{"id":13131,"date":"2015-06-09T11:28:58","date_gmt":"2015-06-09T18:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/?p=13131"},"modified":"2025-05-10T07:36:36","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T14:36:36","slug":"podcast-04-gtd-and-brute-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2015\/06\/podcast-04-gtd-and-brute-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode #4 &#8211; GTD and Brute Force"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What do you do when brute force is no longer an option? That&#8217;s a question that Byron Palmer, an innovator and grazing specialist for the <a href=\"http:\/\/sonomamountaininstitute.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sonoma Mountain Institute<\/a>, found himself wrestling with as he progressed in his career and life. Join Mike as he and Byron walk through his journey of discovering GTD, the value it brings to him and how he continues to integrate subtle elements to create greater levels of coherence.<\/p>\n<h2>Listen Now<\/h2>\n<div id=\"video-container\"><iframe style=\"border: none;\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/3605618\/height\/360\/width\/640\/theme\/standard\/direction\/no\/autoplay\/no\/autonext\/no\/thumbnail\/yes\/preload\/no\/no_addthis\/no\/\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Subscribe or Download<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/getthing-things-done\/id999098861\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">iTunes<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.stitcher.com\/s?fid=66868&amp;refid=stpr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stitcher<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.libsyn.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Libsyn<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/music\/m\/If5n66lnvvompn4q7yqu4cqxax4?t=Getting_Things_Done\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google Play Music<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/21mSaFgOhfR7TT8MKxF41n\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spotify<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/user-697578497\/tracks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SoundCloud<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Podcast Transcript<\/h2>\n<p>MIKE: Today, I\u2019m joined by Byron and Byron as a fellow GTD enthusiast, came to us through a letter of gratitude for what GTD brought into his world and we\u2019re looking to reach out to GTD implementers and learn from them and so Bryon, you\u2019re here today to talk to us about that. I\u2019m very grateful that you\u2019re here and as a starting question, just an opening question, tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are and what do you do?<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: Yeah, well thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to tell you a little bit about my story. Currently you\u2019ll find me in Pengrove, which is a little town about 45 minutes north of San Francisco, sort of nestled in between the town of Sonoma and Napa. So wine country, agricultural country. I work for a non-profit that does agricultural restoration.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: So tell me a little bit about the arc of your career and where along that journey did you stumble upon GTD. I\u2019m wondering, just curious, how you found this methodology.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: So early on in the workplace after college, I took pride really I think in being able to solve problems for people. I think it is, and still is a way to gain acceptance not only of myself, but also from others. I found that if I could help people solve problems, I ended up getting to work in amazing places and do really fun things. And in my mid-twenties I was sort of you know, working this dream job and working with amazing folks as an independent contractor and really just trying to solve problems for people in different ways and I was doing alright, but what I found out was I started solving problems for folks, they gave me more problems to solve. Are you familiar \u2013 has this ever happened to you?<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Ha, ha, ha \u2013 absolutely! The better you get, the better you better get \u2013 so \u2026 ha, ha, ha. Yeah!<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: And so, you know, it\u2019s like one or two things either happens I think a lot, is either you say no, or you start dropping balls and making messes and I definitely wasn\u2019t going to say no. So, I just started becoming less good at more things, you know, dropping more balls, hoping people weren\u2019t noticing, but I was noticing and it was driving me crazy and uh, another guy that I was working with told me about GTD, and I loved the title. So I opened up the book and read it cover-to-cover a number of times and implemented it and it definitely transformed my life. I was really busy, really slammed. I did quality of life, before I found GTD was lower. I was doing \u2013 you know, I had great friends, great \u2013 great job, working in a great environment, but I just had so much going on that I wasn\u2019t able to be present to enjoy it at all.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Um hm.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: And I think what GTD really gave me was that ability to, you know, get it all out of my head and be present and improve the quality of my life dramatically.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: You know you mentioned like in your twenties, you\u2019re just a) full of energy and then maybe life wasn\u2019t as complicated so you had the gift of brute force. Can you talk a little bit about the brute force transition and you know, the intersection with GTD and some of the pain points that helped solve or the awakening that happened during that period?<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: When you ask me that question, I have this memory, specifically. I\u2019m sitting in the office of the documentary film company that I worked for and it\u2019s 6:00 o\u2019clock at night. I have a cup of coffee on my desk. Everyone\u2019s closing up in the building that I\u2019m working \u2013 you know, the lights are turning off. Everyone sort of works normal 9 to 5 five hours. Our director of photography walks by and he looks at me and I\u2019m kind of just ready to keep going and you know, I feel like I\u2019m just getting starting and its 6:00 p.m. and I started at 8:30 or whatever. And he looks at me, he\u2019s like, \u201cHow do you do that?\u201d And at this point I\u2019m 25 or something, right?<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019m like, \u201cI don\u2019t know, I just \u2013 you know, I just do.\u201d You know, I think I turn out the lights at 9:00 o\u2019clock and I was, you know, I was pretty spent, but I could just do that, right? I had that capacity, I had that energy. I was 25 years old. What was the expense? The expense was not having energy and time to see my friends as much. A lot less calls to home.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Um hm.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: You know, my parents saying, \u201cWhere are you? What are you doing?\u201d Not being able to make enough time for friends and home. When I look at you know, the things that I value and the way I want to spend my life, like that wasn\u2019t necessarily happening. It was just all focused. As I got older, you know, things got more complicated. I, you know, got a partner, I got married, you know, you get a house, you get \u2013 there\u2019s all sorts of things that happened and luckily for me, when I first got a partner is when I actually found GTD. I think I was 28 at the time. It allowed me to layer on complexities that life demanded of me. You know, all the bills, all the commitments, birthday parties, presidents, contribution, like \u2013 walk with friends, talk about relationships, like all of the commitments \u2013 all of the things that sort of layer onto life. It allowed me to add those things without adding the same amount of stress.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Nice. Those are interesting benefits that come out of the GTD system. So I\u2019d like to venture back in and maybe go down to another layer of detail which I always find fascinating. You know, how people came to GTD and one of the things I picked up on was \u2013 you read the book and then you re-read the book and then you re-read the book.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m curious if you had a similar experience as you read and re-read the David Allen Getting Things Done book or whatever books you read.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: That was a deep and layered question huh?<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Ha, ha, ha. I\u2019m good at those. Ha, ha, ha.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: Yeah, ha, ha, ha, ha. You know there\u2019s this truism or you\u2019re just a different person every time you interact with content. You interact with it, whatever it is, you embody it to a certain degree, you change as a person and then you see the content again and you\u2019re a whole other person, so you\u2019re going to experience it differently and grow, right?<\/p>\n<p>And I think that\u2019s been the case with GTD. I could not imagine when I interacted with GTD the first time how complicated my life was going to be. When I came across it I was like, \u201cOh this is great!\u201d But I didn\u2019t actually understand how important it was going to be for me at the time.<\/p>\n<p>When I first interacted with it, I think the two most significant elements that I implemented were the collection habit and the weekly review.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: So tell me more. Give me some juice here about how do you collect? What were your collection tools and your instillation, your implementation and how that morphed over time?<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: I had a physical in-box that was sort of in a briefcase like thing that would move around with me and a notepad, early on, because this was when I still a flip phone. I didn\u2019t have a PDA or anything like that. And I would set up a mobile office. I didn\u2019t have a steady office in any place, so I\u2019d set up a mobile office and I had a briefcase and like a little to-go file folder, it wasn\u2019t that big and I think the two \u2013 like I said the two biggest things were I would collect everything and I would process it in a weekly review. And one of the things that I found early on were like, \u201cOh, well I don\u2019t want to forget to do this. I\u2019m just going to put it in my weekly review.\u201d Like my weekly review started getting seriously onerous.<\/p>\n<p>You know, I\u2019m like, review every project, support material, because I want to be comprehensive. I think early on when I was implementing GTD, being comprehensive was more important than, I want to say, continuity and longevity. I actually developed a weekly review that was so cumbersome that I started \u2013 I started getting serious psychic resistance to the weekly review. I started simplifying my weekly review and I started realizing that my ability to create systems and things for myself to do was far in excess of my ability to execute those things. I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever experienced that.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Yeah, oh yeah \u2013 oh yes. And that\u2019s one of the brilliant aspects of GTD. You start to see how often you\u2019ve gone to the buffet and how much you\u2019re taking off of it and trying to eat \u2026<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: \u2026 and becoming really conscious to that. So tell me a little bit more. I love where you\u2019re going with the weekly review. How did you renegotiate with yourself to find a way to create the conditions to make it more attractive for you?<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: At a certain point in my life, I think I had this like personal pep talk, where I said, \u201cLook you can either be comprehensive or you can be simple and effective\u201d, and I decided that simplicity was more important than being comprehensive. It doesn\u2019t mean that I don\u2019t include, you know, everything that I need to include. It just means that I \u2013 if it doesn\u2019t absolutely have to happen, if it\u2019s not going to make my business fail, I started shrinking it down and now, and just to talk a little bit about the evolution of my system now, so now everything\u2019s digital for me.<\/p>\n<p>I have a lot more stability in my life, so I do have a physical in-box. I do have a dedicated office. Don\u2019t tell David, but I share a desk with my wife and \u2026<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: It\u2019ll be our secret.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: Yeah, just you and me \u2013 just you and me and the listeners.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Ha, ha, ha. That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: And I wish I didn\u2019t but I don\u2019t have the ability or I\u2019m not making the time or I decided to not, you know, put another desk in my front room or whatever it is, all the excuses they come. Everything\u2019s digital now in my place. My life\u2019s more stable and uh but the inputs and the open loops are coming at me a lot faster and so what I use now is to collect and process and organize, is a tool called a sana, which is a Cloud based project management system that\u2019s sort of GTD inspired. I collect almost everything digitally either through a sana directly because I can have it on an app on my phone and then I do all my processing on my computer because it\u2019s an easier interface, if I can\u2019t collect it on a sana because app won\u2019t be responsive because it does need data connection, so if I\u2019m out on a ranch and I\u2019m like, \u201cOh man, I need to remember to replace this water valve.\u201d Or, \u201cI need to remember to bring the minerals for the cattle\u201d, I use another application called Google keep, uh, but I\u2019m not sure if you\u2019re familiar with that, but it\u2019s great and you can add reminders, you can take pictures, you can add audio recordings, whatever, so basically I have three in-boxes now and one is a paper based system and there\u2019s two digital ones that sort of work in tandem today.<\/p>\n<p>David talks so much about having things you like and things the way you like so you don\u2019t have psychic resistance and I can\u2019t just say how important that is enough. If you don\u2019t have notepads you like, and pens you like and file cabinets you like, I feel that in my body, the sort of apprehension to like \u2013 take notes, unless I\u2019ve got the 7 mm rollerball you know Bics I like, whatever it is. The gears \u2013 a key component and the more I\u2019ve done this, the more I realize \u2013 it\u2019s like \u2013 just get it \u2013 just get it and have enough, have more than you need. It\u2019s like I don\u2019t want to be hunting for the pens I like. I want like Costco pack of tens.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Ha, ha, ha.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: You know?<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Love that. It\u2019s so interesting. One of things we encourage folks to do is embrace what you\u2019re saying which is create the conditions for you to just find joy in the tools that you\u2019re using, because you\u2019re going to use them so often, really pay attention to that because it can have a huge lift for you. You have choice here. It\u2019s a very interesting behavioral thing to watch, people connecting to like \u2013 you know what? You\u2019re right, I can choose a paper that I want. Somehow fun got a bad rap somewhere along the line. You had to work hard. Why can\u2019t work be fun and joyful as well? So these little things make a big difference.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: My wife is awesome and she gets also \u2013 she doesn\u2019t use GTD but she gets all sorts of stuff done. I mean, she\u2019s just \u2013 she\u2019s just doing it. She got us some filing cabinets a while ago. You know, she got them used. You know we both work in food and agriculture so we don\u2019t have a ton of disposable income to be throwing around and I didn\u2019t necessarily enjoy using them. I really appreciated the effort that she made and she got \u2013 you know, and she did it and like I said, she gets so much done, but I didn\u2019t like using them and I\u2019m like, \u201cMany I really want a HON filing cabinet. So I found like a used office supply place that like liquidates offices and they had a bunch of them and I just \u2013 I interacted with every single one to make sure every drawer and every piece of everything work, you know, and it\u2019s like I walk out for one with a quarter of the price. So I think there\u2019s work-arounds, but when you tell people that. \u201cLike what did you do this week?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m like, \u201cOh I went \u2013 I went file cabinet shopping.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Ha, ha, ha.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: They\u2019re like, \u201cOh that sounds super-fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No, I\u2019m like, \u201cIt was awesome!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Ha, ha \u2013 you don\u2019t understand. File cabinets, plus labor, plus good labels equals so much uh \u2026<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: \u2026 resistance removed from your life. Uh you mentioned that you do most of your processing at your computer. I\u2019ve got to imagine that somewhere along the line you found that doing some single threading processing at your computer was more advantageous than trying to do it on a small digital device. It\u2019s a working hypothesis I have in this conversation, but I just wanted to test it and \u2013 is that why you ended up processing more at your computer because you had the tools and everything needed in that context to do it more effectively or \u2013 tell me a \u2026<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: Definitely.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: \u2026 little bit more about that experience.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: I really don\u2019t enjoy interacting extensively with my phone interface in any capacity \u2013 you know, other than maybe like reading the news or checking an e-mail, but any serious work, you know, I\u2019d say that the amount of time it takes to get serious work done on my phone is probably quadruple, you know, or quintuple. It takes a computer. And when I\u2019m at the computer, I can just fly through it, because the interface is just so much wider and uh user friendly. That\u2019s the tool that enables me to do it the fastest with the least psychic resistance the most efficiently. I \u2013 when I work and I\u2019m managing cattle, I\u2019m out on the landscape, we manage a variety of properties. I\u2019m out on those properties, but when I\u2019m doing all the administration work um or you know, visioning work or whatever it is that I\u2019m doing for the work \u2013 I work from home, which is great, so I can have my sort of cockpit set up there effectively and figuring out what are the tools that I need to be enjoying processing the most, and paying attention to that is really important, because if you\u2019re doing something and you\u2019re noticing, you know, just noticing emotions and you\u2019re like \u2013 are you \u2013 are you tense, are you upset, are you frustrated? Like where are you carrying that? That\u2019s pointing to something about \u2013 I think, about the way your systems are set up and that there\u2019s room for improvement, if you\u2019re feeling that way.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: You know, it ties back to, you know, I love your arc, I love your evolution. Going back to your early 20\u2019s when you found GTD, you were working at a level with what had your attention at that moment and \u2013 and once you started clearing out, you know, the business and what was frustrating you, what had your attention that was on cruise control what was behind that was \u2013 ooh \u2013 now what really has my attention and then \u2013 then you started working on that layer.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: I think one of the most amazing things about GTD is the power of distributed cognition. I work with a lot of amazing folks, I have a lot of friends that do great work and they do \u2013 you know they work for non-profit, they work for environmental education, they work in social justice and they\u2019re just doing great work. You know, we often talk about how we\u2019re forming ideas and executing and things like that and one of the things is with GTD is the ability to capture your creativity whenever it comes. Because I often find, if I open up a document and I\u2019m like starting a project, I don\u2019t necessarily have the creativity in that moment, uh when the curser\u2019s blinking. But what happens is, I close the document and I\u2019ve got all sorts of creativity. I\u2019m on a walk, I\u2019m out with the cattle, I\u2019m out with the dogs, I\u2019m out with my wife, I\u2019m in the bathroom. If I\u2019m able to capture that in a system and then put it together later, the amount of creativity that really comes out and is captured and can be implemented is huge because I\u2019m not requiring myself to just think in the moment and have a good idea. Oh, like \u2013 who\u2019s got a good idea here? You know, and I capture it over time.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve had the surprise \u2013 I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever had the surprise where you forgot that you created a protocol or a document or \u2013 or project support materials and like years later you go to try to get some information on this topic and you pull and it shows up and you\u2019re like, \u201cHoly smokes! I already solved this problem and it\u2019s right here!\u201d I\u2019m so appreciative of my previous self for doing this for me. You know?<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: That I can\u2019t even remember that I did it. And that\u2019s been super helpful. I think like, you know, just like loss of creativity in all these amazing moments and ideas that we all have, you know, is almost like epidemic um of lost creativity and ability to execute and we have a lot of big problems in the world right now and we need the ability to capture those ideas and put them into systems and organize them and execute. Like we need those ideas with the challenges that are facing us, so I really appreciate that how our distributed cognition and like constant capture of creativity and the ability to help us implement it.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: I couldn\u2019t agree with you more and, you know, for those listening, distributed cognition is really an interesting word for writing something down, placing it in a bucket or capture and collection where you can clarify what you\u2019re thinking about it and then move it to the appropriate bucket, so your brain can step back and look at it again anew and the next level of the checklist and the beauty of those things. If you remember that they exist and when you can call them into action to serve you is just tremendous.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: At our house, we um, if we can get a checklist for it or standardize it, we try to do it. So for instance we have dog sitters, we have like the guidelines, everything you need to do. Print it out. We just hand it to them. You know, you\u2019re packing for a trip, got different pack lists. Is it a three day camping trip, is it a back-packing trip, is it a car camping trip? And we call them S-O-P uh S-POPs, which is Standard Operating Procedures. So \u2026<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Love it. Ha, ha, ha.<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: \u2026 yeah, we have a whole folder for that. So anytime we do anything that we know we\u2019re going to do again like sell a car, you know we just try to create a protocol for it, put it in the file folder and doodle box and you can just bust it out again when you need it, which is really helpful.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: If you were to sit down with your younger self, let\u2019s say in college, what would you tell your younger self about GTD or this methodology?<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: If I was talking to my younger self, like if I could sit down with myself in college, I\u2019d probably look me in the eye, sort of have a come to Jesus and say, \u201cRead this book and it\u2019s going to be essential for you thriving.\u201d Because I went to college and I studied really hard. I got a business degree and I didn\u2019t learn anything remotely like what was in GTD. I learned a bunch of abstract concepts that I forgot and I think really teaching myself specifically about the collection habit and the weekly review and the power of the next action would be three things that I would really just try to hit home to myself at that point.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: How about some pain points that uh it helps solve over the arc of your journey so far?<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: Hmm. You know, I think relationships is probably the biggest pain point that it helped on my journey. I\u2019m one of those people where if you\u2019ve got open loops and you\u2019re not doing something with it, about it, right in that minute and I\u2019m thinking about it, I\u2019m obsessing and it\u2019s stressing me out, if it\u2019s not collected in a system outside my head. So that means that I\u2019m always thinking about it, without GTD here. And like a hamster on a wheel. And that can drive \u2013 that drove me crazy. And so I felt like if I wasn\u2019t working on those things, I \u2013 you know, I was missing out, I was losing. So I was always trying to work on something and that didn\u2019t leave as much time for my relationships with friends and family and with myself and the things that I wanted to do to take care of and nurture myself and my self care.<\/p>\n<p>When I eventually got everything down into a system that I trust where I could review it, review what all \u2013 you know all the next actions, I could then be present for being with my wife, being with my friends, being with my family, so I would say, not only did it allow me to be more present, it gave me the ability to additionally schedule time and make time, make time available \u2013 right? Put first things first, and so it definitely empowered me sort of in both of those realms and it allowed me to schedule time for myself in doing what I want to do with myself, so \u2026<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Did others around you notice a change of any sort?<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: I don\u2019t know. You know, they definitely noticed I was around more and definitely my friends noticed some changes and I think in the work environment people noticed changes. And because it also became part of personally like honoring commitments became part of what was really important to me and GTD allowed me to do that. So I think people noticed that as well, that my ability to sort of honor and keep those commitments got better and better.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: So what\u2019s \u2013 what\u2019s next on the horizon for you as far as \u2013 you know \u2013 where \u2013 where do you want to bring your GTD system next and what\u2019s next for you as far as the career aspect and vision and purpose that you\u2019re shooting for or striving for and where would you like to go next as you continue your own personal journey?<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: We didn\u2019t get too much into the weeds of the work that I do, but the industry in which I participate is extremely challenging, over 93% of people that ranch lose money. It\u2019s one of the few industries in which people actually work a full time job to support their other job. It\u2019s important for me to help figure out how to do what we do and make it economically viable and repeatable. And I work with a great team of three other guys. We work for a non-profit and we also have a for-profit that we\u2019re working on developing as well. You know, there\u2019s not a ton of books out there on this. You know, how do we have happier animals and happier people and all that. And that\u2019s the vision you know, that we\u2019re working towards. Specifically as it relates to GTD, because the industry I work in structurally, it\u2019s just not set up to make a good living, I need to be Johnny-on-the-spot with my organization and my capturing of my ideas and my creativity and my ability to keep commitments and work with others and so I imagine that my \u2013 my adherence to GTD will get even more fanatical in order for me to stay at the top of my game and do all those things that I was just talking about in our vision, but at the same time enjoy time with my wife, dogs, you know, have some kids, uh spend time with my family, because I\u2019m not interested in building a business or an economic model that is using unsustainable effort because I don\u2019t have it anymore. I\u2019m not 25 with a cup of coffee at 9:00 p.m. you know, in the office reviewing you know, video footage. I don\u2019t have that kind of gusto. So I think my systems are going to get a little bit tighter, specifically, I think my next action thinking is going to become fundamental. I\u2019ll just, you know, just always on that next action piece, keeping hard edges to the different \u2013 to my calendar, keeping hard edges to like when I\u2019m doing what stage of a process \u2013 those types of things I think are always going to be key and then I think connecting with more GTD implementers about how they implement and just getting further education and up until I think six months ago, I actually didn\u2019t even realize that there was a community of GTD implementers. There was just David Allen on the front of the book and me in the office having conversations with this cover, you know, where he\u2019s sitting there on the stool or whatever. And uh, so I think increasing my connection with the community is probably going to be key for my future success and happiness as well.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Byron, awesome and so inspiring. And this conversation, no doubt, will plug you in with that community.<\/p>\n<p>I have so much thankfulness and gratitude for you showing up for this conversation. I know you and I have talked about connecting when I\u2019m up in Sonoma in the near future. Hopefully, we can pull that off, but uh \u2026<\/p>\n<p>BYRON: Yes.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: Why don\u2019t we end it here and I\u2019ll look forward to our paths crossing. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n<p>MIKE: All right. Sounds good. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do you do when brute force is no longer an option? That&#8217;s a question that Byron Palmer, an innovator and grazing specialist for the Sonoma Mountain Institute, found himself wrestling with as he progressed in his career and life. Join Mike as he and Byron walk through his journey of discovering GTD, the value &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2015\/06\/podcast-04-gtd-and-brute-force\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Episode #4 &#8211; GTD and Brute Force&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-podcast-2","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.8 (Yoast SEO v26.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Episode #4 - GTD and Brute Force - Getting Things Done\u00ae<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"30 Minute Listen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2015\/06\/podcast-04-gtd-and-brute-force\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Episode #4 - GTD and Brute Force\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"30 Minute Listen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2015\/06\/podcast-04-gtd-and-brute-force\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Getting Things Done\u00ae\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gettingthingsdone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-06-09T18:28:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-10T14:36:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/podcast.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"291\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"292\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"GTD Times Staff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@gtdtimes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@gtdtimes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"GTD Times Staff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"25 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2015\/06\/podcast-04-gtd-and-brute-force\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2015\/06\/podcast-04-gtd-and-brute-force\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"GTD Times Staff\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/#\/schema\/person\/52d8dfa5db8d4e8792586794625c12a4\"},\"headline\":\"Episode #4 &#8211; 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