Bookworm Transcripts

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All right, I have a surprise for you, Joe Buellig.

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Oh, fun.

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I love surprises.

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You're going to find out about this, the exact moment everybody else does in the chat.

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There you go.

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Click that link.

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Let me know what you see.

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Oh, this is a problem.

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Why do you do these things to me?

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Okay.

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What, just tell the world what you see.

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So Mike made an iPhone phone case for your iPhone that has none other than the Bookworm

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logo on the back of it.

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Yes.

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So this isn't just iPhones, by the way.

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Cotton Bureau can allow you to take one of your current designs and turn it into an iPhone

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case.

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It's like a new product that they've launched.

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And so I got the email about it.

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I was curious about it.

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Went through the process and had to change a few things, but basically it didn't take

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a whole lot of time.

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And there are cases for the iPhone 13 line, the iPhone 12 line.

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I'm assuming the iPhone 14 line will be coming shortly.

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And then the Galaxy S22, those are the ones that I see at the top of my screen.

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And there are even different case types.

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So there's a tough mag safe, a tough matte, mag safe, tough, tough matte, slim, slim matte.

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And then I don't think we have a clear option and then you could choose a couple different

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colors.

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So I picked a couple that look good.

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And yeah, if you want to show your support for the Internet's largest and best book club.

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You didn't put the asterisks on it this time.

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I didn't because I feel we would be if Ali Abdall had gotten the right link at the beginning.

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It's true.

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It's true.

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So it's pretty slick.

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Yeah, I don't have one of these yet.

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They don't support the iPhone 11, which I currently have.

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When I get a new phone probably shortly, I will probably get one of these cases for it.

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I don't know if it's going to be my everyday one because I have no idea what these are

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actually like.

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I've never bought a cotton bureau phone case before, but they look pretty decent.

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And they're not that expensive.

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The mag safe version, I've just opened up the page.

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I'm not sure what price it says there.

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It might be taking out the discount because I'm the creator or whatever, but $28.

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For which one?

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Because I'm not logged in or anything here.

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Okay.

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Well, yeah, just what's the default price on that first one that you see?

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So the tough mag safe for this is iPhone 13 Pro.

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Okay.

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That's $40.

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The tough matte mag safe is 40.

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Tough and tough matter, both 37.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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So there must be like a creator discount built in there, but the bottom line is like 40

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bucks is for if there really is a tough mag safe case, which it sounds like it is.

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Yeah.

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Rich color polycarbonate shell with TPU liner.

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I don't know what a TPU liner is, but sounds impressive and it has magnets in it.

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So pretty cool.

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There you go.

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So here's a fun fact.

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Did you know that I run a naked iPhone?

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I did see that when we visited you not too long ago.

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I, so I have the 13 Pro.

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I upgraded last year.

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And at one point, I talked about putting like a screen protector on it or putting a case

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on it of some sort.

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And I forgot and I never did it.

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And I've still not done anything about it.

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And I still have no scratches, no dings, nothing.

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Like I'm pretty sure this.

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Also, I was like needing a clean.

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It's not too far off of just what it looked like when it came out of the box.

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Sure.

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That's how I roll.

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I don't know how given how much construction and stuff that I do.

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I don't know how that works.

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Yeah, I was going to say.

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Well you are a fortunate soul, Joe Bielig, to have preserved the mint state of your iPhone.

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Everyone else who's a mere mortal like me buy a case for it, whether it's a bookworm

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case or not.

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Oh, I don't know that I would say yes.

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I think I'm just lucky.

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I think that's all it comes down to.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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I'll save you some heartache.

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Get a case for your phone.

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Okay.

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The larger point we glossed over though was that I noticed that you didn't have a case

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when we visited you.

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So we got to hang out in person.

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We got to record a podcast in person.

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But it wasn't bookworm.

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It was not.

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So we recorded an episode of the intentional family titled Meet the Bulegs.

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So Joe and his wife Becky were a guest on the intentional family podcast.

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I ran all the tech stuff.

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Rachel did the interview but it published earlier this week as we record.

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So if you want to go listen to it, you can and you should because there's some great

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stuff in there about how the Bulegs are intentional in shaping and creating the type of family

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that they want to have.

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And I've told you this already but there were several things that you did and said while

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we were with you that have got the wheels turning for my wife and I.

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I will say like for those who listen to bookworm, it's kind of a fun sneak peek behind the

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scenes I guess of what you hear on bookworm I guess because obviously my wife Becky was

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involved with that.

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She's actually the main speaker in that I would say.

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So you get her perspective which is unique but at the same time it's definitely a different

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style and it's definitely a different aspect of some of the same things we talk about here

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on bookworm.

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But yeah if you want to see the intentionality that comes into even purchasing a property

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in a house I think we talked about that quite a bit.

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Why did we do that and why do we have it set up the way that we do and why do we eat every

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meal outside and why is this weird and yet fun.

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So it's kind of a cool deal so yeah go check it out.

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Alright so there will be a link in the show notes also link in the chat for people who

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want to check that out but thank you for doing that that was really cool and I know Rachel

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really enjoyed it.

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I was stressed out the whole time because I thought my microphone cable was dying but

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it turned out pretty good.

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I will say I've thrown two XLR cables in my backpack since we had that recording.

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Alright so to follow up did you figure out which mind map app you're going to use?

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Yeah I am kind of torn in the middle of two different ones because what I quickly learned

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like so I've been doing some mind maps that kind of covers my second action item here.

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One was to figure out an app the second was to create a few of these and I did that.

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I did probably half of them on a computer and maybe half of them on pen and paper as you

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would expect right and I found that there are often times when I'm creating a mind map

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that definitely has a short time span.

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Do you do this where like I know that I've got to put together take this Sunday for example

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I got a big outdoor event again and I've got to collect a whole bunch of different aspects

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of that and instead of me doing that on a digital app I did it on pen and paper because

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I know it was short term it didn't have to be a long term thing and once it's done I'm

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just converting it to an outline and holding on to that for next year or the next one and

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that's as far as it goes so I'm not converting that I'm taking a picture of that one and

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putting it into in this case obsidian.

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So like I found that I've got these short term things but then there's also some longer

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term like ongoing maps that's more like article ideas like that sort of thing seems to be

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better suited for digital.

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Do you find that is there a breakdown between those two things?

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Am I just weird?

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So answering from the creator of the mind map Tony Boussaint's perspective I would say

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there is not a difference answering from the Mike Schmitt's practical perspective there

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is absolutely a difference.

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The value of the digital mind maps is that you can touch your nodes and you can move

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them around and you can and the information reorganizes live in front of you and then

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you add things like the focus feature and like the ability to hide everything except

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the certain stuff.

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So you can kind of get different perspectives and different levels in looking at your information.

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If you're just trying to make essentially a checklist of things that you're going to

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reuse I feel like that doesn't really matter that could totally happen on a analog mind

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map but if Blake, geez.

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I know, I know, but if you are trying to develop an idea and you want to explore all aspects

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of something being able to move things around and interact with it does add another layer

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I feel.

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So if you were outlining a course or something like that I would say you're probably not

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choosing an analog to do that but for the use case that you just mentioned makes total

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sense.

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Okay.

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Good to know I'm not completely crazy but I'll keep with it.

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But yes, to answer the first of these two questions like the app that I'm using, Mind

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Node, like here's a surprise.

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I actually put it out on all the social medias like what is everybody using and everybody

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said Mind Node or pen and paper except for one person and they said I thought.

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Okay.

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Well, I think consensus is Mind Node is where you need to be on this.

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No.

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Having said that, of course the first thing I did was very fiddly and I had to go build

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my own theme for it so that's my life.

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The first thing I always do.

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Style it so that it's as dark as I can get it with mono space fonts and the Joe Bueller

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color schemes like that's always step one.

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I mean, I'm not surprised but yeah, you didn't have to do that.

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I know I didn't have to but it's one of those that I have adjusted so many applications

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to use that same scheme that seeing something that's not in that scheme that I'm able to

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put in that scheme, it's distracting if it's not there.

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So it's actually better if I take that time and get it out of the way and then I don't

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have to think about it anymore.

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That's fine but I'm going to go out.

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I'm going to go out on a limb here and say don't do what Joe did just like your iPhone

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unicorn and people shouldn't follow you in your caseless lifestyle.

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They should not look to adjust the theme inside of Mind Node when you open it.

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They do have a bunch of prebuilt themes which look pretty decent if you want it just a dark

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mode theme you can select that but yeah, you can totally go down the rabbit hole and

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build your own and you've got like it sounds like a Joe Buleg style guide for this sort

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of thing.

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So yeah, yeah, it was definitely not something that I needed to like go figure out what colors

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do I want to use.

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Like I didn't have to do any of that because I've got like five to seven different colors

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that I already use for all of these different components so it was not not like I had to

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figure it out.

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It took like 20 minutes and I had the entirety of it figured out mostly because I was trying

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to figure out how to themes work in Mind Node.

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That was the longest part of that.

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Sure.

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It wasn't too bad.

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Cool.

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I had no action items from the last book but I have made several more Mind Maps so I continued

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use Mind Node and I continued to use the default theme after I'm low these many years.

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It's almost lame.

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Well, Mind Node is looking at some of the other apps that are out there you mentioned I thought

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I thought is probably one that I would try to theme as soon as I opened it because it's

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not super great but Mind Node does a pretty good job on their design in my opinion so

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unnecessary for most.

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All right.

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Should we talk about today's book?

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We should.

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All right.

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So today's book is I Didn't Do the Thing Today by Madeline Doar and this was a book that

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I saw was intrigued by and then forgot about and then somebody that I respect was like,

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hey, you should read this book and instantly I was like, yes, I'm going to buy this.

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We're going to do this for Bookworm.

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And it's definitely different than a lot of the other productivity books that we have

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read.

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In fact, you might call this an anti-productivity book but it does talk about a lot of productivity

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concepts.

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It's just redefining it in my opinion.

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We'll get into the specifics of this in a little bit.

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I'm curious before we get any further, what was your first impression of this book, Joe?

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I thought I was going to get justification for not getting things done on time.

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Is that what you got?

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I don't think so.

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Maybe only kind of.

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I was kind of hoping I would come out of this with a whole bunch of excuses for not doing

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things that I could use and really was left with a state of I still need to do things.

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I just need to not be so hard on myself, I guess.

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It's more of a mental view of how I'm perceiving whether or not I'm getting something done.

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It was definitely not a book of excuses like I wanted it to be.

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And how does that make you feel?

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We're going to do this.

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Frustrated.

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That's how it made me feel.

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All right, fair enough.

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It is a three part book, although the majority of the book, when I say majority, the vast

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majority happens in part two.

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The first part is at the start of the day.

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Part two is the stumbles in the day, and then part three is at the end of the day.

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So you can kind of see how this is broken up and it's based off of this poem.

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I didn't do the thing today, which I don't have in front of me.

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I didn't jot down that poem.

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It really didn't add a whole lot of value to me other than to serve as the framework

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for how she was going to organize the information.

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I have it here if you want me to read it.

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Yeah, I go for it.

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Okay, I didn't do the thing today.

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I didn't rise before seven.

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I didn't change.

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I didn't pin lines of stream of consciousness.

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I didn't take my time with a purposeful ritual.

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I didn't diligently complete my tasks.

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I didn't move stridently around the park.

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I didn't write.

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I didn't start.

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I didn't finish.

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I didn't achieve.

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I didn't progress.

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No matter.

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For doing the thing today isn't the measure of a day.

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Yes.

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And then that comes back at the end as well.

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The three parts are basically diving into the different reasons at the different time

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periods of your day of her life.

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You maybe didn't do the thing.

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And then all of the individual chapters kind of talk about a specific reason why you might

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not do the thing.

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And it's not just an enabling book like Joe was hoping for where it's okay, but it talks

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about the root causes and maybe what you can do about it.

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It is not, I would say, prescriptive.

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It is definitely not a systems book.

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And it is not just saying, oh, everything is fine.

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It does inspire you to make change, but it does so.

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The tone is very stop beating yourself up about this so much.

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And just look for something that will help make a positive change.

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I feel like this book is very much in line with the tone of that I would like to take

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in recent history for like what productivity is.

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And I feel like that is different than the beginning of my productivity journey, which

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based off of GTD was simply, how do I get more things done?

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What I've learned over the years is that the reward for getting more things done is you

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get more work to do.

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And so that's where you have to learn to say, no, and you have to focus and you have to

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maintain margin and all the other things that we've talked about and all the other books

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that we've read.

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But if I was going to pick one that was kind of closest to this approach, it would probably

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be one that pops up several times in this book itself.

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And that would be the 4,000 weeks by Oliver Berkman.

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Because that again is like a very anti-prod activity in terms of like the standard message.

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It feels very contrarian, I guess.

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And so this is again, breathing fresh air into this space and hopefully making people

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feel a little less bad about not achieving the perfect ideal that they tend to hold themselves

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up to or is that just me?

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Yeah, I don't hold myself up to any ideals whatsoever.

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None.

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Have no expectations on myself.

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I'm perfectly capable of being comfortable with the amount of work I get done in a day.

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Yep.

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100%.

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I detect a hint of sarcasm in your voice, Joe Bieler.

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Yep.

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Have some things I need to sell you if you believe that.

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So there's that.

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I think you know, there's, you made the comment about the more things you get done, the more

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you are handed.

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And that was definitely true when I worked in corporate because it seemed like the more

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things I could automate, the more things they gave me to automate.

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That's actually kind of my beginning in the scripting world.

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Like I was being given so much work to do that I found that it was easier to write scripts

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to do it for me.

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So despite the fact that my job was to be a data analyst, writing scripts was actually

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the real job just to do that for me because I didn't have the time to do the number of

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reports that they wanted me to do.

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And it just snowballed out of control from there.

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And I eventually left.

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So you see how that turned out, but I think you're absolutely right.

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The more focus we have on accomplishing more, like that, that's a forever growing snowball

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that eventually burns out and smashes into a wall at the bottom of the hill.

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Like it just does not go well.

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Correct.

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I'm curious, since you basically said that this is an issue for you too, what was the

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traditional way that you would try to reconcile this?

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How did you make peace with the fact that you weren't able to do all the things that

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you did?

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In corporate?

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Well, just you can use that as a starting point, but I think that it is more general

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than that, as long as you have capacity and you don't have a filter, you will exceed

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your capacity.

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Yeah.

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Whatever arena that applies to fill in the blank for yourself.

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Yeah, I guess when I would try to reconcile that in previous days, it was more that I

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didn't.

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It was more just I'm overwhelmed and burnout and just living in that state.

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That's ultimately what I landed on.

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And everybody else was in that same state, so it didn't really matter.

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There was no real excuse.

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I know I've had a period maybe a year or so ago when I felt like I had a pretty good balance

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between the amount of stuff I had going on and the amount of work I was able to get

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done, always thinking I could do more, but not actually getting it done.

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So it kind of worked out, but I would say that in the last probably six to nine months,

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that's been slowly changing.

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The workload that's being put on me has grown significantly.

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I don't really have any control over that other than how I handle that and delegate it

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and automate it and such.

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This is a timely book for me.

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I don't think I could tell you that right now this is how I handle this because I don't

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think I handle it well currently.

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I just feel overwhelmed.

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So I don't think I have a clean, I'm really good at saying no.

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Well, I say no to a lot of things, but not enough.

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So I don't think I have a clean mental state on it.

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Yeah, that's fair.

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And I don't think that is unique.

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I think that is the standard approach is you just keep going until you just can't do it

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anymore and then you burn out for a while.

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Right.

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This is, and I don't think we talked about this when we were talking for the intentional

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family podcast, but some of what I do around what we call Acorn Ridge, our home, it's very

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similar to like it's run offs and derivatives from what I did growing up on the farm.

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And the problem for me in that is that it can, like I can fall into these patterns where

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things need to be done and it doesn't matter how I feel, it has to be done.

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It doesn't matter if that means 4 a.m.

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It doesn't matter if that means midnight.

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It doesn't matter how I feel and what my health is, it doesn't matter.

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Like that's, that's some of the mentality.

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Now that doesn't hold true 100% of the time in farm life, but the times that I remember

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that had the biggest impression on me, that's the part that comes out.

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So my tendency is to run nonstop 100 miles an hour until it's done.

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And I know that's not healthy long term.

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Doubt with the consequences of that a few times, but I know that that's something I've

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kind of leaned into here recently.

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So again, I said, this is, this is timely.

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Sure.

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And I recognize that same behavior in myself, which is why I have built into my personal

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retreat framework that I force myself to stop doing one thing every quarter.

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That's kind of my fail safe, my release valve, if you will, because I, if I don't do that,

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I could pretty much guarantee you over the next 90 days I'm going to hit the wall.

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Yeah.

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But this is a more practical book on how to release that pressure a lot of different

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ways.

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And I feel like it took me a really long time and a lot of trial and error to get to the

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point where I created that system.

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And I was like, this actually works for me.

00:23:30

And you don't have to do a personal retreat every 90 days in order to make that work.

00:23:36

Let's get into the meat of this book though.

00:23:39

So the first part is at the start of the day, and there's two chapters here.

00:23:44

Chapter one is the narrowing of productivity.

00:23:46

Chapter two is the expansion of creativity.

00:23:49

I love these two ideas here.

00:23:52

And with productivity in general, I think the focus is on doing.

00:23:59

That's kind of her tone with this whole chapter.

00:24:03

We're obsessed with doing.

00:24:06

I'm not sure that's exactly how I would choose to define productivity, but I don't think

00:24:10

that's a wrong approach either.

00:24:13

I feel like there's a lot of different ways you could define it.

00:24:18

But what was the, I'm trying to find, there's a spot here where she talked about like the

00:24:22

root word behind.

00:24:24

Yeah, here we go.

00:24:25

The root meaning of the word productivity is to lead something forward.

00:24:30

So if you think about that, like, and she kind of explains this, if you think about

00:24:33

that, you're always kind of leaning forward, always trying to move into the next thing.

00:24:38

And there's never, you know, just by that, by that definition, there's not a point at

00:24:43

which you stop and celebrate.

00:24:45

And there's also not a point at which you stop and plan ahead for the next thing because

00:24:50

you're already leaning into it.

00:24:52

If, again, if you're following this definition, I think there's probably four million different

00:24:56

definitions of productivity on the internet right now.

00:24:59

So take your pick.

00:25:01

But given this particular one, like there's, there's not really a point at which you can

00:25:05

ever recover and get your footing if you're always leaning forward into the next thing.

00:25:11

If you use that definition, like this pretty telling is so what we do to ourselves and

00:25:17

it does lend itself to like, okay, well, that means that I need to pause and let myself

00:25:22

regain balance.

00:25:24

But what does that mean?

00:25:25

Is that a mental state?

00:25:27

Is that physically stopping?

00:25:29

You know, there's a whole bunch of different ways that that could manifest itself, which

00:25:33

I think partially is what we talk about throughout the rest of the book.

00:25:36

Yes, agreed.

00:25:42

The big thing with no matter how you define productivity is that the end state is most

00:25:45

likely some version of this is my plan for the day.

00:25:50

And this plan assumes that everything is going to go perfectly.

00:25:55

And it doesn't.

00:25:56

Most of the time it doesn't.

00:25:57

And so really the goal of this book she mentions in this first chapter is that we all need

00:26:03

to figure out how to navigate our own life.

00:26:05

We all stumble, we all make mistakes and we need to remove judgment whenever a day or

00:26:11

even an hour goes off track.

00:26:13

And that is an ability that we can develop and practice.

00:26:17

Yes.

00:26:18

Good job.

00:26:19

All right.

00:26:21

So then the next part of that is creativity.

00:26:25

And this is something that I have been more and more excited about lately.

00:26:30

In fact, I have a YouTube video that I released in the last week.

00:26:37

I'm not sure if you've seen this one.

00:26:38

It's based off of my Max Talk, the 42 quick creativity tips.

00:26:43

I'll grab the link and I'll put that in the show notes.

00:26:46

But basically it's an 18 minute video and I based it off of the presentation I gave where

00:26:50

I created hand-drawn slides for the best creativity tips that I have.

00:26:56

That have helped me the most from all the different books that I've read on the topic.

00:26:59

And several years ago, I used to think productivity was the thing for me.

00:27:04

And more and more lately, I'm realizing that actually creativity is the thing for me.

00:27:08

That's the way the productivity gets displayed.

00:27:11

That's the output of the productivity for me.

00:27:15

And I like the yin and the yang here that she's got with productivity versus creativity.

00:27:21

Because creativity, the approach that you would take towards productivity is not the

00:27:26

same one you can take towards creativity.

00:27:28

Now, I do argue that creativity is a formula and I do believe that.

00:27:33

But you can't approach it the same way.

00:27:35

I'm just going to check off this thing and move down the list.

00:27:39

It doesn't work on command like that, which is actually going to get into the next book

00:27:47

that I've picked here, a little bit of foreshadowing there.

00:27:50

See if you can figure it out by the time we get there.

00:27:52

Because it's not in the outline version that you have.

00:27:56

I think this is interesting.

00:27:58

This whole concept of life being art and living creatively does not mean living sequentially.

00:28:08

And if you're going to embrace life as art and embrace creativity, you kind of have to

00:28:14

find those moments of inspiration and ride them rather than just move on to the next

00:28:18

thing all the time.

00:28:19

Yeah, this is maybe a little bit of a sigh of relief here.

00:28:25

We've talked about productivity.

00:28:27

Productivity has been a thing that you and I have had our hands and fingers in for years

00:28:32

now.

00:28:33

And no matter how long we've been in it, it doesn't seem to be the main point.

00:28:42

We would like it to be.

00:28:44

I would love for it to be something that I get lots of stuff done every day.

00:28:49

And here's how I do it.

00:28:50

Well, the real question is, one, how am I sharing what it is I'm doing?

00:28:57

What is it that I'm making that helps you understand what it is that we're doing?

00:29:02

Take what we're doing right now for a book where I'm like, we've read these books and

00:29:06

we're creating something that helps other people figure out if they should read the book

00:29:12

or to at least at a minimum get the main takeaways from that book so that they don't have to

00:29:17

go through the mess of reading a book they shouldn't read.

00:29:21

That's a lot of what we do.

00:29:23

So it is a creative endeavor and yet it's kind of productivity in some form.

00:29:30

So it does have that outlet.

00:29:32

So the question there gets to be like, okay, if productivity is the main thing, you find

00:29:36

yourself in this spinning wheel of trying to get more done constantly.

00:29:41

But if creativity becomes the focal point, then it has more to do with what are the neat

00:29:47

and interesting and fascinating things that I can make that create an output.

00:29:54

You can kind of twist it on its head a little bit and make it more about the creation process

00:29:59

and not the I have to make another podcast today.

00:30:02

Well, what are you going to do unique about it?

00:30:04

Like what's the creative journey you're going to go on to do that?

00:30:07

So I think it is slightly just a mindset shift there, but it is more than that.

00:30:12

I think at the end of the day.

00:30:14

I think it's easy to classify productivity as the things that you have to do and creativity

00:30:22

is like the things that you want to do.

00:30:24

Yeah.

00:30:25

Yeah.

00:30:26

And based on her format of these two terms in this book, this is actually a good segue.

00:30:32

So let's go into the next section here because in chapter three, the hopeless search for

00:30:37

the ideal routine, she talks about how creativity doesn't follow a perfectly consistent schedule.

00:30:41

However, that is what we try to do a lot of times is follow a perfectly consistent schedule.

00:30:46

When it comes to routines, however, this was an interesting point, I thought, they are

00:30:51

actually very fragile because we tend to create these complex routines with a whole bunch

00:30:57

of things.

00:30:59

And then when one thing doesn't work, it causes the whole house of cards to collapse.

00:31:06

And we set ourselves up for failure with this rigid idea of how these routines should actually

00:31:12

work.

00:31:13

Have you experienced this?

00:31:15

Let's have a little chat about time blocking.

00:31:19

Okay.

00:31:21

That's exactly it.

00:31:23

Like, that's at least in my head, it's the exact same thing.

00:31:27

Let me build this preconceived notion of a routine on how it's going to go today and

00:31:33

what's going to happen tomorrow, but it doesn't take much to derail the whole thing.

00:31:37

How many times has Joe done this experiment?

00:31:39

I'm going to try time blocking and it falls apart.

00:31:42

Like, here you go.

00:31:44

This is why I think.

00:31:46

So I don't think that having a routine is a bad thing, but I know that many people need

00:31:53

a little bit of diversity in how a day goes so that they can stay interested in.

00:31:57

Otherwise, it's boring.

00:31:58

So I get that and I've never really thought of myself as that type of person.

00:32:03

I've always thought of myself as like, I've got my set routines, but within a very small

00:32:08

construct, is that true?

00:32:10

Like I have my set of things I do before I go to work in the morning.

00:32:14

A lot of that has to do with making sure animals are fed and taken care of right now.

00:32:18

Like that's Joe's life right now.

00:32:20

But I also know that when I get to work, there's quite a bit of flexibility and that's

00:32:25

intentional and it kind of needs to stay that way because I have so many things that could

00:32:31

break unknowingly.

00:32:32

If the Wi-Fi is down for whatever reason, hey, guess what?

00:32:35

It doesn't matter what I set up that morning.

00:32:37

That's getting thrown out the window.

00:32:40

It has to be set aside.

00:32:42

So yes, routines are fragile.

00:32:45

Yeah, the example she uses is simply waking up late.

00:32:50

So that's the one that I can relate to.

00:32:52

I mean, the Wi-Fi going down.

00:32:54

Maybe that happens frequently.

00:32:56

I don't know.

00:32:57

That's a good example.

00:32:58

I think what she's after is things that happen more consistently than that.

00:33:03

She talks about consistency a little bit later.

00:33:06

We're going to talk about that.

00:33:07

But she also shares in this chapter, but Austin Cleon having a portable routine, which

00:33:12

is just simply several things that he aims to get done in a day.

00:33:16

I love this idea.

00:33:18

And this has me thinking, I've been starting to track some basic routines in obsidian lately

00:33:26

anyways.

00:33:27

And I want to just make my list there.

00:33:29

And the goal being not to create a crazy long streak of I've done all of these things,

00:33:36

all these days in a row, just make a list of the nice to have routine items.

00:33:45

And I've got a couple ideas for some of those and we get to the action items.

00:33:51

But it's a totally different way that I have thought about routines in the past.

00:33:55

Because in the past, I was kind of basically thinking like, what is the absolute minimum

00:34:00

that I can commit to?

00:34:02

And absolutely nail this every single day.

00:34:04

And I tried to do that.

00:34:05

And then when I can do that consistently for a really long time, then I'll think about

00:34:08

adding maybe one additional thing.

00:34:11

And I still think if you're trying to create like a morning routine of essential things

00:34:15

you absolutely must do, that maybe that's a good approach.

00:34:19

That's basically what I've done with my Bible reading and my prayer routines, my stretching

00:34:22

routines.

00:34:23

I've got sciatic nerve issues.

00:34:25

If I don't do my stretches every single day, so I have learned the hard way, like that's

00:34:29

not negotiable.

00:34:30

Right?

00:34:31

So this is kind of talking about the things that are negotiable.

00:34:35

Did you read today?

00:34:36

Did I practice Spanish?

00:34:38

So that's another maybe bad example because I've kind of got that consistently locked

00:34:42

in.

00:34:43

So I don't know.

00:34:44

I'm just trying to pick things that everybody might use.

00:34:46

Expressing gratitude is not something that I do every day.

00:34:49

Right?

00:34:50

So I want to make sure that I start tracking that sort of stuff.

00:34:52

And just simple like check the boxes at the end of the day, kind of ostingly on style.

00:34:56

And I can say, you know, I got six out of eight.

00:34:59

That's pretty good.

00:35:01

And I can feel good about that.

00:35:02

But even if I only got two out of eight, the approach is kind of like, well, at least

00:35:05

I did those two.

00:35:06

As opposed to I had eight things on my list.

00:35:10

And when I woke up late, that basically meant I was never going to get all eight done.

00:35:14

So it was a failure right from the beginning.

00:35:16

That's what she's pushing back against.

00:35:18

Yeah.

00:35:19

This is more around like you've got a list of things that would be great to do today.

00:35:24

If you got them all done, that's amazing.

00:35:26

But you have to like choose the ones that are most essential, important, effective, whatever,

00:35:34

like buzzword you want to use for it.

00:35:37

Like you need to choose those and work towards them.

00:35:41

But it's all about the mindset you have when you're done, I would say.

00:35:45

This is my downfall.

00:35:46

It's like I see that list of eight things that you talked about.

00:35:50

And I've got seven of them done, but it was a failure because I didn't get number eight.

00:35:54

Like that's kind of my thinking on most days.

00:35:58

But that's not true.

00:36:00

Like I still got seven done.

00:36:02

So I need to, I think that's, and that's maybe why I've been talking about this mental state.

00:36:07

Like that's all in your perspective on how you view that and choosing to say that, hey,

00:36:12

that was a success because I got seven out of eight instead of saying it was a complete

00:36:16

failure because I only got seven out of eight.

00:36:19

It's purely how you see it.

00:36:21

Yeah.

00:36:22

That kind of gets into a later point about ambition and goals.

00:36:26

But before we get there, I think it's important to talk about time confetti.

00:36:29

This is from chapter four, the worry of wasted time.

00:36:32

Time confetti are the minutes that are spent on seemingly insignificant actions and how

00:36:36

those add up to a multicolored mound of wasted time.

00:36:43

So you can fill in for you, fill in the blank for yourself on what the time wasters are,

00:36:48

but it's important to know that people often hide how they waste their time.

00:36:55

And I think you and I are probably both guilty of this as well.

00:36:58

I do try to be more transparent and share my faults in the places that I don't do the

00:37:06

things.

00:37:09

Just because I want to be authentic, I understand the tendency is to share the ideal and just

00:37:15

share the highlights, right?

00:37:17

But people compare that to their backstage, like the everyday.

00:37:22

And so I try to compensate for that, but I'm sure there are still times when it does

00:37:28

not happen.

00:37:30

So couple that with the idea of being a time optimist, these are people who overcrowd

00:37:35

their schedules because they try to slot all the things in because they assume everything

00:37:39

is going to go exactly according to plan, which is kind of getting back to the original

00:37:43

discussion we had about your time blocking and how it just like blocked part of it that

00:37:46

you can control and just forget about the rest.

00:37:50

Because that's not lost time, but the minute that you have expectations for how that's

00:37:55

going to go, you get upset that it's not meeting those expectations.

00:38:00

So I feel like this chapter really is important about embracing our, well, there's a whole

00:38:05

chapter about embracing limitations, but recognizing that the perfect ideal that you have in your

00:38:09

head is not going to be achievable.

00:38:12

Yeah, I think this concept of time confetti, I love the illustration here.

00:38:18

It's like, I got these little bits of time.

00:38:19

They're all over the place.

00:38:20

They're all different and they go everywhere.

00:38:22

And I never really know where they're going to go.

00:38:23

And I never know what's going to, like, how much confetti is going to be in that canon

00:38:27

this time?

00:38:28

Who knows?

00:38:29

But the thing that I find that I tend to lose time on and I've talked about this before

00:38:33

is in those transition times.

00:38:35

When I'm moving from one task to the other, the problem and I, you know, time blocking

00:38:40

is I feel like a really good example of so many of these things that have gone wrong

00:38:46

for me because it's a very clean, calculated experiment because it's got a lot of math

00:38:54

to it, right?

00:38:55

Because of time.

00:38:56

So I find that whenever I do a time block schedule, even if it's just for the morning,

00:39:01

let's call it 8 to noon, very simple, simple four hours, four one hour tasks, you know,

00:39:07

eight, 30 minute tasks.

00:39:08

Like you can, you can break that up in however many different ways you want.

00:39:13

The issue gets to be like, if I have a task that's slotted for 30 minutes and it takes

00:39:18

25, I feel like I just gained five free minutes there.

00:39:24

And then I have a 10 and it's like, okay, well, I got five minutes before the next slot

00:39:28

needs to start.

00:39:29

So I'm going to check a couple things quick before that gets here.

00:39:34

And then I'm 10 minutes late on the next thing.

00:39:38

And then that derails the next one because then I'm not done early on the next one.

00:39:42

And then maybe I get early again, then I do it again.

00:39:45

So then I end up with these little chunks that throw the whole thing off.

00:39:48

And I just can't, I can't stick to that tight schedule.

00:39:52

So I'm finding that the concept of like this portable routine is probably the better way

00:39:59

to do that, trying to lock in exact times for it just does not, it doesn't work well.

00:40:05

As much as I've attempted it and had like minor successes, overall it doesn't work out.

00:40:11

And I think it's purely like the viewpoint, but it's also a big part of this.

00:40:17

I've got a few minutes here and there.

00:40:18

I'm just going to do this quick thing and then it's not a quick thing.

00:40:22

That's where I lose a lot of time and I'm really bad at that.

00:40:26

Well if you're time blocking, you realize those little pockets are there at least.

00:40:33

And so I think what she's describing is really for people who do not time block because for

00:40:38

me, the minute that I start time blocking, I at least become aware of them.

00:40:42

But if you aren't time blocking, you don't realize how many of those little couple minutes

00:40:47

here, a couple minutes there, pockets that you do end up wasting.

00:40:52

And again, this is framed through the lens of don't beat yourself up about this, but

00:40:59

recognizing that you have those and then having a realistic list of things that you

00:41:04

are trying to get done in the day.

00:41:06

That's the other part of time blocking that I think is important.

00:41:08

If a time optimist just sits on a block's their day, it's going to be a disaster at

00:41:12

the beginning.

00:41:13

But then you learn from that mistake.

00:41:15

You eventually land on, you know what, this is what I can get done in the day and feel

00:41:19

good about the workload on average.

00:41:22

It's hard to quantify it.

00:41:24

In my experience, you just kind of feel it out.

00:41:28

But eventually you do it enough.

00:41:30

You get enough feedback loops.

00:41:31

You have a pretty good sense of what you can handle.

00:41:37

But that does get into the next thing on the outline here, the moving, the goal posts.

00:41:43

Because ambition definitely manifests in trying to do a whole bunch of things in those

00:41:49

time confetti slots that you're just talking about.

00:41:52

She says ambition can create an avalanche of dissatisfaction.

00:41:57

And I love this when I heard her talking about ambition.

00:42:00

My mind instantly went to goal setting.

00:42:06

That's not the big point she was making.

00:42:09

But she does kind of talk about drive and being driven are two different things.

00:42:17

Drive I think is the one that she typically associates with an end point.

00:42:22

I'm going to achieve this outcome, achieve this goal.

00:42:26

But being driven is just I want to make the most of the resources that I have.

00:42:31

And I feel like those are, that's an important distinction between those two ideas.

00:42:37

When you work to achieve your ambitions, you undermine your daily happiness because you

00:42:41

get so attached to the outcome that you are trying to achieve.

00:42:46

And if there was the actual amount of satisfaction that you got from achieving that goal, that

00:42:53

you project when you are pursuing it, it would be no big thing.

00:42:58

But it's, it never measures up because as soon as you achieve that goal, there's this

00:43:02

vacuum and then you have to fill that with something else.

00:43:06

And she calls this the hedonic treadmill where your brains adjust to the success and you

00:43:13

look for the next big thing.

00:43:16

But that's frustrating in the long term because you never actually arrive.

00:43:24

So I don't know, I could go on talking about goal setting, but probably just leave that

00:43:30

there.

00:43:32

There's, there's so much here, like, you know, you can control only so much and you can only

00:43:38

think about it so many different ways.

00:43:40

Right, and it's easy for us to view goals as the end all be all.

00:43:48

We tend to do that.

00:43:49

Like corporate makes it basically the focus of every employee, at least every corporation

00:43:54

I've been in or worked with, consulted with.

00:43:57

It seems like that's always it.

00:43:58

Even when I was doing web contracts for companies, like the people I would work with would regularly

00:44:06

say, Hey, I need to do this by this time or it needs to cost this much.

00:44:10

And I pay you this much ahead of time in order to, because it's all about the end goal of

00:44:14

hitting a certain something.

00:44:16

Like that's all it is.

00:44:18

It's not about an ongoing component.

00:44:20

It's purely this has to be done by this time and I need to look this good doing it.

00:44:24

It's always that way.

00:44:27

And if you don't think it's that way, probably don't have the whole picture.

00:44:31

That's my guess.

00:44:32

Could be wrong.

00:44:33

I'm okay being told I'm wrong, but everything seems to revolve around that.

00:44:39

And when you have your goal posts set up around something that can move, then it gets really

00:44:46

complicated to know how are you doing?

00:44:50

Is it's always going to grow?

00:44:51

Like you're only going to say yes to things if it's always about hitting that next goal.

00:44:55

So I don't know.

00:44:57

I think I'm probably like you.

00:44:58

I could ramble and ramble and ramble.

00:45:00

But I find that most of my own shortcomings when it comes to productivity or creativity,

00:45:06

depending on what your focus is here, it has a lot to do with how I view my own motivation

00:45:13

and my success in accomplishing things.

00:45:15

And it's that ambition to try to get a bunch of things done that I tend to view incorrectly.

00:45:21

So I think that's what she's telling me to stop doing.

00:45:24

Sure.

00:45:25

Well, you mentioned the goal post being set up around something that moves as long as

00:45:29

your goal is external and outcome, it's going to move.

00:45:33

She touches on this a little bit but doesn't lean into it a whole lot in this chapter.

00:45:38

But she does say what we accomplish doesn't change who we are.

00:45:40

So the focus should be on who are you becoming, not what are you achieving.

00:45:46

That's the only sort of goal post that is ever going to be achievable.

00:45:53

Yeah.

00:45:54

Don't move the goal post.

00:45:55

It's frustrating.

00:45:56

It sounds stupid when you think about that.

00:45:58

But then we go and we set goals.

00:46:00

And that's exactly what we do.

00:46:02

So just another encouragement, I guess, to figure out what is the thing you want to do

00:46:09

not so that you can say you did the thing, but so you can say this is who I became in

00:46:14

the process, which kind of leads into the next one here about intensity versus consistency.

00:46:19

These are two terms that I think she kind of talks about throughout a couple of different

00:46:24

chapters.

00:46:26

The next chapter is the myth of balance here.

00:46:30

But consistency and intensity, the big takeaway from this for me is not an original idea that

00:46:37

she had, but something that she shared by Simon Sinek, where intensity is going to the dentist

00:46:45

and having a professional cleaning.

00:46:47

But consistency is brushing and flossing every day.

00:46:52

And in terms of long-term health, intensity is not enough.

00:46:57

You have to have consistency.

00:47:00

Now she does change that a little bit because she is saying that consistency doesn't need

00:47:08

to be perfect.

00:47:09

When it comes to brushing your teeth, I don't know.

00:47:13

Maybe I'm weird in this, but I don't need to track that habit.

00:47:19

I'm doing that one twice a day every day.

00:47:23

And so that's where the analogy falls down a little bit.

00:47:27

I think because you're not going to tell somebody, don't brush your teeth every day.

00:47:32

But when it comes to the habits and routines that you would create, maybe you're trying

00:47:37

to write every day.

00:47:38

Well, if you only write 50% of the time and you write 15 days out of 30, that's still

00:47:45

a huge win.

00:47:46

And that's probably a more extreme example than she would even share in terms of what

00:47:51

is consistency, but the big thing that I wanted to call out here is that consistency is more

00:47:58

important than the intensity, which right away is going to be contrary to how some people

00:48:02

view goals and moving the needle.

00:48:06

But also that consistency doesn't have to be perfect.

00:48:09

And if you do it more often than not, then that is winning.

00:48:13

I think that's where I fall down with this.

00:48:15

I'm really good at the intense side of this.

00:48:19

Like, teeter-totter, like I'm really good at that.

00:48:22

Take last summer with the house project, like three months full speed.

00:48:26

I can do that.

00:48:28

Or I've got a big video project that needs done in a week.

00:48:31

Sure, I can do that.

00:48:33

But putting together the recordings for our weekly sermons and posting those every single

00:48:39

week, can I get somebody to help me do that?

00:48:43

Like, that's my downfall.

00:48:47

Who's followed me online for any length of time, say three weeks, you know.

00:48:52

That's how I operate.

00:48:53

I tend to do some small things very big.

00:48:57

And then I will take a break.

00:48:59

Not intentionally.

00:49:00

It's just kind of how it works.

00:49:02

So the consistency piece has always been a downfall for me.

00:49:05

I'm aware of that.

00:49:07

Thus something like Bookworm works out because Mike is expecting me to show up every week.

00:49:11

So it helps in that.

00:49:13

Otherwise it would probably get put off more often than it should or die off completely.

00:49:18

So thanks, Mike, for keeping Bookworm alive.

00:49:21

You're welcome.

00:49:22

But yeah, that's easily the balance that I struggle with.

00:49:26

Easy.

00:49:27

I wish that something like being consistently posting on things was something I was good

00:49:31

at, but it never really has been.

00:49:33

So I've done everything I could to make that easier.

00:49:36

And that helps.

00:49:37

But I still need to have some form of like an external motivator in order to hit that

00:49:42

piece.

00:49:43

So again, this has to do with, you know, the expectations, right?

00:49:49

Like what you were saying, if you do 15 or 18 out of 30, like that's still a big win.

00:49:55

I see that as a failure.

00:49:57

If it's not every time, like if I miss one, it's a failure.

00:50:01

So why do it at all?

00:50:02

Like that has generally been my perspective.

00:50:04

I'm aware that that's wrong.

00:50:06

I don't think I could have told you that was what was going on until we read this.

00:50:10

Like I don't think I could have explained that.

00:50:13

So this might be a case of more knowledge about the thing helps.

00:50:18

And the more I understand it, the more it helps.

00:50:20

But I can't answer that.

00:50:22

It's a long term thing that I got to work through.

00:50:25

Well I can tell you this was very timely for me because there are certain things that

00:50:29

I have no trouble doing consistently.

00:50:32

Bookworm would be one of them, most of the podcasts that I do are fairly consistent at

00:50:38

this point.

00:50:39

That's just part of the rhythm of my days.

00:50:42

However, I've been thinking a lot about what do I want the ideal content schedule to look

00:50:49

like for faith-based productivity?

00:50:53

Essentially my personal brand, all the different places that people can find stuff that I make.

00:51:00

And yes, Bookworm is a part of that.

00:51:02

Most is a part of that.

00:51:03

Intentional family is a part of that.

00:51:04

But then there are the ones that I really haven't been able to dial in.

00:51:09

I am terrible at posting blogs.

00:51:11

I am meh at writing my newsletter.

00:51:16

I went through the part-time YouTuber Academy and I got super excited about YouTube videos

00:51:21

and I do one every couple of weeks.

00:51:25

And it's easy for me to take any of those in isolation and say, "Well I should publish

00:51:29

a YouTube video every single week."

00:51:31

Or "I should write a newsletter every two weeks."

00:51:36

And this chapter helped me come to peace with the fact that I don't need to do that

00:51:43

stuff as consistently as I pressure myself to.

00:51:50

The 42 Creativity Tips video that I published, that one took significantly longer.

00:51:58

And my approach to the newsletter, which is really the beginning point of some of the

00:52:03

ideas that I'm wrestling with and then the YouTube videos I view that as the expression

00:52:07

of that after I've had a chance to talk through it on a podcast and really have solidified

00:52:12

my thoughts on it.

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

00:52:21

schedule.

00:52:22

So the 42 Creativity Tips, I view that as planting a flag in the ground.

00:52:27

This is a piece of content that I want to be associated with me for a very long time.

00:52:33

It's not, "I've got to make a video this week."

00:52:35

Which is different than a lot of other YouTubers and maybe that's the wrong approach but also

00:52:40

like decide what the right approach is for you.

00:52:44

And I was very much beating myself up because stuff is happening at the day job and I didn't

00:52:49

get to write the newsletter this week and now I feel bad because I'm behind and who cares.

00:52:57

I'm still exercising the creative process and maybe it's not happening quite as fast as

00:53:02

I would like but that's okay.

00:53:05

I am fine just saying, you know, if I get a, instead of releasing a YouTube video every

00:53:13

week if I get two out this month, that's good enough.

00:53:16

At least I made two videos or instead of a newsletter every two weeks, it's three to

00:53:24

four weeks.

00:53:26

That's okay.

00:53:27

Most of the time when that happens it's because I've been thinking about an idea and I wasn't

00:53:31

quite sure how I wanted to say it.

00:53:32

So by the time I do get around to saying it, it's got a lot more meat on the bone.

00:53:37

So I don't know.

00:53:39

This has helped me a lot not to feel like I have to check the box every single time.

00:53:45

Maybe that's just my personality where I tend to be a perfectionist and I want to check

00:53:49

all those boxes but identify what are the things that are the non-negotiables and then

00:53:55

the other stuff by default is negotiable.

00:53:58

Yeah, I'm with you on the whole perfect streak thing.

00:54:03

Like I've been that way since I was little.

00:54:05

If I couldn't do something perfect right away, I didn't want to do it at all.

00:54:09

And I see that in my daughter, like my oldest is exactly the same way.

00:54:13

Like would you try something and it doesn't work the way she thinks it should or she wasn't

00:54:17

good enough to do it right the first time?

00:54:20

She's like, there's no point in doing this.

00:54:22

Why does anyone ever do this because it's so hard?

00:54:26

Like you tried it once, you tried to kick the soccer ball with a curve once and it didn't

00:54:32

work.

00:54:33

And it just means you need to practice.

00:54:36

I tell my kids that and yet if I'm not able to do something perfect the first time, I feel

00:54:42

like there's no point in doing it.

00:54:44

But it's on a different scale to a different arena.

00:54:46

So obviously it's different.

00:54:48

It can't like that lesson can't carry over because it's very different.

00:54:51

This is an adult, not a kid.

00:54:52

Of course this is different.

00:54:54

No, it's the same.

00:54:56

I regularly think that I didn't get all the newsletters out that I wanted to so then I

00:55:01

haven't done one in over a year.

00:55:03

Like that happens.

00:55:04

If I miss one, I'm more likely to miss a whole bunch coming up after that just because

00:55:08

the streak's now broken.

00:55:10

So I am not good at this.

00:55:13

Obviously, I think I feel like that's like a central theme that keeps coming up here.

00:55:17

So I stink at it.

00:55:20

Well the reason you may stink at it is the next point on the outline and that is comparison.

00:55:25

So this is a really powerful chapter.

00:55:29

It's a really big idea.

00:55:31

And I don't know.

00:55:33

There could probably be a whole book written about this specific topic.

00:55:36

Probably is.

00:55:38

But comparison I recognize is the source of the perfectionism a lot of times for me because

00:55:44

I compare well, there's all these other people who are kind of doing sort of the same thing

00:55:50

you're doing but they're able to publish a newsletter every week.

00:55:53

So you should be able to do that.

00:55:57

And that is not a good idea.

00:56:01

She says that comparison is comparing your behind the scenes with someone else's highlight

00:56:06

reel.

00:56:07

I really like that explanation.

00:56:11

And yes, that applies to like the social media stuff.

00:56:13

But really just if you take your favorite creator online, you have to recognize that

00:56:18

this bias is going to be there.

00:56:23

One of my action items is to at least recognize who are the people that I end up comparing

00:56:30

myself to.

00:56:31

I have a rough idea.

00:56:32

A couple come to mind right away.

00:56:34

But I want to make a list of this because if you can figure out what is the thing for

00:56:42

you, that is what she calls your secret joy.

00:56:47

And your secret joy is life giving.

00:56:48

But when you compare yourself to somebody else and what somebody else is doing, then

00:56:56

all that joy is gone.

00:56:57

You basically just give it away.

00:56:59

And it's replaced with the productivity guilt and the pressure of creating on the schedule.

00:57:04

She says when we follow our secret joy, the urge to compare dissipates.

00:57:08

So I think step one for me is recognizing who I compare myself to.

00:57:12

Step two is something I'm kind of noodling on even before reading this book.

00:57:16

And that is what do I want the mix to be?

00:57:18

Because ultimately what I want with all the stuff that I do online is to build a community

00:57:27

basically of people who are trying to do the best with what they've got to work with.

00:57:35

And there's a lot of different avenues for that.

00:57:38

The podcasts are part of that.

00:57:39

The YouTube is part of that.

00:57:41

I've actually been messing around with Circle lately and I have a on my website, if you

00:57:47

go to faithbasebergtitter.com.

00:57:48

Yeah, there's a little chat bubble in the bottom that looks like one of those intercom

00:57:52

bubbles.

00:57:54

That actually takes you to a circle community that I guess now I'm announcing that it is

00:57:59

a thing.

00:58:00

It really isn't a whole lot there yet.

00:58:02

I'm kind of building it out first.

00:58:04

But really I just want to create things that will hopefully help people who are struggling

00:58:11

with the same sort of thing.

00:58:12

Like how do I make the most of the time, the talent, the energy of the talents that I have

00:58:17

been entrusted with?

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

00:58:21

biggest dent in the universe that I can.

00:58:24

So finding other people who are going to help encourage me along the way and share what

00:58:29

works, share what doesn't, not so we can compare to each other.

00:58:34

But we can hopefully just find something that resonates with us and do a little bit better

00:58:43

whatever sort of impact we want to have.

00:58:45

How can we make what sort of legacy do you want to leave?

00:58:50

How can you do that even just a little bit better if you can move the needle at any form

00:58:56

than that is a win?

00:58:58

And so that's kind of the life theme that's an idea I talk about in my course.

00:59:05

I want to help people answer the question, why am I here by inspiring and encouraging

00:59:08

and teaching them to connect to their calling, discover their destiny, live life they were

00:59:11

created for?

00:59:12

Well, how do I practically do that?

00:59:15

The stuff that I'm doing online basically is what I've landed on.

00:59:19

One of the things I feel like I mentioned to my kids regularly is don't worry about what

00:59:26

your sister's doing, worry about what you're doing, and I'll take care of your sister.

00:59:30

Like that concept comes up a lot just with kids.

00:59:35

I was like, you know, take care of you.

00:59:38

Don't worry about what she's doing.

00:59:40

You can't change what she's doing.

00:59:41

You can only react to what she's doing.

00:59:45

I wish I took that to heart as much as I want my kids to take that to heart because this

00:59:50

is exactly what I think she's getting at in that when we compare to other people or

00:59:55

we're paying so close of attention to what someone else is doing, we lose track of ourselves

01:00:02

and what we're focused on and what we're growing in.

01:00:06

And it's easy to become so absorbed in that other person's actions or as you've said,

01:00:12

like the highlight reel that they're releasing.

01:00:15

You become so focused on that that you lose track of your own efforts or you don't have

01:00:20

efforts of your own in any way, in any form.

01:00:24

And I know this is absolutely true for me.

01:00:29

If we look at the, like what we've been talking about, consistency and creativity, consistency

01:00:33

and content creation and such, it's something that I know I would love to be great at as

01:00:39

being consistent on those things.

01:00:41

I feel like this can kind of morph into that portable routine where you've got these things

01:00:46

that you're trying to do each day and you just release it when it's ready or before

01:00:50

it's ready and get it out the door.

01:00:54

But it doesn't have to be on such a strict routine.

01:00:58

I know that all the algorithms want you to be on some routine, but unless this is like

01:01:03

your full time job, it's not going to be that vital.

01:01:09

And I feel like the number of people that it's their full time job, like if it's your

01:01:13

full time job, you have a lot of people helping you.

01:01:15

I feel like I just recently saw a Tiago Forte put out a tweet or something else.

01:01:22

There was like a map of all the people that are helping him do everything he does for

01:01:29

Forte Labs and building a second brain and everything that's around that.

01:01:33

And I remember looking through that chart and thinking, holy buckets, that's a big team

01:01:39

for what I'm seeing in release.

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,

01:01:46

but there's a lot there.

01:01:48

So it's tough for someone like me who has zero people behind what I'm doing online.

01:01:58

And then I'm comparing to what he has going on.

01:02:02

And I don't compare to Tiago Forte.

01:02:03

I'm just using that as an example because he's way above me on all that.

01:02:07

But if I made that comparison, it's not a fair fight.

01:02:11

It's not apples to apples here.

01:02:14

It's completely different arenas.

01:02:17

And you're working on selling oranges and he's over there selling Ferraris.

01:02:20

This is very different in what we're doing.

01:02:23

So you can't make that comparison.

01:02:24

And the problem gets to be that I don't know the full backstory behind somebody who's posting

01:02:29

a newsletter every week.

01:02:31

Maybe that's their one and only thing.

01:02:32

I'm comparing against somebody who's got a newsletter that comes out every week.

01:02:36

And then I turn around and compare to somebody who's got a YouTube video that comes out every

01:02:38

other day.

01:02:39

But those are two different people.

01:02:40

But I'm still making that comparison and thinking I should do both when neither of them

01:02:45

are doing both.

01:02:46

So it's a slippery slope.

01:02:48

Can get messy real fast.

01:02:49

I wish I took this to heart.

01:02:51

Hopefully I'll do better.

01:02:53

Lessons.

01:02:55

Lessons I need to learn.

01:02:56

Or if they do do both, then they have a whole bunch of help like you mentioned because

01:03:01

Tiago talks about all the different people that help him with all the different stuff

01:03:05

that he does.

01:03:07

And he's a bit of a polarizing figure on Twitter because he makes claims like you can't be

01:03:14

successful in YouTube unless you spend 25 grand a month or something like that.

01:03:19

Sure.

01:03:20

And I don't think Ali Abdall would agree with you.

01:03:23

He's got a whole part-time YouTuber Academy is built on the premise that you don't need

01:03:29

to have a whole bunch of expensive gear and a whole bunch of people in order to make this

01:03:34

work.

01:03:35

And you need to figure out what is the thing for you.

01:03:38

And Tiago has done a good job of defining this is what success on YouTube looks like

01:03:42

for me.

01:03:43

And these are the resources that I need in order to make it happen.

01:03:45

And you can't just compare what you're doing with what he's doing when he made that other

01:03:50

tweet about how much it costs to run a YouTube channel immediately.

01:03:54

It forced me to think about like, well, what's his goal and what's my goal?

01:03:58

My goal is not going to be the same as his goal.

01:04:01

I'm not flying anywhere with a production team and sitting down with somebody to do

01:04:04

an interview like he is.

01:04:07

But I don't know that's not right or wrong.

01:04:11

That just my thing is different.

01:04:13

So you got to figure that out for yourself.

01:04:15

Once you do figure that out for yourself, that I think informs the expectations that

01:04:20

you would set around it.

01:04:23

So if you don't take the time to figure it out, if you do get stuck in that comparison

01:04:28

trap and by default, your expectations are going to be way too high and those set us

01:04:34

up for failure when we can't hit them.

01:04:39

Even if you do define for yourself and you're just trying to time block your day, you will

01:04:45

run into this where you have these expectations of how a day is going to go and it doesn't

01:04:51

go according to plan.

01:04:54

And so there's a lot of good stuff in this chapter.

01:04:57

One of the things she talks about is create intentions, not expectations.

01:05:02

I like this a lot with the day job.

01:05:04

We do this where whenever we're talking about something and there's an action item that's

01:05:08

associated with it, we're getting to the point where the action needs to be taken with something.

01:05:13

Someone will say something like I intend to and then you fill in the blank and that becomes

01:05:18

the action item as opposed to just creating a big list of the things that have to get

01:05:23

done.

01:05:24

And then no one follows through on them.

01:05:27

You're practicing the extreme ownership and you're taking control of the situation.

01:05:31

You say this is my plan of action.

01:05:33

And by saying I intend to means that this is what you're planning to do, but everybody

01:05:37

knows that your plan will probably get blown up.

01:05:40

So we're not going to hold you to a perfect standard if you don't get this sort of thing

01:05:44

done.

01:05:46

I think that's a small distinction, but it's really important and especially when you're

01:05:50

working with other people that's really one of the things that makes the clash of the

01:05:58

personalities less of an issue when you're all playing by the same rules.

01:06:04

Because again, we do judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions.

01:06:08

So you're forcing people to give other people the benefit of the doubt by framing it that

01:06:13

way.

01:06:14

Yeah, for sure.

01:06:15

For sure.

01:06:16

Just don't compare yourself to other people.

01:06:18

Basically that's the moral story.

01:06:19

Don't do it.

01:06:20

Don't do it, Mike.

01:06:21

Yep, yep.

01:06:23

The other thing with expectations here though is that you are not what you do.

01:06:31

So you can have these expectations and when you don't hit them, you feel like a fraud.

01:06:39

You have this mini identity crisis.

01:06:42

At least I have.

01:06:44

So decoupling your identity from the things that you do, I feel can go a long way towards

01:06:51

managing the disappointment that can come with expectations.

01:06:58

She mentions in chapter nine, the great disappointment of expectations that we are verbs, not nouns.

01:07:03

So that means that you are not a writer.

01:07:08

You are someone who writes and this, there's a complimentary idea here from atomic habits

01:07:13

by James Clear where if you want to create a writing habit, the way to do that is to

01:07:22

assume the identity.

01:07:23

So I'm not quite sure how to reconcile that in my head yet, but I do think that in terms

01:07:31

of measuring what you were able to get done, it's easy to think like a fraud if you do

01:07:36

associate with that identity.

01:07:37

I am a writer.

01:07:38

I am a YouTuber.

01:07:39

Well, one's the last time you created a YouTube video, right?

01:07:43

So I guess my current thinking on this is to break it down into the component parts and

01:07:51

writing is really at the basis of everything creative that I do.

01:07:54

So that's the thing I want to start tracking consistently.

01:07:58

I'm not going to hit it every day, but did I do my best to create something?

01:08:02

Going back to the daily question stuff and then try to hit that more often than I can,

01:08:09

but also recognizing that if I don't get to it.

01:08:13

It's okay because that's not the totality of who I am.

01:08:17

I feel like there's a lot here, of course, but when it comes to the expectations piece,

01:08:25

the ones that I think are the most difficult are the ones I'm not aware that I've set.

01:08:31

If I have expectations for I'm a writer, well, then you immediately have expectations for

01:08:38

number of blog posts, you're going to write maybe number of books in a few years, you're

01:08:42

going to write the newsletter release cycle.

01:08:46

You're going to have immediate expectations for that.

01:08:50

I feel like that's an explicit known, you're going to have those expectations.

01:08:56

The ones I think that get to be complicated or when you don't really realize that you

01:09:02

have them.

01:09:05

I say that knowing that I do this a lot unknowingly, this has revealed some of that

01:09:12

and we've talked about this consistency piece and not following through on things long term,

01:09:19

but the part behind that is that I can't say that I knew that I had the expectation of

01:09:25

having that perfect streak and when it fails, then it all comes crumbling down.

01:09:31

I don't think I even realized that I had that expectation and didn't really have the

01:09:35

words to tell you that that's what was going on.

01:09:37

I just felt like something was wrong and I'm just not going to do it.

01:09:42

Everything's not right, so I'm just going to take a break and not come back to it because

01:09:46

it doesn't seem to feel right when I'm there.

01:09:49

So that expectation is set, not met, and then leaves me feeling, I don't want to say depressed

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

01:10:03

work there when that's not the point at all.

01:10:06

That's not the case.

01:10:07

Well, one of the things that can be an indicator, I think, as to whether your expectations

01:10:13

are off is this feeling and also this phrase that we typically use when people ask us,

01:10:20

"How are you doing?"

01:10:21

Or, "What's going on?"

01:10:22

It's like, "I'm so busy."

01:10:25

She mentions in this chapter that phrase, "I'm so busy."

01:10:28

That means essentially, "I have a lot that I should be doing."

01:10:33

And when you frame it that way, I kind of resent it.

01:10:37

If I were to say, "I have a lot I should be doing," my immediate next thought is, "Well,

01:10:43

who decided I should be doing these things?"

01:10:45

Probably not me, those jerks.

01:10:50

So immediately, I'm looking for things to chop and this gets into the next point on the

01:10:58

outline in the next chapter in the book.

01:10:59

Chapter 10 is the trap of busyness.

01:11:02

So busyness is, I would argue, the default for a lot of people, but it also saps our ability

01:11:13

to be creative.

01:11:16

So we are either busy or the flip side of this for a lot of people is you feel like

01:11:21

you're not doing enough because everybody else is busy.

01:11:24

So what's wrong with me if I'm not busy?

01:11:27

Am I not important?

01:11:29

And one of the things she mentions is that we all have an area of our life which is our

01:11:34

busyness of choice.

01:11:36

So I think this is important to consider.

01:11:39

I don't have an action I'm associated with this.

01:11:40

I do have lots of action items because I kind of know what are the areas that I tend to

01:11:47

get busy.

01:11:49

So figure that out and then the fact that you need rest is not a moral failure.

01:11:57

So that's on the other side of this.

01:11:58

If you're not busy, you're getting the rest that you need.

01:12:02

You don't feel that stress and that anxiety all the time, but you don't have to feel bad

01:12:06

about that.

01:12:08

She mentions that productivity often has less to do with the number of hours we squeeze

01:12:12

out of the working day and more to do with our energy focus and attention.

01:12:16

So it's really about managing those things.

01:12:19

It's not about even being max output for eight hours a day, a typical working day.

01:12:27

And there's different areas that we need to rest as well.

01:12:31

So the seven areas she mentioned, physical, mental, sensory, creative, emotional, social,

01:12:36

spiritual.

01:12:37

I really like these because it forces you to think about, you know, maybe I am getting

01:12:41

rest in one area, but I'm not allowing myself to rest in another area.

01:12:47

I realized when I was trying to hit all those deadlines with all the creative stuff, I

01:12:53

wasn't getting enough creative rest.

01:12:56

And so just going at my own pace and being okay with that.

01:12:59

The other thing she talked about in here, which I think is a whole big discussion that

01:13:04

we've probably talked about a little bit before, is that the pandemic forced us to take a break.

01:13:10

It forced us to have rest in specific areas, not all areas, but it disrupted our whole

01:13:18

idea of what is normal.

01:13:21

It was a big reset for a lot of people, people who felt like they didn't have the ability

01:13:29

to say no to things, all of a sudden those things were automatically said no to.

01:13:34

And the opportunity was to be selective about which things you put back into your calendar.

01:13:44

And I think there's still some ability to do that.

01:13:47

It's not too late basically is my encouragement here, but don't wait for a cultural event

01:13:56

like that to force you to take a break.

01:14:01

Most of the time that is not going to happen.

01:14:04

And if you want to have this margin in your life, you have to create it yourself.

01:14:09

Just had a long conversation with my wife Becky here two days ago about, you know, what

01:14:16

does this week look like for you at work?

01:14:18

It's just a busy week.

01:14:20

It's an easy week.

01:14:22

There's a normal week or it's a busy week.

01:14:23

Well, I got the outdoor service, so of course it's a busy one.

01:14:27

She's like, well, what do you have going on?

01:14:30

I started rattling off the stuff she understands about all the things that I've got to do that

01:14:36

are involved eventually.

01:14:37

Oh, so it's actually a busy week.

01:14:40

And then that spurred the conversation of, well, I tend to refer to pretty much every

01:14:44

week as a busy week because I have so many things going on at work that I need to reset

01:14:51

what is normal because a full week I tend to refer to as busy because it feels like there's

01:14:58

so much going on.

01:14:59

But I'm still comparing it to the workload I had about a year and a half ago, which I

01:15:04

haven't really seen in a long time.

01:15:06

And I still think of that as normal, but we're way above that as far as how much I'm

01:15:11

trying to get done in a week and how much stuff has to be done in a week for the ministries

01:15:17

here to continue going on.

01:15:19

So I think I'm definitely one of the people who says I'm busy all the time.

01:15:29

And it's basically I've got more things on my plate than I can get done.

01:15:32

That's the badge of honor I'm theoretically holding up.

01:15:37

And it's not true.

01:15:40

And it's something that since that conversation, I've been actively working this week to figure

01:15:45

out what is a normal accepted amount of work that we can be doing as a tech department

01:15:50

here in a week and how do we either automate, scale up, get help to accommodate the stuff

01:15:57

outside that limit so that we're not constantly saying, hey, we're busy.

01:16:02

No, I can't do that too busy.

01:16:04

Busy, busy, busy.

01:16:05

Stop saying busy.

01:16:06

It's getting to be obnoxious.

01:16:09

So I need to scale that back.

01:16:12

You mentioned hitting the limit.

01:16:13

That is the other point here.

01:16:15

The limitations when you recognize your limitations and recognize that you can't squeeze everything

01:16:20

in.

01:16:21

That makes this easier.

01:16:23

However, in the chapter where this comes from chapter 11, the denial of limitations,

01:16:28

she mentions that prioritizing systems can further perpetuate our urge to self blame.

01:16:33

I'm a systems thinker.

01:16:34

So yeah, I, this was uncomfortable when I read it, but she's absolutely right.

01:16:39

One of my favorite things from the entire book comes from this chapter.

01:16:44

And that is the phrase when someone asks you to do something, I must decline for secret

01:16:49

reasons.

01:16:50

I think I'm going to start using that.

01:16:56

I'd like to start using that.

01:16:57

I have trouble thinking of a situation where someone wouldn't push back on that, but maybe

01:17:03

they won't, but that'd be kind of cool if that starts saying I must decline for secret

01:17:08

reasons and just leave it at that.

01:17:10

Yeah.

01:17:11

Too busy.

01:17:12

Must decline.

01:17:13

I'm not going to tell you why.

01:17:17

It's been a while back, but I remember, I don't remember the specific book, but it maybe

01:17:21

was boundaries.

01:17:24

But it, it talked about how when you need to get out of something or you're in a situation

01:17:31

where you need to set a limit, it's okay to set the limit, but not explain it.

01:17:37

Yeah.

01:17:38

I would just say no.

01:17:39

So this is like giving a reason, but it's saying, I'm not going to tell you the reason.

01:17:43

Right.

01:17:44

What was the study?

01:17:45

They did a study on that.

01:17:46

Like, and it was something simple, like using a copier where if you gave a reason, any reason

01:17:52

people would go along with it more, more often, even if to the point, like, can I cut ahead

01:17:58

of you in line because I need to make copies?

01:18:01

And people were more inclined to say, yes, if you said because I need to, well, it's

01:18:05

a copier.

01:18:06

Of course, that's what you're going.

01:18:07

Like it's very point blank.

01:18:09

And yet that is what makes people feel more comfortable.

01:18:12

So I'm sure that saying I need to decline for secret reasons probably does help and does

01:18:18

work.

01:18:19

That's my expectation, Mike.

01:18:21

Yeah, that's cool.

01:18:23

The next chapter is the harsh rules of discipline.

01:18:27

And just a couple of things I wanted to talk about here real quick.

01:18:31

There's a quote from Oscar Wilde, which I loved.

01:18:33

Without order, nothing can exist without chaos.

01:18:35

Nothing can evolve.

01:18:36

So there is going to be chaos.

01:18:39

And that's why discipline is important.

01:18:42

There's this idea of delightful discipline, which is based on the security for knowledge,

01:18:47

commitment to the practice without the rigid obedience to, I just have to do this thing,

01:18:52

which kind of changes it from a negative thing where I have to do it to something fun where

01:18:56

I get to do it.

01:18:58

And she talks about eat that frog, not always being the right approach.

01:19:01

That reminded me of the atomic essay by Jesse J. Anderson, host of the ADHD nerds podcast.

01:19:10

So I'll put a link to that in the show notes.

01:19:13

But his essay, which is where I first became aware of him, was eat the ice cream, not the

01:19:19

frog.

01:19:20

She has a different thing that you're supposed to eat.

01:19:23

I forget what it was.

01:19:25

Some sort of cottage cheese or something.

01:19:28

And I was like, no, it's disgusting.

01:19:30

But point taken.

01:19:32

Yeah.

01:19:33

I don't know what it was.

01:19:34

I was trying to find it, but I can't place what it was.

01:19:37

It was not a frog.

01:19:38

It was not ice cream.

01:19:39

I don't know what it was.

01:19:41

Yeah.

01:19:42

It's really insignificant.

01:19:44

It doesn't really matter, but I thought it was a strange choice for what she used there.

01:19:51

But anyways, and then the last thing from this whole section that I wanted to call out

01:19:55

was the push and pull of distraction.

01:19:57

This isn't even an original idea, but she mentioned something from Sherry Turkle.

01:20:02

I don't recall this from the book that we read by Sherry Turkle, but she mentions it

01:20:06

from the TED Talk.

01:20:08

There are three fantasies that are promised by devices, specifically like smartphones.

01:20:18

Number one, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be.

01:20:22

Number two, that we will always be heard.

01:20:23

And number three, that we will never be alone.

01:20:26

And when you combine those three together, it's pretty easy to see why we keep going back

01:20:33

to that well, and we keep being disappointed.

01:20:36

Because we always want to be with someone else.

01:20:38

Like we've talked about this before, too.

01:20:41

The need for interpersonal connection, like friendships, relationships with other people.

01:20:48

That's a foundational crux of the human experience, right?

01:20:52

And it's what helps us thrive in some way or another.

01:20:56

Right how many times we say that the world would be a better place where it's not for

01:20:59

people?

01:21:00

That's definitely a sentiment I hold once in a while, but it is absolutely incorrect.

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

01:21:17

other people, I find the most joy-filled way of living and making that a focal point.

01:21:24

Now I don't think that's the focal point, but a focal point to hold on to.

01:21:29

So anytime we've got distractions that pull us away from that, whether it's a phone, computer,

01:21:36

YouTube video, or something else, which could be something in the physical realm, like woodworking,

01:21:43

like that could be a distraction, too.

01:21:44

I feel like that's rare, though.

01:21:46

But that can also be a detriment.

01:21:50

So as I continue to say, don't do that.

01:21:54

That's a great spot to go into the last section, I think, because you talked about being with

01:22:00

people.

01:22:02

Part three is at the end of the day.

01:22:03

And there's three chapters here, the generosity of kindness, the depth of curiosity, the moments

01:22:08

of enjoyment.

01:22:11

This is the weakest part of the book, in my opinion.

01:22:14

It doesn't fit with the analogy, the beginning throughout the day, and then at the end.

01:22:19

I think you could summarize this as be kind, stay curious, and be present.

01:22:24

Yeah, that's probably the way to do it.

01:22:29

I struggle.

01:22:30

I think I know what she was trying to do, but she had at the start of the day, like talking

01:22:34

maybe routines and such as there at the beginning, because we think of morning routines, like

01:22:39

that's a thing, right?

01:22:40

And then stumbles in the day, like, let's talk about all these things that we do throughout

01:22:45

our workday and our creative endeavors and such.

01:22:48

Let's talk about those.

01:22:50

And then at the end of the day, I feel like you should be talking about, like, reflection

01:22:54

or of some kind, like some, like, evening routine type thing, like, to use that whole

01:23:00

analogy, but then she went metaphorical on it.

01:23:03

Like, at the end of the day, meaning a wrap-up of everything, and she went that direction

01:23:09

with it, and it threw me for a loop.

01:23:10

I was like, "Oh, come on.

01:23:12

You had this."

01:23:14

And then you skipped over it.

01:23:16

But I like your analogy here, like, the be kind, stay curious, be present.

01:23:22

All of those could be applied in many, many arenas here, but ultimately, it's, you know,

01:23:27

if you're able to be here in the moment, make the best decision you can, be curious about

01:23:33

the best way of doing something and be kind to those around you, like using your stuff

01:23:37

there.

01:23:38

Like, if you put all that together, you're less likely to have that productivity guilt

01:23:44

that this whole book has been trying to help us shed.

01:23:49

So do that.

01:23:50

Instead of saying, "Don't do that, I'll tell you to do that one."

01:23:53

I guess the reason I feel it is a week and then is because it is framed as the third

01:23:59

part of the book, it could probably be consolidated into a single chapter.

01:24:05

There's good stuff in here.

01:24:06

Half of my action items come from this section.

01:24:10

So two of the four.

01:24:12

And I think the thing that brings this together is sort of like if you were to do an evening

01:24:16

journaling routine, these are the kinds of things that you would tend to put in there.

01:24:24

The middle part is so long, though, that this does just by comparison because it comes after

01:24:31

feel like it's just tacked on.

01:24:34

It's not nearly as much substance here.

01:24:37

I don't even know how many pages this last section is.

01:24:40

But I remember going through the second section and being like, "We're getting close to the

01:24:43

end of the book.

01:24:44

Shouldn't that be in part three by now?"

01:24:47

So I don't think we need to do a deep dive here.

01:24:51

I will share a couple of my action items from this section because the topics here of kindness,

01:24:58

this is important.

01:24:59

She actually mentioned something here that I've said a couple times, I think, even in

01:25:04

this podcast that I did not pick up from her initially, but we tend to judge others by

01:25:08

their actions ourselves, by our intentions.

01:25:10

But she's saying, "What if you flipped that around?

01:25:13

What if you gave other people the benefit of the doubt?

01:25:17

And can you bring energy to others rather than draining it as something she asked on

01:25:22

page 264 that reminded me of the action item I had at one point where I rated all of the

01:25:28

relationships of my life from plus, plus, plus to minus, minus in terms of when I talked

01:25:33

to this person, typically, are they going to add life to me or take it from me?"

01:25:37

So this is a different way of framing it, but the same basic idea.

01:25:41

I think that's pretty cool.

01:25:44

And the big takeaway is that a small gesture of kindness can change a bad day into a good

01:25:47

one, so why would you not try to make that positive change in people's lives?

01:25:52

The idea of curiosity, I feel like this is really just a life perspective that we need

01:25:58

to have.

01:25:59

When you're curious about things, you're less attached to checking things off of the list.

01:26:05

Curiosity is key to creativity is something that she mentions and encourages us to find

01:26:10

the extraordinary and the ordinary.

01:26:12

So one of my action items here is to make a list of the good, small, ordinary things

01:26:17

that I tend to take for granted in my day-to-day.

01:26:21

And then the last chapter, the moments of enjoyment, this is where the being present

01:26:27

idea that you talked about earlier kind of comes in.

01:26:31

You're never going to get to the point where your days are without dramas, but be present

01:26:34

in the day and ask yourself basically what can I get out of today and enjoy the experience.

01:26:40

And all of that is followed up by a poem, which is different than the one at the beginning.

01:26:45

Are you ready for this?

01:26:47

Can I read this one now?

01:26:49

Go for it.

01:26:50

So the beginning one I read earlier, the one at the very end has a little bit of a different

01:26:57

take to it.

01:26:58

So here you go.

01:26:59

I didn't do the thing today.

01:27:01

I didn't lament how the hours unfolded.

01:27:03

I didn't worry about wasted time.

01:27:05

I didn't allow my expectations to spoil what I have.

01:27:08

I didn't compare myself to others.

01:27:10

I didn't dwell in the undone.

01:27:12

I didn't strive.

01:27:13

I didn't try to be perfect.

01:27:14

And it mattered because in all that I didn't do, I found my own measure of a day.

01:27:20

Yeah, it's a really cool way to end it.

01:27:24

I feel like there should be more books that start and end with poems.

01:27:28

I kind of liked that.

01:27:29

It's fun.

01:27:30

Sure.

01:27:31

Kind of unique.

01:27:32

Creative thing that she did there.

01:27:34

Very nice.

01:27:36

All right, action items.

01:27:38

Hit me.

01:27:39

We got...

01:27:41

I have four of them.

01:27:44

So the first one is from the second section.

01:27:50

Let's see what chapter was this.

01:27:52

It was to make a list of the things that settled me.

01:27:55

Oh, this was the idea from chapter three with the routines.

01:27:59

She doesn't just flat out say routines are bad by the way.

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

01:28:04

that gets us out of one.

01:28:06

So I want to make a list of the things that settled me.

01:28:09

The second one is to make a list of the people that I compare myself to.

01:28:16

The third one is to make a list of the good small ordinary things that I mentioned.

01:28:21

And then the fourth one comes from the generosity of kindness.

01:28:25

I want to find a way to do some unprompted kind thing every day.

01:28:31

And I'm purposely leaving that ambiguous because the easy one is just sending an encouraging

01:28:40

text message to somebody.

01:28:42

But I want to go beyond that and find some additional ways.

01:28:48

Get creative with my kindness, if you will.

01:28:51

What about you?

01:28:52

I have two.

01:28:54

One kind of plays off of what you were just talking about.

01:28:56

I termed it a little bit different than you.

01:28:59

And I wrote down one generous act a day.

01:29:02

And that sounds simplistic but I wrote underneath of that that can be defined by giving more

01:29:09

than was originally expected.

01:29:14

And that can manifest itself in a lot of different ways.

01:29:17

I know like a lot of times when somebody brings a computer or a tech support thing,

01:29:22

I fix the problem and that's as far as it goes.

01:29:25

But if I were to take one extra step and then take a little bit more time and maybe make

01:29:30

it easier for them to do things on their own without just solving that immediate problem,

01:29:35

sometimes they can go better.

01:29:37

I would classify that as being generous in that case because I don't normally do that.

01:29:41

So that's one that I have.

01:29:44

The other one is, and I think I've talked about this, I don't think I said that I have

01:29:48

this as an action item.

01:29:49

But I want to put together this portable routine idea.

01:29:51

I know routines can have a bit of a downfall given how she terms it anyway.

01:29:59

But if I were to put together a list of these things that I want to accomplish in a day,

01:30:05

attempt to adjust my expectations on what success means for that and shoot for those

01:30:12

things and having that list of things that I'm going to work towards accomplishing each

01:30:16

day, like to try to build some of that consistency.

01:30:19

I feel like that would be a much more productive way for me to come at it.

01:30:25

So I guess I'm aware I'm using that productivity type word there.

01:30:29

But I want to try something along these lines, namely putting together lists of things that

01:30:35

I need to try to work towards every day.

01:30:38

But being generous with myself and being okay with it if it's not done.

01:30:41

Trying, like, going to try.

01:30:44

All right.

01:30:46

So that brings us to style and rating, my book.

01:30:50

So I go first.

01:30:52

I think this is a very interesting style.

01:30:58

And it's a very interesting take on the topic of productivity.

01:31:02

Now I would argue creativity, although it's positioned specifically to deal with this

01:31:10

topic of productivity guilt, where we beat ourselves up for not living up to this ideal

01:31:15

standard that we have no sense measuring ourselves by.

01:31:20

I feel that is a very important message.

01:31:25

And this is kind of the first book that I've seen really talk to this.

01:31:29

I know Oliver Berkman in 4000 weeks, some of the stuff that he's written and created

01:31:36

lately.

01:31:38

He's leaning more this direction as well.

01:31:41

But this is a very different tone than that book.

01:31:48

I like this book a lot.

01:31:50

I definitely think people should read this one.

01:31:53

I think if you're reading anything in the productivity or self-help space, you're going

01:31:57

to naturally create this standard in your head.

01:32:02

It's not even somebody's fault if they write about it a certain way.

01:32:08

This is just what your brain is going to do.

01:32:11

And so addressing the elephant in the room per se is really important.

01:32:17

I feel like there's a lot of great stuff in here.

01:32:20

She cites a lot of other resources, a lot of other things that we have read.

01:32:25

Talks about flow, talks about mindset, talks about 4000 weeks, all sorts of stuff.

01:32:30

But there were also a bunch of additional data points and things that I jotted down that

01:32:35

I'd never heard of that one before.

01:32:37

So there's a good mix here of familiar stuff plus new stuff, which to me communicates that

01:32:43

she really knows her stuff.

01:32:46

It's not a systems book for sure.

01:32:50

If you're looking for something that's going to give you a prescriptive approach to overcoming

01:32:54

the productivity guilt, this is not it.

01:32:56

But it is going to shine a light on a lot of the contributing factors towards that.

01:33:00

You do have to figure out for yourself what are the things that you can do that are going

01:33:04

to help alleviate this, which I actually appreciate the fact that she's putting the onus on you

01:33:09

and you got to take responsibility for changing your own situation.

01:33:14

So I'm going to rate this.

01:33:18

Let's go 4.5.

01:33:20

I do think it's really good.

01:33:21

I don't know that there is anything life changing in here.

01:33:26

I think that is probably OK.

01:33:29

Just the topic itself is not something that, oh my gosh, this is the key to unlocking the

01:33:39

next level for me.

01:33:40

But again, that's like drifting into the territory that she's trying to push back against.

01:33:46

I think my personality, I tend to lean towards that stuff anyways, which is why I'm trying

01:33:53

to struggle between 4.0 and 4.5, I'm saying that I recognize my own bias and for the average

01:34:01

person, this is probably more helpful even than what I got out of it.

01:34:06

That being said, I did get a lot out of it.

01:34:07

I got four action items out of it and enjoyed every minute that I was reading this one.

01:34:13

OK.

01:34:14

I want to speak a little bit to the three part, three-partedness of this one because that

01:34:22

first section is really short.

01:34:25

The middle section is really long.

01:34:27

The last section is 28 pages out of 280, 207, 260.

01:34:34

I forget the number.

01:34:37

That tells me that it really needs a somewhat longer introduction, the body of the book,

01:34:41

and it just needs a conclusion at the end.

01:34:43

Don't call it three parts.

01:34:45

I get the editors and production companies kind of want three-part books.

01:34:50

I don't really understand it other than it's easier to remember and easy to format that,

01:34:54

but don't force it.

01:34:57

That's unnecessary.

01:34:58

I really think it needs just the standard intro body conclusion.

01:35:02

Call it that and make it a simple one chapter thing, not a two or three chapter thing.

01:35:07

Just don't make it weird.

01:35:09

Anyway, that aside, this is a fascinating book to me in that it's really telling you

01:35:16

not to...it's more around the mindset of productivity.

01:35:21

It's not necessarily how to get things done or how to think about it a different way.

01:35:25

It's more like, what is your mindset towards yourself when it comes to accomplishing tasks?

01:35:31

I don't know of another book like that, like you said, and I specifically don't know of

01:35:36

any books that really even attempt to touch that one.

01:35:40

I think it's definitely a topic that's broached occasionally inside of some of these other

01:35:45

self-help business books that we read.

01:35:49

I can't say that I know of anything that that's the focal point.

01:35:53

That's really the focal point here.

01:35:56

I'm grateful for that.

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

01:36:04

I could get done.

01:36:06

This is definitely a solid book for helping me reframe that and maybe put together not

01:36:12

necessarily a structure but giving us the freedom to make those decisions and put better

01:36:21

expectations on ourselves.

01:36:24

That said, I think you nailed it with a 4.5.

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

01:36:35

we are.

01:36:36

I think you should read this.

01:36:38

Anybody who has touched the world of productivity and understands task management or anything

01:36:43

in that realm, this is definitely for you.

01:36:47

I say that knowing that I've worked with a lot of people, the concept of task management

01:36:52

is like, "What?

01:36:54

What is that?"

01:36:55

I've got coworkers who think that.

01:36:59

If I gave this to them, it might not make any sense.

01:37:02

I don't know how it would fit in that realm, but I do think this is something that I would

01:37:09

recommend to many, many people.

01:37:12

Please pick it up.

01:37:13

Bookworm listeners, especially.

01:37:18

Let's put, I didn't do the thing today on the shelf.

01:37:21

What's next, Joe?

01:37:23

Up next, we are going to take on the second installment by Shane Parrish in the Farnham

01:37:31

Street team with the great mental models.

01:37:35

Volume 2, this is touching on physics, chemistry, and biology.

01:37:40

I think this will be fascinating to see the correlations that come out of those that can

01:37:46

apply to the way you think.

01:37:49

This will be fun.

01:37:50

It'll be good.

01:37:51

I'm excited to get back into mental model stuff.

01:37:52

I feel like we've been away from it for too long.

01:37:55

I'm always game to talk about mental models, so I'm glad you picked this one.

01:37:59

All right.

01:38:00

What's after that, Mike?

01:38:03

After that is Where Good Ideas Come From by Stephen Johnson.

01:38:11

Have you heard of this book before?

01:38:13

I have.

01:38:14

Okay.

01:38:15

That's as much as I can tell you about it.

01:38:17

I have heard the title.

01:38:19

I don't know where I've heard of it, but I have heard of that title before.

01:38:23

All right.

01:38:24

All right.

01:38:25

Well, Stephen Johnson is one of those authors who a lot of the things that he has written

01:38:30

have been coming onto my radar recently.

01:38:35

Looking at all of the books that he has written, this is the one with the title that most jumped

01:38:42

out to me.

01:38:43

This is also the first book of his that was recommended to me.

01:38:48

There is a more recent one that just came out called Emergence, which looks interesting,

01:38:52

too.

01:38:53

I feel like Where Good Ideas Come From is the perfect follow up to the mental models.

01:38:58

Yeah.

01:38:59

And this one where we talked a lot about creativity.

01:39:01

Do you?

01:39:02

Yeah.

01:39:03

I don't have any get books.

01:39:04

I don't.

01:39:05

Yeah, that was my crazy in the last week.

01:39:06

That was my question.

01:39:07

Do you have any get books?

01:39:08

No, I do not either.

01:39:13

I have a whole bunch of books I want to read as get books.

01:39:16

Yeah.

01:39:17

However, I'm not confident.

01:39:21

I'm going to have time to get through this.

01:39:23

So I'm going to commit to one on air.

01:39:28

Okay.

01:39:29

Sounds good.

01:39:30

All right.

01:39:31

Well, thanks everybody for listening.

01:39:33

Thanks specifically to the Bookworm Club Premium members who chip in a couple of bucks

01:39:39

every month to help us keep the lights on.

01:39:41

That really helps us a lot.

01:39:44

If you want to become a Bookworm Club Premium member, you can go to bookworm.fm/membership,

01:39:48

five bucks a month, 50 bucks a year, what you get for that in addition to our undying

01:39:52

gratitude is the MindNote files that I create.

01:39:56

I export those as PDF files and then also as MindNote files themselves.

01:40:01

So people can take my mind maps and create their own versions of them.

01:40:07

There's also a couple of gap book episodes that Joe created back in the day.

01:40:11

There's a 4K Bookworm wallpaper.

01:40:14

But the big thing is that you are helping us to keep the show running.

01:40:18

So thank you very much to everybody who does that.

01:40:21

And if you haven't forgotten, there are Bookworm phone cases now.

01:40:27

That's right.

01:40:28

Link in the show notes.

01:40:29

You can go do that.

01:40:30

Anyway, if you're somebody who's amazing and you read along with us, pick up the great

01:40:32

mental models.

01:40:33

Volume two, we'll cover that one with you in a couple of weeks.