153: I Didn’t Do the Thing Today by Madeline Dore

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1. 00:00:00 All right, I have a surprise for you, Joe Buellig.
2. 00:00:04 Oh, fun.
3. 00:00:05 I love surprises.
4. 00:00:06 You're going to find out about this, the exact moment everybody else does in the chat.
5. 00:00:13 There you go.
6. 00:00:15 Click that link.
7. 00:00:17 Let me know what you see.
8. 00:00:19 Oh, this is a problem.
9. 00:00:22 Why do you do these things to me?
10. 00:00:25 Okay.
11. 00:00:26 What, just tell the world what you see.
12. 00:00:28 So Mike made an iPhone phone case for your iPhone that has none other than the Bookworm
13. 00:00:39 logo on the back of it.
14. 00:00:40 Yes.
15. 00:00:41 So this isn't just iPhones, by the way.
16. 00:00:45 Cotton Bureau can allow you to take one of your current designs and turn it into an iPhone
17. 00:00:49 case.
18. 00:00:50 It's like a new product that they've launched.
19. 00:00:52 And so I got the email about it.
20. 00:00:54 I was curious about it.
21. 00:00:55 Went through the process and had to change a few things, but basically it didn't take
22. 00:01:00 a whole lot of time.
23. 00:01:01 And there are cases for the iPhone 13 line, the iPhone 12 line.
24. 00:01:06 I'm assuming the iPhone 14 line will be coming shortly.
25. 00:01:09 And then the Galaxy S22, those are the ones that I see at the top of my screen.
26. 00:01:13 And there are even different case types.
27. 00:01:15 So there's a tough mag safe, a tough matte, mag safe, tough, tough matte, slim, slim matte.
28. 00:01:22 And then I don't think we have a clear option and then you could choose a couple different
29. 00:01:25 colors.
30. 00:01:26 So I picked a couple that look good.
31. 00:01:28 And yeah, if you want to show your support for the Internet's largest and best book club.
32. 00:01:38 You didn't put the asterisks on it this time.
33. 00:01:41 I didn't because I feel we would be if Ali Abdall had gotten the right link at the beginning.
34. 00:01:46 It's true.
35. 00:01:47 It's true.
36. 00:01:49 So it's pretty slick.
37. 00:01:50 Yeah, I don't have one of these yet.
38. 00:01:53 They don't support the iPhone 11, which I currently have.
39. 00:01:56 When I get a new phone probably shortly, I will probably get one of these cases for it.
40. 00:02:01 I don't know if it's going to be my everyday one because I have no idea what these are
41. 00:02:03 actually like.
42. 00:02:04 I've never bought a cotton bureau phone case before, but they look pretty decent.
43. 00:02:09 And they're not that expensive.
44. 00:02:10 The mag safe version, I've just opened up the page.
45. 00:02:15 I'm not sure what price it says there.
46. 00:02:17 It might be taking out the discount because I'm the creator or whatever, but $28.
47. 00:02:25 For which one?
48. 00:02:26 Because I'm not logged in or anything here.
49. 00:02:28 Okay.
50. 00:02:29 Well, yeah, just what's the default price on that first one that you see?
51. 00:02:32 So the tough mag safe for this is iPhone 13 Pro.
52. 00:02:36 Okay.
53. 00:02:37 That's $40.
54. 00:02:39 The tough matte mag safe is 40.
55. 00:02:43 Tough and tough matter, both 37.
56. 00:02:45 Okay.
57. 00:02:46 Yeah.
58. 00:02:47 So there must be like a creator discount built in there, but the bottom line is like 40
59. 00:02:51 bucks is for if there really is a tough mag safe case, which it sounds like it is.
60. 00:02:56 Yeah.
61. 00:02:57 Rich color polycarbonate shell with TPU liner.
62. 00:02:59 I don't know what a TPU liner is, but sounds impressive and it has magnets in it.
63. 00:03:04 So pretty cool.
64. 00:03:05 There you go.
65. 00:03:07 So here's a fun fact.
66. 00:03:08 Did you know that I run a naked iPhone?
67. 00:03:11 I did see that when we visited you not too long ago.
68. 00:03:17 I, so I have the 13 Pro.
69. 00:03:20 I upgraded last year.
70. 00:03:22 And at one point, I talked about putting like a screen protector on it or putting a case
71. 00:03:29 on it of some sort.
72. 00:03:30 And I forgot and I never did it.
73. 00:03:33 And I've still not done anything about it.
74. 00:03:36 And I still have no scratches, no dings, nothing.
75. 00:03:39 Like I'm pretty sure this.
76. 00:03:40 Also, I was like needing a clean.
77. 00:03:42 It's not too far off of just what it looked like when it came out of the box.
78. 00:03:46 Sure.
79. 00:03:47 That's how I roll.
80. 00:03:48 I don't know how given how much construction and stuff that I do.
81. 00:03:51 I don't know how that works.
82. 00:03:53 Yeah, I was going to say.
83. 00:03:57 Well you are a fortunate soul, Joe Bielig, to have preserved the mint state of your iPhone.
84. 00:04:04 Everyone else who's a mere mortal like me buy a case for it, whether it's a bookworm
85. 00:04:09 case or not.
86. 00:04:11 Oh, I don't know that I would say yes.
87. 00:04:18 I think I'm just lucky.
88. 00:04:19 I think that's all it comes down to.
89. 00:04:21 Yep.
90. 00:04:22 Yep.
91. 00:04:23 I'll save you some heartache.
92. 00:04:24 Get a case for your phone.
93. 00:04:25 Okay.
94. 00:04:26 The larger point we glossed over though was that I noticed that you didn't have a case
95. 00:04:30 when we visited you.
96. 00:04:32 So we got to hang out in person.
97. 00:04:33 We got to record a podcast in person.
98. 00:04:35 But it wasn't bookworm.
99. 00:04:37 It was not.
100. 00:04:39 So we recorded an episode of the intentional family titled Meet the Bulegs.
101. 00:04:45 So Joe and his wife Becky were a guest on the intentional family podcast.
102. 00:04:50 I ran all the tech stuff.
103. 00:04:52 Rachel did the interview but it published earlier this week as we record.
104. 00:04:55 So if you want to go listen to it, you can and you should because there's some great
105. 00:05:00 stuff in there about how the Bulegs are intentional in shaping and creating the type of family
106. 00:05:07 that they want to have.
107. 00:05:09 And I've told you this already but there were several things that you did and said while
108. 00:05:12 we were with you that have got the wheels turning for my wife and I.
109. 00:05:17 I will say like for those who listen to bookworm, it's kind of a fun sneak peek behind the
110. 00:05:23 scenes I guess of what you hear on bookworm I guess because obviously my wife Becky was
111. 00:05:28 involved with that.
112. 00:05:29 She's actually the main speaker in that I would say.
113. 00:05:32 So you get her perspective which is unique but at the same time it's definitely a different
114. 00:05:39 style and it's definitely a different aspect of some of the same things we talk about here
115. 00:05:45 on bookworm.
116. 00:05:46 But yeah if you want to see the intentionality that comes into even purchasing a property
117. 00:05:52 in a house I think we talked about that quite a bit.
118. 00:05:54 Why did we do that and why do we have it set up the way that we do and why do we eat every
119. 00:05:58 meal outside and why is this weird and yet fun.
120. 00:06:02 So it's kind of a cool deal so yeah go check it out.
121. 00:06:07 Alright so there will be a link in the show notes also link in the chat for people who
122. 00:06:11 want to check that out but thank you for doing that that was really cool and I know Rachel
123. 00:06:16 really enjoyed it.
124. 00:06:17 I was stressed out the whole time because I thought my microphone cable was dying but
125. 00:06:21 it turned out pretty good.
126. 00:06:23 I will say I've thrown two XLR cables in my backpack since we had that recording.
127. 00:06:29 Alright so to follow up did you figure out which mind map app you're going to use?
128. 00:06:37 Yeah I am kind of torn in the middle of two different ones because what I quickly learned
129. 00:06:42 like so I've been doing some mind maps that kind of covers my second action item here.
130. 00:06:48 One was to figure out an app the second was to create a few of these and I did that.
131. 00:06:55 I did probably half of them on a computer and maybe half of them on pen and paper as you
132. 00:07:02 would expect right and I found that there are often times when I'm creating a mind map
133. 00:07:11 that definitely has a short time span.
134. 00:07:14 Do you do this where like I know that I've got to put together take this Sunday for example
135. 00:07:19 I got a big outdoor event again and I've got to collect a whole bunch of different aspects
136. 00:07:25 of that and instead of me doing that on a digital app I did it on pen and paper because
137. 00:07:32 I know it was short term it didn't have to be a long term thing and once it's done I'm
138. 00:07:37 just converting it to an outline and holding on to that for next year or the next one and
139. 00:07:42 that's as far as it goes so I'm not converting that I'm taking a picture of that one and
140. 00:07:47 putting it into in this case obsidian.
141. 00:07:50 So like I found that I've got these short term things but then there's also some longer
142. 00:07:54 term like ongoing maps that's more like article ideas like that sort of thing seems to be
143. 00:08:02 better suited for digital.
144. 00:08:05 Do you find that is there a breakdown between those two things?
145. 00:08:08 Am I just weird?
146. 00:08:11 So answering from the creator of the mind map Tony Boussaint's perspective I would say
147. 00:08:20 there is not a difference answering from the Mike Schmitt's practical perspective there
148. 00:08:25 is absolutely a difference.
149. 00:08:28 The value of the digital mind maps is that you can touch your nodes and you can move
150. 00:08:33 them around and you can and the information reorganizes live in front of you and then
151. 00:08:41 you add things like the focus feature and like the ability to hide everything except
152. 00:08:48 the certain stuff.
153. 00:08:50 So you can kind of get different perspectives and different levels in looking at your information.
154. 00:08:57 If you're just trying to make essentially a checklist of things that you're going to
155. 00:09:01 reuse I feel like that doesn't really matter that could totally happen on a analog mind
156. 00:09:08 map but if Blake, geez.
157. 00:09:13 I know, I know, but if you are trying to develop an idea and you want to explore all aspects
158. 00:09:20 of something being able to move things around and interact with it does add another layer
159. 00:09:28 I feel.
160. 00:09:29 So if you were outlining a course or something like that I would say you're probably not
161. 00:09:38 choosing an analog to do that but for the use case that you just mentioned makes total
162. 00:09:43 sense.
163. 00:09:44 Okay.
164. 00:09:45 Good to know I'm not completely crazy but I'll keep with it.
165. 00:09:48 But yes, to answer the first of these two questions like the app that I'm using, Mind
166. 00:09:53 Node, like here's a surprise.
167. 00:09:58 I actually put it out on all the social medias like what is everybody using and everybody
168. 00:10:04 said Mind Node or pen and paper except for one person and they said I thought.
169. 00:10:09 Okay.
170. 00:10:10 Well, I think consensus is Mind Node is where you need to be on this.
171. 00:10:15 No.
172. 00:10:16 Having said that, of course the first thing I did was very fiddly and I had to go build
173. 00:10:20 my own theme for it so that's my life.
174. 00:10:24 The first thing I always do.
175. 00:10:27 Style it so that it's as dark as I can get it with mono space fonts and the Joe Bueller
176. 00:10:33 color schemes like that's always step one.
177. 00:10:36 I mean, I'm not surprised but yeah, you didn't have to do that.
178. 00:10:41 I know I didn't have to but it's one of those that I have adjusted so many applications
179. 00:10:47 to use that same scheme that seeing something that's not in that scheme that I'm able to
180. 00:10:54 put in that scheme, it's distracting if it's not there.
181. 00:10:59 So it's actually better if I take that time and get it out of the way and then I don't
182. 00:11:02 have to think about it anymore.
183. 00:11:04 That's fine but I'm going to go out.
184. 00:11:05 I'm going to go out on a limb here and say don't do what Joe did just like your iPhone
185. 00:11:10 unicorn and people shouldn't follow you in your caseless lifestyle.
186. 00:11:13 They should not look to adjust the theme inside of Mind Node when you open it.
187. 00:11:18 They do have a bunch of prebuilt themes which look pretty decent if you want it just a dark
188. 00:11:22 mode theme you can select that but yeah, you can totally go down the rabbit hole and
189. 00:11:26 build your own and you've got like it sounds like a Joe Buleg style guide for this sort
190. 00:11:30 of thing.
191. 00:11:31 So yeah, yeah, it was definitely not something that I needed to like go figure out what colors
192. 00:11:38 do I want to use.
193. 00:11:39 Like I didn't have to do any of that because I've got like five to seven different colors
194. 00:11:44 that I already use for all of these different components so it was not not like I had to
195. 00:11:51 figure it out.
196. 00:11:52 It took like 20 minutes and I had the entirety of it figured out mostly because I was trying
197. 00:11:55 to figure out how to themes work in Mind Node.
198. 00:11:58 That was the longest part of that.
199. 00:11:59 Sure.
200. 00:12:00 It wasn't too bad.
201. 00:12:03 Cool.
202. 00:12:04 I had no action items from the last book but I have made several more Mind Maps so I continued
203. 00:12:12 use Mind Node and I continued to use the default theme after I'm low these many years.
204. 00:12:17 It's almost lame.
205. 00:12:20 Well, Mind Node is looking at some of the other apps that are out there you mentioned I thought
206. 00:12:27 I thought is probably one that I would try to theme as soon as I opened it because it's
207. 00:12:32 not super great but Mind Node does a pretty good job on their design in my opinion so
208. 00:12:38 unnecessary for most.
209. 00:12:40 All right.
210. 00:12:42 Should we talk about today's book?
211. 00:12:44 We should.
212. 00:12:45 All right.
213. 00:12:46 So today's book is I Didn't Do the Thing Today by Madeline Doar and this was a book that
214. 00:12:55 I saw was intrigued by and then forgot about and then somebody that I respect was like,
215. 00:13:02 hey, you should read this book and instantly I was like, yes, I'm going to buy this.
216. 00:13:06 We're going to do this for Bookworm.
217. 00:13:09 And it's definitely different than a lot of the other productivity books that we have
218. 00:13:16 read.
219. 00:13:17 In fact, you might call this an anti-productivity book but it does talk about a lot of productivity
220. 00:13:23 concepts.
221. 00:13:24 It's just redefining it in my opinion.
222. 00:13:27 We'll get into the specifics of this in a little bit.
223. 00:13:31 I'm curious before we get any further, what was your first impression of this book, Joe?
224. 00:13:38 I thought I was going to get justification for not getting things done on time.
225. 00:13:44 Is that what you got?
226. 00:13:45 I don't think so.
227. 00:13:47 Maybe only kind of.
228. 00:13:49 I was kind of hoping I would come out of this with a whole bunch of excuses for not doing
229. 00:13:53 things that I could use and really was left with a state of I still need to do things.
230. 00:14:03 I just need to not be so hard on myself, I guess.
231. 00:14:06 It's more of a mental view of how I'm perceiving whether or not I'm getting something done.
232. 00:14:14 It was definitely not a book of excuses like I wanted it to be.
233. 00:14:18 And how does that make you feel?
234. 00:14:20 We're going to do this.
235. 00:14:25 Frustrated.
236. 00:14:26 That's how it made me feel.
237. 00:14:29 All right, fair enough.
238. 00:14:32 It is a three part book, although the majority of the book, when I say majority, the vast
239. 00:14:38 majority happens in part two.
240. 00:14:42 The first part is at the start of the day.
241. 00:14:45 Part two is the stumbles in the day, and then part three is at the end of the day.
242. 00:14:53 So you can kind of see how this is broken up and it's based off of this poem.
243. 00:15:01 I didn't do the thing today, which I don't have in front of me.
244. 00:15:04 I didn't jot down that poem.
245. 00:15:06 It really didn't add a whole lot of value to me other than to serve as the framework
246. 00:15:12 for how she was going to organize the information.
247. 00:15:17 I have it here if you want me to read it.
248. 00:15:18 Yeah, I go for it.
249. 00:15:20 Okay, I didn't do the thing today.
250. 00:15:23 I didn't rise before seven.
251. 00:15:25 I didn't change.
252. 00:15:26 I didn't pin lines of stream of consciousness.
253. 00:15:29 I didn't take my time with a purposeful ritual.
254. 00:15:32 I didn't diligently complete my tasks.
255. 00:15:34 I didn't move stridently around the park.
256. 00:15:36 I didn't write.
257. 00:15:37 I didn't start.
258. 00:15:38 I didn't finish.
259. 00:15:39 I didn't achieve.
260. 00:15:40 I didn't progress.
261. 00:15:41 No matter.
262. 00:15:42 For doing the thing today isn't the measure of a day.
263. 00:15:46 Yes.
264. 00:15:47 And then that comes back at the end as well.
265. 00:15:50 The three parts are basically diving into the different reasons at the different time
266. 00:15:54 periods of your day of her life.
267. 00:15:56 You maybe didn't do the thing.
268. 00:15:59 And then all of the individual chapters kind of talk about a specific reason why you might
269. 00:16:04 not do the thing.
270. 00:16:07 And it's not just an enabling book like Joe was hoping for where it's okay, but it talks
271. 00:16:12 about the root causes and maybe what you can do about it.
272. 00:16:16 It is not, I would say, prescriptive.
273. 00:16:19 It is definitely not a systems book.
274. 00:16:21 And it is not just saying, oh, everything is fine.
275. 00:16:25 It does inspire you to make change, but it does so.
276. 00:16:28 The tone is very stop beating yourself up about this so much.
277. 00:16:33 And just look for something that will help make a positive change.
278. 00:16:38 I feel like this book is very much in line with the tone of that I would like to take
279. 00:16:45 in recent history for like what productivity is.
280. 00:16:48 And I feel like that is different than the beginning of my productivity journey, which
281. 00:16:52 based off of GTD was simply, how do I get more things done?
282. 00:16:57 What I've learned over the years is that the reward for getting more things done is you
283. 00:17:01 get more work to do.
284. 00:17:04 And so that's where you have to learn to say, no, and you have to focus and you have to
285. 00:17:08 maintain margin and all the other things that we've talked about and all the other books
286. 00:17:11 that we've read.
287. 00:17:14 But if I was going to pick one that was kind of closest to this approach, it would probably
288. 00:17:19 be one that pops up several times in this book itself.
289. 00:17:22 And that would be the 4,000 weeks by Oliver Berkman.
290. 00:17:27 Because that again is like a very anti-prod activity in terms of like the standard message.
291. 00:17:37 It feels very contrarian, I guess.
292. 00:17:40 And so this is again, breathing fresh air into this space and hopefully making people
293. 00:17:45 feel a little less bad about not achieving the perfect ideal that they tend to hold themselves
294. 00:17:52 up to or is that just me?
295. 00:17:55 Yeah, I don't hold myself up to any ideals whatsoever.
296. 00:17:59 None.
297. 00:18:00 Have no expectations on myself.
298. 00:18:02 I'm perfectly capable of being comfortable with the amount of work I get done in a day.
299. 00:18:06 Yep.
300. 00:18:07 100%.
301. 00:18:08 I detect a hint of sarcasm in your voice, Joe Bieler.
302. 00:18:12 Yep.
303. 00:18:13 Have some things I need to sell you if you believe that.
304. 00:18:15 So there's that.
305. 00:18:19 I think you know, there's, you made the comment about the more things you get done, the more
306. 00:18:24 you are handed.
307. 00:18:26 And that was definitely true when I worked in corporate because it seemed like the more
308. 00:18:30 things I could automate, the more things they gave me to automate.
309. 00:18:32 That's actually kind of my beginning in the scripting world.
310. 00:18:36 Like I was being given so much work to do that I found that it was easier to write scripts
311. 00:18:39 to do it for me.
312. 00:18:41 So despite the fact that my job was to be a data analyst, writing scripts was actually
313. 00:18:47 the real job just to do that for me because I didn't have the time to do the number of
314. 00:18:53 reports that they wanted me to do.
315. 00:18:55 And it just snowballed out of control from there.
316. 00:18:58 And I eventually left.
317. 00:18:59 So you see how that turned out, but I think you're absolutely right.
318. 00:19:03 The more focus we have on accomplishing more, like that, that's a forever growing snowball
319. 00:19:10 that eventually burns out and smashes into a wall at the bottom of the hill.
320. 00:19:14 Like it just does not go well.
321. 00:19:16 Correct.
322. 00:19:17 I'm curious, since you basically said that this is an issue for you too, what was the
323. 00:19:26 traditional way that you would try to reconcile this?
324. 00:19:30 How did you make peace with the fact that you weren't able to do all the things that
325. 00:19:35 you did?
326. 00:19:36 In corporate?
327. 00:19:37 Well, just you can use that as a starting point, but I think that it is more general
328. 00:19:42 than that, as long as you have capacity and you don't have a filter, you will exceed
329. 00:19:50 your capacity.
330. 00:19:51 Yeah.
331. 00:19:52 Whatever arena that applies to fill in the blank for yourself.
332. 00:19:58 Yeah, I guess when I would try to reconcile that in previous days, it was more that I
333. 00:20:08 didn't.
334. 00:20:09 It was more just I'm overwhelmed and burnout and just living in that state.
335. 00:20:14 That's ultimately what I landed on.
336. 00:20:17 And everybody else was in that same state, so it didn't really matter.
337. 00:20:20 There was no real excuse.
338. 00:20:23 I know I've had a period maybe a year or so ago when I felt like I had a pretty good balance
339. 00:20:31 between the amount of stuff I had going on and the amount of work I was able to get
340. 00:20:35 done, always thinking I could do more, but not actually getting it done.
341. 00:20:39 So it kind of worked out, but I would say that in the last probably six to nine months,
342. 00:20:45 that's been slowly changing.
343. 00:20:48 The workload that's being put on me has grown significantly.
344. 00:20:53 I don't really have any control over that other than how I handle that and delegate it
345. 00:20:57 and automate it and such.
346. 00:21:00 This is a timely book for me.
347. 00:21:03 I don't think I could tell you that right now this is how I handle this because I don't
348. 00:21:07 think I handle it well currently.
349. 00:21:09 I just feel overwhelmed.
350. 00:21:11 So I don't think I have a clean, I'm really good at saying no.
351. 00:21:14 Well, I say no to a lot of things, but not enough.
352. 00:21:19 So I don't think I have a clean mental state on it.
353. 00:21:22 Yeah, that's fair.
354. 00:21:23 And I don't think that is unique.
355. 00:21:26 I think that is the standard approach is you just keep going until you just can't do it
356. 00:21:32 anymore and then you burn out for a while.
357. 00:21:36 Right.
358. 00:21:37 This is, and I don't think we talked about this when we were talking for the intentional
359. 00:21:44 family podcast, but some of what I do around what we call Acorn Ridge, our home, it's very
360. 00:21:50 similar to like it's run offs and derivatives from what I did growing up on the farm.
361. 00:21:56 And the problem for me in that is that it can, like I can fall into these patterns where
362. 00:22:04 things need to be done and it doesn't matter how I feel, it has to be done.
363. 00:22:09 It doesn't matter if that means 4 a.m.
364. 00:22:10 It doesn't matter if that means midnight.
365. 00:22:12 It doesn't matter how I feel and what my health is, it doesn't matter.
366. 00:22:18 Like that's, that's some of the mentality.
367. 00:22:20 Now that doesn't hold true 100% of the time in farm life, but the times that I remember
368. 00:22:26 that had the biggest impression on me, that's the part that comes out.
369. 00:22:29 So my tendency is to run nonstop 100 miles an hour until it's done.
370. 00:22:35 And I know that's not healthy long term.
371. 00:22:37 Doubt with the consequences of that a few times, but I know that that's something I've
372. 00:22:41 kind of leaned into here recently.
373. 00:22:43 So again, I said, this is, this is timely.
374. 00:22:46 Sure.
375. 00:22:47 And I recognize that same behavior in myself, which is why I have built into my personal
376. 00:22:52 retreat framework that I force myself to stop doing one thing every quarter.
377. 00:23:00 That's kind of my fail safe, my release valve, if you will, because I, if I don't do that,
378. 00:23:05 I could pretty much guarantee you over the next 90 days I'm going to hit the wall.
379. 00:23:10 Yeah.
380. 00:23:11 But this is a more practical book on how to release that pressure a lot of different
381. 00:23:19 ways.
382. 00:23:20 And I feel like it took me a really long time and a lot of trial and error to get to the
383. 00:23:24 point where I created that system.
384. 00:23:26 And I was like, this actually works for me.
385. 00:23:30 And you don't have to do a personal retreat every 90 days in order to make that work.
386. 00:23:36 Let's get into the meat of this book though.
387. 00:23:39 So the first part is at the start of the day, and there's two chapters here.
388. 00:23:44 Chapter one is the narrowing of productivity.
389. 00:23:46 Chapter two is the expansion of creativity.
390. 00:23:49 I love these two ideas here.
391. 00:23:52 And with productivity in general, I think the focus is on doing.
392. 00:23:59 That's kind of her tone with this whole chapter.
393. 00:24:03 We're obsessed with doing.
394. 00:24:06 I'm not sure that's exactly how I would choose to define productivity, but I don't think
395. 00:24:10 that's a wrong approach either.
396. 00:24:13 I feel like there's a lot of different ways you could define it.
397. 00:24:18 But what was the, I'm trying to find, there's a spot here where she talked about like the
398. 00:24:22 root word behind.
399. 00:24:24 Yeah, here we go.
400. 00:24:25 The root meaning of the word productivity is to lead something forward.
401. 00:24:30 So if you think about that, like, and she kind of explains this, if you think about
402. 00:24:33 that, you're always kind of leaning forward, always trying to move into the next thing.
403. 00:24:38 And there's never, you know, just by that, by that definition, there's not a point at
404. 00:24:43 which you stop and celebrate.
405. 00:24:45 And there's also not a point at which you stop and plan ahead for the next thing because
406. 00:24:50 you're already leaning into it.
407. 00:24:52 If, again, if you're following this definition, I think there's probably four million different
408. 00:24:56 definitions of productivity on the internet right now.
409. 00:24:59 So take your pick.
410. 00:25:01 But given this particular one, like there's, there's not really a point at which you can
411. 00:25:05 ever recover and get your footing if you're always leaning forward into the next thing.
412. 00:25:11 If you use that definition, like this pretty telling is so what we do to ourselves and
413. 00:25:17 it does lend itself to like, okay, well, that means that I need to pause and let myself
414. 00:25:22 regain balance.
415. 00:25:24 But what does that mean?
416. 00:25:25 Is that a mental state?
417. 00:25:27 Is that physically stopping?
418. 00:25:29 You know, there's a whole bunch of different ways that that could manifest itself, which
419. 00:25:33 I think partially is what we talk about throughout the rest of the book.
420. 00:25:36 Yes, agreed.
421. 00:25:42 The big thing with no matter how you define productivity is that the end state is most
422. 00:25:45 likely some version of this is my plan for the day.
423. 00:25:50 And this plan assumes that everything is going to go perfectly.
424. 00:25:55 And it doesn't.
425. 00:25:56 Most of the time it doesn't.
426. 00:25:57 And so really the goal of this book she mentions in this first chapter is that we all need
427. 00:26:03 to figure out how to navigate our own life.
428. 00:26:05 We all stumble, we all make mistakes and we need to remove judgment whenever a day or
429. 00:26:11 even an hour goes off track.
430. 00:26:13 And that is an ability that we can develop and practice.
431. 00:26:17 Yes.
432. 00:26:18 Good job.
433. 00:26:19 All right.
434. 00:26:21 So then the next part of that is creativity.
435. 00:26:25 And this is something that I have been more and more excited about lately.
436. 00:26:30 In fact, I have a YouTube video that I released in the last week.
437. 00:26:37 I'm not sure if you've seen this one.
438. 00:26:38 It's based off of my Max Talk, the 42 quick creativity tips.
439. 00:26:43 I'll grab the link and I'll put that in the show notes.
440. 00:26:46 But basically it's an 18 minute video and I based it off of the presentation I gave where
441. 00:26:50 I created hand-drawn slides for the best creativity tips that I have.
442. 00:26:56 That have helped me the most from all the different books that I've read on the topic.
443. 00:26:59 And several years ago, I used to think productivity was the thing for me.
444. 00:27:04 And more and more lately, I'm realizing that actually creativity is the thing for me.
445. 00:27:08 That's the way the productivity gets displayed.
446. 00:27:11 That's the output of the productivity for me.
447. 00:27:15 And I like the yin and the yang here that she's got with productivity versus creativity.
448. 00:27:21 Because creativity, the approach that you would take towards productivity is not the
449. 00:27:26 same one you can take towards creativity.
450. 00:27:28 Now, I do argue that creativity is a formula and I do believe that.
451. 00:27:33 But you can't approach it the same way.
452. 00:27:35 I'm just going to check off this thing and move down the list.
453. 00:27:39 It doesn't work on command like that, which is actually going to get into the next book
454. 00:27:47 that I've picked here, a little bit of foreshadowing there.
455. 00:27:50 See if you can figure it out by the time we get there.
456. 00:27:52 Because it's not in the outline version that you have.
457. 00:27:56 I think this is interesting.
458. 00:27:58 This whole concept of life being art and living creatively does not mean living sequentially.
459. 00:28:08 And if you're going to embrace life as art and embrace creativity, you kind of have to
460. 00:28:14 find those moments of inspiration and ride them rather than just move on to the next
461. 00:28:18 thing all the time.
462. 00:28:19 Yeah, this is maybe a little bit of a sigh of relief here.
463. 00:28:25 We've talked about productivity.
464. 00:28:27 Productivity has been a thing that you and I have had our hands and fingers in for years
465. 00:28:32 now.
466. 00:28:33 And no matter how long we've been in it, it doesn't seem to be the main point.
467. 00:28:42 We would like it to be.
468. 00:28:44 I would love for it to be something that I get lots of stuff done every day.
469. 00:28:49 And here's how I do it.
470. 00:28:50 Well, the real question is, one, how am I sharing what it is I'm doing?
471. 00:28:57 What is it that I'm making that helps you understand what it is that we're doing?
472. 00:29:02 Take what we're doing right now for a book where I'm like, we've read these books and
473. 00:29:06 we're creating something that helps other people figure out if they should read the book
474. 00:29:12 or to at least at a minimum get the main takeaways from that book so that they don't have to
475. 00:29:17 go through the mess of reading a book they shouldn't read.
476. 00:29:21 That's a lot of what we do.
477. 00:29:23 So it is a creative endeavor and yet it's kind of productivity in some form.
478. 00:29:30 So it does have that outlet.
479. 00:29:32 So the question there gets to be like, okay, if productivity is the main thing, you find
480. 00:29:36 yourself in this spinning wheel of trying to get more done constantly.
481. 00:29:41 But if creativity becomes the focal point, then it has more to do with what are the neat
482. 00:29:47 and interesting and fascinating things that I can make that create an output.
483. 00:29:54 You can kind of twist it on its head a little bit and make it more about the creation process
484. 00:29:59 and not the I have to make another podcast today.
485. 00:30:02 Well, what are you going to do unique about it?
486. 00:30:04 Like what's the creative journey you're going to go on to do that?
487. 00:30:07 So I think it is slightly just a mindset shift there, but it is more than that.
488. 00:30:12 I think at the end of the day.
489. 00:30:14 I think it's easy to classify productivity as the things that you have to do and creativity
490. 00:30:22 is like the things that you want to do.
491. 00:30:24 Yeah.
492. 00:30:25 Yeah.
493. 00:30:26 And based on her format of these two terms in this book, this is actually a good segue.
494. 00:30:32 So let's go into the next section here because in chapter three, the hopeless search for
495. 00:30:37 the ideal routine, she talks about how creativity doesn't follow a perfectly consistent schedule.
496. 00:30:41 However, that is what we try to do a lot of times is follow a perfectly consistent schedule.
497. 00:30:46 When it comes to routines, however, this was an interesting point, I thought, they are
498. 00:30:51 actually very fragile because we tend to create these complex routines with a whole bunch
499. 00:30:57 of things.
500. 00:30:59 And then when one thing doesn't work, it causes the whole house of cards to collapse.
501. 00:31:06 And we set ourselves up for failure with this rigid idea of how these routines should actually
502. 00:31:12 work.
503. 00:31:13 Have you experienced this?
504. 00:31:15 Let's have a little chat about time blocking.
505. 00:31:19 Okay.
506. 00:31:21 That's exactly it.
507. 00:31:23 Like, that's at least in my head, it's the exact same thing.
508. 00:31:27 Let me build this preconceived notion of a routine on how it's going to go today and
509. 00:31:33 what's going to happen tomorrow, but it doesn't take much to derail the whole thing.
510. 00:31:37 How many times has Joe done this experiment?
511. 00:31:39 I'm going to try time blocking and it falls apart.
512. 00:31:42 Like, here you go.
513. 00:31:44 This is why I think.
514. 00:31:46 So I don't think that having a routine is a bad thing, but I know that many people need
515. 00:31:53 a little bit of diversity in how a day goes so that they can stay interested in.
516. 00:31:57 Otherwise, it's boring.
517. 00:31:58 So I get that and I've never really thought of myself as that type of person.
518. 00:32:03 I've always thought of myself as like, I've got my set routines, but within a very small
519. 00:32:08 construct, is that true?
520. 00:32:10 Like I have my set of things I do before I go to work in the morning.
521. 00:32:14 A lot of that has to do with making sure animals are fed and taken care of right now.
522. 00:32:18 Like that's Joe's life right now.
523. 00:32:20 But I also know that when I get to work, there's quite a bit of flexibility and that's
524. 00:32:25 intentional and it kind of needs to stay that way because I have so many things that could
525. 00:32:31 break unknowingly.
526. 00:32:32 If the Wi-Fi is down for whatever reason, hey, guess what?
527. 00:32:35 It doesn't matter what I set up that morning.
528. 00:32:37 That's getting thrown out the window.
529. 00:32:40 It has to be set aside.
530. 00:32:42 So yes, routines are fragile.
531. 00:32:45 Yeah, the example she uses is simply waking up late.
532. 00:32:50 So that's the one that I can relate to.
533. 00:32:52 I mean, the Wi-Fi going down.
534. 00:32:54 Maybe that happens frequently.
535. 00:32:56 I don't know.
536. 00:32:57 That's a good example.
537. 00:32:58 I think what she's after is things that happen more consistently than that.
538. 00:33:03 She talks about consistency a little bit later.
539. 00:33:06 We're going to talk about that.
540. 00:33:07 But she also shares in this chapter, but Austin Cleon having a portable routine, which
541. 00:33:12 is just simply several things that he aims to get done in a day.
542. 00:33:16 I love this idea.
543. 00:33:18 And this has me thinking, I've been starting to track some basic routines in obsidian lately
544. 00:33:26 anyways.
545. 00:33:27 And I want to just make my list there.
546. 00:33:29 And the goal being not to create a crazy long streak of I've done all of these things,
547. 00:33:36 all these days in a row, just make a list of the nice to have routine items.
548. 00:33:45 And I've got a couple ideas for some of those and we get to the action items.
549. 00:33:51 But it's a totally different way that I have thought about routines in the past.
550. 00:33:55 Because in the past, I was kind of basically thinking like, what is the absolute minimum
551. 00:34:00 that I can commit to?
552. 00:34:02 And absolutely nail this every single day.
553. 00:34:04 And I tried to do that.
554. 00:34:05 And then when I can do that consistently for a really long time, then I'll think about
555. 00:34:08 adding maybe one additional thing.
556. 00:34:11 And I still think if you're trying to create like a morning routine of essential things
557. 00:34:15 you absolutely must do, that maybe that's a good approach.
558. 00:34:19 That's basically what I've done with my Bible reading and my prayer routines, my stretching
559. 00:34:22 routines.
560. 00:34:23 I've got sciatic nerve issues.
561. 00:34:25 If I don't do my stretches every single day, so I have learned the hard way, like that's
562. 00:34:29 not negotiable.
563. 00:34:30 Right?
564. 00:34:31 So this is kind of talking about the things that are negotiable.
565. 00:34:35 Did you read today?
566. 00:34:36 Did I practice Spanish?
567. 00:34:38 So that's another maybe bad example because I've kind of got that consistently locked
568. 00:34:42 in.
569. 00:34:43 So I don't know.
570. 00:34:44 I'm just trying to pick things that everybody might use.
571. 00:34:46 Expressing gratitude is not something that I do every day.
572. 00:34:49 Right?
573. 00:34:50 So I want to make sure that I start tracking that sort of stuff.
574. 00:34:52 And just simple like check the boxes at the end of the day, kind of ostingly on style.
575. 00:34:56 And I can say, you know, I got six out of eight.
576. 00:34:59 That's pretty good.
577. 00:35:01 And I can feel good about that.
578. 00:35:02 But even if I only got two out of eight, the approach is kind of like, well, at least
579. 00:35:05 I did those two.
580. 00:35:06 As opposed to I had eight things on my list.
581. 00:35:10 And when I woke up late, that basically meant I was never going to get all eight done.
582. 00:35:14 So it was a failure right from the beginning.
583. 00:35:16 That's what she's pushing back against.
584. 00:35:18 Yeah.
585. 00:35:19 This is more around like you've got a list of things that would be great to do today.
586. 00:35:24 If you got them all done, that's amazing.
587. 00:35:26 But you have to like choose the ones that are most essential, important, effective, whatever,
588. 00:35:34 like buzzword you want to use for it.
589. 00:35:37 Like you need to choose those and work towards them.
590. 00:35:41 But it's all about the mindset you have when you're done, I would say.
591. 00:35:45 This is my downfall.
592. 00:35:46 It's like I see that list of eight things that you talked about.
593. 00:35:50 And I've got seven of them done, but it was a failure because I didn't get number eight.
594. 00:35:54 Like that's kind of my thinking on most days.
595. 00:35:58 But that's not true.
596. 00:36:00 Like I still got seven done.
597. 00:36:02 So I need to, I think that's, and that's maybe why I've been talking about this mental state.
598. 00:36:07 Like that's all in your perspective on how you view that and choosing to say that, hey,
599. 00:36:12 that was a success because I got seven out of eight instead of saying it was a complete
600. 00:36:16 failure because I only got seven out of eight.
601. 00:36:19 It's purely how you see it.
602. 00:36:21 Yeah.
603. 00:36:22 That kind of gets into a later point about ambition and goals.
604. 00:36:26 But before we get there, I think it's important to talk about time confetti.
605. 00:36:29 This is from chapter four, the worry of wasted time.
606. 00:36:32 Time confetti are the minutes that are spent on seemingly insignificant actions and how
607. 00:36:36 those add up to a multicolored mound of wasted time.
608. 00:36:43 So you can fill in for you, fill in the blank for yourself on what the time wasters are,
609. 00:36:48 but it's important to know that people often hide how they waste their time.
610. 00:36:55 And I think you and I are probably both guilty of this as well.
611. 00:36:58 I do try to be more transparent and share my faults in the places that I don't do the
612. 00:37:06 things.
613. 00:37:09 Just because I want to be authentic, I understand the tendency is to share the ideal and just
614. 00:37:15 share the highlights, right?
615. 00:37:17 But people compare that to their backstage, like the everyday.
616. 00:37:22 And so I try to compensate for that, but I'm sure there are still times when it does
617. 00:37:28 not happen.
618. 00:37:30 So couple that with the idea of being a time optimist, these are people who overcrowd
619. 00:37:35 their schedules because they try to slot all the things in because they assume everything
620. 00:37:39 is going to go exactly according to plan, which is kind of getting back to the original
621. 00:37:43 discussion we had about your time blocking and how it just like blocked part of it that
622. 00:37:46 you can control and just forget about the rest.
623. 00:37:50 Because that's not lost time, but the minute that you have expectations for how that's
624. 00:37:55 going to go, you get upset that it's not meeting those expectations.
625. 00:38:00 So I feel like this chapter really is important about embracing our, well, there's a whole
626. 00:38:05 chapter about embracing limitations, but recognizing that the perfect ideal that you have in your
627. 00:38:09 head is not going to be achievable.
628. 00:38:12 Yeah, I think this concept of time confetti, I love the illustration here.
629. 00:38:18 It's like, I got these little bits of time.
630. 00:38:19 They're all over the place.
631. 00:38:20 They're all different and they go everywhere.
632. 00:38:22 And I never really know where they're going to go.
633. 00:38:23 And I never know what's going to, like, how much confetti is going to be in that canon
634. 00:38:27 this time?
635. 00:38:28 Who knows?
636. 00:38:29 But the thing that I find that I tend to lose time on and I've talked about this before
637. 00:38:33 is in those transition times.
638. 00:38:35 When I'm moving from one task to the other, the problem and I, you know, time blocking
639. 00:38:40 is I feel like a really good example of so many of these things that have gone wrong
640. 00:38:46 for me because it's a very clean, calculated experiment because it's got a lot of math
641. 00:38:54 to it, right?
642. 00:38:55 Because of time.
643. 00:38:56 So I find that whenever I do a time block schedule, even if it's just for the morning,
644. 00:39:01 let's call it 8 to noon, very simple, simple four hours, four one hour tasks, you know,
645. 00:39:07 eight, 30 minute tasks.
646. 00:39:08 Like you can, you can break that up in however many different ways you want.
647. 00:39:13 The issue gets to be like, if I have a task that's slotted for 30 minutes and it takes
648. 00:39:18 25, I feel like I just gained five free minutes there.
649. 00:39:24 And then I have a 10 and it's like, okay, well, I got five minutes before the next slot
650. 00:39:28 needs to start.
651. 00:39:29 So I'm going to check a couple things quick before that gets here.
652. 00:39:34 And then I'm 10 minutes late on the next thing.
653. 00:39:38 And then that derails the next one because then I'm not done early on the next one.
654. 00:39:42 And then maybe I get early again, then I do it again.
655. 00:39:45 So then I end up with these little chunks that throw the whole thing off.
656. 00:39:48 And I just can't, I can't stick to that tight schedule.
657. 00:39:52 So I'm finding that the concept of like this portable routine is probably the better way
658. 00:39:59 to do that, trying to lock in exact times for it just does not, it doesn't work well.
659. 00:40:05 As much as I've attempted it and had like minor successes, overall it doesn't work out.
660. 00:40:11 And I think it's purely like the viewpoint, but it's also a big part of this.
661. 00:40:17 I've got a few minutes here and there.
662. 00:40:18 I'm just going to do this quick thing and then it's not a quick thing.
663. 00:40:22 That's where I lose a lot of time and I'm really bad at that.
664. 00:40:26 Well if you're time blocking, you realize those little pockets are there at least.
665. 00:40:33 And so I think what she's describing is really for people who do not time block because for
666. 00:40:38 me, the minute that I start time blocking, I at least become aware of them.
667. 00:40:42 But if you aren't time blocking, you don't realize how many of those little couple minutes
668. 00:40:47 here, a couple minutes there, pockets that you do end up wasting.
669. 00:40:52 And again, this is framed through the lens of don't beat yourself up about this, but
670. 00:40:59 recognizing that you have those and then having a realistic list of things that you
671. 00:41:04 are trying to get done in the day.
672. 00:41:06 That's the other part of time blocking that I think is important.
673. 00:41:08 If a time optimist just sits on a block's their day, it's going to be a disaster at
674. 00:41:12 the beginning.
675. 00:41:13 But then you learn from that mistake.
676. 00:41:15 You eventually land on, you know what, this is what I can get done in the day and feel
677. 00:41:19 good about the workload on average.
678. 00:41:22 It's hard to quantify it.
679. 00:41:24 In my experience, you just kind of feel it out.
680. 00:41:28 But eventually you do it enough.
681. 00:41:30 You get enough feedback loops.
682. 00:41:31 You have a pretty good sense of what you can handle.
683. 00:41:37 But that does get into the next thing on the outline here, the moving, the goal posts.
684. 00:41:43 Because ambition definitely manifests in trying to do a whole bunch of things in those
685. 00:41:49 time confetti slots that you're just talking about.
686. 00:41:52 She says ambition can create an avalanche of dissatisfaction.
687. 00:41:57 And I love this when I heard her talking about ambition.
688. 00:42:00 My mind instantly went to goal setting.
689. 00:42:06 That's not the big point she was making.
690. 00:42:09 But she does kind of talk about drive and being driven are two different things.
691. 00:42:17 Drive I think is the one that she typically associates with an end point.
692. 00:42:22 I'm going to achieve this outcome, achieve this goal.
693. 00:42:26 But being driven is just I want to make the most of the resources that I have.
694. 00:42:31 And I feel like those are, that's an important distinction between those two ideas.
695. 00:42:37 When you work to achieve your ambitions, you undermine your daily happiness because you
696. 00:42:41 get so attached to the outcome that you are trying to achieve.
697. 00:42:46 And if there was the actual amount of satisfaction that you got from achieving that goal, that
698. 00:42:53 you project when you are pursuing it, it would be no big thing.
699. 00:42:58 But it's, it never measures up because as soon as you achieve that goal, there's this
700. 00:43:02 vacuum and then you have to fill that with something else.
701. 00:43:06 And she calls this the hedonic treadmill where your brains adjust to the success and you
702. 00:43:13 look for the next big thing.
703. 00:43:16 But that's frustrating in the long term because you never actually arrive.
704. 00:43:24 So I don't know, I could go on talking about goal setting, but probably just leave that
705. 00:43:30 there.
706. 00:43:32 There's, there's so much here, like, you know, you can control only so much and you can only
707. 00:43:38 think about it so many different ways.
708. 00:43:40 Right, and it's easy for us to view goals as the end all be all.
709. 00:43:48 We tend to do that.
710. 00:43:49 Like corporate makes it basically the focus of every employee, at least every corporation
711. 00:43:54 I've been in or worked with, consulted with.
712. 00:43:57 It seems like that's always it.
713. 00:43:58 Even when I was doing web contracts for companies, like the people I would work with would regularly
714. 00:44:06 say, Hey, I need to do this by this time or it needs to cost this much.
715. 00:44:10 And I pay you this much ahead of time in order to, because it's all about the end goal of
716. 00:44:14 hitting a certain something.
717. 00:44:16 Like that's all it is.
718. 00:44:18 It's not about an ongoing component.
719. 00:44:20 It's purely this has to be done by this time and I need to look this good doing it.
720. 00:44:24 It's always that way.
721. 00:44:27 And if you don't think it's that way, probably don't have the whole picture.
722. 00:44:31 That's my guess.
723. 00:44:32 Could be wrong.
724. 00:44:33 I'm okay being told I'm wrong, but everything seems to revolve around that.
725. 00:44:39 And when you have your goal posts set up around something that can move, then it gets really
726. 00:44:46 complicated to know how are you doing?
727. 00:44:50 Is it's always going to grow?
728. 00:44:51 Like you're only going to say yes to things if it's always about hitting that next goal.
729. 00:44:55 So I don't know.
730. 00:44:57 I think I'm probably like you.
731. 00:44:58 I could ramble and ramble and ramble.
732. 00:45:00 But I find that most of my own shortcomings when it comes to productivity or creativity,
733. 00:45:06 depending on what your focus is here, it has a lot to do with how I view my own motivation
734. 00:45:13 and my success in accomplishing things.
735. 00:45:15 And it's that ambition to try to get a bunch of things done that I tend to view incorrectly.
736. 00:45:21 So I think that's what she's telling me to stop doing.
737. 00:45:24 Sure.
738. 00:45:25 Well, you mentioned the goal post being set up around something that moves as long as
739. 00:45:29 your goal is external and outcome, it's going to move.
740. 00:45:33 She touches on this a little bit but doesn't lean into it a whole lot in this chapter.
741. 00:45:38 But she does say what we accomplish doesn't change who we are.
742. 00:45:40 So the focus should be on who are you becoming, not what are you achieving.
743. 00:45:46 That's the only sort of goal post that is ever going to be achievable.
744. 00:45:53 Yeah.
745. 00:45:54 Don't move the goal post.
746. 00:45:55 It's frustrating.
747. 00:45:56 It sounds stupid when you think about that.
748. 00:45:58 But then we go and we set goals.
749. 00:46:00 And that's exactly what we do.
750. 00:46:02 So just another encouragement, I guess, to figure out what is the thing you want to do
751. 00:46:09 not so that you can say you did the thing, but so you can say this is who I became in
752. 00:46:14 the process, which kind of leads into the next one here about intensity versus consistency.
753. 00:46:19 These are two terms that I think she kind of talks about throughout a couple of different
754. 00:46:24 chapters.
755. 00:46:26 The next chapter is the myth of balance here.
756. 00:46:30 But consistency and intensity, the big takeaway from this for me is not an original idea that
757. 00:46:37 she had, but something that she shared by Simon Sinek, where intensity is going to the dentist
758. 00:46:45 and having a professional cleaning.
759. 00:46:47 But consistency is brushing and flossing every day.
760. 00:46:52 And in terms of long-term health, intensity is not enough.
761. 00:46:57 You have to have consistency.
762. 00:47:00 Now she does change that a little bit because she is saying that consistency doesn't need
763. 00:47:08 to be perfect.
764. 00:47:09 When it comes to brushing your teeth, I don't know.
765. 00:47:13 Maybe I'm weird in this, but I don't need to track that habit.
766. 00:47:19 I'm doing that one twice a day every day.
767. 00:47:23 And so that's where the analogy falls down a little bit.
768. 00:47:27 I think because you're not going to tell somebody, don't brush your teeth every day.
769. 00:47:32 But when it comes to the habits and routines that you would create, maybe you're trying
770. 00:47:37 to write every day.
771. 00:47:38 Well, if you only write 50% of the time and you write 15 days out of 30, that's still
772. 00:47:45 a huge win.
773. 00:47:46 And that's probably a more extreme example than she would even share in terms of what
774. 00:47:51 is consistency, but the big thing that I wanted to call out here is that consistency is more
775. 00:47:58 important than the intensity, which right away is going to be contrary to how some people
776. 00:48:02 view goals and moving the needle.
777. 00:48:06 But also that consistency doesn't have to be perfect.
778. 00:48:09 And if you do it more often than not, then that is winning.
779. 00:48:13 I think that's where I fall down with this.
780. 00:48:15 I'm really good at the intense side of this.
781. 00:48:19 Like, teeter-totter, like I'm really good at that.
782. 00:48:22 Take last summer with the house project, like three months full speed.
783. 00:48:26 I can do that.
784. 00:48:28 Or I've got a big video project that needs done in a week.
785. 00:48:31 Sure, I can do that.
786. 00:48:33 But putting together the recordings for our weekly sermons and posting those every single
787. 00:48:39 week, can I get somebody to help me do that?
788. 00:48:43 Like, that's my downfall.
789. 00:48:47 Who's followed me online for any length of time, say three weeks, you know.
790. 00:48:52 That's how I operate.
791. 00:48:53 I tend to do some small things very big.
792. 00:48:57 And then I will take a break.
793. 00:48:59 Not intentionally.
794. 00:49:00 It's just kind of how it works.
795. 00:49:02 So the consistency piece has always been a downfall for me.
796. 00:49:05 I'm aware of that.
797. 00:49:07 Thus something like Bookworm works out because Mike is expecting me to show up every week.
798. 00:49:11 So it helps in that.
799. 00:49:13 Otherwise it would probably get put off more often than it should or die off completely.
800. 00:49:18 So thanks, Mike, for keeping Bookworm alive.
801. 00:49:21 You're welcome.
802. 00:49:22 But yeah, that's easily the balance that I struggle with.
803. 00:49:26 Easy.
804. 00:49:27 I wish that something like being consistently posting on things was something I was good
805. 00:49:31 at, but it never really has been.
806. 00:49:33 So I've done everything I could to make that easier.
807. 00:49:36 And that helps.
808. 00:49:37 But I still need to have some form of like an external motivator in order to hit that
809. 00:49:42 piece.
810. 00:49:43 So again, this has to do with, you know, the expectations, right?
811. 00:49:49 Like what you were saying, if you do 15 or 18 out of 30, like that's still a big win.
812. 00:49:55 I see that as a failure.
813. 00:49:57 If it's not every time, like if I miss one, it's a failure.
814. 00:50:01 So why do it at all?
815. 00:50:02 Like that has generally been my perspective.
816. 00:50:04 I'm aware that that's wrong.
817. 00:50:06 I don't think I could have told you that was what was going on until we read this.
818. 00:50:10 Like I don't think I could have explained that.
819. 00:50:13 So this might be a case of more knowledge about the thing helps.
820. 00:50:18 And the more I understand it, the more it helps.
821. 00:50:20 But I can't answer that.
822. 00:50:22 It's a long term thing that I got to work through.
823. 00:50:25 Well I can tell you this was very timely for me because there are certain things that
824. 00:50:29 I have no trouble doing consistently.
825. 00:50:32 Bookworm would be one of them, most of the podcasts that I do are fairly consistent at
826. 00:50:38 this point.
827. 00:50:39 That's just part of the rhythm of my days.
828. 00:50:42 However, I've been thinking a lot about what do I want the ideal content schedule to look
829. 00:50:49 like for faith-based productivity?
830. 00:50:53 Essentially my personal brand, all the different places that people can find stuff that I make.
831. 00:51:00 And yes, Bookworm is a part of that.
832. 00:51:02 Most is a part of that.
833. 00:51:03 Intentional family is a part of that.
834. 00:51:04 But then there are the ones that I really haven't been able to dial in.
835. 00:51:09 I am terrible at posting blogs.
836. 00:51:11 I am meh at writing my newsletter.
837. 00:51:16 I went through the part-time YouTuber Academy and I got super excited about YouTube videos
838. 00:51:21 and I do one every couple of weeks.
839. 00:51:25 And it's easy for me to take any of those in isolation and say, "Well I should publish
840. 00:51:29 a YouTube video every single week."
841. 00:51:31 Or "I should write a newsletter every two weeks."
842. 00:51:36 And this chapter helped me come to peace with the fact that I don't need to do that
843. 00:51:43 stuff as consistently as I pressure myself to.
844. 00:51:50 The 42 Creativity Tips video that I published, that one took significantly longer.
845. 00:51:58 And my approach to the newsletter, which is really the beginning point of some of the
846. 00:52:03 ideas that I'm wrestling with and then the YouTube videos I view that as the expression
847. 00:52:07 of that after I've had a chance to talk through it on a podcast and really have solidified
848. 00:52:12 my thoughts on it.
849. 00:52:14 I've decided that I want to create high quality stuff but I don't want to do it on a strict
850. 00:52:21 schedule.
851. 00:52:22 So the 42 Creativity Tips, I view that as planting a flag in the ground.
852. 00:52:27 This is a piece of content that I want to be associated with me for a very long time.
853. 00:52:33 It's not, "I've got to make a video this week."
854. 00:52:35 Which is different than a lot of other YouTubers and maybe that's the wrong approach but also
855. 00:52:40 like decide what the right approach is for you.
856. 00:52:44 And I was very much beating myself up because stuff is happening at the day job and I didn't
857. 00:52:49 get to write the newsletter this week and now I feel bad because I'm behind and who cares.
858. 00:52:57 I'm still exercising the creative process and maybe it's not happening quite as fast as
859. 00:53:02 I would like but that's okay.
860. 00:53:05 I am fine just saying, you know, if I get a, instead of releasing a YouTube video every
861. 00:53:13 week if I get two out this month, that's good enough.
862. 00:53:16 At least I made two videos or instead of a newsletter every two weeks, it's three to
863. 00:53:24 four weeks.
864. 00:53:26 That's okay.
865. 00:53:27 Most of the time when that happens it's because I've been thinking about an idea and I wasn't
866. 00:53:31 quite sure how I wanted to say it.
867. 00:53:32 So by the time I do get around to saying it, it's got a lot more meat on the bone.
868. 00:53:37 So I don't know.
869. 00:53:39 This has helped me a lot not to feel like I have to check the box every single time.
870. 00:53:45 Maybe that's just my personality where I tend to be a perfectionist and I want to check
871. 00:53:49 all those boxes but identify what are the things that are the non-negotiables and then
872. 00:53:55 the other stuff by default is negotiable.
873. 00:53:58 Yeah, I'm with you on the whole perfect streak thing.
874. 00:54:03 Like I've been that way since I was little.
875. 00:54:05 If I couldn't do something perfect right away, I didn't want to do it at all.
876. 00:54:09 And I see that in my daughter, like my oldest is exactly the same way.
877. 00:54:13 Like would you try something and it doesn't work the way she thinks it should or she wasn't
878. 00:54:17 good enough to do it right the first time?
879. 00:54:20 She's like, there's no point in doing this.
880. 00:54:22 Why does anyone ever do this because it's so hard?
881. 00:54:26 Like you tried it once, you tried to kick the soccer ball with a curve once and it didn't
882. 00:54:32 work.
883. 00:54:33 And it just means you need to practice.
884. 00:54:36 I tell my kids that and yet if I'm not able to do something perfect the first time, I feel
885. 00:54:42 like there's no point in doing it.
886. 00:54:44 But it's on a different scale to a different arena.
887. 00:54:46 So obviously it's different.
888. 00:54:48 It can't like that lesson can't carry over because it's very different.
889. 00:54:51 This is an adult, not a kid.
890. 00:54:52 Of course this is different.
891. 00:54:54 No, it's the same.
892. 00:54:56 I regularly think that I didn't get all the newsletters out that I wanted to so then I
893. 00:55:01 haven't done one in over a year.
894. 00:55:03 Like that happens.
895. 00:55:04 If I miss one, I'm more likely to miss a whole bunch coming up after that just because
896. 00:55:08 the streak's now broken.
897. 00:55:10 So I am not good at this.
898. 00:55:13 Obviously, I think I feel like that's like a central theme that keeps coming up here.
899. 00:55:17 So I stink at it.
900. 00:55:20 Well the reason you may stink at it is the next point on the outline and that is comparison.
901. 00:55:25 So this is a really powerful chapter.
902. 00:55:29 It's a really big idea.
903. 00:55:31 And I don't know.
904. 00:55:33 There could probably be a whole book written about this specific topic.
905. 00:55:36 Probably is.
906. 00:55:38 But comparison I recognize is the source of the perfectionism a lot of times for me because
907. 00:55:44 I compare well, there's all these other people who are kind of doing sort of the same thing
908. 00:55:50 you're doing but they're able to publish a newsletter every week.
909. 00:55:53 So you should be able to do that.
910. 00:55:57 And that is not a good idea.
911. 00:56:01 She says that comparison is comparing your behind the scenes with someone else's highlight
912. 00:56:06 reel.
913. 00:56:07 I really like that explanation.
914. 00:56:11 And yes, that applies to like the social media stuff.
915. 00:56:13 But really just if you take your favorite creator online, you have to recognize that
916. 00:56:18 this bias is going to be there.
917. 00:56:23 One of my action items is to at least recognize who are the people that I end up comparing
918. 00:56:30 myself to.
919. 00:56:31 I have a rough idea.
920. 00:56:32 A couple come to mind right away.
921. 00:56:34 But I want to make a list of this because if you can figure out what is the thing for
922. 00:56:42 you, that is what she calls your secret joy.
923. 00:56:47 And your secret joy is life giving.
924. 00:56:48 But when you compare yourself to somebody else and what somebody else is doing, then
925. 00:56:56 all that joy is gone.
926. 00:56:57 You basically just give it away.
927. 00:56:59 And it's replaced with the productivity guilt and the pressure of creating on the schedule.
928. 00:57:04 She says when we follow our secret joy, the urge to compare dissipates.
929. 00:57:08 So I think step one for me is recognizing who I compare myself to.
930. 00:57:12 Step two is something I'm kind of noodling on even before reading this book.
931. 00:57:16 And that is what do I want the mix to be?
932. 00:57:18 Because ultimately what I want with all the stuff that I do online is to build a community
933. 00:57:27 basically of people who are trying to do the best with what they've got to work with.
934. 00:57:35 And there's a lot of different avenues for that.
935. 00:57:38 The podcasts are part of that.
936. 00:57:39 The YouTube is part of that.
937. 00:57:41 I've actually been messing around with Circle lately and I have a on my website, if you
938. 00:57:47 go to faithbasebergtitter.com.
939. 00:57:48 Yeah, there's a little chat bubble in the bottom that looks like one of those intercom
940. 00:57:52 bubbles.
941. 00:57:54 That actually takes you to a circle community that I guess now I'm announcing that it is
942. 00:57:59 a thing.
943. 00:58:00 It really isn't a whole lot there yet.
944. 00:58:02 I'm kind of building it out first.
945. 00:58:04 But really I just want to create things that will hopefully help people who are struggling
946. 00:58:11 with the same sort of thing.
947. 00:58:12 Like how do I make the most of the time, the talent, the energy of the talents that I have
948. 00:58:17 been entrusted with?
949. 00:58:18 I want to be a good steward of everything that I've got to work with and I want to make the
950. 00:58:21 biggest dent in the universe that I can.
951. 00:58:24 So finding other people who are going to help encourage me along the way and share what
952. 00:58:29 works, share what doesn't, not so we can compare to each other.
953. 00:58:34 But we can hopefully just find something that resonates with us and do a little bit better
954. 00:58:43 whatever sort of impact we want to have.
955. 00:58:45 How can we make what sort of legacy do you want to leave?
956. 00:58:50 How can you do that even just a little bit better if you can move the needle at any form
957. 00:58:56 than that is a win?
958. 00:58:58 And so that's kind of the life theme that's an idea I talk about in my course.
959. 00:59:05 I want to help people answer the question, why am I here by inspiring and encouraging
960. 00:59:08 and teaching them to connect to their calling, discover their destiny, live life they were
961. 00:59:11 created for?
962. 00:59:12 Well, how do I practically do that?
963. 00:59:15 The stuff that I'm doing online basically is what I've landed on.
964. 00:59:19 One of the things I feel like I mentioned to my kids regularly is don't worry about what
965. 00:59:26 your sister's doing, worry about what you're doing, and I'll take care of your sister.
966. 00:59:30 Like that concept comes up a lot just with kids.
967. 00:59:35 I was like, you know, take care of you.
968. 00:59:38 Don't worry about what she's doing.
969. 00:59:40 You can't change what she's doing.
970. 00:59:41 You can only react to what she's doing.
971. 00:59:45 I wish I took that to heart as much as I want my kids to take that to heart because this
972. 00:59:50 is exactly what I think she's getting at in that when we compare to other people or
973. 00:59:55 we're paying so close of attention to what someone else is doing, we lose track of ourselves
974. 01:00:02 and what we're focused on and what we're growing in.
975. 01:00:06 And it's easy to become so absorbed in that other person's actions or as you've said,
976. 01:00:12 like the highlight reel that they're releasing.
977. 01:00:15 You become so focused on that that you lose track of your own efforts or you don't have
978. 01:00:20 efforts of your own in any way, in any form.
979. 01:00:24 And I know this is absolutely true for me.
980. 01:00:29 If we look at the, like what we've been talking about, consistency and creativity, consistency
981. 01:00:33 and content creation and such, it's something that I know I would love to be great at as
982. 01:00:39 being consistent on those things.
983. 01:00:41 I feel like this can kind of morph into that portable routine where you've got these things
984. 01:00:46 that you're trying to do each day and you just release it when it's ready or before
985. 01:00:50 it's ready and get it out the door.
986. 01:00:54 But it doesn't have to be on such a strict routine.
987. 01:00:58 I know that all the algorithms want you to be on some routine, but unless this is like
988. 01:01:03 your full time job, it's not going to be that vital.
989. 01:01:09 And I feel like the number of people that it's their full time job, like if it's your
990. 01:01:13 full time job, you have a lot of people helping you.
991. 01:01:15 I feel like I just recently saw a Tiago Forte put out a tweet or something else.
992. 01:01:22 There was like a map of all the people that are helping him do everything he does for
993. 01:01:29 Forte Labs and building a second brain and everything that's around that.
994. 01:01:33 And I remember looking through that chart and thinking, holy buckets, that's a big team
995. 01:01:39 for what I'm seeing in release.
996. 01:01:41 Now I'm fully aware he's got a whole bunch of stuff that I don't see that he's releasing,
997. 01:01:46 but there's a lot there.
998. 01:01:48 So it's tough for someone like me who has zero people behind what I'm doing online.
999. 01:01:58 And then I'm comparing to what he has going on.
1000. 01:02:02 And I don't compare to Tiago Forte.
1001. 01:02:03 I'm just using that as an example because he's way above me on all that.
1002. 01:02:07 But if I made that comparison, it's not a fair fight.
1003. 01:02:11 It's not apples to apples here.
1004. 01:02:14 It's completely different arenas.
1005. 01:02:17 And you're working on selling oranges and he's over there selling Ferraris.
1006. 01:02:20 This is very different in what we're doing.
1007. 01:02:23 So you can't make that comparison.
1008. 01:02:24 And the problem gets to be that I don't know the full backstory behind somebody who's posting
1009. 01:02:29 a newsletter every week.
1010. 01:02:31 Maybe that's their one and only thing.
1011. 01:02:32 I'm comparing against somebody who's got a newsletter that comes out every week.
1012. 01:02:36 And then I turn around and compare to somebody who's got a YouTube video that comes out every
1013. 01:02:38 other day.
1014. 01:02:39 But those are two different people.
1015. 01:02:40 But I'm still making that comparison and thinking I should do both when neither of them
1016. 01:02:45 are doing both.
1017. 01:02:46 So it's a slippery slope.
1018. 01:02:48 Can get messy real fast.
1019. 01:02:49 I wish I took this to heart.
1020. 01:02:51 Hopefully I'll do better.
1021. 01:02:53 Lessons.
1022. 01:02:55 Lessons I need to learn.
1023. 01:02:56 Or if they do do both, then they have a whole bunch of help like you mentioned because
1024. 01:03:01 Tiago talks about all the different people that help him with all the different stuff
1025. 01:03:05 that he does.
1026. 01:03:07 And he's a bit of a polarizing figure on Twitter because he makes claims like you can't be
1027. 01:03:14 successful in YouTube unless you spend 25 grand a month or something like that.
1028. 01:03:19 Sure.
1029. 01:03:20 And I don't think Ali Abdall would agree with you.
1030. 01:03:23 He's got a whole part-time YouTuber Academy is built on the premise that you don't need
1031. 01:03:29 to have a whole bunch of expensive gear and a whole bunch of people in order to make this
1032. 01:03:34 work.
1033. 01:03:35 And you need to figure out what is the thing for you.
1034. 01:03:38 And Tiago has done a good job of defining this is what success on YouTube looks like
1035. 01:03:42 for me.
1036. 01:03:43 And these are the resources that I need in order to make it happen.
1037. 01:03:45 And you can't just compare what you're doing with what he's doing when he made that other
1038. 01:03:50 tweet about how much it costs to run a YouTube channel immediately.
1039. 01:03:54 It forced me to think about like, well, what's his goal and what's my goal?
1040. 01:03:58 My goal is not going to be the same as his goal.
1041. 01:04:01 I'm not flying anywhere with a production team and sitting down with somebody to do
1042. 01:04:04 an interview like he is.
1043. 01:04:07 But I don't know that's not right or wrong.
1044. 01:04:11 That just my thing is different.
1045. 01:04:13 So you got to figure that out for yourself.
1046. 01:04:15 Once you do figure that out for yourself, that I think informs the expectations that
1047. 01:04:20 you would set around it.
1048. 01:04:23 So if you don't take the time to figure it out, if you do get stuck in that comparison
1049. 01:04:28 trap and by default, your expectations are going to be way too high and those set us
1050. 01:04:34 up for failure when we can't hit them.
1051. 01:04:39 Even if you do define for yourself and you're just trying to time block your day, you will
1052. 01:04:45 run into this where you have these expectations of how a day is going to go and it doesn't
1053. 01:04:51 go according to plan.
1054. 01:04:54 And so there's a lot of good stuff in this chapter.
1055. 01:04:57 One of the things she talks about is create intentions, not expectations.
1056. 01:05:02 I like this a lot with the day job.
1057. 01:05:04 We do this where whenever we're talking about something and there's an action item that's
1058. 01:05:08 associated with it, we're getting to the point where the action needs to be taken with something.
1059. 01:05:13 Someone will say something like I intend to and then you fill in the blank and that becomes
1060. 01:05:18 the action item as opposed to just creating a big list of the things that have to get
1061. 01:05:23 done.
1062. 01:05:24 And then no one follows through on them.
1063. 01:05:27 You're practicing the extreme ownership and you're taking control of the situation.
1064. 01:05:31 You say this is my plan of action.
1065. 01:05:33 And by saying I intend to means that this is what you're planning to do, but everybody
1066. 01:05:37 knows that your plan will probably get blown up.
1067. 01:05:40 So we're not going to hold you to a perfect standard if you don't get this sort of thing
1068. 01:05:44 done.
1069. 01:05:46 I think that's a small distinction, but it's really important and especially when you're
1070. 01:05:50 working with other people that's really one of the things that makes the clash of the
1071. 01:05:58 personalities less of an issue when you're all playing by the same rules.
1072. 01:06:04 Because again, we do judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions.
1073. 01:06:08 So you're forcing people to give other people the benefit of the doubt by framing it that
1074. 01:06:13 way.
1075. 01:06:14 Yeah, for sure.
1076. 01:06:15 For sure.
1077. 01:06:16 Just don't compare yourself to other people.
1078. 01:06:18 Basically that's the moral story.
1079. 01:06:19 Don't do it.
1080. 01:06:20 Don't do it, Mike.
1081. 01:06:21 Yep, yep.
1082. 01:06:23 The other thing with expectations here though is that you are not what you do.
1083. 01:06:31 So you can have these expectations and when you don't hit them, you feel like a fraud.
1084. 01:06:39 You have this mini identity crisis.
1085. 01:06:42 At least I have.
1086. 01:06:44 So decoupling your identity from the things that you do, I feel can go a long way towards
1087. 01:06:51 managing the disappointment that can come with expectations.
1088. 01:06:58 She mentions in chapter nine, the great disappointment of expectations that we are verbs, not nouns.
1089. 01:07:03 So that means that you are not a writer.
1090. 01:07:08 You are someone who writes and this, there's a complimentary idea here from atomic habits
1091. 01:07:13 by James Clear where if you want to create a writing habit, the way to do that is to
1092. 01:07:22 assume the identity.
1093. 01:07:23 So I'm not quite sure how to reconcile that in my head yet, but I do think that in terms
1094. 01:07:31 of measuring what you were able to get done, it's easy to think like a fraud if you do
1095. 01:07:36 associate with that identity.
1096. 01:07:37 I am a writer.
1097. 01:07:38 I am a YouTuber.
1098. 01:07:39 Well, one's the last time you created a YouTube video, right?
1099. 01:07:43 So I guess my current thinking on this is to break it down into the component parts and
1100. 01:07:51 writing is really at the basis of everything creative that I do.
1101. 01:07:54 So that's the thing I want to start tracking consistently.
1102. 01:07:58 I'm not going to hit it every day, but did I do my best to create something?
1103. 01:08:02 Going back to the daily question stuff and then try to hit that more often than I can,
1104. 01:08:09 but also recognizing that if I don't get to it.
1105. 01:08:13 It's okay because that's not the totality of who I am.
1106. 01:08:17 I feel like there's a lot here, of course, but when it comes to the expectations piece,
1107. 01:08:25 the ones that I think are the most difficult are the ones I'm not aware that I've set.
1108. 01:08:31 If I have expectations for I'm a writer, well, then you immediately have expectations for
1109. 01:08:38 number of blog posts, you're going to write maybe number of books in a few years, you're
1110. 01:08:42 going to write the newsletter release cycle.
1111. 01:08:46 You're going to have immediate expectations for that.
1112. 01:08:50 I feel like that's an explicit known, you're going to have those expectations.
1113. 01:08:56 The ones I think that get to be complicated or when you don't really realize that you
1114. 01:09:02 have them.
1115. 01:09:05 I say that knowing that I do this a lot unknowingly, this has revealed some of that
1116. 01:09:12 and we've talked about this consistency piece and not following through on things long term,
1117. 01:09:19 but the part behind that is that I can't say that I knew that I had the expectation of
1118. 01:09:25 having that perfect streak and when it fails, then it all comes crumbling down.
1119. 01:09:31 I don't think I even realized that I had that expectation and didn't really have the
1120. 01:09:35 words to tell you that that's what was going on.
1121. 01:09:37 I just felt like something was wrong and I'm just not going to do it.
1122. 01:09:42 Everything's not right, so I'm just going to take a break and not come back to it because
1123. 01:09:46 it doesn't seem to feel right when I'm there.
1124. 01:09:49 So that expectation is set, not met, and then leaves me feeling, I don't want to say depressed
1125. 01:09:58 but down as a result of it or I'm not good enough in that arena, so I might as well not
1126. 01:10:03 work there when that's not the point at all.
1127. 01:10:06 That's not the case.
1128. 01:10:07 Well, one of the things that can be an indicator, I think, as to whether your expectations
1129. 01:10:13 are off is this feeling and also this phrase that we typically use when people ask us,
1130. 01:10:20 "How are you doing?"
1131. 01:10:21 Or, "What's going on?"
1132. 01:10:22 It's like, "I'm so busy."
1133. 01:10:25 She mentions in this chapter that phrase, "I'm so busy."
1134. 01:10:28 That means essentially, "I have a lot that I should be doing."
1135. 01:10:33 And when you frame it that way, I kind of resent it.
1136. 01:10:37 If I were to say, "I have a lot I should be doing," my immediate next thought is, "Well,
1137. 01:10:43 who decided I should be doing these things?"
1138. 01:10:45 Probably not me, those jerks.
1139. 01:10:50 So immediately, I'm looking for things to chop and this gets into the next point on the
1140. 01:10:58 outline in the next chapter in the book.
1141. 01:10:59 Chapter 10 is the trap of busyness.
1142. 01:11:02 So busyness is, I would argue, the default for a lot of people, but it also saps our ability
1143. 01:11:13 to be creative.
1144. 01:11:16 So we are either busy or the flip side of this for a lot of people is you feel like
1145. 01:11:21 you're not doing enough because everybody else is busy.
1146. 01:11:24 So what's wrong with me if I'm not busy?
1147. 01:11:27 Am I not important?
1148. 01:11:29 And one of the things she mentions is that we all have an area of our life which is our
1149. 01:11:34 busyness of choice.
1150. 01:11:36 So I think this is important to consider.
1151. 01:11:39 I don't have an action I'm associated with this.
1152. 01:11:40 I do have lots of action items because I kind of know what are the areas that I tend to
1153. 01:11:47 get busy.
1154. 01:11:49 So figure that out and then the fact that you need rest is not a moral failure.
1155. 01:11:57 So that's on the other side of this.
1156. 01:11:58 If you're not busy, you're getting the rest that you need.
1157. 01:12:02 You don't feel that stress and that anxiety all the time, but you don't have to feel bad
1158. 01:12:06 about that.
1159. 01:12:08 She mentions that productivity often has less to do with the number of hours we squeeze
1160. 01:12:12 out of the working day and more to do with our energy focus and attention.
1161. 01:12:16 So it's really about managing those things.
1162. 01:12:19 It's not about even being max output for eight hours a day, a typical working day.
1163. 01:12:27 And there's different areas that we need to rest as well.
1164. 01:12:31 So the seven areas she mentioned, physical, mental, sensory, creative, emotional, social,
1165. 01:12:36 spiritual.
1166. 01:12:37 I really like these because it forces you to think about, you know, maybe I am getting
1167. 01:12:41 rest in one area, but I'm not allowing myself to rest in another area.
1168. 01:12:47 I realized when I was trying to hit all those deadlines with all the creative stuff, I
1169. 01:12:53 wasn't getting enough creative rest.
1170. 01:12:56 And so just going at my own pace and being okay with that.
1171. 01:12:59 The other thing she talked about in here, which I think is a whole big discussion that
1172. 01:13:04 we've probably talked about a little bit before, is that the pandemic forced us to take a break.
1173. 01:13:10 It forced us to have rest in specific areas, not all areas, but it disrupted our whole
1174. 01:13:18 idea of what is normal.
1175. 01:13:21 It was a big reset for a lot of people, people who felt like they didn't have the ability
1176. 01:13:29 to say no to things, all of a sudden those things were automatically said no to.
1177. 01:13:34 And the opportunity was to be selective about which things you put back into your calendar.
1178. 01:13:44 And I think there's still some ability to do that.
1179. 01:13:47 It's not too late basically is my encouragement here, but don't wait for a cultural event
1180. 01:13:56 like that to force you to take a break.
1181. 01:14:01 Most of the time that is not going to happen.
1182. 01:14:04 And if you want to have this margin in your life, you have to create it yourself.
1183. 01:14:09 Just had a long conversation with my wife Becky here two days ago about, you know, what
1184. 01:14:16 does this week look like for you at work?
1185. 01:14:18 It's just a busy week.
1186. 01:14:20 It's an easy week.
1187. 01:14:22 There's a normal week or it's a busy week.
1188. 01:14:23 Well, I got the outdoor service, so of course it's a busy one.
1189. 01:14:27 She's like, well, what do you have going on?
1190. 01:14:30 I started rattling off the stuff she understands about all the things that I've got to do that
1191. 01:14:36 are involved eventually.
1192. 01:14:37 Oh, so it's actually a busy week.
1193. 01:14:40 And then that spurred the conversation of, well, I tend to refer to pretty much every
1194. 01:14:44 week as a busy week because I have so many things going on at work that I need to reset
1195. 01:14:51 what is normal because a full week I tend to refer to as busy because it feels like there's
1196. 01:14:58 so much going on.
1197. 01:14:59 But I'm still comparing it to the workload I had about a year and a half ago, which I
1198. 01:15:04 haven't really seen in a long time.
1199. 01:15:06 And I still think of that as normal, but we're way above that as far as how much I'm
1200. 01:15:11 trying to get done in a week and how much stuff has to be done in a week for the ministries
1201. 01:15:17 here to continue going on.
1202. 01:15:19 So I think I'm definitely one of the people who says I'm busy all the time.
1203. 01:15:29 And it's basically I've got more things on my plate than I can get done.
1204. 01:15:32 That's the badge of honor I'm theoretically holding up.
1205. 01:15:37 And it's not true.
1206. 01:15:40 And it's something that since that conversation, I've been actively working this week to figure
1207. 01:15:45 out what is a normal accepted amount of work that we can be doing as a tech department
1208. 01:15:50 here in a week and how do we either automate, scale up, get help to accommodate the stuff
1209. 01:15:57 outside that limit so that we're not constantly saying, hey, we're busy.
1210. 01:16:02 No, I can't do that too busy.
1211. 01:16:04 Busy, busy, busy.
1212. 01:16:05 Stop saying busy.
1213. 01:16:06 It's getting to be obnoxious.
1214. 01:16:09 So I need to scale that back.
1215. 01:16:12 You mentioned hitting the limit.
1216. 01:16:13 That is the other point here.
1217. 01:16:15 The limitations when you recognize your limitations and recognize that you can't squeeze everything
1218. 01:16:20 in.
1219. 01:16:21 That makes this easier.
1220. 01:16:23 However, in the chapter where this comes from chapter 11, the denial of limitations,
1221. 01:16:28 she mentions that prioritizing systems can further perpetuate our urge to self blame.
1222. 01:16:33 I'm a systems thinker.
1223. 01:16:34 So yeah, I, this was uncomfortable when I read it, but she's absolutely right.
1224. 01:16:39 One of my favorite things from the entire book comes from this chapter.
1225. 01:16:44 And that is the phrase when someone asks you to do something, I must decline for secret
1226. 01:16:49 reasons.
1227. 01:16:50 I think I'm going to start using that.
1228. 01:16:56 I'd like to start using that.
1229. 01:16:57 I have trouble thinking of a situation where someone wouldn't push back on that, but maybe
1230. 01:17:03 they won't, but that'd be kind of cool if that starts saying I must decline for secret
1231. 01:17:08 reasons and just leave it at that.
1232. 01:17:10 Yeah.
1233. 01:17:11 Too busy.
1234. 01:17:12 Must decline.
1235. 01:17:13 I'm not going to tell you why.
1236. 01:17:17 It's been a while back, but I remember, I don't remember the specific book, but it maybe
1237. 01:17:21 was boundaries.
1238. 01:17:24 But it, it talked about how when you need to get out of something or you're in a situation
1239. 01:17:31 where you need to set a limit, it's okay to set the limit, but not explain it.
1240. 01:17:37 Yeah.
1241. 01:17:38 I would just say no.
1242. 01:17:39 So this is like giving a reason, but it's saying, I'm not going to tell you the reason.
1243. 01:17:43 Right.
1244. 01:17:44 What was the study?
1245. 01:17:45 They did a study on that.
1246. 01:17:46 Like, and it was something simple, like using a copier where if you gave a reason, any reason
1247. 01:17:52 people would go along with it more, more often, even if to the point, like, can I cut ahead
1248. 01:17:58 of you in line because I need to make copies?
1249. 01:18:01 And people were more inclined to say, yes, if you said because I need to, well, it's
1250. 01:18:05 a copier.
1251. 01:18:06 Of course, that's what you're going.
1252. 01:18:07 Like it's very point blank.
1253. 01:18:09 And yet that is what makes people feel more comfortable.
1254. 01:18:12 So I'm sure that saying I need to decline for secret reasons probably does help and does
1255. 01:18:18 work.
1256. 01:18:19 That's my expectation, Mike.
1257. 01:18:21 Yeah, that's cool.
1258. 01:18:23 The next chapter is the harsh rules of discipline.
1259. 01:18:27 And just a couple of things I wanted to talk about here real quick.
1260. 01:18:31 There's a quote from Oscar Wilde, which I loved.
1261. 01:18:33 Without order, nothing can exist without chaos.
1262. 01:18:35 Nothing can evolve.
1263. 01:18:36 So there is going to be chaos.
1264. 01:18:39 And that's why discipline is important.
1265. 01:18:42 There's this idea of delightful discipline, which is based on the security for knowledge,
1266. 01:18:47 commitment to the practice without the rigid obedience to, I just have to do this thing,
1267. 01:18:52 which kind of changes it from a negative thing where I have to do it to something fun where
1268. 01:18:56 I get to do it.
1269. 01:18:58 And she talks about eat that frog, not always being the right approach.
1270. 01:19:01 That reminded me of the atomic essay by Jesse J. Anderson, host of the ADHD nerds podcast.
1271. 01:19:10 So I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
1272. 01:19:13 But his essay, which is where I first became aware of him, was eat the ice cream, not the
1273. 01:19:19 frog.
1274. 01:19:20 She has a different thing that you're supposed to eat.
1275. 01:19:23 I forget what it was.
1276. 01:19:25 Some sort of cottage cheese or something.
1277. 01:19:28 And I was like, no, it's disgusting.
1278. 01:19:30 But point taken.
1279. 01:19:32 Yeah.
1280. 01:19:33 I don't know what it was.
1281. 01:19:34 I was trying to find it, but I can't place what it was.
1282. 01:19:37 It was not a frog.
1283. 01:19:38 It was not ice cream.
1284. 01:19:39 I don't know what it was.
1285. 01:19:41 Yeah.
1286. 01:19:42 It's really insignificant.
1287. 01:19:44 It doesn't really matter, but I thought it was a strange choice for what she used there.
1288. 01:19:51 But anyways, and then the last thing from this whole section that I wanted to call out
1289. 01:19:55 was the push and pull of distraction.
1290. 01:19:57 This isn't even an original idea, but she mentioned something from Sherry Turkle.
1291. 01:20:02 I don't recall this from the book that we read by Sherry Turkle, but she mentions it
1292. 01:20:06 from the TED Talk.
1293. 01:20:08 There are three fantasies that are promised by devices, specifically like smartphones.
1294. 01:20:18 Number one, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be.
1295. 01:20:22 Number two, that we will always be heard.
1296. 01:20:23 And number three, that we will never be alone.
1297. 01:20:26 And when you combine those three together, it's pretty easy to see why we keep going back
1298. 01:20:33 to that well, and we keep being disappointed.
1299. 01:20:36 Because we always want to be with someone else.
1300. 01:20:38 Like we've talked about this before, too.
1301. 01:20:41 The need for interpersonal connection, like friendships, relationships with other people.
1302. 01:20:48 That's a foundational crux of the human experience, right?
1303. 01:20:52 And it's what helps us thrive in some way or another.
1304. 01:20:56 Right how many times we say that the world would be a better place where it's not for
1305. 01:20:59 people?
1306. 01:21:00 That's definitely a sentiment I hold once in a while, but it is absolutely incorrect.
1307. 01:21:08 But it's one that I know that if we're able to find ways to not be alone and do life with
1308. 01:21:17 other people, I find the most joy-filled way of living and making that a focal point.
1309. 01:21:24 Now I don't think that's the focal point, but a focal point to hold on to.
1310. 01:21:29 So anytime we've got distractions that pull us away from that, whether it's a phone, computer,
1311. 01:21:36 YouTube video, or something else, which could be something in the physical realm, like woodworking,
1312. 01:21:43 like that could be a distraction, too.
1313. 01:21:44 I feel like that's rare, though.
1314. 01:21:46 But that can also be a detriment.
1315. 01:21:50 So as I continue to say, don't do that.
1316. 01:21:54 That's a great spot to go into the last section, I think, because you talked about being with
1317. 01:22:00 people.
1318. 01:22:02 Part three is at the end of the day.
1319. 01:22:03 And there's three chapters here, the generosity of kindness, the depth of curiosity, the moments
1320. 01:22:08 of enjoyment.
1321. 01:22:11 This is the weakest part of the book, in my opinion.
1322. 01:22:14 It doesn't fit with the analogy, the beginning throughout the day, and then at the end.
1323. 01:22:19 I think you could summarize this as be kind, stay curious, and be present.
1324. 01:22:24 Yeah, that's probably the way to do it.
1325. 01:22:29 I struggle.
1326. 01:22:30 I think I know what she was trying to do, but she had at the start of the day, like talking
1327. 01:22:34 maybe routines and such as there at the beginning, because we think of morning routines, like
1328. 01:22:39 that's a thing, right?
1329. 01:22:40 And then stumbles in the day, like, let's talk about all these things that we do throughout
1330. 01:22:45 our workday and our creative endeavors and such.
1331. 01:22:48 Let's talk about those.
1332. 01:22:50 And then at the end of the day, I feel like you should be talking about, like, reflection
1333. 01:22:54 or of some kind, like some, like, evening routine type thing, like, to use that whole
1334. 01:23:00 analogy, but then she went metaphorical on it.
1335. 01:23:03 Like, at the end of the day, meaning a wrap-up of everything, and she went that direction
1336. 01:23:09 with it, and it threw me for a loop.
1337. 01:23:10 I was like, "Oh, come on.
1338. 01:23:12 You had this."
1339. 01:23:14 And then you skipped over it.
1340. 01:23:16 But I like your analogy here, like, the be kind, stay curious, be present.
1341. 01:23:22 All of those could be applied in many, many arenas here, but ultimately, it's, you know,
1342. 01:23:27 if you're able to be here in the moment, make the best decision you can, be curious about
1343. 01:23:33 the best way of doing something and be kind to those around you, like using your stuff
1344. 01:23:37 there.
1345. 01:23:38 Like, if you put all that together, you're less likely to have that productivity guilt
1346. 01:23:44 that this whole book has been trying to help us shed.
1347. 01:23:49 So do that.
1348. 01:23:50 Instead of saying, "Don't do that, I'll tell you to do that one."
1349. 01:23:53 I guess the reason I feel it is a week and then is because it is framed as the third
1350. 01:23:59 part of the book, it could probably be consolidated into a single chapter.
1351. 01:24:05 There's good stuff in here.
1352. 01:24:06 Half of my action items come from this section.
1353. 01:24:10 So two of the four.
1354. 01:24:12 And I think the thing that brings this together is sort of like if you were to do an evening
1355. 01:24:16 journaling routine, these are the kinds of things that you would tend to put in there.
1356. 01:24:24 The middle part is so long, though, that this does just by comparison because it comes after
1357. 01:24:31 feel like it's just tacked on.
1358. 01:24:34 It's not nearly as much substance here.
1359. 01:24:37 I don't even know how many pages this last section is.
1360. 01:24:40 But I remember going through the second section and being like, "We're getting close to the
1361. 01:24:43 end of the book.
1362. 01:24:44 Shouldn't that be in part three by now?"
1363. 01:24:47 So I don't think we need to do a deep dive here.
1364. 01:24:51 I will share a couple of my action items from this section because the topics here of kindness,
1365. 01:24:58 this is important.
1366. 01:24:59 She actually mentioned something here that I've said a couple times, I think, even in
1367. 01:25:04 this podcast that I did not pick up from her initially, but we tend to judge others by
1368. 01:25:08 their actions ourselves, by our intentions.
1369. 01:25:10 But she's saying, "What if you flipped that around?
1370. 01:25:13 What if you gave other people the benefit of the doubt?
1371. 01:25:17 And can you bring energy to others rather than draining it as something she asked on
1372. 01:25:22 page 264 that reminded me of the action item I had at one point where I rated all of the
1373. 01:25:28 relationships of my life from plus, plus, plus to minus, minus in terms of when I talked
1374. 01:25:33 to this person, typically, are they going to add life to me or take it from me?"
1375. 01:25:37 So this is a different way of framing it, but the same basic idea.
1376. 01:25:41 I think that's pretty cool.
1377. 01:25:44 And the big takeaway is that a small gesture of kindness can change a bad day into a good
1378. 01:25:47 one, so why would you not try to make that positive change in people's lives?
1379. 01:25:52 The idea of curiosity, I feel like this is really just a life perspective that we need
1380. 01:25:58 to have.
1381. 01:25:59 When you're curious about things, you're less attached to checking things off of the list.
1382. 01:26:05 Curiosity is key to creativity is something that she mentions and encourages us to find
1383. 01:26:10 the extraordinary and the ordinary.
1384. 01:26:12 So one of my action items here is to make a list of the good, small, ordinary things
1385. 01:26:17 that I tend to take for granted in my day-to-day.
1386. 01:26:21 And then the last chapter, the moments of enjoyment, this is where the being present
1387. 01:26:27 idea that you talked about earlier kind of comes in.
1388. 01:26:31 You're never going to get to the point where your days are without dramas, but be present
1389. 01:26:34 in the day and ask yourself basically what can I get out of today and enjoy the experience.
1390. 01:26:40 And all of that is followed up by a poem, which is different than the one at the beginning.
1391. 01:26:45 Are you ready for this?
1392. 01:26:47 Can I read this one now?
1393. 01:26:49 Go for it.
1394. 01:26:50 So the beginning one I read earlier, the one at the very end has a little bit of a different
1395. 01:26:57 take to it.
1396. 01:26:58 So here you go.
1397. 01:26:59 I didn't do the thing today.
1398. 01:27:01 I didn't lament how the hours unfolded.
1399. 01:27:03 I didn't worry about wasted time.
1400. 01:27:05 I didn't allow my expectations to spoil what I have.
1401. 01:27:08 I didn't compare myself to others.
1402. 01:27:10 I didn't dwell in the undone.
1403. 01:27:12 I didn't strive.
1404. 01:27:13 I didn't try to be perfect.
1405. 01:27:14 And it mattered because in all that I didn't do, I found my own measure of a day.
1406. 01:27:20 Yeah, it's a really cool way to end it.
1407. 01:27:24 I feel like there should be more books that start and end with poems.
1408. 01:27:28 I kind of liked that.
1409. 01:27:29 It's fun.
1410. 01:27:30 Sure.
1411. 01:27:31 Kind of unique.
1412. 01:27:32 Creative thing that she did there.
1413. 01:27:34 Very nice.
1414. 01:27:36 All right, action items.
1415. 01:27:38 Hit me.
1416. 01:27:39 We got...
1417. 01:27:41 I have four of them.
1418. 01:27:44 So the first one is from the second section.
1419. 01:27:50 Let's see what chapter was this.
1420. 01:27:52 It was to make a list of the things that settled me.
1421. 01:27:55 Oh, this was the idea from chapter three with the routines.
1422. 01:27:59 She doesn't just flat out say routines are bad by the way.
1423. 01:28:01 She says a routine can be the thing that gets us stuck in a rut but it can also be the thing
1424. 01:28:04 that gets us out of one.
1425. 01:28:06 So I want to make a list of the things that settled me.
1426. 01:28:09 The second one is to make a list of the people that I compare myself to.
1427. 01:28:16 The third one is to make a list of the good small ordinary things that I mentioned.
1428. 01:28:21 And then the fourth one comes from the generosity of kindness.
1429. 01:28:25 I want to find a way to do some unprompted kind thing every day.
1430. 01:28:31 And I'm purposely leaving that ambiguous because the easy one is just sending an encouraging
1431. 01:28:40 text message to somebody.
1432. 01:28:42 But I want to go beyond that and find some additional ways.
1433. 01:28:48 Get creative with my kindness, if you will.
1434. 01:28:51 What about you?
1435. 01:28:52 I have two.
1436. 01:28:54 One kind of plays off of what you were just talking about.
1437. 01:28:56 I termed it a little bit different than you.
1438. 01:28:59 And I wrote down one generous act a day.
1439. 01:29:02 And that sounds simplistic but I wrote underneath of that that can be defined by giving more
1440. 01:29:09 than was originally expected.
1441. 01:29:14 And that can manifest itself in a lot of different ways.
1442. 01:29:17 I know like a lot of times when somebody brings a computer or a tech support thing,
1443. 01:29:22 I fix the problem and that's as far as it goes.
1444. 01:29:25 But if I were to take one extra step and then take a little bit more time and maybe make
1445. 01:29:30 it easier for them to do things on their own without just solving that immediate problem,
1446. 01:29:35 sometimes they can go better.
1447. 01:29:37 I would classify that as being generous in that case because I don't normally do that.
1448. 01:29:41 So that's one that I have.
1449. 01:29:44 The other one is, and I think I've talked about this, I don't think I said that I have
1450. 01:29:48 this as an action item.
1451. 01:29:49 But I want to put together this portable routine idea.
1452. 01:29:51 I know routines can have a bit of a downfall given how she terms it anyway.
1453. 01:29:59 But if I were to put together a list of these things that I want to accomplish in a day,
1454. 01:30:05 attempt to adjust my expectations on what success means for that and shoot for those
1455. 01:30:12 things and having that list of things that I'm going to work towards accomplishing each
1456. 01:30:16 day, like to try to build some of that consistency.
1457. 01:30:19 I feel like that would be a much more productive way for me to come at it.
1458. 01:30:25 So I guess I'm aware I'm using that productivity type word there.
1459. 01:30:29 But I want to try something along these lines, namely putting together lists of things that
1460. 01:30:35 I need to try to work towards every day.
1461. 01:30:38 But being generous with myself and being okay with it if it's not done.
1462. 01:30:41 Trying, like, going to try.
1463. 01:30:44 All right.
1464. 01:30:46 So that brings us to style and rating, my book.
1465. 01:30:50 So I go first.
1466. 01:30:52 I think this is a very interesting style.
1467. 01:30:58 And it's a very interesting take on the topic of productivity.
1468. 01:31:02 Now I would argue creativity, although it's positioned specifically to deal with this
1469. 01:31:10 topic of productivity guilt, where we beat ourselves up for not living up to this ideal
1470. 01:31:15 standard that we have no sense measuring ourselves by.
1471. 01:31:20 I feel that is a very important message.
1472. 01:31:25 And this is kind of the first book that I've seen really talk to this.
1473. 01:31:29 I know Oliver Berkman in 4000 weeks, some of the stuff that he's written and created
1474. 01:31:36 lately.
1475. 01:31:38 He's leaning more this direction as well.
1476. 01:31:41 But this is a very different tone than that book.
1477. 01:31:48 I like this book a lot.
1478. 01:31:50 I definitely think people should read this one.
1479. 01:31:53 I think if you're reading anything in the productivity or self-help space, you're going
1480. 01:31:57 to naturally create this standard in your head.
1481. 01:32:02 It's not even somebody's fault if they write about it a certain way.
1482. 01:32:08 This is just what your brain is going to do.
1483. 01:32:11 And so addressing the elephant in the room per se is really important.
1484. 01:32:17 I feel like there's a lot of great stuff in here.
1485. 01:32:20 She cites a lot of other resources, a lot of other things that we have read.
1486. 01:32:25 Talks about flow, talks about mindset, talks about 4000 weeks, all sorts of stuff.
1487. 01:32:30 But there were also a bunch of additional data points and things that I jotted down that
1488. 01:32:35 I'd never heard of that one before.
1489. 01:32:37 So there's a good mix here of familiar stuff plus new stuff, which to me communicates that
1490. 01:32:43 she really knows her stuff.
1491. 01:32:46 It's not a systems book for sure.
1492. 01:32:50 If you're looking for something that's going to give you a prescriptive approach to overcoming
1493. 01:32:54 the productivity guilt, this is not it.
1494. 01:32:56 But it is going to shine a light on a lot of the contributing factors towards that.
1495. 01:33:00 You do have to figure out for yourself what are the things that you can do that are going
1496. 01:33:04 to help alleviate this, which I actually appreciate the fact that she's putting the onus on you
1497. 01:33:09 and you got to take responsibility for changing your own situation.
1498. 01:33:14 So I'm going to rate this.
1499. 01:33:18 Let's go 4.5.
1500. 01:33:20 I do think it's really good.
1501. 01:33:21 I don't know that there is anything life changing in here.
1502. 01:33:26 I think that is probably OK.
1503. 01:33:29 Just the topic itself is not something that, oh my gosh, this is the key to unlocking the
1504. 01:33:39 next level for me.
1505. 01:33:40 But again, that's like drifting into the territory that she's trying to push back against.
1506. 01:33:46 I think my personality, I tend to lean towards that stuff anyways, which is why I'm trying
1507. 01:33:53 to struggle between 4.0 and 4.5, I'm saying that I recognize my own bias and for the average
1508. 01:34:01 person, this is probably more helpful even than what I got out of it.
1509. 01:34:06 That being said, I did get a lot out of it.
1510. 01:34:07 I got four action items out of it and enjoyed every minute that I was reading this one.
1511. 01:34:13 OK.
1512. 01:34:14 I want to speak a little bit to the three part, three-partedness of this one because that
1513. 01:34:22 first section is really short.
1514. 01:34:25 The middle section is really long.
1515. 01:34:27 The last section is 28 pages out of 280, 207, 260.
1516. 01:34:34 I forget the number.
1517. 01:34:37 That tells me that it really needs a somewhat longer introduction, the body of the book,
1518. 01:34:41 and it just needs a conclusion at the end.
1519. 01:34:43 Don't call it three parts.
1520. 01:34:45 I get the editors and production companies kind of want three-part books.
1521. 01:34:50 I don't really understand it other than it's easier to remember and easy to format that,
1522. 01:34:54 but don't force it.
1523. 01:34:57 That's unnecessary.
1524. 01:34:58 I really think it needs just the standard intro body conclusion.
1525. 01:35:02 Call it that and make it a simple one chapter thing, not a two or three chapter thing.
1526. 01:35:07 Just don't make it weird.
1527. 01:35:09 Anyway, that aside, this is a fascinating book to me in that it's really telling you
1528. 01:35:16 not to...it's more around the mindset of productivity.
1529. 01:35:21 It's not necessarily how to get things done or how to think about it a different way.
1530. 01:35:25 It's more like, what is your mindset towards yourself when it comes to accomplishing tasks?
1531. 01:35:31 I don't know of another book like that, like you said, and I specifically don't know of
1532. 01:35:36 any books that really even attempt to touch that one.
1533. 01:35:40 I think it's definitely a topic that's broached occasionally inside of some of these other
1534. 01:35:45 self-help business books that we read.
1535. 01:35:49 I can't say that I know of anything that that's the focal point.
1536. 01:35:53 That's really the focal point here.
1537. 01:35:56 I'm grateful for that.
1538. 01:35:58 I know that I put a lot of guilt and shame on myself with what I don't get done and wish
1539. 01:36:04 I could get done.
1540. 01:36:06 This is definitely a solid book for helping me reframe that and maybe put together not
1541. 01:36:12 necessarily a structure but giving us the freedom to make those decisions and put better
1542. 01:36:21 expectations on ourselves.
1543. 01:36:24 That said, I think you nailed it with a 4.5.
1544. 01:36:27 I think it's worth a higher rating than a 4.0, but I don't see it as 5.0, so 4.5 here
1545. 01:36:35 we are.
1546. 01:36:36 I think you should read this.
1547. 01:36:38 Anybody who has touched the world of productivity and understands task management or anything
1548. 01:36:43 in that realm, this is definitely for you.
1549. 01:36:47 I say that knowing that I've worked with a lot of people, the concept of task management
1550. 01:36:52 is like, "What?
1551. 01:36:54 What is that?"
1552. 01:36:55 I've got coworkers who think that.
1553. 01:36:59 If I gave this to them, it might not make any sense.
1554. 01:37:02 I don't know how it would fit in that realm, but I do think this is something that I would
1555. 01:37:09 recommend to many, many people.
1556. 01:37:12 Please pick it up.
1557. 01:37:13 Bookworm listeners, especially.
1558. 01:37:18 Let's put, I didn't do the thing today on the shelf.
1559. 01:37:21 What's next, Joe?
1560. 01:37:23 Up next, we are going to take on the second installment by Shane Parrish in the Farnham
1561. 01:37:31 Street team with the great mental models.
1562. 01:37:35 Volume 2, this is touching on physics, chemistry, and biology.
1563. 01:37:40 I think this will be fascinating to see the correlations that come out of those that can
1564. 01:37:46 apply to the way you think.
1565. 01:37:49 This will be fun.
1566. 01:37:50 It'll be good.
1567. 01:37:51 I'm excited to get back into mental model stuff.
1568. 01:37:52 I feel like we've been away from it for too long.
1569. 01:37:55 I'm always game to talk about mental models, so I'm glad you picked this one.
1570. 01:37:59 All right.
1571. 01:38:00 What's after that, Mike?
1572. 01:38:03 After that is Where Good Ideas Come From by Stephen Johnson.
1573. 01:38:11 Have you heard of this book before?
1574. 01:38:13 I have.
1575. 01:38:14 Okay.
1576. 01:38:15 That's as much as I can tell you about it.
1577. 01:38:17 I have heard the title.
1578. 01:38:19 I don't know where I've heard of it, but I have heard of that title before.
1579. 01:38:23 All right.
1580. 01:38:24 All right.
1581. 01:38:25 Well, Stephen Johnson is one of those authors who a lot of the things that he has written
1582. 01:38:30 have been coming onto my radar recently.
1583. 01:38:35 Looking at all of the books that he has written, this is the one with the title that most jumped
1584. 01:38:42 out to me.
1585. 01:38:43 This is also the first book of his that was recommended to me.
1586. 01:38:48 There is a more recent one that just came out called Emergence, which looks interesting,
1587. 01:38:52 too.
1588. 01:38:53 I feel like Where Good Ideas Come From is the perfect follow up to the mental models.
1589. 01:38:58 Yeah.
1590. 01:38:59 And this one where we talked a lot about creativity.
1591. 01:39:01 Do you?
1592. 01:39:02 Yeah.
1593. 01:39:03 I don't have any get books.
1594. 01:39:04 I don't.
1595. 01:39:05 Yeah, that was my crazy in the last week.
1596. 01:39:06 That was my question.
1597. 01:39:07 Do you have any get books?
1598. 01:39:08 No, I do not either.
1599. 01:39:13 I have a whole bunch of books I want to read as get books.
1600. 01:39:16 Yeah.
1601. 01:39:17 However, I'm not confident.
1602. 01:39:21 I'm going to have time to get through this.
1603. 01:39:23 So I'm going to commit to one on air.
1604. 01:39:28 Okay.
1605. 01:39:29 Sounds good.
1606. 01:39:30 All right.
1607. 01:39:31 Well, thanks everybody for listening.
1608. 01:39:33 Thanks specifically to the Bookworm Club Premium members who chip in a couple of bucks
1609. 01:39:39 every month to help us keep the lights on.
1610. 01:39:41 That really helps us a lot.
1611. 01:39:44 If you want to become a Bookworm Club Premium member, you can go to bookworm.fm/membership,
1612. 01:39:48 five bucks a month, 50 bucks a year, what you get for that in addition to our undying
1613. 01:39:52 gratitude is the MindNote files that I create.
1614. 01:39:56 I export those as PDF files and then also as MindNote files themselves.
1615. 01:40:01 So people can take my mind maps and create their own versions of them.
1616. 01:40:07 There's also a couple of gap book episodes that Joe created back in the day.
1617. 01:40:11 There's a 4K Bookworm wallpaper.
1618. 01:40:14 But the big thing is that you are helping us to keep the show running.
1619. 01:40:18 So thank you very much to everybody who does that.
1620. 01:40:21 And if you haven't forgotten, there are Bookworm phone cases now.
1621. 01:40:27 That's right.
1622. 01:40:28 Link in the show notes.
1623. 01:40:29 You can go do that.
1624. 01:40:30 Anyway, if you're somebody who's amazing and you read along with us, pick up the great
1625. 01:40:32 mental models.
1626. 01:40:33 Volume two, we'll cover that one with you in a couple of weeks.