Focused - 203: The Little Lies You Tell Yourself, with Jason Snell
Episode Date: May 7, 2024...
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Welcome to Focus, the productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets.
I'm Mike Schmitz and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. David Sparks.
Hey, David.
Hey, Mike.
Today's a special episode because Jason Snell's back.
Welcome back, Jason.
Hey, guys.
Where are my royalties?
Yeah.
Where are they?
Indeed.
Where are they?
So those who don't know, this show started
when Jason and I, it started kind of out of a group
of meetings Jason and I had while we were talking
about quitting our jobs.
And then it went for, we called it Free Agents,
I think it was about 50 episodes, we did that.
That's right, and you've done 150 since then, so it's fine.
Yeah, and, but you know, we kind of like exhausted
the free agent thing, and I still wanted to talk about focus Jason needed to move on and Mike came in,
but it's, it's kind of nice to have you back, Jason.
Yeah, it's good to be back. Happy to be here.
Thank you for having me.
Well, and we're not just back here to reminisce.
We're also here because you've been doing a retreat practice and we wanted to
talk about that today.
So I guess let's just jump straight into it, Jason.
As folks who used to listen to free agents will know,
Jason was the editor at the Macworld Magazine
for many years, and had a big fancy job,
and then went out on his own,
and started being a guy who published for himself
at Six Colors, and your job and your career changed. And at
some point, you decided to start giving that some thought with a
retreat. What happened there?
Yeah, so, so yeah, I went out on my own, it's coming up 10 years.
And I was circling around as we as is detailed painfully in detail in the
first 50 episodes of this podcast, when it was free agents, um, I, I circled
around that for more than a year, probably a couple of years where I was
thinking of leaving and I was unhappy at my job and, uh, started off on my
own, um, in the fall of 2014.
But, you know, I, not only talking to lots of friends,
including you, David, but you know, I had a plan,
you know, and things didn't go according to plan,
but I think this is the story of a lot of small businesses
and independent people, is you spend a lot of time
thinking about starting your business because you're kind of terrified
and you got to figure it out and you went out on your own and then changed and then
dropped half of your business at one point, right?
Like there is this sort of real, ideally oversight, I'm thinking about this, how do I want to
do it?
And if you're responsible about it, and that makes sense.
And you're building your business.
You're like, I'm the chief executive officer
and bottle washer, kind of like I have to do everything
soup to nuts, I got to figure this out.
I got to make it work.
I'm independent.
And then time passes.
And what I found is, you know, six, seven years later,
is I had settled into a routine, which was good,
but I think it is a real common tendency for people
to devote a lot of time to the setup
and to making sure everything is fine-tuned and running
smoothly and you get your business up and running and you have that feeling of relief
of like, okay, I got it running.
Now I can just do the thing that I wanted to do.
And after a few years, I got to the point where I thought there are a lot of things
I'm doing I don't want to do.
Where is this business going?
What am I doing?
And when you're in that grind of, you know, and I was enjoying that grind of, of, of
day to day doing what I wanted to do. It's so easy to just do that and put your, put your head down and do the job and
not think about where you're going, what you're doing, what your long term plans are, because, you know, you, you did
that for setup, but it's something different later on where you don't have a
structure. And so in sort of 2021, I think, might've been 2020, I was doing very various versions of
this 2020, 2021. I talked to you about it specifically, you mentioned that you had this whole
PDF on your website about the personal retreat. And I thought that was a really great idea of like,
what if I follow the, the sparky personal retreat
schedule and go somewhere away from my job, away
from my day to day and think big picture thoughts.
Think not about what, what's the, you know, do I
need to post a podcast?
Do I need to edit something? Do I need to edit something? Do I need to write something?
Do I need to schedule something?
Instead, think about where am I?
Where do I want to be?
Uh, what do I not want to do?
What do I love doing?
And, uh, that's what kicked it off for me is that, is that it's that sort of second phase
that probably happened a little too late, but, uh, it was fine.
I wasn't like standing on a cliff's edge, but it was definitely the sense that I
needed to actually having done the startup part of my independent job and my
independent phase of my life, I now needed to do the maintenance phase.
Right.
I couldn't just, you can't, your assumptions when you're doing the
startup phase are not going to be right.
And, and if you don't re-examine every so often, you will end up in a weird place
where it's not where you want to be. And I came to that
realization, probably during the pandemic. And, and then at some
point, I finally realized having seen your PDFs about personal
retreats, it's like, that is what I need to do if I'm going
to make this work.
Yeah. And I think like when you're working for somebody,
a lot of times that kind of big picture management stuff
is handled by somebody else.
So you look at your job as to go in
and do the job that they're paying you for,
not necessarily doing all the big picture stuff.
And I think it is very easy to do the big picture stuff
when you first go out on your own, but like you said,
I think it's very also easy to fall into the maker role as you go out on your own. But like you said, I think it's very also easy to fall
into the maker role as you're working on your own.
And the manager kind of gets pushed to the back of the room
and before you know it, yeah.
I was making, to put it in the terms of my old job,
I was making content decisions
which I'm very comfortable making.
I ended up as editorial
director for IDG's consumer division. And making content decisions was just a, I mean,
that was what I did all day, is make content decisions or be the content person in the
room when business decisions were being made. But my job was to represent a certain mindset.
And when you go out on your own, yeah, it's really easy to slip back into the, well, I've got the content machine humming,
I'm going to make content decisions. It's not like I wasn't making decisions,
but what I wasn't doing is really making sort of strategic CEO decisions. I was really making just
my comfort zone content decisions. And you had that moment where you realize, you know,
there's no one else who's going to tap you on the shoulder and say, you shouldn't be doing this kind of work anymore.
It's all me, I have to do all of those decisions.
And when am I gonna do that?
And the answer is not when I'm in the fight day to day,
just doing my regular stuff, I have to step out,
I have to get perspective.
And that's why I became a real believer in this idea
of a personal retreat for sure.
Yeah, I mean, Ian Byrd was the one who inspired me originally because he did that and he made
the point that when you work, when you try to do management stuff in the same space that
you do the maker stuff, it's very hard.
Getting yourself away from your usual workspace to try and put on your manager hat makes it
much easier.
And you've been doing it like you've been going off site
for these, right?
Yeah, so the way I've done it,
and I did a slight adaptation, I'll just mention
if people look at the personal retreat PDFs,
you were much more holistic.
You're sort of like taking stock of your life.
Yeah, I'm a hippie.
I decided, we talked about this on free agents a lot,
it's like the hippie feels, but I decided, we talked about this on free agents a lot, it's like the hippie feels,
but I decided to focus on my business.
So I didn't write up my roles of like husband,
parent, things like that.
I really kind of focused on my business,
but otherwise I pretty much took it straight from you.
So we have friends who own a house in Sonoma,
which is about an hour from where I live.
It's up in the wine country and it's a, uh, it's a
investment property.
It's an Airbnb basically.
It's a VR or I think it's just a Verbo, but yeah, you
get, they, they ran it out.
Um, and, uh, what's really nice about that is you
wouldn't believe this, but mid week winter is not a very popular time for people to go
to Airbnbs.
So I actually got for the cost of, they had me pay for their cleaners, but nothing else.
They actually just let us stay there for a couple of days.
So I went to, I did that.
So yeah, if you know somebody with an Airbnb, check it out. I also, I did one where I went to San Diego
and went for a couple of days to San Diego
and had an Airbnb there.
And then the other, a couple of times,
this doesn't have to be super large scale.
I have some friends who have a business in my town
and they were going on vacation.
And they said, you're ha you're welcome to
use our office.
It's their, it's their office.
It's just them.
And they were both going to Australia where his
family lives.
And they said, we're gone for three weeks.
Come in.
I mean, I only took two days, but so I've done a
couple of the off sites there where it's literally
five minutes from my house.
But what I'm doing is I'm packing up all the stuff
that I need, putting in a bag,
driving to the other location,
and I'm in a different place all day.
It's not my office, you know, it's not my refrigerator.
Like it's just, I'm in a completely different space.
So it didn't even need to be an overnight for me.
It just needed to be out of my own head
is what I always kind of say.
And that includes the routine.
I just need to be,
because the goal, for me at least,
the goal is to get a perspective
that is not my usual perspective.
I need a larger perspective.
I need to step out of my role day to day.
And being in a completely different location without distractions is a huge, a huge benefit. And then I also took a page from my corporate training people. IDG complained, though I will, about my last few years there. They had a fantastic commitment to training. And I went to, over the years, you know, a dozen,
maybe different training things, including half of
them where they flew us to like Boston, to the
corporate headquarters to do it.
Just, and they would always have like the big
marker pens and those sticky note paper things
that you can hang on a wall.
And I actually bought those pens and I bought the
sticky notes and I, and I
did that as part of the process too.
So I was writing with hand, which I never do with a big pen on giant sheets of paper.
And then when I fill them, I'm peeling them off and sticking them to the walls so I can
look at them and refer to them.
And that was something that I lifted from my IDG training people and was again,
just totally different from the way I normally work.
And I found very valuable.
There's something really satisfying
about pulling off one of those big stickies
and putting it on the wall.
It is.
I mean, and at the end, I mean, you have them,
I ended up taking pictures of them
and also writing them down and we can talk about sort of
what happens at the end of this process,
but it is super satisfying.
And I don't know, I mean, look,
I'm sure you guys have talked about this a lot.
A lot of things about productivity are about
tricking your brain into behaving differently.
And it's like, it's why I always used to go to Starbucks
to write my Mac world column every week,
because it wasn't my house.
And then my brain is like, well, gee, you came all this way.
I guess you gotta do your work now
because otherwise why are we here?
And I almost shamed myself into it.
Well, standing in front of that Post-It, giant Post-It
with a big smelly ink, you know,
one of those permanent markers,
writing by hand following David's sort of a list
of things to think about for his personal retreat, I'm completely out of my
comfort zone at that point, which is good. That's what I want. It's a completely different thing. And you're right,
putting that stuff down is satisfying. Tacking it up so that you can refer to it the rest of the day or days is
incredibly, I'd say, energizing, but it's also almost threatening in the sense of like, Don't forget, you can't
ignore this, right, which is part of it too, is it's so easy to have those rough edges in your job and your business
where you're like, Yeah, okay. And you know, I'm a major conflict avoider. So I, it's really kind of nice to, it's
almost like keeping yourself honest. You write down stuff truthfully and then you hang it on a wall somewhere
and you can't avoid it.
It's looking you right in the face for the whole time.
Yeah, and it really does take time.
I think that's another thing people think about.
They're like, well, I could just sit home
and think about this for an hour
and I could answer these questions.
And it's not enough.
You gotta kind of live with them for a while
and look at them up on the sticky board
or down on a piece of paper or whatever,
because with time you get further, I think, inflection on it
and a lot of times what you first write down
isn't what you end up really going with at the end.
Yeah, exactly.
It is reflection, it is, again, here in my office where I am right now,
I have endless distractions, including my job.
I mean, my job in this case is a distraction to the larger picture.
It's always going to be easy to be like,
I'm just going to shake this off and go back to doing what I'm doing,
instead of doing the hard thing of, of thinking bigger thoughts. So super important to
get out of that and and focus on these other things and doing that in a different environment that you're not used to
where you don't have your usual distractions. If you're, if you've got digital distractions, putting yourself in do not disturb,
working on paper, which is what I did,
it's reducing all the things that could possibly take me away.
And it's not just having me focus,
it's also just forcing me,
because there's nothing else to do.
I'm removing my own distractions from myself.
It's, yeah, it's super important.
I wanna double click on the, the time comment that you made David,
because that really can't be overstated.
And I feel like if you don't go into it with having a large
enough time window for your brain to really unravel these things,
you're sort of missing the point.
Like I have my own
process that I follow. And one of the things I teach people is these three questions. What should
I start doing? What should I stop doing? What should I keep doing? They're purposely vague because
your brain will come up with some really interesting things to put there. If you give it enough time,
literally this week I was talking to somebody about this and they're like, well, after 20 minutes,
you know, I have some things for that list. And I'm like, no, you're just scratching the surface.
That's the point.
Like those your brain is good at coming up with options,
but that's not necessarily the stuff that you should really be focusing on.
When you give it at least two hours, that seems to be the
the magic number in my experience.
Then you get to like a whole nother level and all the things that you thought
weren't really a possibility, you give your brain permission to consider those things and
then it's then it's kind of like well actually that's kind of interesting what
what if that was actually the case yeah I agree completely and I definitely that
is what I focus on when I'm running up there again as I adapt David's PDF it's
what should I keep doing what should I do more what should I stop doing it is
the I mean it's a classic we did a whole episode of free agents about
it, I think, which is the art of, you know, it's the not do list. It's the what not to do. It's just as important to
learn what to stop doing as it is to decide what to start doing. In fact, you know, it's an opportunity cost. If you
don't stop doing something, you really don't have time to start doing something else that might be more valuable. And I agree completely. It's hard, right? I mean, I remember just this year, I did it at the end of February. And, you know, you
start with a blank page, and you're just thinking, what do I do here? But it starts to flow as you go, you're definitely
going to double back. I write, the way I did it is I wrote up all my roles. And for me, especially because of the way my business works, it's
my, it's essentially my jobs. So for example, I am the guy who runs the Incomparable Podcast Network. That's one job. I'm
the host of the Incomparable Podcast. That's another job. I do SixColors.com as the manager of the website. That's another job. I write for Six
Colors. That's a different job. I podcast the Upgrade podcast. That's a different job. I do the
Downstream podcast. That's a different job. I am a panelist on Mac Break Weekly. That's a different job. And I
found it very informative to write down all of the things that are my job, because, you know, I have like eight or nine clearly
different sets of responsibilities. And then for each one of those, I write down, what do I, you know, basically,
what do I like about this job? What do I dislike about this job? And, you know, what, what, uh, what should I
stop doing and what should I do more of?
Right?
Like it's, it's, it's that whole idea of, so first
off, writing down your jobs is incredibly
important and informative because so, so, so Mike,
I agree there's a lot of thought processing that
has to go on.
I do suspect that some of it is just giving
yourself permission to step
outside those assumptions and maybe those little lies you tell yourself,
where you're like, it's fine.
It's fine.
And then give yourself permission to say, it's not fine.
I don't like doing this.
And if you're an indie person, you know, only you can solve the problem of doing something you
hate, right? Like you've got to, and wait, look, every job has things that you don't
like that are not your favorite, but, um, but only you can, can do that. And you do
kind of need, at least for me, I found it really valuable where like, I'm, I'm doing
this thing. I'm just going to do it. I'm soldiering on. And then I get to the offsite and I get the freedom to write down,
I don't like this. This isn't working. And then that's a prompt for the rest of the day, which is like, well, what are we going to do about it? And it's incredibly valuable.
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Jason, before the break, one of the things you were talking about was breaking
the job into component pieces. And I think that is so key here because you don't really, like you, you have,
you'll have an underlying feeling that something isn't right when you have a job
like yours, where you're doing, you you know ten different roles and you know something's not right but
you're not sure where it is and it's hard to attack it it's only in my
opinion when you break it up into roles and you get down to those kind of
component pieces then you ask yourself the questions on each level that
suddenly the real problem surfaces and that just takes time.
I'm going to go back to what I said about how you have to step outside yourself. You have to see
yourself from another perspective. So when you're doing the job, you're just doing the job, right?
And it is so easy to think of it as this is my job. Now, probably most people don't have
And it is so easy to think of it as this is my job. Now, probably most people don't have
as many different jobs as I do.
And I've said to people when I describe this,
they're like, geez, Jason, that's a lot of jobs.
I'm like, you know what?
If I could make my living doing one of them
or two of them, I would, but that's not reality.
So I've got to wear eight different hats
and they're all pretty distinct.
But day to day, I don't think about it that way.
I just, I go from task to task to task,
and I'm doing my task, and this is my job, unitary job.
But it's super valuable to step outside that and say,
what are these different jobs that you do?
And because they're all different,
and they all have different reasons for existing,
and they are, like, I'll give you an example.
I was doing a lot of work in the six colors management bucket, which was dealing with sponsors
and dealing with the copy from the sponsors and posting the sponsors in WordPress and getting it all
timed out onto the site and all of that.
And that was a whole bunch of
stuff that I hated. And it was in my I don't want to do this anymore. And I had some similar stuff for some incomparable
stuff that I was doing and some upgrade stuff that I was doing that was like, and this was this led to in my very first one off sites, a really powerful realization, which is that when you're starting out as an independent
person, things you feel uncomfortable because you're doing something new and you're starting
something new. And as a result, you anything you can do, you do. So I started and I said, I can take the ad traffic
and I can post the ads and I can do all of this work
because someone has to do it.
And this is a one person company.
So it's me, I will do it all.
And then time goes by and I have had this conversation
with lots of other people who are in my same position.
Time goes by and you realize, okay, why am I doing this?
Is it because only I can do it?
Is it because this is the unique thing
I bring to my business?
Or is it because I've been doing it since the beginning
when there was no one else to do it, and so I took it on?
And for me, that was a real moment of clarity,
which is what do I do that's unique?
And it's, you know, for my business, it is my perspective about technology,
my knowledge as a podcast host.
I like, I've got a set of skills that are very specific that allow
me to make a living on the internet.
Doing traffic for who's on what week as a sponsor, putting their text in WordPress
and going back and forth and getting it all timed up to go on the site is not, just as an example,
is not a unique skill at all and not why I'm here. And so one of the things that came out of me
writing all my jobs down at my first personal retreat was realizing,
and my wife who does a lot of work on the company too was there, and we actually went
through her list as well.
And we came out of that with a major to-do item being to get help, to get a person or
people, we ended up with one person who could be our essentially part-time assistant
who could do a lot of these tasks
because they weren't tasks.
My wife had been part-time, she went to full-time,
she was still doing this with her weekend.
So she had a lot of stuff she wanted to offload
that I'd already offloaded to her, right?
And then I had a bunch of stuff that I had taken on myself
that was totally not why I'm here.
So that was a huge thing that came out of the,
out of the first retreat was literally identifying the stuff that we didn't like,
that we didn't need to do, and get someone else to do it. Which, you know, it was obvious that
should have happened years before, but we had never taken the steps. We'd never really identified it
until that moment where we came out with a specific list.
I mean, in the end, Lauren and I went to lunch,
and by the end of it, I had on a notepad,
I had a list of tasks.
And literally when we got home,
I got in touch with a friend of ours who does this,
our friend, Kathy Campbell, who does the unicorn sidekick,
and basically said, do you have somebody we could use
to do all of these tasks? And she she said I have the perfect person for you and we've been working
with her ever since so um but it all started with that moment of of writing down everything I do
what are those roles and and identifying the parts of it that I don't I you know I don't want to do
and I don't need to do which actually that I think adds another dimension to the maker versus manager
model that we've talked about a lot on this show that I wanted to call out
because I think I can relate a little bit to what you're talking about, Jason,
with all the different jobs and each podcast is the job, each place that you do
writing is a, is a job and you place that you do writing is a job.
And you have the maker, which is the person who is actually doing the work.
And then the manager, I feel like, can even be associated with the day to day,
where it's really just thinking about how does this job get done.
But what you're talking about is almost like a third level.
So you've got the maker and the manager,
but both of those still are focused on the day to day work.
And you got to get into a totally separate mode, which is like a CEO or visionary, which
is where you ask the key question that you mentioned there is why, why is this job getting
done at all? Or why am I the one that has to be doing this job? And then you can maybe
find some interesting ways to solve those problems. And, uh, that alternatively, but unless you make the break from the day to day,
you're never going to get to, to that mode without a crisis. I think, I mean,
maybe you get to a point where things are just completely breaking and you feel
completely overwhelmed and you're like, something's got to change that.
It kind of force you into that mode,
but it's better if you've got some sort of system or routine where you can kind
of force yourself into that before you actually need that, you know, I'm just completely drowning here. I need some air.
And if you're working at a regular job and you're completely drowning, you go to your boss and you
say help, but you're your own boss and you have to play that other role, which is why,
like you said, being the CEO essentially. And I know it can sound really highfalutin to be the
CEO or the visionary or something like that. But in some cases, all I'm really talking about is,
for example, taking a step back, looking at your business and saying, oh, this doesn't make sense.
Right? Like for me, these moments were revelations, but not like quantum leap, mind blowing
revelations. They were really common sense when I turned to a different perspective and looked at it and thought I have, because here's another thing that I think indie creators especially struggle with, which is you're only one person.
So your, your opportunity costs are a huge deal because you cannot work more than a human can work.
more than a human can work. And so as a CEO, you're like,
oh, why is Jason doing, you know,
putting the ads into WordPress
for just to hammer on that one again?
Like, why is that happening?
He's not the right person to do that.
It's a waste of his time.
And he's better off doing one of the many other tasks
that the corporation could have him do
where he can provide unique value.
And, you know, so that's a really basic business kind of thing, tasks that the corporation could have him do where he can provide unique value.
And, um, you know, so that's, that's a really basic business kind of thing, which is, are we using our people or person well, and do we need to have help?
But I had to step outside myself to do that.
And again, I do think this is a recurring problem with independent people where
they start taking on tasks because they can do them and
Never think about whether they should which is very Jurassic Park
I know but it's that idea which is just because I did this because I was the only person who could do it
I should not keep doing it ten years later, right?
Like it doesn't make sense if your business is going well enough that you can afford, if your business is going
well, you're better off taking that time and either recharging or doing other
productive revenue generating work, not doing something that you should just pay
somebody to do for you.
And that was just a, it's a big step to even like pay outside people to do work for
you that you do yourself.
Cause you're like, I can do that.
And it costs nothing, which is a lie.
Cause it actually costs your time and energy, which is very bad.
And I could not let that go until I went on the personal retreat and stepped outside
myself and as the CEO said, Oh yeah, that's this, this happens time and again, when I
do these retreats is I look at something that I've agonized over personally,
and then I step outside that role and I'm the boss,
and I'm thinking big picture, and I think,
oh, it's obvious, this is dumb, don't do that anymore.
But I couldn't, I never, as a worker,
I never give myself permission to do that
because I'm like, no, no, no, I can do it,
I'll buckle down, I'll do it.
And as the boss, you're like, no, stop.
And it's all me, but it's two totally different perspectives.
With the corporate background, I'm curious before we move on from the topic, have you
ever done anything with an org chart for Snell Industries?
Like, do you have yourself at the top and then you've identified people who are going
to fill those different roles for the specific jobs that really should be done.
So for mine, it's, it's less that, and it's more finding particular items to
find other people to do. I, I, an org chart, I don't think would be as helpful
for me in other ways. The main org chart is literally, uh, you know, we have one,
one major employee and that's me. And,
and the list of jobs that I do is sort of kind of like an org chart.
And then everything else is sort of like get helpers to help with stuff.
I should mention, I mean, I keep talking about how I use Amanda to do the ad traffic on Six
Colors and things like that.
I had many other perspectives like that.
If I did an org chart, for example, I would have, I used to produce and edit a bunch of
other incomparable podcasts, which are fun.
They're not really big revenue generators, but they're fun. And they have membership support that
provides a little bit of money. And I had a similar revelation, which is, I don't,
I shouldn't do that anymore. And I got people to do that. So I could do an org chart, but I really
have mostly just figured these, here's a task, find someone to do the task, and then walk away.
Before we move on from this topic, there's one
other item I wanted to mention because I mean, obviously writing things up on the sticky notes
is super valuable. Generating action items at the end of the event is super important. I think David
suggests that you set a calendar event for a, is it like a week out and a month out? Something like
that where you hold yourself responsible to look at the list, but I usually
come back pretty energized.
And after maybe a day of getting caught up with what I missed, I will start looking
at that action item list and putting into practice.
But it's a really nice to have a reminder a week later, because obviously if you step
away from your job for a little while, you're going to have to catch up.
Um, you don't have, you're going gonna be busier than usual when you get back because
you've made this time away. So waiting a month, or a week is, I found really valuable is that action item deadline a
week out to look at those action items and deal with it. But one other little quirk that I did that is an adaptation
of David's personal retreat that I want to, I want to mention here because I found it incredibly valuable is
I kind of enjoy the idea of having been on many corporate retreats of guest speakers. And so I have people I know who
are in a similar situation to me, but obviously have their own businesses as guest speakers in my offsite. So I will bring them in via Zoom. And I have them
come in, I try to have at least two, I try to have a kickoff person. So instead of me just staring at the whiteboard, I
will have a kickoff person who will talk to me a little bit, or I will just have my roles listed. And, and we'll talk and I'll tell you, it's great
because it provides some accountability. I have to talk to them. They have, they have a generally a perspective that
is, they will understand some aspects of what it is to be me, but they don't know anything about my business internally.
And they've got their own business and they've got their own perspective. And I have found it incredibly valuable
to spend an hour
talking to someone about my problems, essentially, and my issues, because
not only are they keeping me honest, I have to have this conversation with them. I can't just kind of shine it on.
I can't avoid the conflict.
But they are gonna have
shine it on. I can't avoid the conflict. But they are going to have outside views. They're like, Why? What are you doing that I may, I may know in my heart are true, but I'm not willing to admit to myself? Or maybe I haven't even
thought about it. And I just I can't say enough about how valuable that has been to bring in, you know, I have Mike
Hurley, Stephen Hackett, CGP Grey, Dan Morin, Lex Friedman, like people
who, you know, they're my friends.
And I don't, when I talk to them, we're usually talking about stuff we want to talk about.
When we do this, we're not talking about stuff we want to talk about.
We're talking about stuff that is important, and it's business, and it's strategy, but
it's not the stuff I usually talk about with my friends. And so I feel like I'm on an island, or I'm talking to Lauren about it, but it's business and it's strategy, but it's not the stuff I usually talk about with my friends. And so I feel like I'm on an island
or I'm talking to Lauren about it, but it's just us.
And it's incredibly nice to just give yourself permission
if your friends are willing to talk to them a little bit
about what you're doing.
And I realized like, I could do that anytime, but I don't.
And so when I scheduled that offsite day,
I literally went two weeks before, three weeks before
to CGP Grey and I was like, hey, Grey, February 29th,
would you be available to do this?
And he said, let's book it.
And we put the time in and I got, and he's a very busy guy.
I got an hour of his time to chat
and it was incredibly valuable.
So I'll make that recommendation
if people are thinking about this.
Try to get some people you know,
who will sort of get what you do,
but are also coming at it from a totally different angle
and scheduling some time to talk to them about this
instead of just catching up, how are the kids?
Did you see this thing that Apple did?
Is I found it incredibly valuable
because it takes me even further out of my perspective by bringing in another person's perspective and they can interrogate me and have me explain
why I do what I do.
And boy does a lot of nonsense fall out when you have to explain why you do what you do.
So highly recommended.
Yeah, I'm thinking that's something I may need to steal from you, but I think I would
do it when I get to the hard questions part.
I would first do the roles identification and everything first.
Yeah, that's generally what I do.
Sometimes I've had scheduling issues where the kickoff has been early.
But generally I try to have the keynote speaker come after I've done the first round where
I've written up all my roles.
Because then you explain them to them and you're already getting the inkling that weird
things are happening and they will cut to the chase usually and be like, why do you
do it this way?
And it's almost like therapy.
But it's good.
It's good.
It's business therapy.
So what exactly are you sharing with them?
Do you have any sort of agenda for this?
Like are you are there any specific numbers that you're sharing?
Is there a specific section of the retreat where you're just saying this is what I was thinking for the course forward? What do you think about this? Or what's the context that they have for these calls when they're giving you this type of advice?
and go through the process. It's more. So this is this is I can I can give you this detail. So I asked I asked Gray to do this. And he said, That's great. And what I what I said is, it's a way. Well, let's see, I'm about to
have my annual Jason off site. And I'm trying to think about some bigger tactical thoughts when I can. It's a way
for me to block a day or two out and think bigger thoughts. I usually ask a couple of people to come and he said, OK, what should I know about
it? And this is all I said, I said, This process is an annual with a six-month-later follow-up thing I've done for a few
years now, where I give myself permission to take a step back and view my business and job from a higher level, since if
I don't do it, nobody will. Guest speakers help me get even further
outside my own perspective, which I've found valuable. I imagine we'll talk about what my current range of tasks are, and
suspect you will have questions about the details and what it all means. Even asking the questions is valuable because it
identifies issues I maybe am not thinking about enough. In the past, these sessions have left led to choosing to offload
parts of my job to other people, restructure
of my membership plans and other things like that. I'm not going in with a big list of those things. What I hope to do
is come out of the process with a list of to-dos, things to think about more or to implement. So it's really just sort
of like, I will come to you in the moment with my list of things. And I expect you to ask me a lot of questions about
things that strike you,
essentially, as why are you doing this,
or what do you think about this?
That's it, I really try to keep it as open as that.
So they're really, I'm summarizing what I've written
on those big sheets of paper at the beginning of the call,
and then we just sort of see where it leads.
Going back, one of the things I do, Jason,
that's not in my PDF, is I have a free form document,
and every deliverable that I make,
whether it's a field guide video or a blog post
or a newsletter or whatever,
I have documented all the steps of each process.
And then what I do is I color the boxes.
What are the, you know, if it's blue,
it's something that only I can do. And then when I go to the boxes, if it's blue, it's something that only I can do.
And then when I go to the retreat,
I look at those boxes again and say,
well, is there something in here that is not blue
that I'm doing and can I get somebody else to do that for me?
But again, it's the idea of breaking it down to components
and you don't do that holistically.
You don't say, well, I just need some help
with the newsletter.
What you say is, no, I need someone to do a second edit,
to run it through Grammarly.
Once they get my thumbs up, they need to get it uploaded
to the newsletter thing and set the publication.
Then suddenly you really have a list.
And...
Yeah, it's remarkable.
Just to talk about that transformation when you say, I'm going to take this to someone else.
Yeah.
And I know like, depending on where you are as an
indie person, you might be like, well, that's
just a pipe dream.
I can't do that.
And it's like, I get it.
But what I'm, what I'm saying is at some point,
if your business is going, okay, you are limited
by your time and your time is more valuable.
If it's, if it's the thing that you do that is unique, it's more valuable than whatever you want to offload. And so I had that moment, like I said, with the editors, I had that moment a few months ago, where I have been like, sometimes what you write up there is like things you've been remiss about. That also comes out of these things. It's not just the stuff that I do, it's the stuff that I should do,
and I know I should do, and I never do it
because I don't have the time, I don't have the inclination,
it just never happens.
And it's a kind of a being irresponsible
about something that is part of,
people ask me sometimes about like memberships
and things like that, and they're like,
oh, do you do maintenance on your memberships?
Do you send emails to
the incomparable members? And I'm like, no. Do you communicate with people who are no longer members
and give them offers to come back? No. And I realized, oh, well, these are things that I don't
want to do. I'm not going to do, I'm not going to start doing, but I recognize are valuable.
And so incomparable membership is a good example where I basically went to a friend of mine who
was starting his own business.
See this is how this works sometimes.
He quit his job and was starting his own business doing content stuff.
And I said, would you like a job that is doing the member newsletter every quarter?
I mean, it's not even a big, not a huge amount of money, but it's not a big task, but it's
like a task that should happen that I am never going to do.
And literally, I mean, we had a couple of back and
forths about the content of the newsletter and all
of that, but really literally all I had to do was ask.
And, and now there's a part of my business that
should have happened 10 years ago, probably is now
happening and it's just cause I had to identify it
and make a note of it and make the effort to hand it off.
And I know handing things off is effort, right?
But like the payback is enormous when you do that.
Well, and going back to, you know, old timey free agents,
our advice was just the opposite.
When you quit your job, we told everybody,
don't spend a penny, you don't have to,
because when you're first getting started, just survival is job one.
Yeah, 100%.
But you're coming back here after having done it 10 years and say, well, eventually, hopefully,
you get in a position where you do have to spend some money.
And I totally agree.
I struggle with it as well.
I also have control issues, which is another problem.
Right, yeah. I struggle with it as well. I mean, I also have control issues, which is another problem. Yeah.
But just my last quarterly review I did in January
ended up in me spending quite a bit of money
to get someone to deal with all my customer support email.
And it's such a, I'm so happy I did it.
And I should have done it years ago,
but it just takes a while to get there.
And you gotta know that you can rely
on having enough revenue,
but also you have to be willing to give it up.
Yeah, it is.
Control is a huge issue too.
I do think the way that I've dealt with it is,
yeah, I mean, when you start out,
it's very unlikely that you're,
as a new free agent,
that you have filled the, all of the time, right?
You're struggling to take jobs
and then there's the balancing thing that happens.
And I know we talked about this on free agents
where you say yes to work that you shouldn't have said yes to
because you're like, but I'm starting out, I need to.
And then you have to start saying no to that work
because it's the wrong kind of work.
Or another thing that can happen at these off sites
that's valuable is having coming into
it with awareness of where your money comes from. Because I will say that that's also,
and sometimes it's kind of cold to do it that way, but it is important to say, like, where does my
money come from? For example, the when I talked about like editing those incomparable spin-off
shows, network shows, I don't make any money
at that. I literally was editing it for free and producing those shows for free. And the
hosts were getting some member support, but I was just doing it for free. And I thought,
I can't, like not only is this burning me out, but it's like, this is time I do not
have to work on something with little to no return. So, uh, we use the member support was there to support the shows.
So we use the member support to pay for the producers and editors
to make the show happen.
It was, that was why it was there to begin with.
And that, that was off my plate.
It's similarly, I can analyze anything I do and say, well, how
much money does this bring in?
And then gauge it.
And it's not a, it's not just like all about the money,
right? Some of it is about what I want to do, whether it's strategically or that it brings me joy. It's not a, you
know, always ruthlessly go to the thing that brings in the most money. But it sure is helpful to have that moment of
saying, I am doing, you know, whatever it is, five hours a week of work that generates zero income.
And your business does reach the point
where the limit is your human body.
And getting stuff that does not need to be you out
either gives you rest or it gives you more time to work.
And it's super important, even though,
and that's what got me over my control issues was,
I know they're not gonna do it like me, but I shouldn't be doing that job anymore because I have other things that I could be applying my skills to instead.
And, and so, yeah, something like support emails, something like ad traffic is, it's just, it's something that, that you have to do when your business has gone on a little bit and you realize that, that the issue, because over
time, the issue becomes your time. At the start, it's not at the start, it's I will do everything because that's how I
survive. And it's, it's, I, in talking to other people who do what we do, this is a thing that I've identified that I
found that a lot of people haven't, which is that moment of saying you need to come out of startup
mentality, indie startup mentality, and enter time, your time management. Because I, you know, I guarantee that a lot of
independent creators who've been doing it for five years or more have tasks they're doing that are not a thing that makes
them unique. There was a business book that I read because I was assigned it by my CEO at the time called Good to Great. I have not read a lot of business books, but the perspective that I liked out of that book was, find out what you do the best in the world is basically the way they put it. And then that's the thing that matters. And I would say for indie creators, what do you do? Like literally, why are you out there? Why are people paying you?
Like what, what are they paying you to do?
And then like, that's, that's always your priority and, and ad
traffic and customer support, you can do them, but unless, unless you don't have
the money to pay for it and, and you don't have the work that can replace it, you
know, you should, you should not do that anymore.
And that was a huge revelation for me that I found that I think a lot of people are in
that same boat, which is they're just doing stuff because they've always done it and not
because it makes sense.
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One other thing I wanna call out
from way back at the beginning,
because you mentioned the Airbnb that you found
at the beginning of the week in the winter,
which wasn't very expensive.
So like as we're talking about personal retreats, and before we move on from this, I want to make sure
to mention that the key takeaway, I think here you mentioned earlier is to get off site.
Yep.
And if you get creative, you can find ways to do this that are not going to break the bank.
Yeah. You don't have to go to Hawaii, right?
Exactly.
You don't have to do that.
Wait, you could do this in Hawaii?
You totally could.
And if you wanna do that, but what I would say is
the problem is then you're gonna wanna go to the beach.
And that's not as, like having a nice dinner
or a nice lunch is a perk of this.
Like when I worked at our downtown,
my friend's downtown office, it meant like I got to go over
to the deli and got them to make me a sandwich for lunch. And I usually make my own sandwich. So there's some fun stuff, but yeah,
midweek rental nearby. So I mentioned CGP Grey, he does a thing. He's a YouTuber. He does the
Cortex podcast here at Relay. He does these things that we have come to call Greycations,
but it's basically, it's not for this kind of thing. It's more like for him to really intensely focus on writing a script for his YouTube videos.
But he's, he's going somewhere nearby and getting a hotel room and locking himself in it essentially to focus.
And that, that I would say like, yeah, if you can go an hour away and rent an Airbnb midweek, you know, for fairly cheap, and just drive there and be there for one night
even, or maybe two nights. That is, that's a good way to go. I would say, I mean, yeah, obviously, if you've got, if
you're lucky enough to have a friend who has an office and they're going to go to Australia, I mean, what are the
chances? But do that. I also looked at like co- facilities. There's a lot of places that coworking facilities will let you rent an office
and for a day. And you literally come in the morning and they they say you're in that office
and you go in there and you close the door. I mean, it can be that simple. It doesn't have
to be super expensive. But yeah, you may find if you've got like, maybe you've got a friend who's going on vacation
and they want you to feed their cat.
And you say, you know what, do you mind if I stay there,
you know, and do my little personal offsite for the day?
And they're like, I don't care.
I'm gonna be in Hawaii.
You're the sucker who's feeding my cat.
And you can do that.
So there's lots of opportunities for stuff like that.
But you're absolutely right, Mike.
The point is to get outside of your space, just completely outside of your space and all the distractions and routines. The routines that let
you do your job, it's that right structure is this thing that is super valuable, but it's all meant
to keep you doing your routines and keeping in your structure. And that's why we build structures and corporate cultures are like that.
And like, that's why we do it.
But for stuff like this, you got to fight it.
And that means you got to get out of wherever you work, like, and wherever
you live and any place that's going to be a distraction like that, you just
got to get out.
Which kind of gets back to where we started is, is this is hard.
What we're talking about.
It's not easy.
Yeah.
And it's kind of painful because you don't want to sit there and think to where we started is this is hard, what we're talking about. It's not easy.
And it's kind of painful because you don't wanna sit there
and think about what you're doing wrong
or what you should stop doing.
And nobody's doing my work while I'm gone, right?
Like as an indie, unless you've got collaborators,
like it's super scary to be like,
I'm abandoning my work for two days.
It's like, yeah, you are,
but do it once or twice a year. Like I said, I tend to do it once a
year and then try to schedule a six month out kind of mini
follow up checking in trying to keep myself honest. Like it's
worth the time, but it is super scary because you're going to be
making all those decisions you've avoided and you know,
you've avoided the ones you don't even realize you have to
deal with and you aren't going to actually be able to do your
job for a couple of days. It's super scary, but you have to deal with. And you aren't going to actually be able to do your job for a couple of days.
It's super scary, but you got to do it.
Um, if somebody's listening right now and they're struggling or they're thinking they should give it a try, what's your advice to them?
I say you got to do it.
I mean, it is, it is painful.
Like we just said, but I found, especially at the start, this is also not one of those things that gets better with practice.
I actually think that the more unresolved stuff you've got, the easier it is.
It's taken me three years to kind of clear out the worst of it.
This year, I actually ended up thinking a lot more strategically about the future of my business.
The first two years were really like garbage time.
It was really like, oh my God, there were so many things that need to change
about what I do and what the business does.
So I'd say it's worth it.
It can be a little bit painful, but you will, like, you've got to have a perspective about who you are and what you do and what your jobs are. And it's very hard to do that while you're doing your jobs. And I guess what I would say again is there's no one else to do it.
Oh, no, no one knows your business like you do. And no one is going to tap you on the shoulder and say, I want, I want to change what your job is, and we're going to bring some help in and
we're going to, you know, whatever it is. And, and the great thing about the offsite is it is what you need it to be.
So depending on what phase of your indie life you're in, it can be the, let's focus on the future of the business like I did this year, or let's focus on getting help. It can also be earlier on, it can be valuable in like, let's focus on what to do and what not to do. What kind of work am I looking for? What should I do be, you know, do more of or try to do more of? And what work do I is not worth it financially, or is not worth it in terms of the opportunity cost or I just hate it.
Like every phase of this, knowing what I know now,
I would have done this from the beginning
because even though what I need keeps changing,
the need to step back and analyze it
and not just be in the day-to-day has always been there.
There are always those decisions that need to be made.
And better, you don't make them under duress,
but instead that you actually give yourself a moment
to take a breath and think like the person
who's running your business, because you are that too.
That is one of your roles that should be up there
on the paper is CEO of your business.
I would add to that that even if you are not
an independent creator and a free agent,
that this stuff could be helpful.
Even if you're working for a multinational corporation.
Oh yeah.
Getting a way to think about what your roles are
and then maybe bringing that back to your superiors
and talking about that.
I'm so happy that you said that because
one of my other inspirations, I didn't mention this, but one of my other inspirations for this is I used to do a couple of things when I was at IDG in Macworld.
One of them was what I called the walk in the woods, which was essentially, I would take a personal day or I would take a day off or I would take a work from home day.
And I was, I made sure I didn't have anything to do that day. And it was get out of the office and think about
think big thoughts. And it was not as structured as this. But it was very much like, I need to take a breath and get
some fresh air and, and not be in the office, where it's always about what the latest, you know, priority is. And
then I also started doing something. So at Mack world in the later years I had a couple of direct reports and we were basically the
editorial management for Macworld, it was Phil and Dan. And we would have every six
months or so, and again this is a great example, I mean if you work at home it's
not the perfect example, but it was a great example of getting out of the
space. We would go every six months or so to Dan's house and sit in his
dining room in Berkeley, like and Phil and I would drive to Dan's house and and we would sit in his dining room all day with
our laptops. And we would do a version of this same idea. We didn't think of it as like quite as a retreat, but it was the
same idea of getting out of your headspace and the day-to-day and thinking about the big picture things.
So even if you are at a company,
you absolutely have the ability to take the walk
in the woods yourself if you're responsible for some area,
or maybe even take a couple of your key lieutenants,
essentially, and go off somewhere.
And again, it does not have to be a big funded
corporate retreat.
It could literally be, if you're in an office, go to someone's house and, and,
you know, the kids are at school and you're at the dining room table and you're
not in the usual for work, even if, even if it's your dining room table, you have
people over, that's not where you do your job.
That's good enough.
And that I always found that really valuable.
And this is like the indie, my indie iteration of that same thing.
I like the term walk in the woods.
I feel like there's something about getting out into nature if you can, whether that's the woods or by lake, whatever.
And I know that's more accessible for some people than others, but don't discount it.
Don't just think that you can't do that.
Like I just did my personal retreat last week
and I go to this getaway house they're called
and they're like these tiny houses that they park
on these campsites in the middle of nowhere.
And they're kind of designed for people who live in the city
to get out into nature and just disconnect.
And for me, it's the perfect place to do my personal retreat,
but they have like a cell phone lock box.
Like you're not doing your closing keynotes for your personal retreats but they have like a cell phone lock box. Like you're not doing your, uh, your closing keynotes, uh, for your personal
retreats from a, from a getaway house, but it's 45 minutes away.
There's a beautiful trail there.
And, uh, to go back to the point about, you know, how affordable this stuff can
be, the pricing for the campsites is based on how full the campsites are.
So if you go on the weekends, it might be 300 bucks a night, but if you can
squeeze out a Monday or Tuesday night,
but the coupon codes that they always have available, I mean,
I just did mine for like $70.
So get a little bit creative and definitely get out into the,
the, the woods or buy some water if you can,
because it really does just change the way that you think about things.
It's hard to explain exactly what it does, but it definitely changes things.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, I fortunate to live very close to some, you know, redwoods
and also a beach so I can do these things. But, but yeah, I think that there is a way
to get right. Like the theme of this all is just get outside of your usual, get outside
of your own head, give yourself some space that is not in the grind in the machine of
whatever it is that you've built, which is not a that is not in the grind in the machine of whatever it is that
you've built, which is not a bad thing. Like the machine you built may be a beautiful machine,
but you like, you need to, you need to not be in it. You need to be on the outside. And so yeah,
if you can go to nature and you don't have to like even take a big hike, like even if you're just
in a cabin and stepping outside and sitting at a table or literally
walking through on a trail, a flat trail, it doesn't need to be hard. It just needs to be
outside of the norm so that your brain can decompress and think. And if you direct it
to think about these deep thoughts, it's not a vacation, but it is giving yourself permission to think big thoughts in a place where you're not, you do not have, your brain
doesn't have like a foothold to grab onto and say, oh, but what about project A back at the office?
Like you need to just have a way to say no brain. It's not today.
Yeah. In fact, in the materials, I explained that you can, just leave the tools to do the maker work at home.
Don't even bring the stuff with you.
Do everything you can to make it easier.
I feel like if every time you turn your computer on,
you think you should be writing an article
or publishing a paper or whatever,
then maybe leave the computer at home.
Make it as hard as possible to do actual work when you leave.
Right, like I would bring my laptop
so I could do that work, but for me, right,
it's knowing yourself too.
For me, it was the whole pen and paper
from IDG training thing that was the leap
that I needed to make there of spending my time
not staring at a computer screen where I could just
flip over to another app and do my job,
but instead holding one of those big markers, staring at a computer screen where I could just flip over to another app and do my job, but instead holding one of those big markers staring at a piece of paper on
a wall made all the difference because it was like I can't write a blog post or record
a podcast while I'm holding this pen. And that that that made a difference.
Yeah. Another another thing you mentioned, which is worth calling out is the fact that
it's not a vacation. This is not going to be easy.
In fact, this is probably the hardest thinking work
you will ever do.
Most of the time when I do a personal retreat,
by the end of the day, I am completely exhausted,
which feels weird because you did nothing
but think big thoughts.
Think real hard.
But it is exhausting because your brain's not used
to being in that mode.
Yeah, it's absolutely true. Again, if you've been in the corporate world at all,
I like the idea of calling it an offsite because corporate offsites, the whole idea was you go somewhere else
and so you can think big thoughts. I mean, that's always been my experience is that's what the offsite is for is to go somewhere else, get out of your room.
And there are offsites that are more junkety and there are offsites that are more serious.
But like, if I'm running my offsite,
the point is to go and do what we've described
in this episode.
But you know what?
Corporate offsite, there are, you can treat yourself, right?
So it's things like, it's not a vacation,
but if it means like, oh well,
I'm gonna get that deli sandwich or'm going to bring something with me for a lunch that is not your usual lunch.
Or at the end of the day, you know, if you're at an unusual location, maybe what's a restaurant near there?
Maybe go to dinner and you're winding down and maybe you're thinking not the deep thoughts anymore, but like, I will say, just this is a weird aside, I know,
but like, this is the treat yourself part,
which is you, if you're ever gonna do something nice
for yourself, have it be a reward
for doing something like this.
You're in an unusual place, you've had an unusual day,
it may not work out, but like having a little treat,
think of yourself as the corporate training manager for your
company. And you're like, you know, those people are not like, Oh, well, we're gonna put them in a room for eight
hours and then send them home. And that's all there is. And there's nothing nice there. And then they have to go back
to it. That's not what they're gonna do. They're gonna be like, Well, we're gonna get them a box lunch. And then we're
gonna go have a have a dinner afterward. I've done it where I've had dinner with my wife
afterward. And it's been like a nice like, little capper where she wasn't there for the thing. But like she came out,
like when we did the Airbnb, after work, she came to the Airbnb and we had dinner, and we stayed the night and
then left the next morning. And so it was like a little treat at the end of the
hard work. And that's okay. I sometimes think that indie creators and independent people in general
do not give themselves an opportunity to treat themselves even a little for their hard work.
This is a great opportunity to do that after you've spent all that time thinking real hard.
opportunity to do that after you've spent all that time thinking real hard? Ideally for me it's two nights. Like you leave, you start and in the PDF I explain
it all and then the second day is the really hard work day and then like that
night, that second night, like if I have the means I'll go out to a nice meal or
something and get away because by then you're ready to get away from the off
site. Even if it's a beautiful cabin're ready to get away from the offsite.
Even if it's a beautiful cabin,
you need to get out a little bit.
And that's kind of like the treat yourself night for me.
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Focus podcast and all of Relay FM. So Jason, last time you were on these airwaves, this show was all about free agents.
Now the show is all about staying focused.
So we do have a fresh area to discuss with you.
When you're not off doing retreats and you work from home and you've got your own kind
of studio built at the house. How do you stay focused? Well, I'll tell you, it's a lot easier now that the kids don't live at home.
Living at home has its own challenges. I mean, it, it, it, focus. It's really interesting.
Some of it is, I mentioned my wife before we've been married a long time now, it's almost 30 years in fact, we got married very young.
Setting boundaries, especially early on, has been important, especially when she worked part time.
Now she's gone all day, but when she worked part time,
we had rules about when the door is closed,
what does it mean?
When the door is open, what does it mean?
I had a little do not disturb thing that I made that I can put on the doorknob. So literally be like, Do Not Come In Here. I set my
door so it locks from the inside as well as the outside so I can actually lock, lock myself in. And no, I'm not
trapped. But it's like yet another message. So some of it's just those kind of boundaries with her and when the kids were at home with them about sort of like, when is it OK to just walk in and start talking to me? Because that's a real
focus breaker. So if I really need to focus beyond that, I'll close the door, for example. And they can, you know,
they can text me, usually at that point is what we tend to do if the door is closed. It's a simple thing. So that that helps with my focus a little bit. And then the other
thing is an understanding. Like I said, my wife works at, she's a librarian, she works at the library every day. And
I'm at home. And part of the negotiation is it's an advantage that I'm at home. But we also, very important to me, and she has accepted this, that just because I'm at home
doesn't mean I'm not working.
And that's tricky, right?
Because it's like, I accept the fact that if somebody needs
to get a package or anything where it's like,
well, we can take advantage of somebody being at
home. It's like, yes, we can do that. That's fine. But I also
have been wary. I mean, it's talking about managing your time
and taking on tasks of, of the whole idea of like, well, oh,
you're home. So can you run this errand? And can you do this
thing? And sometimes I say yes.
And sometimes I say no, because I'm busy.
And just because I'm home, it's just, I don't know if
I'm explaining this correctly, but like, this is
the challenge for anybody who is at home, whether
they are staying at home or whether they're working
at home or whether they're only part time is the
implication of being home is, oh, you can do things while you're home
And the way I always put it is you know consider it that other than lunch consider it that maybe I'm locked away in
In my office all day working and we've come over 10 years to get in a good place about that
But that was something where we had to set some boundaries for is the door closed or not,
but also like don't make assumptions.
And like, it's a big request to say,
can you go in the middle of the day and do this thing?
And she can see my calendar.
She knows the stuff that I've blocked off.
She knows when I have a more open day
and we have those conversations
and I'm happy to do some of that stuff, but I can't, you know, more of it has to just be we have to figure it out in the evenings or on the weekends, and that that's just that helped me focus. So, um, I have for a long time, I mentioned writing columns at Starbucks.
I used to do that.
I don't do that so much anymore.
The pandemic sort of cured me of that, but I have like an iPad stand and a
keyboard, I will sometimes write at my kitchen, the countertop, the bar top.
Um, because it's a, it's a physically different location. I will sometimes write at my kitchen, the countertop, the bar top.
Um, because it's a, it's a physically different location. It's a little like the offsite stuff.
And, and, and it gets me out of one, again, it's not like this isn't a place that I do work, but it's not the place that I'm sitting at right now.
It's a different location.
And sometimes that flips the switch in your brain where, again, even though it's pretty minor, it's like, well, I made went to all the trouble of getting out the keyboard and setting up the iPad.
And I found when I am needing to write something is so powerful to do a place change, even if it's just to go to the iPad at the countertop or go to my daughter's bedroom where I've set up a desk and just be in a different location.
go to my daughter's bedroom where I've set up a desk and just be in a different location. I have friends who will go to like a supermarket with a, with a, you know, where there are
tables and chairs or a coffee shop. And I think that's very powerful. And the other thing
that works, and this is really funny because I know that it's because I used to do this
in order to block out the world, but like sometimes when I really need to write, I put
in headphones playing music music, and specific
playlists that work for writing. But the act of putting again, that music on speakers, not as effective as in
headphones. And I think it's because I have something that I built up 10 years ago or longer ago, where that was
your down to business time. You put in the headphones, you shut off the world. It's probably when I had little kids and I was getting away to write in like the
evening and closing the door, but that has become a trigger for me too.
So it's, it's being aware, like of how your brain works and where you, how you
can make yourself more productive.
And it comes in the weirdest places and everybody's going to be different.
But as a rule of thumb, that's the number one thing I would say is if you're not
focused at your desk
Can you do it somewhere else?
Like can you do it somewhere if you're at home?
Can you literally take the laptop and go to the couch or sit in the kitchen or go to a coffee shop? Just
change state because for me the change of state can can be all
That's required to reboot my brain and have me focus on something. Yeah, I totally agree
Context-shift can be a good thing thing You know, we talked about context shifting
Slowing you down, but when you need to change work modes and with someone like you who has so many roles
I think there's nothing wrong with
Identifying specific roles with specific context and it's like a shortcut for your brain to jumpstart and get going
I have to ask have you tried to create any context with Apple Vision Pro? of the context and it's like a shortcut for your brain to jumpstart and get going.
I have to ask, have you tried to create any context
with Apple Vision Pro yet?
Yeah, I've done that a little bit.
And in fact, what I would say is I haven't done
the iPad setup recently because I've been doing that
with the Vision Pro instead.
And it's very similar.
The software is still a little wonky,
but I have written multiple articles in Vision Pro
with an external keyboard and Rune Stone
as my text editor in a version,
sometimes it's just in my house,
sometimes it's in an environment,
because again, that's a big context shift. And I like it. I don't know if I would
choose it every time. But what I what I like the most about it is that ergonomically setting up the iPad with a stand and a
keyboard in the kitchen or whatever is I can do it, but it's like cramped and it's limited. And there's only like one way to sit.
And with a vision pro, I can sit on my couch, which is super comfy and
just have a keyboard in my lap.
And my dog is very happy because she can come up and sit and, you know, kind
of across from me and put her, her head down on my feet as I'm writing.
And it's very nice.
Uh, and, and that's, that's the thing that Vision Pro gets me
is a lot more ergonomic freedom to sit wherever
as long as I can type on a keyboard.
Yeah, I've been doing this thing where I only write
in Yosemite environment.
And it works.
I mean, my brain now, I go to Yosemite and the headset
and suddenly it's just like everything I get focused on writing.
And now I'm super curious to see what happens the next time
I actually visit Yosemite.
Am I going to feel compelled to like start writing something?
Or?
Maybe so.
Just bring a camp chair, sit out in a meadow,
just start typing away.
I do want to say for those of us who don't have
the vision pros, it doesn't have to be fancy
or expensive to do this either.
Like one of the things that I used to do, I had this whole big circuit that I would start at a coffee shop, then go to the library, then end up at a co-working space.
And I would work on a different project basically whenever I arrived at the new location, be there for a couple of hours, go somewhere else.
But you could literally start for free simply by going to the library.
Yes, the library typically has pretty fast wireless Internet.
You can bring your headphones, put them on.
But my library actually looks out over this this little Marina thing.
So there's some some nature there, too, with the windows, you know,
at the my little little spot up on the second floor.
So, again, look for ways to make this easier.
You don't have to go all out
and do the really fancy version at first.
It's a lot more approachable, I guess,
than what you might think
is really the point I'm making here.
Yeah, well, I mean, like I said,
one of my big ways of doing this
is literally to go to a different room, right?
Like even that, and if you do it enough times,
that's the other thing is that you might do it once
and be like, well, this is just a little bit weird.
But what I've found is over time,
if you keep doing that, it becomes a cue, right?
Like David's Yosemite, it becomes a cue
that your brain actually starts to say, oh, I know.
Like, okay, so I live,
I'm fortunate to live in Northern California in the summer, because our summers
are gentle here. My favorite thing is to sit in a camp chair under the redwood tree in my backyard and write. And that is
a cue. But even like sitting at the at the high bar stool in my kitchen is a cue that says time to write or putting those headphones in.
And the more you do it, this is, you talk about practice, right?
The more you do it, the more it becomes the cue to start some aspect of creativity.
And, you know, it's not a cure-all.
It's still hard work.
But like, if you talk about the losing momentum when you do a context shift, but the opposite
is true.
If you have no momentum, if you're at a standstill, it can be incredibly valuable to you need
a context shift.
You need something to break you out of your staring at the screen, sitting in your chair.
And that so if you do it enough, you can, I think you can train yourself into
saying, Oh, I'm at Starbucks or the library or the kitchen counter. And that means it's time to get
to work on this particular kind of work, especially. Yeah. It's a great procrastination buster.
Yeah. I mean, it's so easy to just sit at, I mean, for me, it's so easy to sit at my screen
sometimes. And it's like, I can loop around email, Slack, Discord,
you know, Mastodon, back around emails, Slack.
Oh, I can do this thing here and check this thing.
And like, I'm not being productive.
I'm being anti-productive because I'm spinning my wheels
because I'm not quite sure what to do next.
And, you know, just standing up and being like,
all right, out somewhere, literally the next room will do
to break myself out of this.
Yeah, it's like your brain knows it's game time
when you make that switch.
And like you said, the more you do it,
especially trying to do certain types of work
in the same context every time, to me that's real magical
because if every time you sit on the couch, or every time you go to you sit on the couch, every time you go to the bar,
stool, or every time you go to the library, you do a certain
type of work. It's like you sit down and your brain is already
engaged with that work before you even tap a key. So that's
great.
You may even start thinking about it as you're going there,
right? Like it may be that is enough of a cue for your brain
to start prepping for what you're going to do.
We had a Starbucks within walking distance in my house that shut down.
And it made me very sad because that was such a great place for me to write my Mac world column.
I was doing it every week on like a Tuesday afternoon.
And especially in the winter where I wasn't going to be sitting in the backyard.
And it was like, put my laptop in my backpack, put the backpack on my
back, walk four minutes, order a hot chocolate, sit down, headphones in, start typing, and the words just popped
right out. Because it was that whole process of context shift, you know, the context of getting ready.
I might start thinking about the column
as I was walking to the place and ordering my little drink
and then sitting down.
It was very specific and it was kind of magical
and then they closed it.
So I was like, okay, well, I guess we'll go back
to the kitchen counter then.
I think you're gonna get a bite, Jason.
Yeah, I mean, well, there's another Starbucks I can go to but yeah
You're right. I could also it's over a freeway. It's kind of dangerous. Anyway, I I yeah, I found some other places
But the cheapest places are at my house, which is nice
All right, Jason. Welcome back again
I'm so happy to have you back and and I'm really happy that the retreat process has been helping you
And gang you don't have to do this just for work.
You could do it for the rest of your life too.
That's what me and Mike kind of preach about.
And we've got the PDFs and the links and the notes.
You can go check that stuff out.
Jason, where do people go to learn more
about the stuff you do?
I post lots of things, including the podcast
I do at sixcolors.com.
Here at Relay, I host Upgrade and Downstream.
And on the Incomparable.com, I host many things, but I don't produce and edit as much as I
used to because I learned my lesson.
All right. We are the Focus Podcast. You can find us at Relay.fm slash Focus. You can sign
up for the Deep Focus ad-free version of the show where you get the ad free
content and additional content with each episode.
We're going to be talking to Jason today about how he uses a calendar as a task manager.
I can't wait to talk about that.
Thank you to our sponsors, NomNom, Squarespace, and Indeed, and we'll see you next time.