Focused - 111: Environmental Focus, with Erik Fisher

Episode Date: October 27, 2020

Erik Fisher joins us to talk about internal and external distractions, setting up your environment for focused work, dealing with unexpected changes, and building self-awareness.

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. How are you? I'm doing well. How about you? Well, I know you had your sabbatical week, so you do sound pretty nice to me this week. You're feeling good, rested, ready to take on the world. Much to the chagrin of some of the people in the forum. But yes, sabbaticals are awesome. I had last week off. It was great.

And I'm excited to get back and talk to you today. Also, we've got a special guest here. Welcome to the show, Eric Fisher. Hello. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. I've been a big fan of yours. guest here. Welcome to the show, Eric Fisher. Hello. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. I've been a big fan of yours, been listening to Beyond the To-Do List for a very long time. I was kind of surprised that we hadn't had you on the show yet. But why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do for people who aren't familiar with your show?

Yeah. Well, people that are familiar would know that David's been on the show twice over the years. And Mike, you've been on once before, actually earlier this year. So that was cool. Or it was late last year. I forget now. This year in the time warp. But the show is called Beyond the To-Do List. And it essentially started off as me saying, Hey, you know what? I could, uh, enjoy some time geeking out on productivity. How do I, uh, create a show where that's the concise thought that the end of through thread and even, you know, lets me have like free productivity coaching. That was the, that was all the, the initial thoughts. And it's just gone on now for, uh, let's see, it started August, 2012. And so we've just passed, what, eight years of the show, which is insane to me.

And you would think that we would have tackled all the topics. And in fact, we kind of have. But there's always more to talk about, especially as some of the stuff that I think we'll talk about right now is stuff that I've not actually talked about on the show before. So it's going to be really interesting. This stuff does have a way of evolving, you know, and, uh, and I do think that, you know, there's really no end of the struggles we all face trying to keep our boat pointed in the right direction and, and sailing as well. Yeah, for sure. I think, I mean, if you think about it, I mean, there was pre, I know you guys have mentioned this book a number of times, but there's the pre-James Clear Atomic Habits point in time and productivity. And then

there's the post time, but there's many of those books. In fact, I just recorded like a top five productivity books because somebody asked me, like, because I had said, Hey, this let this read a sink guest. Um, I was like, this book is great. In fact, this is probably one of the top five books I'd tell people to go get. And then somebody said, what are the other four? And I'm like, well, there's a show. So it never ends. There's always more. That's always evolving. And in fact, our, our workflows and our approach to life is always evolving and it's all seasonal. So I'm not surprised really. Yeah. Mike turned me on to tiny habits recently, which is a very good book as well. So yes, just one more habit book to add to your list. Hey, before we get started today, uh, Eric, if you don't mind, we actually have a couple of announcements we need to cover for the show. A little housekeeping. Mike and I have talked a little bit about, you know, what do

we want to do for the members? So, you know, Relay has done this thing where people can become members to specific shows. And we did a meetup, a virtual meetup, which was really fun, except the problem was a bunch of people said, well, I can't make it at that time. And there was just a bunch of issues with, you know, setting a specific time and place for the subscribers to get access. So we started thinking about it and we realized that there's a lot of things we cover on the show where there's a little rabbit hole we walk right past, you know, sometimes it's like a little bit of technology or some really nerdy bit of awesomeness that doesn't really justify giving it a whole segment on the show, but it comes up.

So Mike and I have decided for all of our members, we are going to start indulging you with those rabbit holes. So starting with today's episode, we're going to do a little bonus episode. You're going to get an extended bit of the show at the end. And if you just, you know, we're going to give you instructions where you can go get a feed if you're a subscriber to the Focus podcast, and you'll be able to get that new feed that has that extra content at the end. Did I summarize that well, Mike? You did. And this is

pretty cool because the first time that we're doing it, we're doing it on a guest episode. And Eric has graciously agreed to hang out with us a little bit for that extra segment. So that'll be fun. Yeah. And so if you're listening on the standard feed and you're a subscriber, we'll send an email out to everybody with the link to the feed and, um, you can go and this one will be in that feed. So you can go back and listen to it. And, uh, we're looking forward to doing this. We're going to try and do it on most shows.

I don't want to promise all shows, maybe occasionally it won't happen, but I feel like these little rabbit holes exist in basically every episode. So we're going to indulge that a little bit. But for everybody who's not a subscriber, we're not taking away any content. We're not removing what we believe to be material content from the show. We want to keep doing it just like we have. But we're going to go just a little deeper for the subscribers. Yep.

One other thing, Mike, you want to talk about the new calendars? Yeah, we got 2021 focus calendars. They are pretty much identical to last year's, except we had a lot of requests for dry erase. So we have a dry erase option this year. And I actually just got mine in the mail yesterday as we record this and they look great. So if you want to rip up your 2020 calendar because you're done with this year, now's a great time to get a dry erase focus calendar for 2021. Yeah, they look great. I'm really happy we were able to get a dry erase option this year for the listeners and the calendars are made, you know, they're just gorgeous. You know, the partner we have on the calendars

makes a really nice looking calendar, goes up on your wall. You know, the partner we have on the calendars makes a really nice looking calendar. It goes up on your wall. You can see the whole year there. You can block out time. You can do all the stuff we talk about on the show and have it right in front of you. And that focus logo is there, but it's not like too imposing. You know, we just want you to have a great calendar on your wall. So what about pricing, Mike? They are are 24 and the link will be in the show notes but it's a new year calendar so n-e-u-y-e-a-r dot net slash products slash focused go check it out get get it on your wall in time for the new year mine's on the way i haven't got mine yet but i'm looking forward to hanging it and i am looking forward to starting a new year. And hopefully I won't need the dry erase as much as I would have needed it this year or next year.

But we'll find out. But I think that's a good price. And it's a really nice calendar. And it helps support the show. So if you're interested, please check it out. So Eric, we talked last week as we were prepping for today's show and one of the things that that came up in our discussion is the idea of creating an environment for focus and that's something you've been thinking about a lot lately um explain what you mean by that yeah i i know i'm not the

only one that this year has in a lot of ways become a year of distraction. Now, I'm not saying that we weren't already distracted before 2020, but 2020 has changed up our environment where we're either stuck in certain places or can't go to certain places or we're working odd hours that we weren't used to based on all the different hats that we have. And so I've been finding that, you know, I kind of waffle between almost ultra contemplative and thinking about all the things all at once, which is hard to do when you're wanting to do focused work or thinking, you know, going to the point of, okay, I need to be distracted because I can't deal with what I'm being, you know, what's happening in the world, in other words. And I don't know about you, but that's where I've found myself. And I thought, you know what, there's got to be this happy middle ground of you've put in the right amount of time to create your space, but not just your external space, but your internal space in your head. And by doing both of those things, and I'm telling you, this is not easy, but by doing both those things,

then I can finally kind of stick to an actual focus time. And we've all done the Cal Newport deep work and we've turned off all the bells and whistles and we're sitting there and we're trying to focus, but then inside of ourselves, you know, it's like, and it's not even bad things, you know, it's, it's, it's often, oh yeah, I need to remember to do this thing, or I need to, to remember to do this other thing. Or suddenly there's just this thought or this feeling that just, it pops up out of nowhere. And you, at that point in time, that is not the, you know, when you're in focused work time, that is not when you're supposed to be doing some of the GTD steps of capturing and deciding what to do about those things.

That is other work. And so, um, going analog, which I love that your calendar is, um, analog. I try to, I'm trying to be as analog as I can right now. What I've been doing is not just prepping myself ahead of time of those focus times, and we can get into that a little bit separately. But one of the things that I do as kind of a crutch for now is I have a – David, you'll like this. I have a legal pad literally sitting here and a pen. And it's kind of like meditation interruption. If the focused work time is meditation time and you know how a thought rises and then you want it to go away, that's what I do with the pad is I will write down, I won't judge it like meditation, and I won't make a decision about it,

but I will capture it so that when I'm done after this focused block of time, I can take a look at that and I can maybe do some prep then, or I can just say, no, that is for the winding up of the daytime to scan that list and decide if any of that was worth anything or if it was just gibberish. Yeah. So for me, that's the OmniFocus inbox, which is a keyboard shortcut since I'm at my Mac. And just at the end of the day, I look at some of the stuff in there and it's like, what were you thinking? Right. But it does allow you to pass it. But I want to wind back a little bit, this idea of internal and external focus, because, you know, it's hard not to have this conversation without talking about COVID and the changes we've all been dealing with in our lives.

But part of me has to think that, well, like, you know, have you ever had one of those things in your life where suddenly you're required to do a lot of physical labor? I remember when we moved into our house, it didn't have a sprinkler system, so I did it. And I'm digging trenches and just working all the time. And suddenly I realized I was getting bigger muscles without really intending to. I kind of feel like COVID is helping us with these focus muscles, either that or it's driving us right off a cliff, one or the other. But the idea of internal and external focus right now is both difficult and an opportunity. Yeah, definitely. And I think we kind of all were playing it by ear at first. How much do I have to

assess things? How much do I need to check in on myself? Or the other way, we tried to get as far as we could and say, oh, okay, you mean this isn't going to switch up? This isn't going to turn right back around. I guess I do need to figure out how to make things work in this long, unending season of life right now. And again, hopefully things change. But I think, I know, I mean, I'm a huge fan of the show. So, I mean, I, I heard a lot of what Michael Hyatt said last episode about, um, you know, how, you know, we're, we don't want to lean into the negativity about the year 2020 and COVID, but there was a lot of things where it really forced us to reckon with maybe past poor decisions or current bad setups and really assess things, our system, our way of doing what we do, or even what we're doing at all.

I mean, it was, I suddenly had three people at home with me all day when I never have to worry about that, or at least to a certain point in time, you know, all my two kids and, how do I figure out how I, as the person who's here working all day, get my stuff done and focus when even just the slight sound of them, you know, there's only so much time you can spend each day, uh, immersed in your Bose sound, uh, canceling headphones, you know? So it's like, it's not just about, it's not just about the environment. It's, it's gotta be about my, it's, you know,'s got to be about my internal state of mind, my state of rest, my state of focus, my attention, my energy levels. I've had to go back through. In fact, I had to go back through episodes of mine and say, what was the answer here about this specific topic? And when I talked to somebody about that and start taking notes all over again, like I had to go back to the drawing board.

That's interesting. And I want to unpack this a little bit. So one of the things that stands out to me during this whole extended COVID thing is that your perspective is really important, but it's not just blind optimism either that allows you to effectively cope with stuff like this. I'm reminded of the stoicism and General Stockdale when he was in the prison camps and Viktor Frankl talking about how the people who didn't make it out were the people who believed that this was just all going to be over. And then when a certain date would come and go,

they would lose their hope. So how do you personally maintain your sanity, for lack of a better word, just keep going forward, not focusing on the negative, but not getting discouraged when things don't change as quickly as maybe you want them to. Yeah, man, that is a great question. It's a really great assessment of the situation. I try to be hopeful. I try to optimize, in other words, my outlook for the long-term play, the long-term, that in other words, this isn't going to be the way things are forever. And I truly do believe that. It's just a matter of what do you do in the meantime when you don't know how long you're going to be in this? It's like, and honestly, in a way I can say I, the truthful

answer is I don't know. But what I have done is, is I have had to, instead of getting up first thing in the morning and my old routine used to be, I would actually knock out all of the, you know, when I was just kind of waking up and I was doing coffee, I would knock out emails. And I know that's actually not what either of you do, but that was an old routine of mine. My new routine has been to actually spend time, again, in a lot of ways that I know you guys do things, is with journaling. It's with gratefulness. It's with thankfulness. And it's uh, thankfulness and it's, uh, setting up my mind. It's setting up my attitude and, and even rebuilding the, the, the boundaries, the guardrails for the day. In other words, I am not going on social media today. I am not going to pay attention to the news today. If something's news enough, I will hear about it through somebody important that will tell me

different kinds of things like that, that, uh, that. And again, this has come in waves. There have been weekends where I've just felt like, oh gosh, this is never going to end. And there've been weeks where, oh wow, I got a lot done this week. This is great. And it's been basically self, it's such a lame term, but self-care. Basically, self, such a lame term, but self-care and not just the self-care of myself, but, you know, I am lucky. I have, I have a wife that I love. I've got two great kids. And even when they're annoying, the kids, not the wife, it is all about being thankful for the fact that, yeah, I mean, I guess I have a lot more time with them right now and that's great. But yeah, it's, it's all a jumble in a, in a lot of ways. I mean, somebody said it's October a couple of weeks ago and I said,

it feels like it's been like this for a year and a half now instead of like six months. So that it's that time malleability of perspective, uh, that I think is, is kind of, it's checking in on myself basically daily. It's been getting back to journaling because I'd fallen off a little bit. It's been getting into meditation more than ever before, which has really helped. And I'm actually in better shape now than when COVID started because I started doing those. I started showing up and doing the walks and eating better and not snacking at night for stress and things like that. So it's surprising to hear, but it's true. Yeah, I'm in the same boat.

When it first started back in March, it was starting to get warm enough to be able to get outside again. And so from March until about a week ago, I had run or biked outside every single day. And in the month of August, I put in over 300 miles between the bike and the shoes. And that, I think, has been really important for me, just getting outside every single day. There's just something about, you know about running through the woods, go for a bike ride by the lake, getting by the water. That is very therapeutic for me and kind of puts me in a solid mental state. So I'm glad that you called that out. You got to protect the golden goose and the things that you got to do are going to be different for each person, but you got to know what you need and you got to, you got to take care of yourself before you can help anybody else. Well, the other thing I'll say is I've been proactively looking towards this fall saying,

I don't want to lose my momentum. I don't want to have this new season, throw a new wrench into an already kind of murky problem. And so even today it's 40 something degrees out, but I took the dog for a walk thinking, yeah, I don't know how much longer we can do this, but we're going to, I don't know what you're, I don't know what you're going to do. You're going to run around in the backyard when the snow's here and that's fine. Cause you're, you don't mind, but like, I can't do too much outside work, but you know, so I've got a bike here in the house that I can use and I'm just trying to navigate when I can switch that over. But it's been proactively thinking ahead as to those seasonal changes, or at least even if it's a micro season of, hey, you know what?

I can't do a certain thing a certain way this week, but I've got a backup plan and a backup system to still follow through on what I am holding dear as a new habit that I don't want to let go of. That's a really good point. And I think that it's easy with the changing seasons because I'm in the Midwest too, so it's getting cold. And I've had the same thought. I love getting outside and biking my loop around my neighborhood here, but it's not going to be a whole lot longer that I'm going to be able to do that. And you can just continue to do it as long as you can. And then all of a sudden, one day, you can't do it anymore. And at that point, if you haven't thought ahead, you're kind of like, well, what do I do now? But if you think ahead, you can totally see it coming. You know, suddenly never happens suddenly unless you just start like burying your head in the sand

and you're not wanting to think about it until you have to. Well, I mean, getting back to my sprinklers, I feel like this COVID, in addition to being dreadful and terrible, it has given people a chance to look at themselves internally and externally. And I want to get into deeper what that means for Eric in a minute. But as we've all kind of adapted to this, we have built muscles that we didn't have when it started. And I think looking forward, this will come to an end at some point. I don't know, maybe it'll be another six months or a year, who knows, right? But it will come to an end at some point. I don't know. Maybe it'll be another six months or a year. Who knows, right? But it will come to an end.

And how do you keep that momentum flowing into times when things are easier? You know, what's going to happen, Eric, when you wake up one day and your wife and kids have gone back to where they were going? You know, are you going to go back to your old ways? Are you going to use, have your old ways? Have you learned something from this that you want to carry along? And that's a question I think we all have to be asking ourselves. Well, in fact, that actually happened. So I live in a really small town, and they announced that school was going to start back up, and we start back up in August.

And they listed off all the different precautions. And we as a family had to look at them and assess and say, is this enough? Because there was an online option. Neither of the kids wanted to do it. They were like, no, I want to go see my friends. I want to go. I'd never seen them so excited to go back to school. So ironically, that was a fun thing to see.

And they did. They went back. And cases were low. That was a fun thing to see. And they did. They went back and cases were low and they've still maintained actually almost zero or at least really low numbers. And I've been surprised this whole time. I've been thinking, I can't believe we made it this long. Like fall break.

They're actually taking off, not because they have to, but because they want to. And the problem was, was that there was a scare. My son had a fever, but didn't test positive or anything and nobody else did, but they had to quarantine. And so suddenly I had gotten used to them being back at school. I was like, my day is reclaimed. All of it was worth it. If this just stays the way it is, they, they would leave the house. I would do the carpool, dropping my daughter and my son off. And my wife would already have left. And then the dog and I would say, Hey, what's up? And then take a walk. And then I would hit into my first focused block of the day.

Then they quarantined and it was like two weeks off, two weeks with them back here again. And you would believe I had learned nothing because suddenly every little noise, every little somebody talking in the hallway, every little, I get up and want to go take a break, but then I see people and they start asking me questions. It's like the water cooler of working in an office. It's so strange how quickly the lessons were unlearned. And it wrecked me. I'll just be honest, like confession time. It wrecked me to suddenly, I thought I had my stuff put together correctly. And then I got, I mean, in other words, I worked to make progress on my system while

they were all home. Then that pressure was alleviated and I didn't need to do it the same anymore because they left. And then as soon as they came back again, I had forgotten what I'd learned the first time. And I said, not again. If, if in fact things get shut down, quarantine happens, whatever, you've got to be ready. So what are you going to do about it? And I had to start putting those things in place for those no matter what eventualities that might happen. It's like as soon as the pressure is gone, then we give ourselves permission to just

ignore all the good things that we know we're supposed to keep doing. That's exactly right. And so I really had to figure, I mean, that's the point in time where I said, okay, I'm going to go back to the studs of my productivity system. And I'm going to take a look at all the different things, you know, all the things that you guys have talked about on your show before in terms of calendaring, not, not in terms of what calendar you're using, but how are you calendaring? Why are you calendaring? What task manager, not what task manager are you using, but how are you using, how are you calendaring? What task manager, not what task manager are using, but how are you using it in conjunction with your calendar? What are you doing in those specific

pre-planned out times of the week, times of the day, morning routines, shutdown routines, instinctive, intentional rest? One of the things I loved that Michael Hyatt said a week or so ago was that rest is not a reward for your hard work, but that it's a prerequisite for your good work. And that's where I've been. I've been basically slowly rebuilding the system. And actually, it's not been that hard because I've already spent so much time over the years assessing what works, what doesn't, what's best for me, all those kinds of things. What kind of morning routine has worked best for me? And then just shifting the times on it based on if people are around or not. You want to walk us through that? So like what, what is in your morning routine?

Yeah. So these days what I'm trying to do. So, so first and foremost, going back to rest, I'm trying to make sure, I know this is super important to you, Mike, for specific reasons, but sleep is huge for me too. And I, you know, so I'm doing sleep tracking. I'm looking at my Apple watch. That's that starts actually Actually, my morning routine starts the night before. I set stuff up. I actually will get out an analog book and an analog pad and pencil, and I will set those in a different room. my desk and not on my bedside, different things like that, that I'm, that I'm setting up the, you know, the night before even workout clothes so that I'll put those on first thing in the morning so that after basically going through my morning routine and then going through the family morning routine, which is the part that comes next, I can then go either take the dog for a walk, go a walk, go for a walk myself, et cetera. Um, but by having those be the

big blocks and then inside of those big blocks, it's the little blocks of first thing in the morning. I will do some reading. Cause I mean, I'm not awake yet and I'm not, it doesn't make sense for me to be doing heavy lifting work. Some people want to hit it right away and that's, I don't, you know, more, more power to them. That's not me. What I've found is, um, I was over, you know, during a lot of COVID time, I was actually using that first block of time to kind of lift my mood and watch some comedy of some sort, various sources. I've turned that off now. I'm actually doing like, uh, journaling and the, the reading of the book and taking the notes and, uh, just feeling like, you know, hey, putting, putting, you know, whether that's the devotional time or all of this with, with some, not with

coffee. I'm doing that later in the day as in small amounts. Cause that's the other thing I actually almost really dialed back on this whole time was the amount of caffeine. Cause the anxiety level, I just found that with the amount of caffeine in myself being so high, any little bit of information or any little like restructuring or frustration, uh, would boil over quickly. So, uh, so in fact, I've been having like this, this green, small amount of green tea first thing in the morning. So taking it slowly and enjoying that me time, because then I've got we time, which is family time. And so that's my wife gets up. I will actually make breakfast for her. I will make her her cup of coffee if she doesn't like waking up less than me. Typically,

my son is up before that. He is a morning riser like myself. The other day I got up at 530 and he was already up. And I said, when did you get up? He's like, 5. And I'm like, what are you doing? So there's some pros and cons there. See, in my case, I'd be like, oh, that's awesome. He's going to go to sleep early tonight. And in fact, he did.

And so no problem there. But yeah, in fact, I'm looking forward to the days where he and I can get up and go like run and work out and stuff together when he gets a little older. But and so it's the wee time I'll get I'll help my my my wife get out the door. I'll help my son get ready, making sure he's all set to go. And then I will help my daughter. She's almost 16 now. I'll make sure, you know, she's got her lunch bag, all that kind of stuff. And, and I, you know, and I try to do as much as I can of the whole,

Hey, everybody get all your stuff together the night before kind of stuff. They just, they just don't care what dad says when it comes to that. And that's fine. I'm just kind of, you know, the band leader when it comes to that first thing in the morning on school days. And so I get them all out. You know, I have struggled with it as well. I have lots of thoughts on this stuff. I make a podcast about it. My family has no patience for any advice from me. And my youngest just started UCLA this semester, and I bought her the Cal Newport, how to be a straight A student in college, right? A lot of the stuff he talks about in the book,

I've talked to her about that she never cared about. She does everything Cal Newport tells her to do. Everything. The other night she's like, dad, I got to go to bed. I go upstairs, I got to make my plan for tomorrow. And I was simultaneously happy and heartbroken. Oh, that's great. Yeah.

And so for me, it's been, you know, the whole idea of I get them out of the house and I get a little bit of time to myself where I'm driving, which I really love doing. It's kind of a peaceful exercise for me. Or I listen to a show while I'm driving and I get home. And first thing I'll do is then turn my attention back to myself and I'll take the walk. And that's kind of a contemplative time. Let thoughts rise, capture those things, set them aside, or remember I need to do things. It's me looking over my baton that I passed to myself from the day before when I was closing all the loops and closing, you know, doing the work routine shutdown.

And then it's off to the races. I'll I'll basically soon before soon into hitting my first focus block. And what I've what I've learned, this kind of goes back to what we initially were talking about with the distractions, what I've learned is it's good for me to actually take that walk time, that me time, before doing a focused block or my first one of the day because that kind of shakes things loose and allows me to get that comforting feeling of, oh, you've already captured a bunch of things and you've already kind of decided about a few of those things. So a lot of the stuff that maybe would spring up in that first focused time block, even though I'm playing, you know, my brain FM music that's helping me focus and I've got nobody home around me and I've got nothing open and

everything's on do not disturb and all that, those internal distractions, those internal thoughts, those internal feelings, I've already kind of placated them for a while. You've silenced the voices in your head for long enough by giving them the space that they need to run wild for a while by going for the walk first. Yeah, or I've corralled them into the pen with the pen. But I would also argue that you're also just momentum building. You know, you start out and you have some easy wins, you know, some self-care, family care, that stuff is things you want to get done. And my guess would be that if you tried to flip those, you would have an internal stress that you haven't done those things yet. You couldn't

like do your first block until you get this done. And everybody's different that way. And you've kind of discovered that about yourself. Yes. And that actually, I think, is one of the key things that I've learned over time when it comes to productivity. I mean, the whole Mark Twain, I've learned over time when it comes to productivity. I mean, the whole Mark Twain, if it's your frog, if it's your job to eat the frog, eat the frog first thing. And if it's the biggest frog, eat that first. And that worked for me for a time. See, it's not even just about does that work for me.

It's that sometimes things work for you for a time, and then they don't for a while. And then they don't for a while and then they may be due again. And that's why this is all kind of weird because, and when I said like eight years in of doing the show, it's like, everything's new again. All of it is suddenly up for grabs because I can't eat a frog. I can't jump out of bed and eat a frog, but I can eat a frog later in the day. And it's still early enough in the day that it's still me eating the frog according to that whole design. I like that. The leopard with the spots that keeps changing. You got to constantly be going back to the drawing board and asking yourself, what is it that will work for me in this season of my life? I'm kind of curious because you mentioned that you've learned some things over the years and stuff keeps coming around in the eight years that you've been doing the show.

So what sort of big revelation have you gotten from this particular season, maybe since being stuck at home? What's a big insight you've gained into how you work best right now? how you work best right now. Yeah. One of the, one of the biggest insights that I've learned is that, um, it, it really helps to, uh, have that weekly review. Um, when I, when I don't do that, when I don't forecast for the week, um, it, it, in fact, it actually goes kind of in tandem with what I was saying about those focus blocks is I actually have – and this goes into hyper-calendaring, as you guys have talked about in the past – is I have blocks of time on my calendar that are designated for all those crazy things that show up on those lists. And so I didn't used to do this, but about a month and a half ago, this is actually one of the things that I realized. I specifically have a time set aside for two hours, not back to back, but separate times once on Friday morning and once things will get loaded into. And so that's when I'll pull that out and I'll say, oh, yeah, I needed to pay that bill or I needed to email that person or I needed to do that research that I think should only take five minutes. And if it spills over, that's fine.

that's fine. But actually allowing myself the freedom to procrastinate on specific tasks for a future time that I already had pre allotted for. In other words, Friday morning is admin time. And once I finally got that into my head that, you know, because what are you doing on a Friday morning anyway? You're kind of just like, okay, I'm trying to wrap things up here and you're not going to start anything new, but you're not going to, you're trying to finish the old stuff. And what I realized was, was having that time. That's kind of my morning. In fact, what it secretly I'll say, I'll tell you this, that, that, that is my first focused block of time on Friday is actually catch up time. focused block of time on Friday is actually catch-up time. And by putting in that catch-up time to catch up on either things that I missed or as things were flexible and shifted throughout the week, I allow myself then to take that time either for that. That's why there's two different blocks. One is the catch-all for all those different things that popped up and I put on that legal pad or it's catch-up time. But how that plays into the bigger lesson, which was forecasting for the week, not just reviewing the past week on Friday, as well as forecasting for the next week. It's not just about

passing the baton to my future self each day. It's about passing it to the next week. And even then looking ahead at the month briefly and the quarter briefly, the whole 12-week year assessment and just kind of saying, okay, where are we at in the process here? And how long is it till these major deadlines? It's checking in. It's not doing the super heavy lifting. It's just kind of just checking in. Okay, you doing the super heavy lifting. It's just kind of just checking in. Okay, you good? Yeah, I'm good. You know, with yourself in terms of those plans that you've made.

And as I've done that more, again, I used to do this more. Now that I do it again, basically religiously, when it comes to my work week, things are getting a lot better. It is amazing to me how useful that planning time is, whether you do it on a daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. It's just, it's golden in my experience. I do it and I'm more productive. And the hour or two you spend on it on a weekly basis, it feels like it gives you 10 or 20 hours in return. Maybe I'm over-exaggerating, but it feels like it. What's funny is most people would look at that planning time and say, I don't have time for that. I'd rather work on the work. But that's the problem is not spending even that small amount of investment time doing the planning and even doing the decision-making of the planning. It's not just taking a look at the calendar. It's making sure things are still lined up the right way.

But by doing that, you actually save way more time than that initial investment of time of doing the planning. And I liked that you said daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, because I say yes to all of those. You need to, by doing the daily, which should be very small amount of time, and then doing the weekly with a little bit higher amount, the monthly, that's when you take maybe what Mike does and do like a retreat of some sort. And then the quarterly, that might be a little longer time.

But yeah, it's all the planning. This is the stuff that greases the wheels. Otherwise, this is where the machine and the systems break down. This episode of Focused is brought to you by Teamistry, a podcast that tells the stories of teams who work together in new and unexpected ways to achieve remarkable things. Each episode of Teamistry tells a story, and in each story, you'll find practical lessons for your team and your business. This season, the show travels deep into the underwater caves of northern Thailand to discover how divers, medics, soldiers, and volunteers freed a group of trapped teenagers,

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animals in order to help with conservation efforts. It was fascinating to me how they could use contributed images and then apply spot pattern recognition to identify individual animals so they could identify where they were going and get more accurate numbers about whether the conservation efforts were actually working. And this is really important because then they were able to show that the things that they were doing were working and they were able to involve the local populations. And that created buy-in by everybody. And it wasn't just now a small group of people who were doing the best that they could. It was kind of a group funding project. And it created motivation for everybody when they saw how what they were able to contribute was actually

helping them accomplish the mission. There was even a three-year-old who was able to make meaningful contributions because the software would take the images, even if it wasn't a perfectly taken picture, and it could identify that this is an animal in this picture and compare it with another image and say this is the same animal. It really is fascinating how the artificial intelligence could tune these images and these teams that they were able to develop included the local populations and help them understand the importance of the conservation mission. tune these images. And these teams that they were able to develop included the local populations and helped them understand the importance of the conservation mission. One of the big things that

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show and all of RelayFM. So Eric, before the break, we were talking about how you plan ahead for the week, the month, the quarter. And it occurs to me that plans change. So I'm kind of curious how granular you get with some of this planning. Maybe let's just consider the Friday where you mentioned that you plan the next week. So when you're planning the next week, are you just assigning these are the big things that I want to do and assigning them to a day, or are you actually creating like a time blocked plan for the next week and every hour is accounted for? What does that look like? Yeah. Well, and again, one of the things that, that it helps to do that planning time for the following week on that Friday? Um, because I can assess again, am I behind on anything in any area, uh, from this past week and then what needs to be done

to stay on track, uh, for the next week you, you, you mentioned, uh, plans change. And that's why it's, it's nice to have those daily and weekly check-ins because you can course correct much more quickly and much more flexibly. Flexibly is not a word, I don't know. Anyway, you can be much more flexible with your time and with the shifting of that. That's why one of the other things that I learned was that basically having those, those focused time blocks, I basically let there be three for the day, uh, each of those days. others that I leave on, uh, claimed, but they are open and specific and set and already there based on, um, now I will color code them a little bit and say some are for creative, some are for, for, uh, focused writing or, uh, for, for different pieces like that. But, you know, based on a, what time of day it is, what time of day is it? And what, what, uh, position

of the week is it? Cause as the week goes on and you get a little bit more worn out and that's fine. But earlier in the week, it's like, um, so, so for example, let's say, let's take, um, let's take Tuesday morning and let's say, uh, the first block for me is, um, I'm just looking at it here real quick. So that is time where I am doing heavy. I do a lot of project management stuff in my day job. And so what I will do there is that is when a lot of the different pieces, I've already looked at things from Monday and I know now what needs to be executed on. And basically I'm, I'm executing, I'm, I'm sending out emails. I'm it's, it's a lot of admin stuff in one sense, but it's also easy, small checklistable stuff. And it really pushes the, the, the needle forward or moves the

needle, I should say for the week on all of those projects. And then I'll be able to revisit, you know, in a different time block. Now there's another time block later that day, that's more creative. And that's fine. Cause later in the afternoon, that's when, you know, having that extra caffeine and doing some of the Chris Bailey focus, unfocus type stuff really helps when it comes to honing in, but also being creative and I've had, you know, different breaks and things. Um, but it's by having the structure of the, you know, the scaffolding, in other words, then the structure of the whole week set up in those

predetermined spaces that they become much more interchangeable yet. I don't want to be so rigid because again, if plans changed, like, you know, David, for example, I know you'd have a client say, Hey, I need you to do this thing. And, you know, you want to build enough margin in between that you can say, Oh yeah, well, you know what? I don't have that focused block of time. This is why I do this. I don't have that next focused block of time coming up for another hour and a half. That's when that's scheduled for. I bet I could knock this out and appease them quick enough if I just did it for 20 minutes, half an hour right now. That's not always the case. But by having that margin pre-built in, as well as those focus time blocks built in,

I'm allowed to kind of oscillate back and forth. And I found that that's really the way that, again, I personally work best. Some of this may work for other people, but not all of it. No. And I would imagine that this, these empty blocks never go unfilled, right? I mean. Oh, absolutely not. They all get filled. Even if it's at the last minute by saying, okay, well, nothing claimed it. So what's next? And I can take a quick look at the project list and say, you know what, this is time to start that. We can get a half hour to an hour into it and see where we go. That's the best thing where you actually, you know, borrow forward, you know, you go to future tasks and get them done. Work in the future,

as I call it. I do think that this idea of these blocks is very helpful. And I say that because of my own experience with them in that, you know, setting them ahead of time. And I guess you're doing it on Friday morning is when you set them for the following week. Yeah, I try to do as much of that planning. I do try to I try to claim as many of them as I can. And sometimes it's possible to claim them. I mean, people out there are listening and they're like, what do you mean? You can't like fill, you should probably be able to fill them

all up on Friday for the next week. Everybody's that busy. And I'm like, it's true. However, I try to leave some of them. I try to fill maybe two thirds of them. Yeah. Cause you, things are going to show up that you didn't expect. Exactly. Exactly. And so I want to be able to have that time available and not like, again, I'm blocking, I'm, I'm blocking these blocks out in the calendar. It's like Tetris on the calendar. Um, you try to leave enough space though, so that there is, you know, break time in between and there's not back to back to back stuff, uh, with margin and actual, this is actually, so this is funny. Somebody saw my calendar is like, you have your calendar, you on your calendar, you have scheduled lunchtime.

And I'm like, yeah, because that's a way to that. Me being at home all day by myself and in an ideal scenario, at least I remember to go take lunch and take an hour-ish off and not stare at my screen and eat something. Yeah, I get that. I do the same thing. I've got it time blocked on my fancy notebook because if I am home alone, usually on Tuesdays, typically the family is gone. And so like on today, as we record this, if I didn't write down lunch,

there's a good chance that I would just forget to eat it, which sounds ridiculous, but it's totally true. My kids used to make fun of me. Occasionally my wife would go to like a scrapbook thing for a few days and the kids would go to grandma's house and they'd come home and the TV would still be on the Disney channel because I never turned the TV on while they were gone. You know, I mean, it's very easy to get into these habits. But I think the point of these blocks that you're doing, Eric, and the reason why I think this is something everybody should try is that it gives you

perspective as to what you can actually have time to get done. And so often the trouble we have as humans is this unbridled optimism when you wake up and this crash at the end of the day when you realize that there was no way you were ever going to get that much work done today. Oh, you just reminded me of something is that, yeah, back when I was, okay, I praise Michael Hyatt. He's, he's a great friend of mine and we've had lunch and all that. And I use the free focus planner and I, you know, the, the three things that you're going to do for the day that your top three

and all of that. However, if you've not set aside the time that you're going to do those top three, that it starts to all fall apart again. And so I think that's actually something, I don't know if he actually prescribes that or not, but I realized that's yet another lesson I had to learn. And that's why I went back to these blocks was because I said, wait a second, what good does it do me to sit down with this paper planner and clear my head and not be staring at things and be all analog. But if I don't actually start saying, oh, wait, no, of these three things, this is when I'm going to do the first one. And here's when I'm going to do the other two. And again, I'm flexible, but if I don't actually claim that time and stake the flag in it for what project or activity is going to happen,

then it's, yeah, it's that overloading, you know, optimism of the day. And you may as well have had seven to 10 things on your list for the day. So what do you do? I mean, it's great that you build in all this margin and you've got the flexibility, but what do you do when everything just gets completely jacked up? I mean, it's great that you have a built-in margin to handle, like a margin of error in things that are going to pop up. But what if something completely unexpected blindsides you? Either a work project that all of a sudden is urgent and trumps everything that you've done, or your kid gets sick and now you find yourself having to take care of them in addition to trying to get your work done. How do you handle a

situation like that and make the best of it when it's impossible to stick to the plan? Yeah. I know that you guys recently talked about email workflows and the word triage came up and that's exactly where I want to go here because triage is exactly what you do. Almost literally you, you have to suddenly reassess all the priorities, you know, what is most pressing, you know, you gotta basically go down through, it's almost, you know, you, you take the calendar list view and instead of, you know, a week or month view, you go to list view of what's next and then what's next and then what's next. And you just kind of triage it real quick and say, okay, of these next five to 10 things, depending upon what day it is, what is of the highest priority? What here can be bumped? What can be flexed into a different either future block that is not claimed yet or needs to be reassessed altogether. And maybe I just bump that to a different day, different week. And again, it's not easy. It's not. But by having things, again, this is where that planning time of having done any amount of planning time, whether it's just monthly

or if it's down to the weekly or even the daily, there have been days where, I mean, I make this sound real easy. It's really not. But there have been days where, I mean, I make this sound real easy. It's really not, but there have been days where me doing planning time from my closing down of the day before, and then following that up with the planning time that I allow myself to quickly do first thing the next day has made it to where I'm in the middle of my first focused block of the day and a phone call happens and the rest of the day is shot. And I know that now. And by knowing where things were or what things were due, et cetera, I'm able to quickly triage. Yeah. There's a saying that always comes to my mind because look, all of us run into this, right? We like to plan. We like to have blocks,

but despite our best efforts, the universe sometimes plots against us or we just have a bad day. I, I, I'm guilty of that frequently where it's like, there's no reason why I'm not getting anything done today, but I'm not getting anything done. So, um, the saying I always remind myself is, you know, what do you do when you find yourself in a hole? What's the one thing you should do if you're in a hole? You stop digging, you know, right? So you just take a minute. All right.

Okay. I have completely screwed the pooch here. Let's just stop and take a look of what's going on. You know, where am I? You know, what is it that needs to get done? You know, you clear the decks. What are the things I should finish today? And you know, how much time I'm going to need the end of the day to fix this mess. So tomorrow I can start fresh. And I find myself doing that once every, you know, three or four weeks, I have a day where I just

crash into that and it's okay. You know, that's what you do. You give yourself forgiveness. You stop digging in. You plan for the next day. Yeah. I think that's the other piece to me is I kind of leave Friday afternoons a little bit wide open to a point so that if there's emergency time, like if there was, you know, if based on triage and based on emergency, which that's a relative term,

but if based on those two things, I do need to claim like another extra hour or two from the week, which who doesn't need that? I have it available, but I don't mark it. I don't, I don't even block it. I kind of just look at like, because again, if I don't mark it. I don't even block it. I kind of just look at like, because again, if I don't need it, I actually will allow myself to kind of take off a little early. So don't tell my boss, which is me.

That is a whole nother topic. You know, I'm currently reading a book recommended by Michael Hyatt called Shorter by Alex Suyang Pang. I'm about two-thirds of the way through it. And the whole book is basically about companies that switch to a four-day work week and just completely change their thought process in terms of how they get work done. And it's interesting because there's a lot of companies where the comment that you made, I know it was in jest, but when you're talking about like, don't tell my boss, that's the approach a lot of people have is they believe that they can work from home, they can be more productive, and then they can take more breaks. There's a quote in that book about how if you master Excel,

you can take a lot of coffee breaks. And the idea there being just if you figure out the systems and the processes and how to optimize those, you can find better ways to do things than the standard ways of doing things. And you can create more margin for yourself. And the whole idea of the book is that these are companies now that are doing this at a level and a scale that a lot of people don't think is possible. But I think the starting point here is just thinking about where you're at right now, if you find yourself working from home and taking that approach. And I think that this is something that another one of those silver linings maybe from the season that we find ourselves in is that a lot of companies are realizing that there are better ways to do things when people are working

from home and they have more autonomy and they can set up their own workspace and work how they want, that they're actually more productive even if they are putting in a little bit less time. That's a limiting belief that people got to overcome. Yeah, I was surprised when Michael referenced that book because I was aware of Alex's rest book, but I didn't know he'd come out with another book and I've suddenly felt productivity shame. And so then I said, okay, I got to read this, but I heard him talk about it. And I even skimmed the book a little bit on Amazon and thought, this is what I've been working towards is not being uber efficient to the point of burnout, but being efficient enough, air quotes, to not have to schedule all the available time in my entire day or in my entire workday even, but to be able to compress it and say, this is enough by doing those, again, by doing these blocks and using them as sprints towards specific work goals that then I've not meandered all over the place throughout my workday. And I could actually say, here's what I accomplished today at the end of the day, which is hard for digital knowledge workers to do sometimes. Yeah. The goal is not put in the 40

hours and crank as much as you can. The goal is be just productive enough so that you have free time to do what you want to do. Oh gosh. I'm not going to share it here, but we can save it for some other time. But there was a point where I got so efficient in a cubicle job that I was doing all my work for the day and running circles around my coworkers. Then I sat there playing Lord of the Rings for hours on end and had my cubicle set up to where I knew when somebody was walking near me so I could switch the screen. Your secret's safe with us. We won't tell anyone. Okay, thank you. Yes, don't tell anyone. This episode of the Focused Podcast is brought to you by Blinkist.

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Our thanks to Blinkist for their support of the Focused podcast and all of RelayFM. All right, Eric, so you went through this process and did the internal and external audit. What changed? Well, first and foremost, the biggest thing was I went back to journaling because what I was finding was, and I know you guys have talked all about that, so I won't belabor that, but I realized I was not spending enough time in self-awareness and surfacing things up to the point of being aware of my own thoughts or self-doubt even in dealing with that.

It's almost self-coubt even in dealing with that. Like, you know, this is, you know, it was almost self-counseling. There's no real substitute for professional counseling, but there's also no real substitute for your own self-awareness when it comes to your thoughts and your feelings. And, you know, I thought I kind of handled, I kind of thought I had a handle on that. And then I realized that like, no.

So suddenly I'm sitting there again, I'm sitting in a focused time block and kind of anxiety washes over you. And, you know, and this is not unique just to this year. This used to happen all the time. And I kind of got a handle on it, but the handle slipped apparently. So it wasn't just that. And what's funny is, so the thing I started to realize is that, what is his name? The War of Art. Steven Pressfield. So the resistance is, in other words, the resistance, I finally started to see how much of a shapeshifter the resistance was when it came to these focused time blocks. And so it would be like it would come up to me and tap me on the shoulder while I'm trying to do work and say, hey, you know what?

You sure you should be working on this? Isn't that other thing just as important? And that's where I could silence that by doing my planning time. I'd already pre-decided that. So check that one. All right, cool. It morphs into, then the resistance morphs into, hey, you were kind of short with your wife this morning before she left the house. Maybe you should text her right now. Yeah, you know, you're right, but I'm going to do that. I either did or didn't do that, and I don't know, and I'm not going to go down that road right now. So I write it down, text her, text wife after time block, set it aside. Okay, well, that didn't get him. Well, what's next? Hey, it's a little cold in here. Maybe you should adjust the temperature. No, it's not. In fact, what I'm going to do is I'm going to

switch the desk into standing desk mode, and I'm going to stand up for a while. That'll scratch that itch. And then that goes away. And then or it's like, oh, wait, you know, you also you forgot to, I don't know, insert here. Two minute task. that's a two minute task and I can do that later. I've already got time allotted for that, uh, that either I could do it today later as I close things up or I can do it Friday and I'm not going to decide right now. And so it just got in, in essentially it was kind of like learning, um, the martial art where you use the momentum against, I think it's judo. the martial art where you use the momentum against, I think it's judo. I learned slowly, and I'm still practicing this by the way, not perfect, but it's getting way better. But by doing some of the pre-thought and the pre-planning before entering into the workflow or what are the moves during the workflow that end up being that judo and moving that momentum of the resistance back on itself and out of my way again, uh, that helps. And there's one other thing that really helps.

And I use this all the time. I'm an affiliate, but I won't share that link here, but I use brain FM all the time. And it's basically like putting the horse blinders on, uh, it gets you into the kind of like the right brain pattern or brain phase to where you're less distracted by your fight or flight mechanism in your brain. So putting all these things back in place and slowly seeing the momentum build of it's working, it's working. And even it, you know,

it still doesn't work sometimes, but by having more wins than losses, you know, I would say 75, 80% of the time now, it's getting way better. And I'm really excited to see it go further. One thing that stands out for me with that is the remarkable amount of self-awareness you're talking about. You started explaining that you're journaling.

I think earlier you said you were meditating now as well but to be able to observe yourself and see that resistance monster show up and then jujitsu him right over your head that that is uh that's a superpower yeah i mean it it's it's again it's i feel like it's less of a it is a superpower when you can get to it i feel it's almost like batman you know he's the one that doesn't, he, he's got all the money, so that helps, but, uh, he doesn't have superpowers like the other justice league members do, but he just put in the time and the training to get to there. So since we're talking about superheroes, uh, let's go Superman for a minute. What's your kryptonite? What are the things that still cause you to get tripped up? and then compensating the next day for that lack of sleep or lack of quality sleep with caffeine.

It's this never-ending system of I'm scatterbrained and ultra-focused at the same time. So I can't get up to the creative level that I should have had. It's easier for the resistance to bowl over me and push me down and knock me down. And again, just because I got knocked down doesn't mean I don't get back up. But that is essentially it. And that's why I don't put the block in for it, but I will claim it. There are nap times, 15, 20, where I will do that and do the whole Nappuccino thing where it's like, I'll, I'll take a small amount of espresso or, or I'll prepare the tea and I'll have it ready for me for when I wake up and I'll start sipping that.

So, um, but sleep. Yeah. It's, and that's a physical thing. Like I'm, I'm kind of hoping that, you know, as I've continued to get into better shape over this course of COVID in 2020, that that one I've, I will say that one has been the one that I've been able to, you know, chip away at that kryptonite and grind it down into powder and get rid of it is I've gotten way better sleep. So maybe it shows, I don't know.

But I do think when you have a bad night and and we all do once in a while, and you find yourself early afternoon crashing, you need to accept that you're not going to have a good day if you keep up. And it's another kind of investment. Give yourself a half hour nap, and you will get that half hour back and more if you just do that. And people now actually may have an opportunity to do that where they didn't before if they were going into an office every day. And it sounds to me like you're being responsible about it. Well, that goes back to the whole triage of time. It's when I suddenly wake up one morning and I realize,

oh, I need to reassess this day. Well, because I've done good enough on my homework for planning, maybe there's a free block that I get. Okay, you know what? Just make it through to that block or bump that first block to later in the day. I know it may not work that way for everybody and may not work for me every day, but just finding that time, um, may work. And again, by, by knowing what I'm working with time-wise and task-wise, uh, I can better make a decision on the fly about that when it really needs to be done. But if you're crashing, that block is already lost anyway, you know? Yes. You're yeah, you're right.

What about you, Mike, when you get to early afternoon and you find that you're in need of sleep or you're having trouble staying focused, do you have a plan? The afternoon is not when I am going to be at my best in terms of creating, typically with writing. Writing seems to me to be the thing that if I'm not in the right frame of mind, I just get stuck staring at that blank cursor and can't think of anything to say. So I just try to recognize my biological prime times, I guess is the best way to put it, my golden hours, and do those, the big heavy lifting in the morning. And then in the afternoon, all the admin type stuff, the low energy type stuff. You know, if I still have to get something done in the afternoon, I can force myself to do it. But I know that's not the best use of that time. So I try to just align things with my natural rhythms.

And it kind of is what it is. So Eric, you said you've restarted your meditation practice. What steps did you take and how's it going? Yeah, well, I had put off for a long time because, well, in all the planning time that I'd taken, I realized, oh, you know what? My tools are in good shape. I don't need to upgrade anything this year. And so I said, that means I can actually free up some resource. And I'm going to get this thing called the Muse and it's a headband and it basically it scans your head and it gives you feedback onto your your phone app. And yeah, I mean, truthfully, the first time I did it, it basically you're playing.

It's like gamifying the meditation. And I thought, you know what, this is this is a great way to go with this. And I felt like I was I felt like I was when I succeeded in doing meditation, that sounds so vague. The best way I can describe it is that it felt like being a Jedi by having true focus. And if I can describe it briefly, basically you put the headband on, you're listening to the noise. phone, the headband on you, you're listening to the noise. And because the headband is communicating with the app, which is communicating with the noise from the app, the, the noise that is outside your body, um, from the headphones, it kind of signals to you how well you're doing. So I, I picked central park as the noise, the soundscape. And as I was able to focus on my breathing and calm myself, the sound of the soundscape got quieter.

But then as I would, something would flare up in my mind, it was like the world rushed back in. It was like all the honking of the streets and the bustle of the people walking and things like that. and the bustle of the people walking and things like that. And just being able to reclaim that focus again and focus on breathing and have it kind of all phase out and phase away. It was, you know, it's great for starting out. I think that, I mean, it actually, it's been pretty exciting. I've been doing it for a few weeks now and there have been times where I've been able to get close to, I'm doing it for like five minutes at a time. And I try to do it for a few weeks now and there have been times where I've been able to get close to, I'm doing it for like five minutes at a time. And I try to do like twice a day, once in the morning and once later in the day, just as kind of a second round of prepping, you know, for focus.

And I gotta say, like, it's been kind of thrilling to, to, to excel at the quote game of meditation. So well worth checking out. I know it's not cheap, but it's not, it's like the third of a cost of a new iPhone or less. So there you go. I'm looking at this right now. This is pretty, this is pretty interesting. Yeah, it's funny. So when I learned meditation, it was like late 80s, early 90s. And there weren't anything like this. There weren't apps, there weren't podcasts, you know, and you really just had to quiet your mind by counting to 10. That was the method that I was originally taught, you know, just count your breaths to 10, then start again.

And I think these apps and devices can be helpful, like Eric said, for starting. But honestly, the real benefit of it for me is the introspection and the thoughts that bubble up, you know, and that kind of gets back to that self-awareness you were talking about earlier. And I do think these things can kind of get in the way of that if you use them, if you look at that as the end game i guess i would say yeah the way the way i'm looking at it right now is i'm kind of looking at it i love metaphors and so for me it's almost like this i'm using it to do the pre uh running stretch

um so i'm making my mind more pliable. I'm making it more flexible. Um, I'm allowing my, I'm, I'm in a, in a sense, I'm proving to myself, this is possible to meditate. And, um, you know, I don't think that anybody's going to ever, when talking about meditation, say I have arrived because that's not the point, but I want to get, quote, good enough at this that then maybe I would say, you know what, I don't know that I need to use this anymore, but I could let somebody else use it and maybe sell it or let somebody else in my house or, you know, a friend like have it to get started with. Yeah. And I could see you keeping it as a tool to kind of get yourself back if you find it's getting harder. But what I would recommend doing, even I was just talking to a friend who's recently started meditating with Headspace app, and he really likes the app, and it's really helping him.

And I said, look, that's great. Do that. But even though you're at the very beginning of the journey, five minutes a day with nothing, no apps, no sensory headband, just five minutes on the cushion, set a timer and sit there and try and calm your mind. Just even this early, I would recommend starting doing that immediately. But maybe I'm just a cranky old guy. I'm not sure.

No, that's that's definitely something that I've been able to do in the past with mixed results. And so I thought, you know what, this is going to be a time where I'm going to take it seriously and I'm going to start with this, even if it may seem a little like cheating. That's okay because I want to kind of get a handle on it. I want to get some experience in with it and get into more of a zone on it. I want to get some experience in, uh, with it and get into a more of a zone with it. So, yeah, but, but you will learn so much about yourself if you just give yourself five minutes without anything, no, you know, no central park, nothing. Just, I would recommend trying that. Just try it tomorrow. I mean, still do the headband for most of your meditation, but at the end, just give yourself five minutes, see what happens. Let me know how it goes.

of your meditation, but at the end, just give yourself five minutes, see what happens. Let me know how it goes. Yeah. But I do think that, um, yeah, journaling and, and you know, if, if meditation isn't for you, I think journaling is another way to get to that destination, but stopping to look at what's going through your head can really help figure this stuff out and help you become more productive. Mike, are you doing meditation anymore? Or is that, I know that you've kind of had an off again, on again relationship with it. I am currently off again. That's okay. Although I'm trying, trying it again. Just did it this morning, actually, which was the first time in probably a month or two. This is just one of those things that never really seems to stick for me,

though. Yeah, that's fine. I think I've been banging the drum too much, so I should probably stop. Eric, one last thing I want to talk to you about is the idea of incremental progress. This is something I know that's a big deal to you. Could you kind of explain how that works for you? Yeah, well, I mean, I could just summarize what James Clear's book is that, and why I love the title so much. It's, it's atomic habits. And the fact that, um, you know, the atom, the building block of all living things and matter, et cetera, is, you know, you put it, you basically, you clump a bunch of atoms together and it starts to make up cells, starts to makes up, makes up, you know, all of the things. And, um, that's what, you know,

and then atoms being atomic power. So being this huge explosive thing, and it's not about, you know, suddenly saying today's the first day of the rest of my life. It's, it's actually saying, no, I'm going to show up in a small way over and over and over again. It's the repeated grains of sand. And so that's why I'm actually feeling a lot better right now than I was a couple months ago, even six to eight weeks ago, based on incremental change. And the incremental change is not... I've just talked about, you know, these blocks on the calendar and this planning time and all this, you know, and getting good sleep and none of those things, none of them came into being overnight. It was that it came into being over many nights. It's

by getting one good night of sleep and proving that it can be done. And that's, you know, despite having occasional bad nights, that it can be done. And what were the steps to take to make that happen? And the planning times by, by realizing that Friday is good for that, for forecasting for the next week and having the incremental plan of showing up every day quickly and briefly to scan things for the day makes a difference. And getting outside and walking every single day has made a huge difference. And even doing push-ups, it's funny. It's like, oh yeah, strength training. You're supposed to do that too. Well, I can't really do a whole lot there, or I can, but I don't want to spend tons of time in the gym on top of walking,

or I can, but I don't, you know, I don't want to spend tons of time in the gym on top of walking on top of everything else. What if I just did pushups that's free and I can do that at any time. And so starting off with doing just like five and doing that daily and then suddenly realize, whoa, that five didn't matter. Now, you know, didn't, didn't wreck you. Uh, I can do 10. wreck you. I can do 10. Okay. Do 10. And so now it's like, I think I'm at 25 at a time easily. And so it, it, but that's not where I was when I started. And so that's, that's the key is just, you know, I'm, I'm just like, you know what? I do have that. I do kind of have that eternal optimism, that hopefulness that things aren't going to be this way, whatever way you want to describe it, for forever. But that doesn't mean, in fact, that's what it does mean, is that because things aren't going to stay this way forever, and I want them to be different when we are in that new

time, that means working on the stuff now, little by little, day by day, showing up. How do you decide what to add to your routines, the incremental progress, like the push-ups, that sort of thing? What was the thought process between adding that? Because I'm assuming that you're not just making a list of, okay, these are all of the little things that I want to start doing now. And then you try to do them all at the same time. That seems like nothing would stick if you did that approach. Yeah, no, that's definitely.

So some of that surfaces in that self-awareness time when I'm spending time thinking or meditating or just being still or journaling. you know, thinking or, or meditating or just being still or journaling. Um, but part of it is just instinct is I was, I was literally on a walk and I thought, uh, and actually I think I was listening to a podcast and during that particular walk and somebody said, you know, you know, if you want to really take it to the next level, think of what it is you're currently doing. And I said, and I took it literally and I said, what's that next big, you know, if you're adding brick by brick every day, what's the, you know, what's the thing that you can drop like five bricks on suddenly, and it's not going to be that big of a deal. And I thought, you know what, I'm already out there walking every day. Why, what's the least amount of strength training I can do? Um, that isn't,

that is frictionless, frictionless in other words. And so I don't have to go to a gym to do it. I don't have to, you know, spend more money. You know, what's the, what hit ticks all ticks, all those proper boxes. And it instinctually like hit me that it was pushups. And so, um, I went with that. That's an easy choice. There are definitely other ones where it's like, um, how do I want to be, uh, in 2021 in regards to, um, say my relationship, here's a good one actually. Cause I did think this one through, it took a little while, uh, with my relationship with, um, my daughter, for example, because she's getting older, she's getting near the point where it's going to be

college time and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, a few years. And I thought, you know, I want to make sure that I, um, on, on a daily isn't proper, but you know, enough or easy. Uh, but what if I have one kind of moment? What if I aim to have like one kind of cool moment and, you know, and as dads with daughters, it can, this can be something where we maybe flub it up, but I'm going to still keep trying, but what's one moment that I can have with her, you know, each week. And that's not to say that's the only one, but it's that I aim for that one and then have maybe spill over into other cool little moments here and there. And that's not to say that's the only one, but it's that I aim for that one and then have maybe spill over into other cool, uh, little moments here and there. And so last week, actually, uh, she and I went to a, um, drive-in movie theater and saw a comedian

that we like, uh, and it was a great memory and, and I will cherish that memory. I took a couple of great shots. And so it, it, it's all shapes and sizes. It's like, you know, big rocks, little rocks, but it's by doing some of that pre-planning. And this, I think for, you know, sabbaticals specifically, whether it's you're taking the time off to rest or if you're taking that time off to, you know, allow things to surface to the to allow things to rise to the surface thought-wise and retreat specifically, those are great times to look at all those different hats and say, what shape am I in in all those different roles and all those different hats? And maybe brainstorm on it and see what rises to the top.

Well, Eric, it sounds to me like you're having a bit of an awakening here, and I think that's great. Yeah, I agree. I'm kind of excited about it myself. Yeah. And it's a weird time because a lot of us are trying to make progress on things like this, but there's also this tempting thing to feel bad about it, right? I mean, so many people are dying. So many people, I mean, my wife is out of work now and people, so many people have lost their jobs. And it's like, how can you talk about how you're making progress during this terrible time? But I guess my response would be, what are

you supposed to do? Well, I mean, I can either waste the time away or I can be productive with it. And I decided to go with the latter. Yeah. All right. Well, gang, please go check out Beyond the To-Do List. I think it's a great podcast. So much so that I go on it every time Eric will let me. And where should people go to find you?

Eric? I'm on Twitter pretty often. So you can find me there. You can hit me up and suggest episodes, I guess. Twitter.com slash Eric with a K the letter J F I S H E R. All right. And we're going to have links in the show notes for the podcast and Eric's

Twitter. And we will see you next time for all of you supporters. Go check out the feed for the podcast and Eric's Twitter. And we will see you next time. For all of you supporters, go check out the feed for the Supporter Show. We've got some extra stuff to talk about. There were definitely a few rabbit holes in today's episode. You can get the calendars. We've got a link in the show notes. Check that out, and we'll see you next time.