169. Solopreneurs, Stop Drowning in Tasks—Here’s Your Lifeboat - Sound Bite Episode

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!

Being a solopreneur is awesome but it’s not easy. It's hard to get noticed. Most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone...until now. LifeStarr Intro gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one-person business.  So, if you are lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, or are having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even just lonely running a company of one, be sure to check out LifeStarr Intro!

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Episode Transcript

Carly Ries (00:00):
Ever feel like your inbox is controlling your life?
In this episode, we dive intothe life changing productivity
method from Getting Things Doneby David Allen. Joe shares his
personal email overload momentthat led him to GTD, breaking
down how this simple yetpowerful system can help
solopreneurs like you eliminatemental clutter, increase focus,
and actually get things done.You're listening to The Aspiring

(00:25):
Solopreneur, the podcast forthose just taking the bold step
or even just thinking abouttaking that step into the world
of solo entrepreneurship. Myname is Carly Ries, and my
cohost Joe Rando and I are yourguides to navigating this crazy,
but awesome journey as a companyof one.
We take pride in being part ofLifeStarr, a digital hub

(00:45):
dedicated to all aspects ofsolopreneurship that has
empowered and educated countlesssolopreneurs looking to build a
business that resonates withtheir life's ambitions. We help
people work to live, not live towork. And if you're looking for
a get rich quick scheme, this isnot the show for you. So if
you're eager to gain valuableinsights from industry experts

(01:05):
on running a business the rightway the first time around, or
want to learn from the misstepsof solopreneurs who've paved the
way before you, then stickaround. We've got your back
because flying solo in businessdoesn't mean you're alone.
So, Joe, I can't believe I'msaying this. Five years ago, you

(01:26):
reached out to me. We had workedtogether previously in my agency
life. And then about five yearsago, right before everything
happened in 2020, you reachedout saying that you were
developing this really cool app,and it was kind of based on the
idea of David Allen's GettingThings Done. And I remember

(01:46):
hanging up the phone with youand 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 wentthrough it, and it was such an
amazing Model of productivityand I want to get into that in a
second But I think you have astory around this first and I

(02:07):
want to hear that and then let'stalk about what GTD is

Joe Rando (02:10):
Well, yeah, this is something I found because I
needed to find it. And the storyis that a long time ago, I got
to the office, and I had thisplan, what was gonna get done in
the morning, what was gonna getdone 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 thatday. So the last thing I knew,

(02:34):
it was 01:30 in the afternoon,and I hadn't done anything but
respond to emails. And I wasjust like so how do you live?
You know, how do you evenfunction in this world with this
stuff coming at you?
And I said, what's happeninghere? Why did this happen? I
thought about it, and the answerwas that when the emails came

(02:55):
in, I felt like I had to respondto them right away, so they
didn't get buried in my inbox,and that I would miss something
important. So I was a slave toevery incoming email, and
something had to change, and Ikinda looked around, and I'm not
even sure. I think might havefound it in an airport
bookstore, but, you know, Istarted looking for a solution.

(03:16):
I found this book, GettingThings 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 wannasay it's simple, but it's very
logical. So the concept is thatyou have inboxes, Right? So you
have an email inbox.
You can have a physical inboxfor incoming, snail mail. You

(03:41):
can have other kinds of inboxes,but places where stuff comes in
and gets captured. And then youprocess the things in the inbox
and you make a decision and youeither decide, is this something
that's actionable? If it's not,then it's either something that
needs to be filed or it'ssomething that needs to be put

(04:02):
in the trash.
So something comes in. Is itactionable? No. Okay. File or
trash?
So if it is actionable, can I doit 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 nottwo minutes or less, then you

(04:22):
either, defer it, basically putit on a list to get done later,
but you have a list of all thethings you wanna get done that
you're keeping, or you delegateit.
You give it to someone elsebetter suited to do it. And, the
idea then is that you've you'vebuilt out this list of things

(04:43):
that you're gonna do called nextaction, and then you've got this
other list of things you'vegiven to other people that's
called a waiting for list. Andyou keep these lists and you
kind of work through thesethings. And the idea is that
nothing gets lost. Everything inthe inbox gets processed.
Most of it gets deleted. Youknow, it can obviously make

(05:05):
inbox smarter to get rid of spamand all that stuff and
unsubscribe from emails. Butthis idea of capturing
everything, having this verysimple process for how to deal
with it, really, really, reallymakes life better. And, you
know, some things I didn'treally go into, but some things
go on a calendar, right? if it'ssomething that has to get
deferred but to a specific time,either a meeting or something

(05:28):
has to be done at thisparticular time that goes on a
calendar. But, like I said, it'snot simple, but it's very
logical and straightforward onceyou get it down.
And, the app that you referredto before talking about getting
things done is still not donefor reasons beyond my control.

(05:49):
Partially my own doing, butbeyond my control at this point.
The idea of the app was that ittakes some time to maintain this
system of getting things done.And what happens a lot of times
with people is they'remaintaining the system,
everything's wonderful, they getslammed. Something happens, they
get a thing, they get headsdown, they work on it.

(06:10):
Two weeks goes by, they haven'tmaintained their lists, they
haven't processed their inboxes,and now it all falls apart. So
the idea of the app was to kindof implement this in a way that
didn't cost time. Right? We'vegot, patents on AI for helping
with this stuff. We've got awhole process that basically
lets you kind of implement thegetting things done system

(06:32):
without having to spend a lot oftime managing the list, updating
things in the list, and thatkind of stuff.
But, the idea regardless, it isworth doing. It's just you have
to be very disciplined aboutkeeping up on it even when
things get busy.

Carly Ries (06:50):
Yeah. I mean, it clears up mental clutter,
increases focus and efficiency,and just kinda helps you
prioritize things moreeffectively, I'd say. And the
reason why it came up weactually don't talk about GTD
that much in our everydayconversations now compared to
what we used to and we weretalking to Will Christiansen

(07:12):
about it who is like a greatproductivity and efficiency
guy. We can link to him in theshow notes because we just
interviewed him a few weeks ago,but when he was talking about
it, I was like gosh we thissoundbite episode to be
actionable and informative and Ireally think if people are
struggling with productivitythis book is one of the places

(07:32):
That they should start. We arenot being sponsored by David
Allen or anything like that Wejust are firm believers that
this is a really helpful toolfor solopreneurs So we'll
include a link in the show noteswhere you can find it, but
definitely worth a read.

Joe Rando (07:47):
Very good. Yeah. would highly recommend it. If
you feel disorganized, if youfeel like, your desk is a mess
and you don't know what you'resupposed to do next, it's a
really great way to solve thatproblem.

Carly Ries (08:00):
Agreed. And listeners, in terms of getting
things done, please leave us afive star review. We'd also love
it if you would subscribe to ourshow on your favorite podcast
platform, YouTube channel, allthat jazz, and we will see you
next time on the AspiringSolopreneur. You may be going
solo in business, but thatdoesn't mean you're alone. In

(08:22):
fact, millions of people are inyour shoes, running a one person
business and figuring it out asthey go.
So why not connect with them andlearn from each other's
successes and failures? AtLifeStarr, we're creating a one
person business community whereyou can go to meet and get
advice from other solopreneurs.Be sure to join in on the
conversations atcommunity.lifestarr.com.