you know, for your thinking process. And how to start to thread through, given all this technology and how to set up your life. So you're not distracted by it, but leveraging it.

• 7:05Lewis Howes?

  Very cool. Yeah, we'll have that linked up in the show notes afterwards. Brain change. That sounds cool. Um, it's just like, how does, how do we even begin to learn to focus on certain things? When we have our cell phones nearby, when the email is up on our computer, when social media, people are commenting to us and we feel the need, the necessity to respond and react and get back to people. You know, there's some days where I feel like I just reacted the entire day as opposed to set an intention and created something from my vision. Like, how does someone focus as opposed to multitask? And how often should they be focusing for each task?

• 7:46Speaker 02

  You know, it's a great question. And a lot of the brain science has now validated what, uh, what getting things done or G D D for short, has really facilitated over all these years. I just didn't have the science behind it. I just learned it on the street and watched it work with people. Well, you know, I spent thousands of hours, literally desk side with some of the best and brightest and busiest people on the planet, watching how this works. And it's very bulletproof, but one of the reasons it works is it allows you to chunk this stuff in and block it. In other words, if you're not cleaning up your email and your in baskets to zero every 24 to 48 hours, there's a part of you that's constantly emergency scanning, not wanting to miss something.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  If however, you've chunked it down where it's, look, I've defined all the work at hand. If there's an emergency, people can reach me. I don't have to be on my phone. I don't have to be accessible like that. They can find me if they need me. But because I'm cleaning it up regularly, people know I'm going to get back to them. There's not that urgency. And I can then sit down and then think through email when it's, when I'm in that kind of modality and not have to deal with it the rest of the day.

• 8:52Lewis Howes?

  So how do you, how do you deal with the email then? What's your daily routine like?

• 8:56Speaker 02

  I just, I, when I'm not doing anything else, I'm cleaning up email to zero. Cause there's a surprise coming toward me I can't see. And when that hits, I want absolutely the minimal amount of unprocessed backlog. Otherwise, the surprise of the new stuff will feel like an interruption and a pain in the butt. Whereas if it's clean, I can then evaluate the new input against every single thing else I might, would, could, should be doing and go no or yes. And then, then you're making good, you know, just intuitive choices about how do you focus, you know, focus yourself during the day. But you, that, that's almost impossible to do if you're not cleaning up. So back to me, what I do personally, usually the night before or, you know, I'm trying to clean that up.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  What I've learned recently, especially reading all the brain science, is that emails that require thinking, good thing to do those in the morning. And all the other stuff called snacking on email, you know, dumping spam and handling the two minute ones, you know, two minute rules, a good, a good one out of my methodology there. Anything you can, you know, whip out and turn around in two minutes, you should. So right now, what I do is I, when I'm glancing at email, I'm deleting spam, handling the two minute ones. And I'm actually moving the ones that are going to require a little bit of thinking and decision making to another block. The reason is decision making is actually a mental, can create, creates mental fatigue. You, the, the reflective part of your brain and your forebrain, they've now studied, that, that's where decision fatigue comes from.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  That, you know, even deciding which shoes to wear in the morning, actually uses cognitive horsepower, just like deciding, you know, who to hire. So just any kind, any kind of decision actually is, is draining, draining down cognitive muscle. So you want to be, you want to be very careful about that. And that's where you want to block that stuff. And you also need to refresh your brain so that you're making good decisions and not knee jerking decisions.

• 10:43Lewis Howes?

  I'm glad you said that because I, you know, I feel like I'm making so many decisions throughout the day. You know, I've got a company, I've got employees, I've got constant projects that are in motion, that I've got my finger on the pulse. And there's some nights where I'm, you know, I'm with my girlfriend and I'm just like, babe, I'm not good at deciding. Like, you just need to tell me what you want to do and where you want to eat. Because literally, I'm like, I have no more energy left to make decisions.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 11:10Lewis Howes?

  And you telling me you don't know and you don't care does not serve me right now. So, uh, give me a couple of options of what you want and I'll make a decision easier. Uh, but it's so interesting, the fatigue and the drainage of just making so many decisions. I feel like, how do these high-power executives, you know, these major Fortune 500 CEOs that are constantly making, you know, billion-dollar decisions or high-stakes decisions, how do they deal with this fatigue?

• 11:37Speaker 02

  Well, people like Warren Buffett wear the same clothes and eat the same lunch, so they don't have to make those decisions. They don't want to draw it down unnecessarily. They also have structured a lot of their life around them, so that people around them are making decisions and making it easier for them to make some choices uh, about what to do. So obviously handing off that is, is, you know, an executive skill to be able to do that. But it's also true that, and that in order to keep that muscle from frying up inappropriately, you need to constantly reflect and refresh. You need to, you need to daydream. You need to stop that, that, um, sort of reflective focus. But again, that's why addicting to your smartphone keeps drawing down that energy. So that's one of the things that they've now proven,

• 12:18Speaker 02

  that, that, that constantly being distracted or having noise in your environment or trying to multitask, you're using that same muscle and it's drawing it down. So what you want to do is chunk your life so that you, you really do need to, when, when it's time to really focus, you want to be able to really focus with no distraction. And when it, and then when it's time to relax and refresh, you need to step back and relax and refresh with no distraction. That's why they're getting things done methodology, which is eliminating a lot of the inner distractions. Makes it much easier to then optimize how you're using your brain process. Makes it a lot easier to focus on the one thing you're focused on when you're sitting down to craft your business plan for the bank

• 13:00Speaker 02

  or your, you know, or, or, or your pro forma or your, your strategic plan. When you're trying to do something like that, you need to really be able to focus and hold your brain into it. And then after that kind of thinking, you need to stop and walk around the block. You need to, you need to just go daydream and literally.

• 13:16Lewis Howes?

  Without your phone on you.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  Absolutely without your phone on you, especially if you're addicted to thinking about what, who's, who might be calling. You know, so that's being able to block all that stuff out so that then, okay, now it's time to deal with email, you know, and now it's time to focus. And now it's time, but, but most people can't do either one because they got so much static going on in their head. It's like the old cartoon, you remember Pigpen, you know, that just has this constant cloud around, you know, of residue. Well, most people, if you could, you know, I can't see psychically, but if I did, that's what a whole lot of folks would, would, would look like. Just all this residue spinning around in their brain.

• 13:52Lewis Howes?

  So what are the, the effects, the negative effects of people's daily productivity by the simple act of not having zero completed emails or having, you know, zero unread emails at the end of the day?

• 14:06Speaker 02

  You're never fully trusting what you're doing.

• 14:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow, huh, okay.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, come on, you tell me, see, the email is not self-evident. Some of them are, but a lot of them, you know, what's embedded in there? There's something, there might be something in there that I might need to know. There might be something that, that I need to be abreast of. There might be something I need to catch up. There might be something that critical and, and a priority in there. So it's good to know. Now I do emergency scanning too, I mean, we all do, look, you know, I'm going to go into a meeting, let me see if there are any burning barns or, or easy jokes. You know, what can I do real quick? You know, that's, that's all fine, but I don't, I don't make that my life. Most people are just living in emergency scan modality. That's why, you know, and part of the getting things done methodology is to make sure you build in regular reflection time.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  And what we've referred to as the weekly review, once a week, you need to spend two hours and catch up and bring up the rear guard, reflect on sort of the totality of all your projects, what's changed, what's new? Get a current inventory of all your work out in front of you. If you're not doing that, you're, you're being driven by latest and loudest.

• 15:08Lewis Howes?

  Right, that's interesting. And you know, I like, I love that you said, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say this, uh, the way you said it, but you need to daydream. And I love that because I, I call it strategic screwing around. Because I'm like, let me just go take a break and hang out with some friends. Maybe we'll be talking about ideas about business in there as well. And maybe we'll be, you know, um, you know, building relationship or rapport and things like that, which could help my business or something in the future, but really, go for, going for a hike, going to play basketball in the middle of the day, something that kind of strategically screw around. I feel like gives me a lot more energy throughout the day.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 15:45Lewis Howes?

  Right. Now, is it true that you're a black belt in karate?

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I haven't trained in years, but I did, you know, it's kind of like riding a bike. There's certain things you don't forget, but yeah, I did. I spent several years.

• 15:56Lewis Howes?

  Now, how long does it take to get a black belt?

• 15:59Speaker 02

  It took me about four years. Uh, very much depends on different schools, different styles, different, different requirements these days. But that's kind of in the, in the early days when, uh, the martial arts were just becoming popular in the States.

• 16:12Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. What is it you learned about, uh, through your process of becoming a black belt in karate that you connected with on productivity and freeing up your mind space?

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Well, I refer to it now as the strategic value of clear space. I mean, when, you know, a lot of the high levels of training in the martial arts, uh, include meditative and contemplative kind of exercises. And you know, there may be a spiritual component to it, but there's a very practical component. When four people jump you in a dark alley, you don't want to have 3,000 unprocessed emails hanging in your psyche. Right? You need to be clear and real clear. And there, there are very practical techniques in the martial arts about clearing your mind. You know, the, I, I, I stole the, the phrase or the idea of mind like water. It's like a clear head.

• 16:58Lewis Howes?

  That Bruce Lee?

• 16:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, that was Bruce Lee that, that sort of popularized that idea. You know, that, that water, it looks weak and, and flimsy and yet, you know, one of the most powerful things in the world. And so the idea is, you know, the idea is the water doesn't over or under react to anything. It just appropriately reacts and responds to its environment. So the idea of having a clear head so that you're not over or under reacting to things. That's sort of the idea. And, you know, most that that was very, very powerful. It was very powerful to experience sort of that inner space and being able to be clear amidst chaos. And so that you could then navigate with chaos. Now that wasn't a, you know, I didn't know where I was going in my life. I still didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up. I was waiting on tables while I was, you know, teaching karate.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  So, you know, there are a lot, a lot of professions came here and there. But, you know, in retrospect, I go, well, that, that, that sort of turned me on to the idea of clear space, as well as meditative kind of practices that I got involved with, you know, I'd been involved with for, for 40 years. Um, and so all that, knowing that those were really useful exercises to be able to maintain perspective and focus. Uh, certainly a huge part of productivity.

• 18:09Lewis Howes?

  What are some of the meditative practices that you believe in today?

• 18:12Speaker 02

  Well, anything, you know, anything that gets your mind to lift up and, and not be wrapped around whatever it is. I mean, we all have to, we all get down in the weeds, but it's just, you know, forest management instead of tree hugging.

• 18:24Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  But, you know, we got, we all have to hug trees. You just need to make sure that you, every once in a while you lift up and look around and make sure you're hugging the right tree.

• 18:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Right. So it can be as simple as simply focusing on your breathing, which was a martial arts technique. In case you got kicked in the wrong place and you really wanted to try to transcend the pain. You just need to come present. So anything that, anything that brings you present, you know, and mindfulness is a big popular sort of movement out there these days. Anything like that, you know, works and is, is quite healthy, given what we mentioned before, in terms of the brain needing, needing a respite. It needs, it needs to stop and back up. So even just simply the, the, the simple techniques about that.

• 19:03Lewis Howes?

  Sure. Is there anything that you do specifically on a daily basis, like a morning meditation or something before a conference call or a speech that you clear your mind with?

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Well, you know, I, I like to sort of, you know, before I do anything, I like to just sort of call on my own powers that be. I, I work on the working hypothesis that's been borne out many times that there are forces that we can't see that are on our side. You know, however you want to interpret that and sort of being open to that and open to, if nothing else, just say the higher part of me, you know, the still small voice that really kind of knows what's going on, loves me dearly, you know, winks at me when I screw up, uh, you know, and is just always there, you know, that, that, that sort of inner coach, uh, you know, learning how to access that, trust it, you know, it's a good thing to do and you can do that in a few seconds. It doesn't take, it's not, not a hugely, it doesn't, you don't break

• 19:57Speaker 02

  a sweat doing that kind of thing, but it is something, you know, I don't like the word discipline, um, you know, it just sounds too hard and I'm too lazy, but direction.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  There's a difference between directing yourself and discipling yourself. I understand what you mean by discipling yourself. I mean, I need to try to, you know, to discipline yourself until you break the habit of, you know, always on with your smartphone, you're going to have to have exert a little bit of discipline to pull yourself away from it. But the way you pull yourself away is just to direct yourself into something else instead of that. So, you know, direction is, I think, a classier, more elegant way to think about it than discipline. I need to direct myself because quite frankly, you know, as I say, I can resist anything but temptation. You put it in front of me, I'll want to do it.

• 20:40Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Love those brownies. Love those sweets.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:44Lewis Howes?

  What is, what is the, I'm interested to understand what the, um, higher power that you're calling forth, like the higher ways of being or the distinctions you're trying to call forth when you're grounding yourself in, in moments that are maybe big moments or something like that. Is there something that you try to bring forth more?

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. Hey, you know, God's a good guy, you know, or, or girl, or it, you know, whatever that thing is. I mean, whatever you, however you want to name, there is a positive force in the universe that I've, you know, experienced to some degree in, in very real ways. Uh, and, you know, it's a good working hypothesis that he, she, it is there and always accessible. So, uh, that works for me.

• 21:29Lewis Howes?

  You mentioned you had a lot of professions and I think I read you had thirty five professions before you were thirty five. Is that correct?

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember it because I was thirty five and I added them up. I just said, I don't know, one night for whatever reason, I just said, you know, let me, let me make a list of all the things I've ever done for money. Now, you know, a profession, you know, one night cooking greasy hamburgers on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley from eleven at night to seven in the morning because I was hungry. And that was the, the, the job that was available, you know, one night was, was it. I wouldn't call that a profession, but it, it was a job that I had.

• 22:01Lewis Howes?

  What was the job that you had that you learned the most from that you didn't think you learned anything from?

• 22:07Speaker 02

  Good question. A job I learned most from, I didn't think I learned anything from.

• 22:14Lewis Howes?

  Or maybe that you want to learn much from.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  You know, it's funny, I'm managing a service station and a car restoration company, you know, of business. I, I, one of my professions was I managed a Texaco station a block off the Santa Monica freeway in LA. And we also did sort of old, you know, restorations. I mean, this is back in the, the early seventies. Uh, you know, and, and, you know, guys from New York would, would come out and buy their first Mustang, you know, because they came to California. So we, we were storing a lot of the old Mustangs and people wanted to do the California thing. Anyway, learning to, to manage a service station in the chaos, literally fires and crises come pulling off the freeway into your, into your station.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  And there was a lot of things I actually learned there, uh, that I actually have included in the GTD methodology. For instance, the Tickler file, uh, just being able to make a, you know, I had a file folder that had one page for every single project around the station that, that wasn't finished yet that I needed to do. The guy who owned the station forced me. He said, David, I don't want you to see out there on the pumps for a half an hour. When you first get there early in the morning, you spend a half an hour locked yourself in your office and do nothing but, but rummage through those pages that tell you about all your projects. And what I didn't realize then was I was learning, boy, you better get all your work at hand, put it all in front of you, orient yourself and then cut loose.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  And then you can trust your spontaneous judgment calls about what you do, but that's hard to do if you don't see what all of your stuff is and externalize it. So. He was giving me, you know, I was learning my initial lessons about the external brain and how critical that was to then be able to trust your intuitive judgments when it gets nuts out there. You don't have time to think. You need to have already thought.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  Right. Wow. That's pretty cool. And you didn't think you'd learn that much there?

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, really.

• 24:04Lewis Howes?

  Very cool. I like that.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Well, I also learned how to do a brake job, you know, and, you know, I was, I, I, and, you know, I learned a bunch of, bunch of cool stuff about, you know, getting inside of engines and cars and so forth that I'd never really learned before. So that, that was always fun.

• 24:19Lewis Howes?

  Which, which job taught you the most about yourself?

• 24:22Speaker 02

  Well, kind of hard to say, you know, that, that, that, you know, one of my professions was, was as a personal growth trainer. So, you know, I grew up in the, I was a trainer for insight seminars and it's still around, but you know, in the seventies and eighties and the heyday of stack civilizations, life spring, a lot of the California sort of intensive personal growth stuff. And it started out avocationally and then I actually then actually had a job working with the insight organization. And that was, you know, boy, you know, such powerful stuff. You know, any kind of self-development stuff, if you turn around and teach it is when you really learn it.

• 24:59Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  You know, that's, as you probably know, I mean, you're in an educational, you know, kind of context yourself. And, you know, that teaches you probably, you probably learn more than people that are listening to you.

• 25:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you know, I'm, I selfishly wanted to start this podcast because I wanted to interview the brightest minds in the world so I can learn from them and then teach it in return to everyone else. So, you know, I wanted to teach others, but really teach myself. Um, that's very cool. Now, we've got, there, there are a lot of people that are listening who've probably got really bad productivity habits. And is it true that the average it takes to, 21 days to break a habit, is that true for GTD? Or what's the path?

• 25:40Speaker 02

  I don't know. You know, there, the, the best practices, the best practices you can pick up in a second. I mean, people say, how long does it take to start to implement this? I say about 20 seconds.

• 25:50Lewis Howes?

  Right now.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  You know, yeah, exactly, right now. Now, building it as a habit, I'd say the whole methodology as a habit. I mean, where you from now on are keeping nothing in your head, you're constantly, you you feel uncomfortable if once a week, you're not doing a weekly review and pulling up the rear guard. You're not, you know, you're not allowing yourself to start events or meetings without going, what are we trying to accomplish? You're you're not ending conversations without clarifying, what's the next action? Who's that? You're getting your email and your inbox to zero on a 24 to 48 hour basis, on a regular basis as a habit, two years.

• 26:24Lewis Howes?

  Two years to do that.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And that's what that's folks that are really, really good. Now, the bad news is, is that is that you you that you'll get that just a little bit. If you just keep a paper and pad by your bed, you'll sleep better. So any, this is not like running with scissors. I mean, anything you do about what I said, you know, is going to improve conditions, you know, around you, no matter what. So, but if you're really talking about building that in. Now, that said, there are a lot of exceptions to some of the techniques. When I coach executives, sometimes immediately, we when I sit down and work with them for two days and they empty their head, and they make all the next action decisions about the stuff that's got their attention, and they catch how powerful building a project list is and building a waiting for list

• 27:08Speaker 02

  of all the things are waiting on to come back from other people and start really, really tracking with integrity, the agendas that they need to go over with all their direct reports and their banker and their consultants. And they just get all that out of their head and they make all those decisions. I've had a lot of them just hit the road running, just not stop doing that. So it's possible. I mean, these these behaviors are not like learning a new technology or a foreign language or something. I mean, everybody knows how to write stuff down. Everybody knows how to do all these things. But, you know, how how powerful it is, how much difference it makes and how much pressure it relieves when you start to implement those, that's very different for different people.

• 27:42Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Yeah, we live, you know, it seems like, you know, I guess I'll speak for myself. There seems like some days where there's a lot of chaos and other days I feel like I have order. And you talk about five steps that apply order to chaos. Can you speak about some of those?

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Sure. Yeah, there are five steps that get anything under control, whether that's your kitchen or your company or your your head or a meeting. And basically, you need to capture, clarify, organize, reflect, and engage.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Capture means I need to identify the stuff that's not on cruise control. And then, you know, capture it, collect it, you know, what's got my attention? I need to make that list.

• 28:16Lewis Howes?

  Can you give some examples of what maybe for a lot of people?

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh, everybody who's listening to this has probably had their brain go at least one, if not several places, while they've been trying to listen to this that have nothing to do with what you and I are talking about. Right?

• 28:31Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 28:32Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, God, I need cat food. Oh, I gotta hire that thing. Oh, the bank's credit line. Oh, I have this customer issue I've got. Wherever your mind went.

• 28:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  That's what you need to grab, whatever that is.

• 28:42Lewis Howes?

  So what do you, what do you mean by grab that?

• 28:44Speaker 02

  Write it down.

• 28:45Lewis Howes?

  Write it down, gotcha.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  Get it, get it out of your head, basically. So the best practice there is you need to make sure you've collected or captured, uh, at least placeholders for anything that you have your, that has your attention, anything that's not on cruise, not on cruise control.

• 29:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  Because there's an inverse relationship between on your mind and getting done. Whatever's on your mind, keeps banging you on your head, means it's hung up and you're the bottleneck. Because the reason it's on your mind is there are decisions about it that you haven't made, or you haven't parked the results in some trusted system.

• 29:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  So, so you've got to first identify those things. And that, that takes, it takes a while. It takes, you know, an hour or two for most people we sit down with, just to capture, not to organize or analyze, just to identify what's on their mind. Oh, I need cat food. Oh, I gotta hire an assistant. Oh, I need to launch the ad campaign. Oh, I've got this problem with a client. I, oh, I've got this doctor's appointment I need to set up, all that stuff.

• 29:36Lewis Howes?

  So you're saying write everything down, excuse me, write everything down that's in your headspace at all that you feel like you need to do or have to do or react to? Write it all down that this is something you're going to do at some point. You don't have to do it all right now, but getting it clear.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  It's something you might need to do or decide something about.

• 29:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Might need to.

• 29:56Lewis Howes?

  That could take a while.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, one to six hours for most professionals.

• 30:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And then how often do we do this process?

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Well, hopefully never again. Hopefully you're capturing the stuff when it first pops into your head. But that's one of the habits to change.

• 30:09Lewis Howes?

  And you write it down right away?

• 30:11Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 30:11Lewis Howes?

  Or you, you email to the person and they put it in their spreadsheet or whatever, yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  You get it out of your head somewhere, get it into a trusted place that you then would trust. You need to move to step two and three, which is clarify and organize. So once I wrote down cat food, then I need to decide, okay, is that something I need to do? Yeah, great. What do you need to do? I need to buy it at the store. Great. Where do you keep track of stuff you need to buy at the store? Let me stick it on a store post-it. Great. Now you're, now you've clarified and organized. Or you wrote down bank, say, well, what about the bank? Well, I need to look into whether I can extend my credit line. Great. You got a project. R and D, look into bank credit line increase. What's your next action on that? Oh, God, you know, I probably ought to call my banker. Great. Call banker. That's your next action. That's how you clarify that. You just park that on a call list, put the project on your project list, move on to the next thing.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  So that's, that's the, that's the nitty gritty of stage two and three. And then at some point you say, okay, I, I'm going out for errands. What are all the errands I need to do? I'm at my phone and I'm got a client thirty minutes late to their meeting. What can I do with my phone? You better pull up all the phone calls that you've decided you need to make that move the needle on your stuff. Right? Uh, so, you know, that's, it's the big duh. You, you need to have, you need to have defined what all your work is and then have it all accessible to you for, so that you can reflect on it. So that then when you engage, that's from a trusted place. Hey, I've just now oriented myself, looking at my calendar, looking at my project list, looking at all the other things I should do. Here's what I'm gonna do. Take a nap. And man, that's a good nap.

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it is. You sleep well. You sleep well.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Well, you can only feel good about what you're not doing when you know what you're not doing. And most people, most people don't have a clue.

• 31:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow. That's pretty powerful.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, well. It's very simple, but again, it's not that easy because most people have really let the backlog pile up in their psyche. And in their life, I mean, come on, look at the center drawers of their desk. Look at, look what's on your desk. What's, what's in your email? How many, you know? What do you have in there? You still haven't decided what you need to decide you're gonna do about it. And it's okay, it's okay to decide not to decide, but you need to decide not to decide system.

• 32:18Lewis Howes?

  Put it somewhere.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, we call that incubate.

• 32:21Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  You could even create a folder called, here's all the crap I don't want to think about right now. And just pull, pull it all in there. You walk, you turn, you walk free. Because you've named it. You've named what it is.

• 32:31Lewis Howes?

  You put it somewhere that you don't even think about.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  Well, you put it somewhere that some part of you says, and, and I need to trust I will review that again regularly to make it so sure, make sure it's okay. That about what I'm not deciding about. That's, so you can fool me, you can't fool yourself.

• 32:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  You, you, you really know whether or not you're in avoidance, or whether, hey, come on, that's just not the thing to focus on right now. I will later.

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  It's not as important or urgent right now.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:56Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Now, is there a right or wrong way to getting organized?

• 33:00Speaker 02

  Well, getting organized just simply means that where something is matches what it means to you. So you're not organized if stuff, if, if you've got reference material that's, that's sitting somewhere where reference material isn't. Don't, don't blame me. That's just by definition.

• 33:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  Right. So once you decide what stuff means, just park it where that is. I mean, I'm, I'm not a naturally organized guy. You can ask my wife. But I'm lazy. So I don't like to have to keep rethinking what something means. So if, if something is a phone call I need to make, that's on a list called calls. So when, when I look at that, I, I don't need to, I don't need to think about what to do. I've decided what to do. But everything in there is a call I need to make. So once you decide what stuff is, you know, so there's right or wrong. There is either organized or not.

• 33:45Lewis Howes?

  Right. I like that. Okay.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  You, you can decide whether stuff is where it belongs.

• 33:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. It just, it, it matters if it works for you. Doesn't matter how you do it, really.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Well, that's funny. Most people don't actually think about organizing about stuff they love to do. A golfer doesn't usually think about organizing their clubs, or a painter usually doesn't think about organizing their paintbrushes. Or they don't think of it as a chore. They just do that because that's what they need to do to be able to hit the ball right with the right club.

• 34:13Lewis Howes?

  They gotta clear their mind space.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:15Lewis Howes?

  In the same place and.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, they, they don't want to be bothered by trying to find the damn club. They want to hit the ball.

• 34:20Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. You know, as an athlete, we put all the same stuff in our lockers in the same, in the same place.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 34:26Lewis Howes?

  Find everything and you know, it's all, uh, it's like eating the same meal.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  Think about a kitchen, you know, these five steps, if you think about a kitchen, most people have had at some point had their kitchen out of control.

• 34:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  You ever, you ever come back from something and your kitchen's out of control and you didn't realize you'd invited guests over in an hour? What do I do? Here's what you do. First of all, capture. You identify the stuff that ain't where it goes. Ooh, look at all that, look at that, that dirty dishes, whatever. Then what, then what are you doing? You're deciding, hey, is this good food that I can save? Is that food I need to cook for dinner? Is that trash? In other words, you're clarifying. Then what are you doing? You're organizing it. You're throwing trash where trash goes. Putting good food back in the fridge. You're putting pots and pad in the, in the sink or in the dishwasher. Step four, step back, pull out the recipe, pull out the butter, start melting. You know, so that's, you know, I didn't make this up. I just identified the stages and the phases that we go through. It's just that those are very different things. Most people just say, oh, go get organized or go set priorities.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  You'll implode with just that's, because that's too simple. If you're really going to set priorities, you first need to capture all the stuff that's got your attention. You need to clarify. Then you need to organize so you can step back and look at the appropriate orientation maps for yourself and reflect on that. Before you can trust a priority decision.

• 35:39Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Now, like we mentioned earlier in the, the episode, there's a lot of, you know, technology, apps, gadgets, all these different things people can download to increase their productivity, but it could also be a distraction as well. So there, we, we talked about early in the, the show that there are a lot of different apps and technology and smartphones and emails that, uh, people have adapted over the last 10, 10, 20 years. Um, are there any apps that you specifically use that actually increase your productivity as opposed to, uh, take away from it?

• 36:10Speaker 02

  Well, sure, any list, any good list manager can increase your productivity if you know the GTD methodology. So I use mine. I use, we use Lotus Notes in our company and I have an add-on to that that just configures that a little more to fit for the methodology, but basically any list manager, you could use Outlook, you could use anything. And there's, at last count, there were over 700 apps that are now purporting to support the GTD process.

• 36:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  So, you know, take your pick. Anything, anything works as long as you work it. It just needs to be easy to get to, easy to input, easy to a- access.

• 36:41Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 36:41Speaker 02

  In, in terms of your list.

• 36:43Lewis Howes?

  Do you have an iPhone?

• 36:44Speaker 02

  I do.

• 36:45Lewis Howes?

  What's on your home screen?

• 36:47Speaker 02

  What's on the home screen on my iPhone?

• 36:49Lewis Howes?

  Well, maybe the top, the top, the most notable things, obviously you've got your.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  Uh, Google Maps for sure. I mean, living in, living in, living in Europe, man, that's just, you know, critical, you know, no kidding. Uh, I've got Instagram. I have Words with Friends. I have Evernote, uh, Maglite, you know, being seventy this year, I need that Maglite more than I used to.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  It's my cam, my camera, you know, my alarm clock, uh, Google Translate, uh, which is great to have, you know, my contacts, uh, and you know, take calendar, uh, I've got Google Chrome and you know, photos, messages, uh, you know, those are, uh, those are typical, typical stuff.

• 37:32Lewis Howes?

  What's besides Google Maps and Google Translate possibly, what's the app you can't live without?

• 37:38Speaker 02

  On the iPhone, hard to say.

• 37:40Lewis Howes?

  Or on the computer or online, you know, if you've got a.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, any, you know, the list manager, that would be hard, hard to live without something like that. So that's, that's pretty critical. Uh, I use a lot of Mindmap. So Mind Manager is a great program that I use for, from Mindjet. Uh, snag it. I couldn't live, could anybody live without snag it?

• 37:58Lewis Howes?

  What's snag it?

• 37:59Speaker 02

  Capturing, capturing anything on the screen.

• 38:02Lewis Howes?

  Oh, gotcha. Yeah.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  And copying it. So, you know, there's a lot, there's a lot.

• 38:06Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Okay, cool.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  You know, similar stuff to that. Uh, obviously, you know, Microsoft Word and Excel, I mean, those are basic engines, you know, for, for business and, and communication and stuff. Um, those are, oh, I, I love the brain, the personal brain. Uh, it's an interesting kind of a mind mapping, uh, association, uh, digital, uh, uh, tool. That, that's, that's very cool. Um, those are, those are the, those are the main ones.

• 38:35Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. I appreciate you sharing that. We'll, we'll link all that stuff up on the show notes as well. Uh, I've got a couple, got a couple of questions left for you. Uh, first off, is there anything else about productivity that people should be knowing to let go of stress? Uh, obviously, I want everyone to read this book, Getting Things Done. Uh, it's, it's out right now, the new addition. It's The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Make sure to pick it up, um, and make sure to, you know, uh, comment over on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram to David that you, you got the book. Post a picture of it online so he can see it. Um, but is there anything else that a busy entrepreneur should know about getting things done that we should talk about here?

• 39:14Speaker 02

  Well, I'm just gonna repeat some things that are really, really critical. If you're an entrepreneur and you're starting up, you're wearing gazillion hats, spinning all kinds of plates all at the same time. So, building in that reflection time. First of all, keeping stuff out of your head, deciding outcomes and actions, sort of when things show up instead of when they blow up. You know, keeping track of all that stuff and on a regular basis, as I say, pulling up the rear guard and reflecting on sort of the totality of all that. Just keep it all out of your head, step back and look at it regularly, and do that kind of reflection process. And reflection at whatever horizons that, you know, are critical to you. I've identified the six horizons, you'll read about those in the book, that all the way from the ground level horizon, which are all the actions and activities that you do.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  The next horizon up would be all the projects that are driving a lot of those actions. Next horizon up would be all the hats that you're wearing, all the areas of focus and accountability. Above that, you're gonna have, you know, where do you want to be, you know, 12 to 24 months from now? Above that, you've got where do you want to be five years from now? What about lifestyle, vision and career and stuff? And above that, you've got the underneath meta sub horizon called why are you on the planet? What's your purpose as a human being and what really, really matters to you in terms of your values and your standards? Now, I couldn't get it any simpler. Those are six very discreet conversations to have with yourself. And so, you know, however you can build those in so that you're, you know, you're spending appropriate time at looking at those kind of orientation, you know, maps or orientation

• 40:42Speaker 02

  guides or templates. And then, then, you know, trusting your, then getting all of your current work and all the stuff's got your attention out of your head, and then just shoot down the middle. Basically, trust your heart, or your gut, or your liver, or whatever you trust to be making your intuitive judgment calls.

• 40:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  It's the best, it's the best you can do. It's the best any of us can do.

• 41:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  It's the game.

• 41:04Lewis Howes?

  You're like the Mr. Miyagi of productivity. I love it.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  Well, come on, you're, you're, you're, you're an athlete, though.

• 41:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  Louis, so come on, you know, it's hard to play a game that you haven't set up a goal line.

• 41:16Lewis Howes?

  True, exactly.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  And you, you need to know, well, what's the goal line down there? Where's my project? I get to mark this off as done when what's true and what's our next play? Do we run right or left?

• 41:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  You know, so outcome and action become really the zeros and ones of the thought process of productivity.

• 41:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 41:32Speaker 02

  What are, what are we trying to accomplish? How do we allocate resources to make it happen?

• 41:36Lewis Howes?

  I love this. Yeah, this is great stuff. A couple of questions left for you, more personal questions.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 41:43Lewis Howes?

  One, do you believe it's possible to have a healthy work-life balance with everything that's going on in life?

• 41:49Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 41:51Lewis Howes?

  Okay, good answer.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  I, I don't, I don't use work-life balance. It's all the same thing to me. I just use balance.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  And you always need to be slightly out of balance. You know, until, until you've totally fulfilled your destiny as a human spirit on the planet, you should be, you should have at least a little bit of an edge.

• 42:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you mean focusing a lot of your energy on one thing for?

• 42:09Speaker 02

  Keep you go, yeah, or keeping you going. You need to be moving forward. I mean, it seems to be on this level, we have intention. You know, our intentionality is, is what creates a, a momentum. And I don't think you can stop that. You can't just be, you actually need to do, to do, to be.

• 42:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  You need to be engaged and active. And that doesn't mean sweat necessarily. Sometimes it does. To do or to, you know, engage could also be to walk around the gar, rose garden, stare at your navel. It could be, you know, to do meditative or spiritual exercises. It could be spend quality time with your kids. But it, you know, that engage, that engagement, I don't think you're going to be able to stop if you're conscious. So, so it's never, you're, you're never going to finish everything and get everything done. You know, if it's news to you that there's always more to do than you can do, you need a, a priest or a drink. You know, you know, come on. And then at a certain point, you know, I'll play Mr. Miyagi. He'll just enjoy the game.

• 43:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, there you go. What type of sports or or working out exercises do you do now? Do you still do karate or do you do something else?

• 43:14Speaker 02

  No, you know, I slog around, just kind of jog and push up your weight.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Walk my dog more than me and still travel a lot. So that keeps you moving.

• 43:24Lewis Howes?

  Sure. What type of dog do you have?

• 43:25Speaker 02

  We have a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, just a great little love. She's great.

• 43:30Lewis Howes?

  Okay, very cool. What are you most grateful for recently, David?

• 43:34Speaker 02

  The fact that I get to do work that does nothing but improve people's lives. That is just so cool. I just constantly, you know, thank my lucky stars that I've been able to sort of craft together something that I love to do, can't stop doing. You know, as you, as you know, if you love what you do, you won't, you'll never work another day in your life. So, you know, and I get to hang with folks like you and and, you know, some of the best and brightest and most interesting, creative people are the people sort of attracted to my work. So that's the network I get to hang with. So

• 44:04Lewis Howes?

  Tough life, right?

• 44:06Speaker 02

  That's fabulous.

• 44:07Lewis Howes?

  A friend of mine, a tech startup founder and brilliant guy named Dan Martel. He he asked me a question last night. We were hanging out. He said, if I gave you a billion dollars, what would you do to serve the world? And it was an interesting question to think about. And, you know, I'm still thinking about it, but I want to ask you that question. If you were given a billion dollars, what would you do to serve the world or accelerate what you're already doing?

• 44:31Speaker 02

  If I had a billion dollars, I would just keep investing it in what we're currently invested in. It would just speed it up a good bit. And that's taking the GTD message around the world. So we're building a global educational model and starting to roll it out and have franchisees now we're setting up all around the world. So, you know, as part of our mission to get this great sort of life improving and work improving methodology to as many people as wanted on the planet. So couldn't think of anything more fun to do.

• 45:00Lewis Howes?

  If you were 31 again, and you're, you know, I'm 31 years old, and if you could go back in time and to your 31 year old self, what advice would you, what advice would you give yourself?

• 45:10Speaker 02

  Relax, have fun, and you know, don't be afraid of jumping off the end of the pier because the water's fine.

• 45:17Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's good advice. Final question I've got to ask you, I ask all my guests at the end. Before I ask you the question, I want to take a moment, David, and acknowledge you for the work you have been doing over the years, because this has truly impacted millions of people all around the world. People are, have lived a stress-free life, or they've had a stress-free life because of the work and the message that you've created and the tools and templates and exercises and everything you do. So I want to acknowledge you for being that voice that everyone needs to hear, especially in the last decade of a stress-free, or a stressful world. And it's been incredible to be a part of your journey. So I thank you for that. I acknowledge you for that.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  Thanks. You're quite welcome.

• 46:01Lewis Howes?

  And the final question is, what is your definition of greatness?

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Uh, achieving desired and meaningful results.

• 46:10Lewis Howes?

  David Allen, thanks so much for coming on, my friend.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Lewis, my pleasure.

• 46:16Lewis Howes?

  Man, I loved this interview with David. And if you guys enjoyed this as well, make sure to go check out the full show notes at lewishouse.com/145. That's lewishouse.com/145. If you love this episode, if you feel like your friends would enjoy learning how to be stress-free and being more productive, then make sure to share this with them. Email a friend this episode who is overwhelmed. Email, you know, someone in your family who may be overly stressed. Email someone who you feel like is just running their wheels and they're not being as productive as they should be. Send them this email. Share this with your friends. Again, lewishouse.com/145. Had a blast having David on. Make sure to check out his book and all the other things that David is up to. We've got all of his

• 47:01Lewis Howes?

  links, links to his book over at the show notes, lewishouse.com/145. And we've got so many good things coming out. We've got a big surprise coming out, hopefully in the next few weeks that I'm going to be sharing with you guys. Man, I'm so pumped for this. I've been working on it for a few months. And we've also got, you know, some other great guests coming out. Julianne Hough is coming out soon. Working on that interview that'll be coming out here very soon. But also, if this is your first time coming here, make sure to check out the rest of the podcast. Again, we're on 145 right now. But we just had Jack Canfield on, Marie Forleo on, Tony Robbins on a little bit ago, Scooter Braun. We've had some incredible individuals.

• 47:40Lewis Howes?

  So if you're looking for the inspiration and the education to improve your life, to be stress-free, to be more productive, to build your business, to have better health, then you are in the right place. And I'm super blessed and grateful you are. Make sure to click that subscribe button over on iTunes or wherever you're listening to this podcast on SoundCloud or Stitcher. Click the subscribe button. Leave us a review if you enjoyed this episode. Again, LewisHowes.com/145. Thank you so, so much for coming on. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.