Solopreneurs, Stop Drowning in Tasks—Here’s Your Lifeboat

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Feeling overwhelmed by emails, tasks, and an endless to-do list? You're not alone!

In this sound bite episode, we dive into Getting Things Done (GTD)—a life-changing productivity system that can help you clear mental clutter and take control of your work.

Joe Rando shares how he discovered GTD out of pure necessity and how its simple yet powerful framework transformed the way he works. 

If you’re struggling to stay organized and productive, this episode is a must-listen!

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Episode Transcript

Carly Ries: Ever feel like your inbox is controlling your life? In this episode, we dive into the life changing productivity method from Getting Things Done by David Allen. Joe shares his personal email overload moment that led him to GTD, breaking down how this simple yet powerful system can help solopreneurs like you eliminate mental clutter, increase focus, and actually get things done. You're listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for those just taking the bold step or even just thinking about taking that step into the world of solo entrepreneurship. My name is Carly Ries, and my cohost Joe Rando and I are your guides to navigating this crazy, but awesome journey as a company of one.

We take pride in being part of LifeStarr, a digital hub dedicated to all aspects of solopreneurship that has empowered and educated countless solopreneurs looking to build a business that resonates with their life's ambitions. We help people work to live, not live to work. And if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the show for you. So if you're eager to gain valuable insights from industry experts on running a business the right way the first time around, or want to learn from the missteps of solopreneurs who've paved the way before you, then stick around. We've got your back because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone.

So, Joe, I can't believe I'm saying this. Five years ago, you reached out to me. We had worked together previously in my agency life. And then about five years ago, right before everything happened in 2020, you reached out saying that you were developing this really cool app, and it was kind of based on the idea of David Allen's Getting Things Done. And I remember hanging up the phone with you and be like, man, that's a really good idea for an app.

I also need to read this book, Getting Things Done. I went and bought it on Amazon. I went through it, and it was such an amazing Model of productivity and I want to get into that in a second But I think you have a story around this first and I want to hear that and then let's talk about what GTD is

Joe Rando: Well, yeah, this is something I found because I needed to find it. And the story is that a long time ago, I got to the office, and I had this plan, what was gonna get done in the morning, what was gonna get done in the afternoon, and it was like, okay. Great. Yeah. Let's do it.

And I sat down at my computer, and for whatever reason, my email was relatively busy that day. So the last thing I knew, it was 01:30 in the afternoon, and I hadn't done anything but respond to emails. And I was just like so how do you live? You know, how do you even function in this world with this stuff coming at you?

And I said, what's happening here? Why did this happen? I thought about it, and the answer was that when the emails came in, I felt like I had to respond to them right away, so they didn't get buried in my inbox, and that I would miss something important. So I was a slave to every incoming email, and something had to change, and I kinda looked around, and I'm not even sure. I think might have found it in an airport bookstore, but, you know, I started looking for a solution.

I found this book, Getting Things Done by David Allen, and it was life changing. I mean, describe it if you want? I mean, the idea is very, I don't wanna say it's simple, but it's very logical. So the concept is that you have inboxes, Right? So you have an email inbox.

You can have a physical inbox for incoming, snail mail. You can have other kinds of inboxes, but places where stuff comes in and gets captured. And then you process the things in the inbox and you make a decision and you either decide, is this something that's actionable? If it's not, then it's either something that needs to be filed or it's something that needs to be put in the trash.

So something comes in. Is it actionable? No. Okay. File or trash?

So if it is actionable, can I do it in two minutes or less? If the answer is yes, go do it. Just do it right now. Don't do anything with it. If it's not two minutes or less, then you either, defer it, basically put it on a list to get done later, but you have a list of all the things you wanna get done that you're keeping, or you delegate it.

You give it to someone else better suited to do it. And, the idea then is that you've you've built out this list of things that you're gonna do called next action, and then you've got this other list of things you've given to other people that's called a waiting for list. And you keep these lists and you kind of work through these things. And the idea is that nothing gets lost. Everything in the inbox gets processed.

Most of it gets deleted. You know, it can obviously make inbox smarter to get rid of spam and all that stuff and unsubscribe from emails. But this idea of capturing everything, having this very simple process for how to deal with it, really, really, really makes life better. And, you know, some things I didn't really go into, but some things go on a calendar, right? if it's something that has to get deferred but to a specific time, either a meeting or something has to be done at this particular time that goes on a calendar. But, like I said, it's not simple, but it's very logical and straightforward once you get it down.

And, the app that you referred to before talking about getting things done is still not done for reasons beyond my control. Partially my own doing, but beyond my control at this point. The idea of the app was that it takes some time to maintain this system of getting things done. And what happens a lot of times with people is they're maintaining the system, everything's wonderful, they get slammed. Something happens, they get a thing, they get heads down, they work on it.

Two weeks goes by, they haven't maintained their lists, they haven't processed their inboxes, and now it all falls apart. So the idea of the app was to kind of implement this in a way that didn't cost time. Right? We've got, patents on AI for helping with this stuff. We've got a whole process that basically lets you kind of implement the getting things done system without having to spend a lot of time managing the list, updating things in the list, and that kind of stuff.

But, the idea regardless, it is worth doing. It's just you have to be very disciplined about keeping up on it even when things get busy.

Carly Ries: Yeah. I mean, it clears up mental clutter, increases focus and efficiency, and just kinda helps you prioritize things more effectively, I'd say. And the reason why it came up we actually don't talk about GTD that much in our everyday conversations now compared to what we used to and we were talking to Will Christiansen about it who is like a great productivity and efficiency guy.  We can link to him in the show notes because we just interviewed him a few weeks ago, but when he was talking about it, I was like gosh we this soundbite episode to be actionable and informative and I really think if people are struggling with productivity this book is one of the places That they should start.  We are not being sponsored by David Allen or anything like that We just are firm believers that this is a really helpful tool for solopreneurs So we'll include a link in the show notes where you can find it, but definitely worth a read.

Joe Rando: Very good. Yeah. would highly recommend it. If you feel disorganized, if you feel like, your desk is a mess and you don't know what you're supposed to do next, it's a really great way to solve that problem.

Carly Ries: Agreed. And listeners, in terms of getting things done, please leave us a five star review. We'd also love it if you would subscribe to our show on your favorite podcast platform, YouTube channel, all that jazz, and we will see you next time on the Aspiring Solopreneur. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go.

So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.