RLP 78 : Getting Things Done Part 4 – Reflecting

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode, 78, Getting Things Done Part Four: Reflecting. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the creators of the Amazon bestselling book, Research Like a Pro a Genealogists Guide. I’m Nicole co-host of the podcast join Diana and me as we discuss how to stay organized, make progress in our research and solve difficult cases. Let’s go.

Nicole (46s):
Hi everyone, and welcome to today’s show I’m Nicole Dyer co-host of the podcast, and I’m here with a credited genealogist, Diana, how’s it going?

Diana (54s):
I am good. How are you doing Nicole?

Nicole (57s):
Great. It’s the new year when this comes out. So that’s exciting. 2020,

Diana (1m 2s):
Yeah, 2020. I remember back when I thought that that would be so far in the future and I wondered what things would be happening. I had no idea that we’d be doing this fun genealogy company. So it’s amazing.

Nicole (1m 14s):
I’m hoping that 2020 is the year that I submit my certification portfolio.

Diana (1m 18s):
That is a fabulous goal for 2020.

Nicole (1m 21s):
And I feel like I’ve been getting closer and closer. 2019 was really a year for me to increase my educational resume for certification. That’s one of the elements that you submit. I think I, they might’ve changed that, so you don’t submit any more, but now I have to go look, but I remember reading all the requirements and in the certification discussion group, we talked about it and I just realized that I hadn’t been to an Institute and that was a big glaring gap in my education. So I did two virtual institutes in 2019, and then next week we’re headed to SLIG for my first in-person Institute.

Diana (2m 2s):
Right. And I’m so excited for that. I’ll be learning about Virginia and you’re going to be doing DNA.

Nicole (2m 9s):
Right. I had originally signed up for advanced methods and I was excited about that. But then after the virtual evidence analysis practicum, the last case was with Karen Stanbary, and I just, I felt like I learned a lot from her case. And she talked a lot about the standards, the genetic genealogy standards and the genealogy standards that the new edition and what is required really to prove a relationship with DNA. And I realized that that is something that I really want to learn more about. So I figured out that I could switch over to her class. It’s like, so I’m really excited to dive in really deep to genealogies standards and DNA evidence.

Diana (2m 57s):
I think you’ll do really well in that class. After having done the Research Like a Pro with DNA study group and all the in-depth work we did there, I think you’re going to be so prepared and ready to just soak up everything that she has to say. And Karen is a really, really, very good at the genealogy standards and working with DNA for those research problems that are quite a ways back,

Nicole (3m 22s):
Right. And that’s really where my interest lies, too. I’ve done a couple of cases of recent unknown parentage, but what I really want to do is use DNA evidence to push back the family tree and those more distant generations.

Diana (3m 37s):
Yeah. I agree. That’s exactly what we need in our family lines, because we just have so many glaring gaps in our family tree. And I agree with that. So great. Well, both of our institutes are going to help because we have a lot of ancestors that go back to colonial Virginia. And I’m going to be learning more about that from Barbara Vines Little who is an expert, and you’re going to be learning about advanced DNA to take us back and connect through DNA to those, some of those lines that maybe I can discover. It’s going to be a fun week.

Nicole (4m 9s):
Yeah. Well, and we get to be together and stay in the hotel together. It’s going to be like a vacation almost, except for working really hard.

Diana (4m 18s):
Yes, indeed. I’m excited. And we’ll have to talk about that more on the podcast afterwards so we can share what we’ve learned. Well, let’s get to our listener spotlight. We just have a short one this time from Mary L title is, On My Regular Rotation, and Mary says, the show is on my regular rotation of Genealogy Podcasts. And I’m always excited when there’s a new episode. I feel like I always learn something, keep up the good work. Well, thank you, Mary for that. We’re so happy that you’re enjoying it and learning. That is our goal. So Nicole, what are we talking about today?

Nicole (4m 50s):
Well, we’re doing, Getting Things Done Part Four: Reflecting. What is reflecting? This is where you get to think about how all your systems are working and capture any new items. So are your systems updated and functional? Are they serving you? Maybe you’ve spent a lot of time organizing your records and prioritizing projects, but then maybe you got busy and you took a research trip or attended a conference. And now you have a lot of new things to deal with. Maybe a stack of papers, handouts, a flash drive full of digital records. Maybe it’s time to reflect, see why you’re feeling a little overwhelmed or weighed down and capture the new items that have come up for you.

Nicole (5m 38s):
And the way to do that is reflect and your reviewing your calendar and project lists, and you process all these new materials to get them off your mind and keep your mind free to do its best work. So, as you know, this is part four of our five part series based on David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free Productivity. And just as a recap, we have talked about capturing in step one, where you capture all the things you want to do and write them down. Part two was clarify. And this is where you prioritize your projects and brainstorm ideas for the top project on your list and identifying the next action.

Nicole (6m 20s):
And then last week we talked about part three, which was organization, and that’s where you create systems and tools to keep all of your papers and processes organized like physical and digital filing systems and calendars and tools that help you keep track of your tasks.

Diana (6m 39s):
Okay, great. Thanks for that little recap today, we are going to talk, like you said about reflecting and David Allen calls this, the weekly reveal. And I like that. I like that term weekly because that gives us a set time and he really recommends that you come up with whatever day or time that works best. So I tend to like to do this on a Friday afternoon at the end of the workweek, and you might want to do it on a Sunday evening or a Monday morning. It doesn’t really matter when you do it. It’s just that you have a regular time that you schedule on your calendar and it’s when you go through and really look at everything that’s been cluttering up your life again, because we might’ve gotten completely organized and clear and everything taken care of.

Diana (7m 30s):
And then, like you said, Nicole, you have all these other things that come into your life. So we clear review is where we’re going to do several things. What’s the first thing?

Nicole (7m 42s):
So first we need to get clear. It’s easy to find that your once clean desk is now cluttered with all kinds of things. And I go through this all the time, because when I don’t have time to deal with something, I just stack it on my desk. And then every two weeks I go through everything on my desk and clear it off. So getting clear is just going through those new things that have appeared on your desk and things that, you know, since the last time you did the first step of capturing new things that have entered your life. So go through all your new papers and things and get those down in your project lists and your next action task lists.

Nicole (8m 27s):
And these could be physical papers or digital files and emails and things that you have accumulated from the week. So if this doesn’t happen regularly, where you go through and review and get clear, then you all have all this clutter on your desk and in your mind leading you to feel overwhelmed again. So here’s some things to do weekly file, all the papers that have accumulated on your desk. I know I said, I do it every other week, but I really am wanting to do every week. I think that would help me, and then clear out all the downloads folder on your computer. I know you do that right, mom.

Diana (9m 3s):
Yeah. I tend to get a bunch of stuff on my downloads folder. And I like to get that to zero also, get that all cleared out because those are things that shouldn’t stay in downloads. They should be put in the proper files or just deleted if I don’t need them anymore.

Nicole (9m 17s):
Well, I’ve started, I changed the settings on Google Chrome so that when I clicked download on something, it asked me where I want to place that item. So then I have to immediately choose a folder for it. And instead of just going to that downloads folder, and I really liked that, it’s helping me so much so that I don’t have so many things in my downloads folder.

Diana (9m 36s):
I like that. The other thing that I’ve noticed is on Gmail. If someone sends me an attachment, I can choose to download it or organize it. And so what I do is I click the little Google drive icon, and I immediately put that in the folder straight from Gmail. And that’s been really helpful rather than downloading it and then putting it in the folder.

Nicole (9m 57s):
I do that too. I am your daughter. And I love that button when I can push that button and immediately put it into the folder in Google drive that it goes into, I feel so accomplished.

Diana (10m 10s):
Well, it just saves a couple of steps and it saves some time. So it really is nice.

Nicole (10m 15s):
So what else do we need to do in our weekly getting clear session? We need to process any research trip materials, add conference syllabi or webinar handouts to your system for where you keep those reference materials, review any project lists and add new projects, and then process any emails remaining in the inbox. And I don’t know about you, mom, I’m sure you don’t do this only weekly, but I kind of like to do this at least every other day or daily where I just process those emails. Because if you wait a week, you’ll have like 300.

Diana (10m 48s):
I try to get my email to zero every day. And sometimes it’s difficult and it’s really frustrating because I’ll get it completely cleaned out. And then I’ll look at it in the morning and there’s like 15 new emails, but that’s okay. Because then you just start with those and go down through it, email’s a wonderful thing, but oh my goodness, it can really eat up our time.

Nicole (11m 9s):
Right? I’m excited for the day when I get a virtual assistant who does my email for me, that’s on my list of things that I desire at some point in my life.

Diana (11m 19s):
That’s great. I love that. Well, let’s talk about the next part of the weekly review. So we just, we’re going to get clear, then we need to get current. So once you’ve cleared out your papers and projects of the week, you’ve taken care of digital files that are out there and your papers that are on your desk or on your inbox, then you can look at your next action lists. And this is where it can be really fun because you can check stuff off you completed, or maybe there’s something that’s irrelevant. Now, you know that every once in a we miss a deadline or something happens and we decide not to do something and we can just delete that item.

Diana (11m 59s):
So we get that task list up to date and current, we need to look at our calendar and David Allen recommends going back a couple of weeks because sometimes we miss something on our calendar. Maybe we had scheduled for ourself to work on a project, and then we just blew it off because something came up that day. Well, we don’t want to forget that. And this is when we can go back and go, oh yeah, I was going to do that project. And then you bring it forward reevaluate and put it where you think you could actually get it done. So this can make sure you don’t forget about something important you wanted to do. Then you look at your calendar items that are coming up for the next few weeks and you look at your project lists and you see if there’s any items from your project list that you want to add to your calendar.

Diana (12m 43s):
Maybe you noticed that you’ve got a conference coming up and you haven’t yet got the hotel or a flight, or if you’re teaching at it, maybe you need to turn in your syllabus. So you kind of take a look at what’s coming up and think of what needs to be done. You look through your email. And last episode, I talked about setting up those waiting for an action folders. And so I actually check these every day, but the weekly review is a good chance to look through those and then really take care of anything that you maybe need to send a reminder email for, or maybe take, you know, one of your items in your actual folders that you’ve been putting off and just get it done. So when you have a lot of things on your calendar, like I have a full schedule of client work and presentations to always be proposing and creating and giving, and then we have the podcast and writing.

Diana (13m 36s):
So there’s a lot of things. Then I have a lot of deadlines and I really like to look ahead and make sure that I’m not hurrying to meet a deadline. Sometimes I am turning in a proposal on the very last day, but I prefer to be a little ahead of the game and that type of thing. And so reviewing your calendar a few weeks ahead can make sure that you’re not panicking when something is due and you haven’t quite started it yet. So you may have a family reunion coming up and you need to get started with planning that, or maybe you’ve got a research trip approaching and you haven’t yet begun your research plan. So it’s really great to look ahead and see what’s coming and then make some next actions or add it to your project list, get some things going so that you can feel like you’re functioning at your highest level.

Nicole (14m 22s):
I love feeling like I’ve looked ahead and that I’ve got things done in advance. It just makes me feel so much more in control and less like I’m flying by the seat of my pants every day. So the next step is to get creative and I’ll have to ask you for your thoughts on this one, Diana, too, but basically this is when you have completed your basic review, you have a clear idea of everything that needs to be done. And then you get a chance to look ahead. And this is kind of the fun part, right? Where you look at your someday, maybe list and think about projects that you might want to do someday. As you, maybe you felt inspired to add something fun to that list.

Nicole (15m 4s):
Like maybe you’ve attended a DNA class and you’ve decided that you are going to get your match list organized. Maybe you are going to go into Ancestry DNA and give everyone the colored dots and get that all sorted out. So maybe that used to be on your someday maybe project list, but now you’re feeling like you actually have the tools to do it because you’ve taken a class and you understand how to do it now. So maybe now you’re ready to add it to your projects list and move it away from the someday maybe list. And once it’s on your projects list, you can determine the next action and add that to your task list and start going forward on that. So what do you think of this get creative step?

Diana (15m 47s):
Well, I love, I am love creativity and thinking about how to do things. So my mind is always working. I used to joke that my mind worked best when I was doing yoga because I’d have all these things swirling around and for some reason that physical activity kind of let me get creative. But if you don’t have your mind clear, then all you’re thinking about in those moments is the project that’s hanging over you that you haven’t started yet. You know, but if you’ve got all that stuff taken care of, and your mind is kind of free to just be thinking about all these ideas out on your radar, that you can maybe now approach, you can get creative and you can come up with some really fun ideas.

Diana (16m 31s):
In fact, that’s basically how we have come up with so many of the things that we do, like the Research Like a Pro process, you know, that is bouncing ideas off of each other and getting creative and trying to think of ways that we can create materials that will help people to learn and grow in their research. So if I had been working to deadlines continually, always just being behind the game, I don’t know that I would’ve ever been able to kind of get my brain working to get creative and think of things like Research Like a Pro. So I think it’s really important if we want to approach kind of the next level of productivity, where we do some of the fun things that we maybe didn’t think that we could ever get to, you know, maybe we have always wanted to do this neat book for the family that we always were so burdened with everything else we were doing that once we finally get all of the to-dos taken care of, then we can do that neat book.

Diana (17m 37s):
We can do a project that’s super fun and interesting and exciting and it’s also really energizing.

Nicole (17m 45s):
Agreed. And I think it’s important to, to not feel like we have to wait to be creative until we finish everything on our projects list, but to have everything captured helps us create that free space in our brain to think about creative projects. And, and that’s, I think what the system does is capturing all of the project lists and the next action so that we can free up some space to be creative and think of those other fun, inspirational projects that maybe were always on our someday list. But now that we see a path forward and a system to help us accomplish it, now we can really get creative and get going with it.

Diana (18m 26s):
Yeah, I agree. The whole idea is to have your brain be free. David Allen says throughout the book that you want your mind to be like water, that’s the visualization, just those calm, you know, water, whether it’s a stream or a lake or whatever, and that things can come into it that you can act on. So this was kind of fun to think of all the things that you could be doing if you can get your life together, right? So another part of this weekly review is to do a big picture review, which kind of goes along with what we’ve been talking about to really take a step back and consider if you’re meeting your key goals and objectives and family history and genealogy.

Diana (19m 8s):
So I talked to a lot of people and they’ve got accreditation or certification on their list of to-do items, but I may not see some of these friends for like a year at a time, and they are still not any closer than where they were. And I’ve thought about that and wondered, you know, what is it that keeps us from really making progress on some of these really, really big goals. And I wonder if it’s because we just never get past the little stuff to get to the big stuff. Let’s say that you want to become accredited and that is a big picture review item. You know, this is on your horizon, you want to do this sometime, and in your weekly review, you can step back and you can think, okay, what is my plan for getting accredited?

Diana (19m 56s):
Is it always just going to be out there on the horizon or am I really committing to it? And have I decided my path to get there and what do I need to be doing this year? So I love Nicole that you talked about certification and how this is the year that you’re going to get your portfolio, but that was a big picture item for you for a long time. So how did you kind of, you know, make that come to pass that you’re actually on a path for that?

Nicole (20m 27s):
Well, I think I was for a long time, considering both certification and accreditation, and they both seemed pretty scary to me, but since you had done accreditation, it felt more within reach. So I’d kind of settled on that. But then we had a discussion about plans and our business and thought it would be neat to have an accredited genealogist and a certified genealogist. And that was the moment when I really had to decide, am I committed to actually going through all the steps required to become a certified genealogist? And there was some fear there with knowing that a lot of people who applied their portfolio is not accepted or, you know, they have to keep working on it. So I had to really decide in that moment, if I submit a portfolio and it doesn’t get accepted, am I willing to do all that work again and submit another portfolio?

Nicole (21m 18s):
And until I had decided that I was willing to keep trying until I got there, I wasn’t ready to move forward on it. You know what I mean? I had to fully commit to it. And so I decided that I would like take it slow to do everything that was recommended by people to get there. I wasn’t trying to rush and hurry up and submit a portfolio before I was ready. I just wanted to make sure that I did things step-by-step and really worked to finish all my little educational goals for my resume and things and get there, even if it took a long time. So once I committed to that, then it was easier to set the goals like the next action goals, because it didn’t feel like this huge overwhelming task.

Nicole (22m 1s):
It just felt like I’m going to do it. I just need to do the next step. And so now that I’ve kind of finished some of those educational things that I was working on. Right now, I’m in a point where I’m trying to figure out my next action for writing, because I have to write the KDP, which is the kinship determination project. And I also have to write a case study. And so, yeah, I’m at this point where I’m having to reflect again, because it’s time to move forward on the next parts of this big picture goal. So yeah, this is a good time for me to reflect and to make the next actions and the next steps.

Nicole (22m 46s):
And I think another thing that helped me was just feeling like I was finally ready. I had done some client projects and after finishing those and feeling really confident about them, I felt like it was within reach for me to get my certification. So before it had always just seemed like I wasn’t quite ready yet.

Diana (23m 5s):
Yeah. I think it’s been really fun watching you move along this path because I did something similar when I decided to do accreditation, I had to really step back and become committed because I knew it would take so much time and effort. I had to really think about, is this something that would benefit me? Does this feel right? You know, is this what I should be doing? And then I had to just do each step the education and getting the research hours and then the fourth-generation project, and then preparing for the testing and going through the testing. And now that I have that under my belt, the accreditation, I continually need to step back and think big picture.

Diana (23m 46s):
You know, what do I want to be doing with Genealogy? What do I want to do with my own research? What do I want to do with the business, whatever we want to do with the education portion of the business. And so this is something that’s really important for us to really be taking a look at and making sure that we are moving forward in the areas of our life that we should be. I think we all have kind of those gut feelings, inspiration, intuition, whatever we want to call it, where we know what we should be doing. And I think we’re happier and we do better when we’re following that.

Nicole (24m 22s):
Oh, totally. That is so true. I mean, if you’re uncomfortable because you’re not following your dream, then why not just follow your dream? You’ll be uncomfortable because you’ll be working hard, but either way you’ll be uncomfortable, but at least if you’re working toward your dream, the discomfort of having to work so hard is bringing you closer to your goal. I just like to think that, yeah, it’s going to be difficult. It’s going to cause discomfort cause I’ll be working a lot more, but I would rather have that discomfort than the discomfort and frustration of knowing that I’m not even working toward it.

Diana (24m 57s):
Well, it kind of reminds me of Liz Wiseman’s book, Rookie Smarts. And I remember what that was, I think our very first RootsTech, where she came and did this really great presentation and talked about how we need to all become rookies over and over again in our lives. And if we’re feeling too comfortable in our situation, then we need to think of a way to try something new because we learn the most and we make the most progress when we are rookies. And so we should never feel so comfortable in whatever we’re doing, that we’re not really working hard and trying hard. I’ve always really loved that advice. And that thought.

Nicole (25m 35s):
I love that, too. I think it’s so interesting how our primitive brains really want us to focus on finding everything we can do to become more comfortable, right? Like, oh, I’m so tired. I just need to get more sleep. Oh, you need to like eat something right now. You know, our, our lower brain is just constantly giving us these things to do, but it’ll make us more comfortable. But what we’re trying to do with our higher brain is to actually accomplish some of these things that we want to do in life. And it will make us get in uncomfortable situations and work harder, get up early. For me, it entails getting up early, early before my kids and getting a couple hours of quiet time to research and write.

Nicole (26m 16s):
And when I’m on top of my game, that’s really when I make the most progress is when I’m taking that time in the morning to work. So I think that’s going to be something that I’ll have to do to take the next step on my certification: 4 am work sessions.

Diana (26m 32s):
There you go. Just not when you’re staying in the same hotel room with me. Anyway, to wrap up this episode, kind of a final thought that I have, that I’m just going to throw out there for all of you is in this big picture review part of the weekly review, you know, think about something that you are afraid of or that you think is going to be too hard, and maybe really consider doing it. Maybe you have been thinking about accreditation or certification. Maybe you have been putting off the family lines that came from Poland, or Russia, or Germany, because it sounds too hard to learn that language, or learn how to research in that language.

Diana (27m 13s):
Or maybe you’ve just been ignoring DNA because that sounds scary and hard. You don’t really think about if this is the time that you commit to doing something out of your comfort zone. And that is a little bit hard and scary because I guarantee that if you start taking steps towards it, you will be able to be successful. I’ve seen that over and over again in my life and in the lives of others. And it’s really, really good for us to do something hard, be rookies again. So if you’re feeling really comfortable with what you’re doing, take a good look and see what might throw you out of your comfort zone. So just to recap, what do we do in reflecting?

Diana (27m 55s):
The weekly review is get clear, get current, get creative and do a big picture review. So hopefully this will help you to have some ideas of what you can do to weekly. Take a look at your genealogy and family history life and think of what you’re doing and where you’re going.

Nicole (28m 14s):
Well, I’m putting it on my calendar this Friday to do a weekly review on the calendar. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. We hope that you are having a great January getting started with a new year and all the excitement with setting new goals and good luck to you. And we’ll talk to you guys again next week.

Diana (29m 16s):
Bye bye everyone.

Nicole (29m 16s):
Thank you for listening to Research Like a Pro with Diana Elder, accredited genealogy professional and Nicole Dyer. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your own genealogy research. If you like what you heard, please leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher or visit our website, FamilyLocket.com to contact us. You can find our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist’s Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.