Focused - 121: Analog Focus, with Jeff Sheldon

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

Jeff Sheldon from Ugmonk joins us to talk about his Analog productivity system, connecting dots, intentional constraints, and being a geek for the details.

Welcome to Focus, a 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 doing today? I'm doing great. How about you? Excellent. I like today's guest. We're going to be talking a little analog, a little Focus today. Welcome to the show, Jeff Sheldon.

Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. So, Jeff, why don't you just do a real quick introduction. I've been following you for a long time. I own a bunch of your Ugmonk stuff, but to be honest, you tend to shy away from your personal story. So why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do? Sure. Yeah, I like to give the products the spotlight more than my public persona. So I'm the designer and founder of a brand called Ugmonk. And we are a design studio that makes and sells physical products, all centered around the idea of combining form and function. So everything that we make, we want it to look great, we want it to work great. And yeah, I kind of fell into this by

accident. I also introduced myself as a designer by trade and an entrepreneur by accident or by necessity coming out of an art background and design background. these things. And then I had to kind of learn the ropes of being running the business side of what I do. And I've been doing that for the last 12 years. So yeah, we can dive into more as much or as little of my story as you'd like. Well, I'd like to talk a little bit about it because we do want to talk about your analog system. That's primarily why we asked you to come on the show. We have a lot of people who are analog curious in our audience. And I think there's definitely a focus angle to that. But you may not know that the show actually started off as free agents, which was all about people finding their entrepreneurial bent. And so I think it's kind of interesting how these things collide with you specifically. Can you talk us through just real briefly, you know, how you went from being a designer to an entrepreneur by accident and starting Ugmonk?

Yeah, so I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur growing up. Looking back now, I see there was entrepreneurial genes or tendencies in me because the earliest thing I can remember is in high school, I worked some regular hourly jobs and then I actually took over my friend's lawn business, Mowing Lawns. And I immediately fell in love with that because of the control that I got to build my own thing. I got to do it at my own pace. I could grow it as big or as small as I wanted. But at the time I thought, well, you know, mowing lawns makes more money than working flipping burgers somewhere. I didn't think of myself as like the business guy. I wasn't into anything really related to business or sales. So I think ultimately the entrepreneurial side

came out of this idea of kind of controlling my own destiny and being able to do the things I want to do in the way that I want to do them. And for better or for worse, that's what kind of has led Ugmonk the past 12 years is that beating to our own drum, kind of finding our own path of the way we do things. So my art, my passion for art and making things was, has been there since as early as I can remember being a, being a kid building with Legos and linking logs and connects and tinker toys, like every little building block thing. I thought all kids were into that. That was just part of our childhood.

It was very natural. And then I kind of took that idea of, um, making things and that turned more into art and fine art later to graphic design and then graphic design into t-shirts, which is what launched what I launched Ugmonk with. And I was never the t-shirt guy or super into t-shirts, but it was an easy medium to get my artwork out there and for other people to be able to buy it. And I got immediately addicted to that idea of creating art, being able to sell it, and then being able to see the response from other people all around the world that were buying my creations. And it's really just that cycle that has continued.

And I've built it from t-shirts all the way to leather goods, all the way to now desk organizers, and now to this analog that we just mentioned. And I think that the thread that ties that all together is this idea of making things, like I said before, that are beautiful and functional. And I just obsess over every little detail. I want to take that apart a little bit because, you know, the show is called Focused and we really want to talk about how somebody can stay focused in a world where everything pushes you against it. But you are a rare bird. I mean, you've got focus muscles as an artist, but you've also got focus muscles as, I guess we'll call it an entrepreneur or somebody who, you know, somebody who makes and sells things. And those are two very different hats. How did you, I mean, let's just start with the artist part.

Where did you get the habits in order to not only learn about art, but to make art? Yeah, I am definitely a weird breed. I feel like I, so in school, I actually did better in the math and sciences than I did better than, than literature and, and history, because I have this weird brain that I think very logical. And I think there's maybe even some of the set shows through in my approach to design. It's this very like logic, practical sense that's married with this idea of beauty. So I have, I go back and forth between like this artist brain and then this logical, analytical brain that can pick things apart. And again, like that to me, I never felt completely at home in the arts artist side of things. Like there's a lot of amazing, incredible artists out there and writers and poets and songwriters.

and poets and songwriters. And to me, that's still a little bit foreign because I jump like taking a product and then I kind of take that, or I take that design and I can put it into a product lens and then kind of put it into a business model lens. And distilling these things down to me is a very natural progression.

But if you talk to a painter or someone, or a songwriter, the way that they come up with songs or paintings is very not that way. It's not the same process. It's very based on feel and just how they're expressing themselves through these things. So I have this very odd version of jumping back and forth between these two things. And I think that's one reason why Ugmonk has been successful is that I have a little bit of both of those brains, but I can't

quite explain why it works that way. Or I haven't met a lot of people that have the same tendency. I'm not an artist in the way that a lot of people are, but I can tell you that when I do create art, it's hard to ship it. And I think that is a fundamental problem for creating art, but it sounds to me like you've found kind of a way to ship products as well as make them. And I think that's interesting and something to kind of think about. Yeah, that's a big part of what I talk to other aspiring entrepreneurs or artists about is putting it out there, making the thing and then putting it out there in the world. The first part of making the thing is usually where most artists get

stopped at. They're not ready to show anyone or it's never perfect enough to ship it or they don't want to put a price on it because tying it to a dollar amount goes against them as an artist. I think there is some tension there of how do we know when to ship something, especially a physical product that once it's out there, you can't change it. You know, you ship a blog post, you can at least go back and edit it, or you can hide it, or you can modify it. But shipping something that's physical does take a lot of guts to kind

of put yourself out there and say, here's the thing, I made this. And for better or for worse, I've been able to kind of get over that hurdle. I don't know what the tip or trick is. I think reading a lot of stuff like Seth Godin talks about shipping your work. And he really inspired me early on in my career with a lot of the books that he wrote about just making the thing and putting it out there and finding your audience. And for out of a hundred people, 99 people might not care when they see what you've created, but that one person that resonates with it, that does care, they're there for your art and they would miss you if you were gone. I think he says that phrase a lot, like would, would people actually miss your,

you or your work if you were gone? And that mentality really kind of clicked with me to get things out there and to start putting them out there and getting feedback, even though it's a little intimidating to put something out into the world. It's funny, there's artists like Cal Newport, like the first time you read something they write, you're like, wow, this guy's really got a lot of things figured out. And there's guys like Seth Godin, for me, who I've read like four or five of his books, and it just kind of slowly dawns on you how much wisdom he has to share and how useful it is but um you know that's kind of a common theme through his stuff is that you've got a ship and you've got to evolve and

you know I think that is something that all of us need to hear yeah he talks about his latest book got it on my bookshelf uh It's all about overcoming the resistance. You know, that's how he would put it. Steven Pressfield talks a little bit about that. And I think there's a thread there with the resistance and something you said earlier about the two parts of your brain and how you don't really know how they connect,

but they do. You got the logical side and you got the creative side. I know I probably am a lot like you. I consider myself very analytical. I like to know how things work. And for a long time, that kept me back from considering myself to be creative. And I kind of had to come to terms with the fact that my creative process was very different than, at least on the surface, a lot of musicians a lot of like painters like you talk about it seems like they just get this vision the clouds open and there's the thing

and they just have to express it and that's never been my experience and i think it's cool to hear you share and i hope this is encouraging to people who are listening that you have to figure out your own process. It's not going to look exactly like everybody else's, but that's a good thing because what you ultimately end up producing is going to be authentically you and it's going to be different than anything else that's out there. The minute you try to start copying somebody else's processes, that's when you, in my opinion, you start to risk being just an imitator of somebody else's work. And that feels cheap. It feels kind of dirty. Like, you know, you're not giving it your best shot the minute that you're trying to do it somebody else's way. And I guess I want to

just say to wrap this up, you know, like the what what you have created with Ugmonk, it's, it's kind of hard to define. It doesn't fit neatly into a specific category, right? But I've been following you long enough that I look at it. I'm like, oh yeah, that's Ugmonk. You can tell, like, this is just who it's a, it's a reflection of, of who you are and you should never really shy away from that. Just own it. Yeah. And I want to make one distinction between inspiration and imitation, because I think there are, you know, there are artists, uh, the Picasso quote, steal like an artist. Um, I think we are all inspired by things that we come in contact with any type of media. We intake any type of experiences we have that inspire us. And for me, what I do, and people always ask this question, where do you get your inspiration?

And it's a terrible question because there's no way to answer that because we're all human beings and we all have so many different sensory experiences that can shape that. But the idea of inspiration is, for me, is pulling from all different areas and all different things that I've seen

and kind of combining those, somehow letting them marinate and letting them sit and then different things that I've seen and kind of combining those, somehow letting them marinate and letting them sit and then creating from that inspiration and creating something new. So there's definitely things that are inspired that have inspired me that might come up in my work or my designs or visual aesthetics. But imitating someone is a little bit different, where if I was trying to write a book like Seth Godin and trying to talk like he talks and use the language like he uses, I would never be able to do it and it wouldn't be anything new. But being inspired by Seth or being inspired by a visual artist or an industrial designer, I'm able to take those things and let them sit.

And then when I go to create, something comes out that's something new and it's my own spin on it. Yeah, you mentioned Steal Like an Artist. That's actually the Austin Kleon book by that title. That's the thing that gave me permission to be creative. I never really thought of it that way because he said creating is essentially just connecting the dots that you've collected in a way that hasn't been done before. And at that point, I'm like, oh, so the dots themselves are already there. Like the dots themselves exist.

It's just the path that my brain goes to connect these things and express the output. You know, that's where I think maybe a lot of people get tripped up is they have all these inputs, but they don't think about the output. And at that point, you know, when I read that, I'm like, oh, so the output like is what it is. Creativity is a formula. I don't have to worry about it. I don't have to judge myself for it because I'm a musician. I like to write songs and I would get

so discouraged when I would write a song and then I'd hear it on the radio. I'm like, oh, I totally just ripped off that melody line or the chord progression, whatever. But if you really dig into music, there is nothing new there. All the chords, all the notes, they've existed there for a long time. And does that prevent people from writing new songs? No, you just have the same essential building blocks and you take them in, your brain jumbles them all up and then whatever comes out, that is the natural result of everything

that you've collected. And for me, the tipping point was regarding imitation versus collecting those dots. If I want better output, all I got to do is collect better dots. me you know the tipping point was regarding imitation versus like connecting or collecting those dots like if i want better output all i got to do is collect better dots mike there's mike there's only 12 notes mike only 12 yep you can't invent a new one mozart and uh and ozzy osbourne had the same 12. it's crazy i love that analogy though because i think of literal building blocks if you were to hand somebody a bag of you were to hand 10 people a bag of 20 different building blocks and you know they're all they're all the same sorry um and there's unique shapes and stuff in there and

they were all to go into a room and to build something and create something no two people are going to make the same thing even though they had the exact same building blocks to start and that's where like i think connecting those dots, and that unique idea of, we each have a different way that we would connect those dots, if left to our own devices, and not following the instructions or following a teacher. That's where creativity comes from is is how those blocks are put together, how those things are assembled. And then someone will come out with those blocks and create something that you never thought was possible or completely out of left field where everyone else might have assembled the blocks in a similar formation. I don't know if that makes sense, but that visual analogy is really, I think, the way that we work and the way that we operate as creatives.

Do you ever struggle with imposter syndrome when you look at yourself compared to other artists, for instance, or designers? Oh, a hundred percent. And I think almost everyone I've talked to, if they can be honest with themselves, will admit that they struggle with imposter syndrome on some level. And it's one of those things that we've, I guess, more recently people will talk about and will share, but I feel like an imposter almost every day. Because it's like, if people knew like, you know, that I'm sitting here, this is my bedroom in my house that I've converted into the photo shoot studio for Ugmonk.

And if they knew that I didn't actually know all of the things that they think I know, that can really haunt me. But at the same time, it's freeing to know that we're all baking it till we make it. We're all making it up as we go. And we all have, you know, the same number of hours in a day to create things and make things. And that's something that I've had to overcome. And I think we'll always be there no matter what we make and what we create. Will people ever find out that I didn't know what I was doing? That's like the thing that can haunt us. Yeah, I do think we all suffer from that.

I think you're in a pretty good space with it, though. Yeah, the first step would be admitting it. You know, even this far into my design career, I think about, man, shouldn't I have known more by now? Or you look at other designers or some of the greats that are held up on a pedestal or put down in a textbook and you think they probably never struggled with that because they were just, you know, they were so good at what they did. But reality is, I think that's a natural thing. This episode of Focused is brought to you by TextExpander from our friends at Smile. If you're feeling like you've got too much to do and not enough time, if you're wondering how you can claw back some time but don't know where to start, then TextExpander is your answer. TextExpander helps you work faster and smarter so you can focus your time on your most important

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textexpander.com slash podcast to save 20% off your first year. Our thanks to TextExpander and Smile for their support of Focused and all of RelayFM. One of the things that you've created, Jeff, that a lot of people are interested in is your analog system. And maybe you should start by just kind of explaining what it is. Sure. So Analog is a physical card-based productivity system. At its core, it's really a focus tool, and it's designed to help you get more things done, but in the simplest way possible. And it's the solution that came out of my problem of not being able to keep up with other more complicated productivity systems, task managers, project management apps, and feeling like I need a way to focus.

I need a way to get the important things done. How can I do this? That's where it was born from. And then visually, it's a little bit hard to describe just via audio. But the cards, the analog divides cards into three types of cards. So there's today cards, next cards, and someday cards. And a lot of this is derived from things like David Allen, Getting Things Done, and a lot of other productivity books that I've read over the years, but kind of distilling it down into a really simple version of having a tangible thing in front of me

that can help me divide my day into these three or my tasks into these three categories. Yeah, I think you're underselling it. I mean, it's really a different take because, you know, cards as a productivity tool have been around a while and people have come up with different ideas and designs over the years. But you kind of turned it into a unit and um so the way it works is there's a i think it's walnut it's a nice wooden case that that the cards fit into so it's like a storage device but i think like one of the the genius moves is that you have a slot in the front where you can set a card into the slot. So you imagine, you know, you pull it out, you fill it out with the tasks you want to do today.

And then you can literally just prop the card in the slot and have it on your desk looking back at you all day. And it's really a different take on an analog system. And I think there's a lot of people that are interested in this. Yeah, I mean, you described it a whole lot better than I did. I'm looking at it on my desk saying, how do I visually... If you go to uggmonk.com slash analog, you'll get the entire picture of what this thing is. But that idea of it staring back at me all day is why it works. When I've used digital task managers, and I still use digital for things, and we use Asana, and I've used Dropbox paper and all different things. Those ones, I have to switch

back and forth on my tab, or I have to minimize an app to see those. This card, this analog card that's physically sitting in front of me, stares at me all day and says, Hey, you're not doing the thing you're supposed to. Hey, you're not doing the thing you're supposed to. And having it right below my monitor, right next to my computer is the thing that makes it work, especially for someone like me who does lose focus a lot throughout the day and can get off on tangents and can get very distracted with 43 browser tabs open. Yeah, well, it really resonated with me. And just to give a little history, I mean, I historically, I use a digital task manager, I use OmniFocus, because I have a lot of things going on in my life. I've got like 150 clients, I've got podcasts, I have too much to do of tasks and then pull out a few and put them into a binder or a notebook that was at my desk all day. But I found that wasn't good enough because

the same thing, you turn the page, you close the notebook, it's not there. And it felt like it was just one more thing. I want to use my notebook to journal thoughts, not really to manage my daily tasks. So I went to doing it digital. And then you sent me a sample unit with this as we were preparing for today's show. And I've been using it for about a week now. And I'll tell you, I did it originally just so I could be able to talk to you about it intelligently. But now you're like my dealer. I'm going to be buying cards for you forever. This is great because having that system right in front of you is a great, it doesn't have to be just analog. I mean, it's an analog component of a digital system for me. But I've already seen the value of the ritual of the night before filling the card out and then waking up and seeing it there on my desk.

And I think you're really onto something. And that, that, that's basically the best testimonial I could ask for. Um, the, the idea of seeing people like yourself adapt a new system, like, like analog validates everything. And it's the reason why I pushed so hard to make this into a product and, and to obsess over every detail from the paper stock to the walnut, to the way the wood was finished, to the way the cards slide in the back of the holder. All of those things that are beautiful, if this just sits on your desk and looks beautiful,

is not the point that I made it. But hearing that it's helping you and it's helping you do the same thing it does for me, which is extract those tasks out of digital into analog and then help me get those things done is really rewarding. And that's why I think analog has struck a chord with so many people and why we raised so much money on the Kickstarter and why it continues to get so much attention is that it's a really simple switch. But the word that you use, ritual, is exactly what it is for me. It's this daily thing where I'm filling out up to 10 things I want to get done. And then whatever doesn't get done gets transferred on the next card. And it's just like automatic. It's almost invisible for me at this point because I've been

doing it for so long. Yeah, it's just a really nice design. And I can tell, you know, I haven't talking to you now, I can see why it came out so nice but like a couple things i noted using it for the last week is the uh the design of the the case it's walnut so often these things are made out of a more common wood and it's not and it looks nice um the there's a lot of rounded edges even on the cards themselves the edges are rounded there's a bunch of attention on the actual graphic design of the card there's a kind of an ingenious circle next to it where just like with omni focus that my digital task manager you can you know it's like a task circle instead of a check mark so you can indicate different statuses by the way you fill that out and then

there's a metal plate on it that you can store cards underneath or use the metal plate to write on. It's just, I can tell this probably went through quite a few iterations. For sure. Yeah. I mean, it's nice to hear when people appreciate those details. And I think sometimes even if you don't notice the details, you notice that you gravitate towards a certain product. Apple notoriously does this when you open up their, you know, a laptop or a MacBook. You're not sure what it is about it, but there's so many little decisions and considerations that they made along the way to make it enjoyable to use. And for me, obsessing over a product like this went through so many

different iterations and prototypes and different materials and getting the paper stock, right. Getting the ink, just even like the density of the ink on the paper, right. So that the lines weren't too harsh and in your face, but they were still there. The dot grid pattern on the back of the cards, just getting all of these things dialed in was like, that's where my design brain is just going full force. And, but then at the end of the day, it's like this product has to help people. What I want it to do is actually help people to focus, help people to get stuff done and help people feel like they've done enough in a day. And we can talk

about the constraints and some of that. But the idea of this product just sitting on your desk looking nice is not very satisfying to me. I want it to also help you. And it's encouraging to hear that it's helping you as well. One last point on just the overall fit and finish. I'm a woodworker as well. I make furniture. And when I saw the product image, there is a slot that you can prop the card up in. And having done stuff like this in the past myself, I knew that like a saw blade, they call it the kerf. The width of the saw blade is always pretty thick, especially when you have a tipped saw blade, which is what you need to cut walnut.

And I was thinking there's no way this is going to work because the kerf is going to be too wide and that card is going to flop around in there. But you guys got that. You guys got that. Just, I don't know what you guys are doing to get such a small kerf on that thing. But as a craftsman, I can appreciate what you've done here. Yeah. So we're actually making everything domestically here in the US. And I'm working with small shops that are specialty woodworkers, specialty metal workers. Even the cards are printed locally here in

Pennsylvania. But on the wood side of things, all of that is routed with a CNC router. So that CNC drill bit can get really, really precise. And then we laser engrave the logo on the front and then it's actually hand sanded four separate times. Then it's finished. Then the magnets are placed in to hold that metal divider plate in the back. So there's a lot, a lot of labor that goes into that. And I'm planning to shoot a video. I want to kind of do like a how things are, how things are made video to show you that process from that raw plank of Walnut from the sawmill going all the way from that to the finished analog, because we did not cut any corners when it came to using the highest quality materials for creating this thing, because I wanted to live for a long time.

Now, could you just kind of walk us through, because although we just got done talking about everybody uses the bag of blocks differently, I feel like there is a bit of opinion on how to use this tool. I mean, you've got a lot of pieces on it. You've got the three dots in the upper right corner. You've got some design decisions here that are certainly meant to affect the way the user uses the cards. Could you walk us through, like, how do you use the product?

Yeah, so my goal was to create a system that had enough structure and foundation to provide some cues, some visual cues, on how I'm using it, how I think it can be used, but also to leave it open for interpretation. I want people to hack this thing, and I've already had people showing me how they've connected some of the dots or they've created new symbols to create subtasks under other dots, using different color inks to create different categories for projects. So the way I use it is very simple. And it's, I start my day with a new today card. And there's there's 10 lines on there, I rarely fill up all 10, because I've learned to understand myself better that I can't get that many things done that many important things done in a day. And I'll start with the day, the card from the day before. And if there's anything unfinished, I'll transfer that onto my today card. During this

process, there is a subtle tweak to it. So I don't just blindly copy over anything from the day before. I think about one, do I need to be doing this? So if yes, then it goes on my today card to if I don't need to be doing it, why was it on the card to begin with? Or three, can it be done later? Like is it maybe it's not as urgent as I thought it was. And then I move it to a next card. So the next card becomes like my holding tank for things that I have to get done. But I need to keep them out of sight or I'm going to get distracted with them. And I go through and I fill up to 10 things on that card. I usually put calendar appointments on there too. I have a very limited calendar. So unlike you guys, you probably have very packed calendars and it would take a whole card just to put all of your appointments

and meetings. But let's just say I have two appointments and on there, I'll usually add those to the bottom of the card and I use the plus symbol to note those as appointments. So even for today, I have on my card the focused podcast recording, put the time. And that just keeps me from having to check my calendar all day or have to look for alerts. And then I'll work through those tasks and use the task signals, which are those circles on the left side, and fill them out as I complete tasks. If they're partially done, I color in half the circle. and fill them out as I complete tasks. If they're partially done, I color in half the circle. But at the end of the day,

however people want to use it is more interesting than just the way that I've prescribed to using analog. So I'm excited to see how it evolves over time with different people hacking it. We talked earlier about the limitations of the same 12 notes in music and how that can foster creativity. And I feel like that's kind of what you've done here with the analog system. There's obviously some very solid constraints here. You've got a single card, which has 10 tasks. You cannot do more than 10, which that alone is interesting. I've adopted that myself. I

actually cap it at five. But I tell that to people and they're like, well, how can you do that? Things come up, you have to get them done. But the constraints that you have applied to this system, that's really where the magic happens. And I'm kind of curious, you know, you mentioned also you write something down and if you didn't get it done, you're going to write it out again on tomorrow's. And you have to ask yourself, do I really want to do this? I know that's kind of like a core tenant of the bullet journal system. So what inspired you to create your own thing here? Yeah, I mean, essentially analog. And I know I love the bullet journal system and what Ryder has created. I think it's

great for me personally. It was just too much for me to keep up with. And I think it works for some people and they're able to consistently I know you use the use our disbound journal, I think, with the bullet journal system. But there was too many components of it. So it's almost like I simplified some of the tenets from that and the idea of rewriting things, copying things over into analog and just made it usable for me. And I don't want to call it the bullet journal for dummies or anything like that, because I think you can simplify the bullet journal as just the bullet journal. But this idea of rewriting things, which sounds so counterintuitive, like, do I really need

to write this task on here again? What it does is it's actually forcing me to pause. And rather than just see it on my Asana list or OmniFocus list every day, I have to think about it because I'm taking five seconds out of my day to rewrite that thing. And some of that intentionality is what's made me, I think, better at figuring out what I need to do and what I need to prioritize versus just blindly saying, this is what's on my list for the day, or this showed up in my inbox, I guess I should just do it. Even the idea of using it alongside a digital

task manager, right? People say, well, like, I don't want to copy down my list every day. Like that's going to take me, you know, three minutes. Like, well, those three minutes are actually really well spent because it's helping me decide what do I need to do out of my 78 things I have listed right now in Dropbox paper where I keep a lot of lists. So it is definitely more than just an index card or just a physical journal. It's more about prioritizing and putting those constraints in place to help you focus on what you need to work on and help me focus on what I should be working on. Yeah, there's a lot of advantages, obviously, to Digital Task Manager. You could have thousands of in there. And it can say these are the 15 that are relevant right now. But essentially, it is a list of things that you are ultimately for today going to choose not to do.

Right. And I used to use a huge, just eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper. I've tried the long reporter style notebooks, and they've got, you know, 20 or 30 lines on them. But what would I do? I would pick off the three easy things off that list and do those. And then the list is just sitting there. And I had to make that decision every time I looked at the list, which things should I work on next? Well, analog having only 10 lines forces me to know which things are next. And people have asked already, well, I have more than 10 things I need to do today. Where do I put them? I'm like, which are the more than 10 things I need to do today. Where do I put them? I'm like, which are the 10 most important things you need to do? Those go on your today card.

If and when you can complete all 10, pull out another today card and start over. But the, you know, we can't prioritize past 10. It's really hard. I think 10 is actually a pretty generous number. I mean, if I was going to tell somebody to start doing it, this I'd, I'd limit it at three or maybe five, you know, I would like to think I'm fairly productive, but I can't, I know myself and I can't do more than five things in a day. It's just not going to happen. I think sometimes if you break down a task into subtasks or kind of more granular. Um, so instead of like photo shoot these products and break those down, I use some

of the lines for those or appointments. But yeah, I would agree. I think starting with like three to five is plenty. And if you can get those done, you're doing great. So there are people who have jobs that don't really match that. You know, like let's say you're in sales and one of your jobs is you've got to like reach out and touch 20 customers a day or something like that. And when I hear from people who have that problem, I say, well, the way I would solve that is I would give that a block. I'd say, okay, I'm going to spend two hours on customer relations today. And that would be an entry. And that could be a line on this Ugmonk card, or it could be a block on your calendar. But I would not write down all

20 of those calls I'm going to make. I would just say, okay, we're going to give time to it. So, so be creative in the way you think about this stuff, but, but ultimately, you know, 10 is a lot. One of the tricks I've been doing is I, cause the shutdown is so important to me. That's the bottom of the card every day i just write that down on the bottom that's the last thing i'm going to do and that's there um i'm definitely already thinking about hacking it but we haven't heard from mr schmitz i don't know what you're doing with these cards mike because i know you also have a paper analog system so i'm curious yeah i'm struggling with where they fit exactly because I'm already using another Uggmunk product every single day, which is the Discbound Heirloom Journal. Now, you do have great paper, I have to say that. But I am a complete snob when it comes to fountain pens. So I have to admit that I did buy fancier paper, punch it myself and use it

inside the journal. But what I do is I time block and then I've got my five things that I create on the right side of my day. I'm thinking that this is going to replace that part of it, just like the checklist sort of a thing. Because I do like the idea of having this set up on my desk right below my monitor and it's right in my face every single day my notebook is actually open to the side of my keyboard between my keyboard and my mouse so that is open and I can see it every day but I have to look down to to see the list and I think there is some value in just having it like right in my face but I'm not a hundred percent sure yet. I do think the next cards and the Sunday cards are really interesting.

That's the piece to me that I can see myself using long-term but I'm not quite sure how yet which is sort of the struggle when you create this like open-ended make it your own type system, right? As you have to figure out how this stuff works. My bullet journal which is really not a bullet journal. It's a very, very hacked, simplified

version of a bullet journal. I have landed on that after months and months of experimentation with everything being shut down and having an opportunity basically to play around with some analog stuff. But I, yeah, I'm not sure that's the short answer. But I do know that it has a place in my workflow for no other reason other than it's absolutely beautiful. And my desk is covered with other Augmonk stuff at the moment. Yeah, I like to hear like, you know, I don't think analog is for everyone. I do think it can be adapted and hacked in different ways. And I think seeing how people use it differently, some people only use the today cards. So this is just early feedback.

You know, we've only had the product out for a very brief time. And some people are saying, I love the today cards, use them every day, not touching the next or the someday cards. Not sure what those are for. I keep anything that's later in a digital task manager. But I've heard other things like I use the next cards or the someday cards for meeting notes. So I walk into a meeting and it's a stand up meeting and that's all I bring. I don't bring anything else because everything that from that meeting, all the notes have

to fit on that card. When we leave there, I've got my list of things to do. And just simple things like that where I never thought about using this for a meeting or using like specifically, because it kind of had a defined purpose, but people are using the cards in different ways and they like the portability of it that you can just stick it in your back pocket.

You can carry it with you. We've made a little felt travel case for it. You can take a pen and your cards with you. But yeah, I'm really open to seeing how the analog system evolves. And if there are other cards that we add to it, I've already thought of some other ideas for maybe there's some calendar cards where you get an entire month view on one card or entire year view on one card, but carrying the same aesthetic and attention to detail and building on this where you can use as much or as little of it as you want. higher year view on one card, but carrying the same aesthetic and attention to detail and building on this where you can use as much or as little of it as you want.

That's the exciting part, I think, is I can totally see how these are productivity Lego and you can use whatever pieces you want. And you mentioned the calendar cards. I'm sure you've had a bunch of other suggestions for other types of cards that you could create. I do think there's a danger in getting all of these different cards and now you have a very complicated analog system. Kind of the beauty of all of the analog stuff for me

is how simple it is. And honestly, like the today cards with the list of tasks and then the dot grid on the back, that is essentially what I am doing with the journal, the heirloom journal that I have. And I do like how these things can complement each other. On some levels, they're used for the same purpose. So I think you do kind of have to take a little bit of time and make it your own. I also know you've got a tips page, which has like a bunch of stuff to help get people

started. I really, really like the idea, though, of the someday maybe, like having a pack of someday maybe cards, like a great idea. I want to do this in the future. Not just dumping that into the task manager, where for me anyways, it tends to get lost. But having those in the bottom of the analog holder and then being able to just like pull those out periodically and sift through those good ideas,

having tangible things in my hands, like that is very, very appealing to me. This episode of Focus is brought to you by Indeed. Indeed is the number one job site in the world with more total visits than any other job site according to Comscore. And hiring is one of those things that you cannot afford to mess up. You need to hire great people if you want to take your entire business or organization to the next level. With the stakes this high, there's only one choice, and that's Indeed. Now let me tell you why.

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a list of things I want to do on the right side. I've got the time block set forth. At the end of the day, kind of critical to my whole shutdown routine is figuring out what are the big rocks I'm going to move in the next day and how am I going to apportion my time. So putting all that on this card is great because you stand it up in the stand and it's right next to my monitor. And like Jeff was saying, it's not a window that gets hidden. It's just staring back at you all day. And even though I'm not necessarily following the time blocks every day, sometimes things change. Having them there is kind of nice. So that's been my kind of like little hack on it.

So my vote is if you decide to try some different cards, maybe time blocking might be something you may want to look into. Yeah, that's an interesting approach too. I think how people layer it onto their digital system, analog can obviously live by itself and you don't need a digital system to back it up. But so many of us have some sort of digital place where our tasks live. And how it kind of coincides with that is where people might find useful little hacks and tips and tricks to figure out, okay, I have this list in my inbox. I have this list in OmniFocus and bring them all

together on this one card each day. It just simplifies things. I feel like it's just kind of like I don't have to check so many different inboxes throughout the day because I know what I'm supposed to be doing proactively is on this card. Now there's things that pop up. There's always putting out fires and being on the defense too, but there's definitely something about having, when I have focus and what I should be doing, these are the rocks I need to move. These are the things I need to accomplish for the day. And to me, that's just satisfying to know that's all the the rest of the things thousands of tasks stored away somewhere or ideas those can just stay there and i don't have to go sift through them or even see them for them to catch my eye and get and distract me throughout the day yeah i mean i really think that

with the point of focus if you don't carve those things out whether you write them on a note card, put them in a notebook or etch them on your retina. It's very easy for the world to take your day and do with it as it will. And I think having the card stare back at me has been a really good practice. And make no mistake, I am not an analog only person. My life does not work that way and it it couldn't, if I wanted it to. But this is like an additional tool. And I do think that the intentionality that you can bring with something like this is something that people should not ignore. Yeah. One other note on the digital and analog marriage is I still find it easier to capture

things digitally, especially when I'm on the go. If I'm in the grocery store and I've got two young kids and they're screaming, but an idea hits me, I don't have time to take out a piece of paper and a pen and try and write it down and hold all the groceries and do all those things. I'm going to say, you know, I'm going to open up notes or say, hey, Siri, remind me to do this. But I'll take that once I get back to my desk

or I'm back in a place where I have my setup I'll open up those notes or I've been using the do app it's like the reminders app that just works better than the native reminders app and I'll see that little notification I will physically transfer that onto a card whether it's a today card or next card and then I'll close that notification off my phone so So I'm not against, I'm not a Luddite where I'm against technology and against using digital to capture or to organize or to collaborate. I think it's great at those things, but it's terrible. Like I'm not going to put my phone in front of me with a list of things and not touch it all day. It's not going to stare

back at me. It's going to have little red dots popping up that I have to kill all day. You're playing whack-a-mole at that point. Yeah. And I have little red dots popping up that I have to kill all day. You're playing whack-a-mole at that point. Yeah. One question I have, and this is just totally for my own edification. What is it with the three dots?

You've got these three dots on the box. You've got them on the metal sheet. I'm not sure what those are there for. Yeah. It kind of became a motif just to echo the idea of today, next, and someday. It started with the concept of everything was in threes. And then the three dots on the upper right-hand side of the card were just one additional detail for a way of organizing the cards. So one idea is if you have all cards related to a specific project,

maybe you color in the top two dots out of the three. If you have another one, you can color the top dot and the bottom dot. You can make a little system just to quickly grab cards that are alike. And a completely separate idea was you can also rate yourself on how well you did that day. This can be either motivating or depressing. But let's just say you completed your full card. You get to color in all three dots. If you completed half the card, you color in half. And it's these little little things that just kind of play with our mind and gamify the idea of completion and getting things done and kind of patting ourselves on the back. But that's where the three dots came from. That's really cool. I'm

glad that you brought up the three dots and you showed some cool examples. I like the rating yourself example. I like the assigning them to specific projects. Are there any other suggestions for how to use those or how do you use them personally? I've been mostly using them to rate myself and see how well I can do each day. Sometimes, like I said, that can be a little defeating when you only get to fill in one out of the three dots. But yeah, those are the two main use cases. I'm trying to think we've had a couple customers already send in some ideas of how they're using them, but I can't bring them to mind right now. I could see them being useful for like status for specific things.

I guess this is more, you know, if you're going to group them by project, but you could have a bunch of dots that pertain to like specific parts of a project. You know, I'm not really sure where that fits. You probably aren't setting up four different analog systems on your desk to track the four projects that you've got spinning at the moment. But this reminds me a lot of the bullet journal

with the simple dots and the different things that you can do with them, denote it as a task, denote it as a meeting, send it forward, send it back, all that kind of stuff. And I think this is a great example of you've got these limitations, these physical limitations of this card, right? And you put in here, in a very small space, something that adds exponential

customizability, a lot of flexibility. And that's one of the things that I like about a lot of the stuff that you do. It's like those little details are very considered. You're not telling people specifically how to use them, but

they are... It'd be very easy just to leave those off and be like, well, here's the bones of the system. You got your date, you got your tasks, you got your things that you can mark off, you got the doc grid, but I love how extensible this is and how you can apply this really to any way that you want to work.

Yeah, I am definitely a geek for the details. Like that's where I spend so much of my time after the concept of the product, the storytelling, how do we want to position it? But those little details, one other detail I just wanted to mention, which I don't know if you guys have noticed, is on the back of the wood base, which is the card holder, there is a slight kind of curved angled lip. And that's a very specific detail that we went through a lot of trouble trying to get that lip in there and get that CNC router to cut that lip. And that's a very specific detail that we went through a lot of trouble trying to get that

lip in there and get that CNC router to cut that lip. But what that makes is when you take your card, and this is how I use it, is I take my completed card and I slide it under the back of the card holder up onto that lip underneath the stack as like a discard pile. That little lip makes it so easy without having to use two hands to pick it up and move it around to slide that card right under the stack and it's just a very satisfying little little motion to slide the card in there and then grab the next one from the top of the stack yeah i like that i like that but you know it's funny i have been thinking about what am i supposed to do with these cards after i finish a day and yeah you know there is a part of me that wants to add them

to my weekly scan routine or wants me to get some artisanal box to put all my cards in. And then there's another part of me that thinks I should just literally throw them away. Because I was just looking, I've been using OmniFocus since 2008, 13 years now. How often do I go back to look at what day I finished a certain task on?

I just don't do that. And part of me feels like it'd be easy for me to treat these things as too precious. It's really a very useful tool. It's not, you know, I'm not Winston Churchill. Yeah, that's a great point. And that's been brought up a lot is like, what do I do with them? I feel like my life is on these cards. I'm not sure.

Should I, you know, bury them in the backyard? Do I put them in a book somewhere? Do I just throw them out and recycle the paper? And I'm holding up one idea, which is what basically what you just described is an idea for an archive box. And this is kind of foreshadowing. We don't have any exact plans yet, but foreshadowing the idea of maybe there's this idea of archiving an entire year's worth of cards.

Do I go back and look at them often? Not usually, but sometimes I do need to go page back through and find the notes on the back of a card from a phone call and having them accessible and having them displayed in a beautiful way is nice. And then I think also the thing for me that I love, and I actually have drawers full of these cards because I've been using the system for so long, is seeing that stack grow. There's just this visual reminder of like, I'm making forward progress. I'm getting things done. You're seeing that visual of stacks of things happen. Whereas in a digital world, you cross that task off and it just kind of poof disappears, it's gone. And you're like, did I do anything yesterday? I feel like I did something. So yeah, I'm interested

to see the different schools of thought. If people want to keep the cards around, if they want something like this that's going to hold an entire year of cards or if they just recycle them and move on. How long have you been using this system? I mean, it came on my radar with the Kickstarter, which doesn't seem anyways like it was that long ago. So maybe you've been doing a lot of research and testing yourself before this saw the light of day. Yeah, I mean, years. So I never called it analog. I didn't think of it as a product even. I was using regular index cards because of the small format and the small size

for a long time. And I would make little circles for the bullets and I would add things to them. Never really had a great format, but I found that it was just helpful to have that sitting in front of me on a little business card holder. So I've been using some version of analog for

probably five or six, seven years, but, and carrying the tasks over. And again, I didn't come up with these ideas. These are all things that have been talked about by plenty of other productivity experts. It didn't become a product idea until probably two years ago, like actually start to formulate what could this be. And then the card holder. So the wood card holder with the metal divider that clips in with magnets in the back, that actually wasn't probably up until six months before we launched wasn't even a thing. And the crazy part about that is 95% of our Kickstarter backers and customers that have

ordered now on pre-order have actually bought the cardholder. And the permanence of having that place for the cards to live on your desk is really important for people. You can go get a pack of index cards for, I don't know, a dollar, two dollars. Where do you do with them? Where do you put them? They have no structure. They have no format. So those details that we were talking about in the design, I think does play into how the whole system works and feels like it has a singular purpose and can live on your desk. I absolutely think the cardholder is what makes it work. If you're going to try this, get the cardholder. Yeah, I agree. And when I saw the cardholder, I immediately knew that it was going to be high quality.

And it was something that I would be proud to display on my desk because I also have the Gather desk organizer system. And it actually fits in very well with that. I'm sure you probably learned some things from the machining of the gather system that you use when creating the card holder itself but i guess my opinion the success of the gather system probably contributes to the fact that so many people want that card holder because if you just talk about a card holder it's kind of like well why do i really need that but when you know in mind oh this is coming from ugmonK and they made that awesome Gather system that I have on my desk. Yeah, I want that too. Yeah, for sure. This

definitely piggybacks on Gather and I think has attracted a very similar audience. Analog has actually eclipsed Gather in terms of number of customers and sales and has struck a chord even wider than gather, which is really exciting. But the difference is, yeah, having a product that looks as good as it does on screen when you receive it. My goal is that when someone unboxes that and they feel the quality of the wood, I mean, we're using solid wood. We're not using veneers. We're not using fake. I don't even know what they call it, where they do laminate wood. We're using like the best materials we can find. So my goal is that it looks great on the screen, but when you get it, it should feel just as good because you're going to, or if not better, because you're going to be interacting with

this thing all day, every day. And it's sitting dead center, you know, on your desk or right off to the side. So this thing has to be, the materials have to be there. And I think the flip side happens most of the time when we order something from a brand we've never heard of on Amazon or wherever, and we get it. It looked great in the photos, but it was very cheaply made. And I really want to do the opposite, which is why we're doing everything local and with artisan craftsmen. You mentioned you've been using this for years. Was there anything that was surprising to you about how your workflow changed throughout the years of doing this stuff on the cards? importance of it. So when I don't have an analog card in front of me or previously just an index card, if I had nothing in front of me, my day gets away from me fast. And I am like the, you know,

the shiny object syndrome where I'm just looking everywhere, doing everything. So when I don't start with it, I've noticed how important it is, which is why I turned it into a product and built a whole system around it. But in the beginning, it was more of an experiment kind of stripping down from a bigger to-do list, paper to-do list to a smaller one. And then all of these little details that I've added and just nice to have a card where I don't have to draw the circles on it. I don't have to add little details. It's got a slot on the top for the space for the date on the top. It's definitely just made it more habitual or ritual for me. And it's been, it's been really nice. It's just like the one thing that's always there. It's steady, staring back at me.

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Our thanks to Microsoft Lists for their support of the Focus podcast and all of RelayFM. So on your Ugmonk website, you have an about page, which most people would maybe have an about page about them and about their story and about their journey, which is cool. But yours is very different. You have a story about the banker and the fisherman, which I love this story.

I've heard it before. retell it real quickly in your own words and why this is important to you, why this resonates, why this is a good representation of you and the company when people come to find out more about Ugmonk. Yeah, so this is a recent update where I actually, for a long time, I had a chronological about page and it was the start of Ugmonk and here's how we built it and here's how things went. But as time goes on, there's more and more to pack into that chronological timeframe. And I felt like I was saying the same thing over and over. And origin stories are great. I think it's interesting to hear about how people start.

But when I was talking to a copywriter who we actually hired to help kind of co-write this page, he pulled our story into this light, into a completely different light that I had never even thought about. And the things that stood out to him were things that I just thought as common sense or were automatic. And he uses a common story that's been told over the years, and you've probably heard different versions of it, about the fisherman and the banker. And the fisherman is really what I relate to. And the fisherman being the one that's going to go out, he's going to fish, he's going to catch his fish, he's going to go home, he's going to enjoy time with his family, he's going to do the things he wants to

do. And the banker comes along and says, you know, can you, why don't you upgrade to a bigger boat? Why don't you, you know, if you have more fleets of boats and you can get bigger, then you get a bigger business and all this stuff. And the idea of just growing because you can, because you're talented or because you're doing the trade well and then sell the business. And that's the banker's interpretation is, you know, you get big, you can sell this thing. And I'm completely the opposite. Like I enjoy the fishing so much that I want to just keep doing this. And that's another thing that's very maybe countercultural, even in the e-commerce world. I want to be running Ugmonk for as long as I can,

at least for now, that's my goal. Because I enjoy the product creation process and seeing it and talking to folks like you guys where I can see where the product is actually resonating, it's helping someone, it's being used, that cycle is more interesting to me than just cashing out and trying to flip my business someday. So yeah, I mean, I think I just relate to the phrase that we have on some of our coasters,

enjoy the journey, is really like what I'm all about. And yeah, there you go. Mike's got him on his desk. Because if we're showing up and we're just trying to scale a business quickly, some people might find a lot of joy and satisfaction in that. That's just not what my brain is wired for. I love obsessing over the details and designing beautiful products and then going through this entire process over and over again. Sometimes I wonder why, and I think I'm a glutton for punishment when it comes to making things and manufacturing things because it's really hard. But that's really what my, you know, the ethos of what I'm about is the fisherman, not the banker. Was that a natural progression or is that

part of just who you are? I feel like on some level, we all have to kind of battle this internal drive, and maybe it's stronger in other people than it is for others. But there's kind of this emphasis that growth is good, and it feels very counterintuitive to say, no, actually, I'm content with the way things are. What was your own journey with that kind of inner turmoil? Did you experience that? And if you did, how did you overcome it? Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, we're all driven, we would all love to have more cash in our bank account. There's nothing that I'm against growing and just in this because I want to make products at no cost and do it as a charity. Although we're able to give back to charities now that the business has grown

and we've been able to increase those amounts. But I think the realization point was really after I had launched Gather, which is the desk organizer that, Mike, you were talking about. When I launched it on Kickstarter, our goal was to raise $18,000, and we raised $430,000 and my eyes got big and we're manufacturing this overseas in the beginning. We're actually now manufacturing it domestically, but we're doing things at a bigger scale. We're working with a 3PL to, which is a third party logistics company to do the shipping. Everything kind of took off on its own.

And my eyes got big and said, wait, we could sell this to retail stores. What if we could get into Target or West Elm or any of these office supply stores? And we'd have to go to trade shows and we'd have to have sales reps and we'd have to do this. And long story short,

we ran into a lot of challenges on the manufacturing front, on the shipping front, on the scaling front. I wasn't interested in doing any of those things. That's not what got me out of bed was to go and see if we can scale this up. Even to the point of being on Shark Tank, I had the producers of Shark Tank reach out to me and say, hey, we'll let you bypass the first round of interviews.

We'd love to have you on the show. And I just, I didn't know what to think. I was nervous just thinking about being on the show and what it would mean and what it could do. But at the end of the day, well, we opted not to do that, which was a good thing because our manufacturer did not deliver on time and it would have been, could have probably collapsed our entire business. But at the end of the day, growing a bigger company is really not what gets me out of

bed. It just wasn't the thing that I found satisfaction from. not what gets me out of bed. It just wasn't the thing that I found satisfaction from. So I've, I've come full circle back to like, let's make small batch products, grow at the pace that we want to grow at, work with domestic manufacturers with a small team here in Pennsylvania, and just slowly kind of put one foot in front of the other and go on, you know, carve our own path that we want to carve versus zero to 60. And then what? To me, it's like, I feel like I could lose a lot of the things that I love about the design process if I was just to try to crank out more stuff to please investors and so on and so on. So at what point did you

realize, hey, you know what? I am now a fisherman. I am so happy with what I want to do. My goal is just to find a way to keep doing this. Was that a surprise to you when you realized that? until going through this quick scaling of a giant Kickstarter launch. Because up until that point, I never had anything. I never had my Oprah moment where we just all of a sudden got, you know, hundreds of thousands of orders and we're selling out and shipping. It was just like this. The growth line was very even. It was very steady. So going through that process and then kind of my eyes getting big

and then ending up with all sorts of stress and headaches and trying to figure out how do we figure out the logistics of saving the company essentially around this one product gave me the is what tied it back to the full circle to say, you know what, I don't actually want to do that again. And I was I was more satisfied and happy being the fisherman I was previous to that product or to that launch. How do we do that in a sustainable way while I can still have time with my kids and my wife, while we can still do the things I want

to do and balancing those? So I wouldn't say we're not anti-growth, but we are definitely, let's grow the way we want to grow at the pace that we want to do it. I had a similar experience in that for the longest time, I felt like things aren't quite right with my life and I need to fix things. And then at one point, I got to a point where I'm like, oh, you know what? I'm really in a good spot. I would like to do this for the duration. But the interesting thing I experienced was the stress changed from how do I fix what I'm in to how do I stay here, which is not easy. Are you dealing with that? Yeah, I think that's the constant tension.

I don't think there's a sweet spot where things are just perfect, the money's coming in that works the right amount, there's not too much, there's not too few things going on. I feel like there's always more that we wanna get done in a day, which is kind of coming back to analog where it's like I have to give myself constraints, I have to delay things, I have to put other ideas aside. And I wouldn't say we're ever going to find that perfect

balance. I think work-life balance is, you know, it's probably been, you guys have probably talked about it before, but there's no perfect balance. You're not going to get that scale perfectly balanced and everything is just kind of harmonious. But I do think the idea of being intentional during the journey, you know, enjoying the journey on this road, it's not about just reaching the end goal. And it's kind of this course correction. You feel yourself being pulled one direction. Maybe there's a lot of dollar signs with a lot of zeros on that number that pull you this way.

And then it's like, wait, I got to go back on. So this constant course correcting is more of what I feel like is what I'm going to be doing for a while. And who knows, I can't tell you exactly what our five or 10 or 15 year plan is for Ugmonk and for my career, but the here and the now is what we're living and we're doing. So I think being intentional with that is important. Completely agree. I mean, that's the thing that in everybody in their back of their mind, they know that this is the perspective

that they should have, but it's really, really hard for them to stick with it. Sean Acor, he's the happiness guy. He wrote The Happiness Advantage. He said, if your happiness is tied to a goal, five-year plan, a 10-year plan, whatever, then you will never be happy because the minute that you ship the thing, you achieve the goal, happy because the minute that you ship the thing, you achieve the goal. Then there's this vacuum, this void that has to be filled. And so really what you're talking about reminds me a lot of that Walt Disney quote, like David, you probably know this better than I do, but we don't make movies to make more money. We make money so we can make more movies. Kind of sounds like that's Ugmonk in a nutshell. You want to make a living so that you can continue creating. And I think it's

completely fine that you don't know what's way out there. I am curious though, you probably have a bunch of ideas bouncing around and you probably have to fight the temptation to like chase those things or bite off more than you can chew. So how do you how do you do that? How do you rein yourself in? We've been talking a lot about like intentional limitations and constraints. You know, what does that look like for you on a business level? Yeah, man, that's, that's like the, the hardest part of having a brain like mine where I cannot turn my brain off. It's a blessing and a curse. And some people think I'm, I'm absolutely crazy when I describe what it's like, because to me, ideas are the easy part. And when I say that people like, I just can't come up with any ideas. I have nothing. And to me,

I'm like, I can't stop coming up with with ideas it's a problem because then i want to do them all or i realize i start doing one and then there's a better idea that pops up so i feel like i have to harness that and really lay out in a very very broad level like high level map of here are the things we're going to do each quarter or each year holding those plans pretty loosely with things are going to change things will go go wrong. That's something I've learned is things will never go to go as planned for better or for worse. And laying out these quarterly goals where we just have some idea of what we're working towards from a broad level view and then being willing to kind of adjust that as needed, but then also break those down into more tangible tasks. And I'm trying to think of the right word in the process where we can have markers where we're saying, are we on track to launch this next product? If not, we need to bump the next product out another month and just kind of using this very high level yearly, quarterly and yearly goals to put things in

place. Because, yeah, I would love to launch 10 times the amount of products this year than we're going to launch, but there's just not enough hours in the day. So you mentioned yearly and quarterly goals. That's interesting. It reminds me a lot of like the 12 week year type of stuff. Do you mind diving into a little bit more detail about how you do that process. For example, David and I have talked on this podcast about the whole concept of like personal retreats, which is like once a quarter, I will go away for an entire day and think about what went well over the last three months, last quarter, and what do I want to do going forward for the next couple of months? It sounds like you have maybe a similar process. Yeah, I was actually going to pull up my,

so we have, I have monthly review questions that I do with my team. It's really just me and two employees right now that have been helpful to reframe and kind of figure out where we are in the process versus just always forward motion because I'm very forward thinking and future looking. Again, that's to me, that's very normal. I rarely pause and reflect, which can be a bad thing. And I realize other people are more, would more like to pause and kind of celebrate and pause and reflect. And I'm like onto the next thing. But the questions, these are just questions that I've come up with or that I've kind of written down, um, is what's one thing that's working well right now could be more than one thing. What's one thing that's not working

well right now. One, what unexpected challenges have come up? Um, how do we overcome these challenges? And then what things have gone better than we planned that we can lean into and going through these are not you know this is not uh the bible when it comes to productivity this is just some questions that have been helpful to pause and look at in relation to the goals and the progress and the things that we've done um to address those on a monthly basis and i think we'll do it on a quarterly basis and probably also a yearly basis. Very non-structured, I guess. So a lot of stuff in the productivity world is very structured, has very specific worksheets for everything. You're probably getting the theme and the idea from me that I'm not a very structured person. But giving the simplest templates or starting points for things like this to help me to focus or to help me to pause or help me be more intentional are the things that help me the most.

And I like to think that there's other people out there like me that have the shiny object syndrome or the 43 browser tabs open that are like, yeah, I just need the bare bones. I don't need the whole book on that. I just need that. And that's kind of where I fall. Well, that's the crazy part is that you think you need all that fancy tech stuff and you really don't. Like the computer between your ears is pretty powerful. And if you give it the space to just do what it's good at, it's really great at figuring out complex problems. I love that you have those intentional questions. I've got my own version of those that I use with my personal retreat. And actually, I use these with everything. My wife and I ask these even when we do our date nights, reflecting on what's gone well,

what hasn't in the last couple of weeks. We ask, what should we start doing? What should we stop doing? What should we keep doing? That's it. Those three questions. And it's amazing that as you sit and you think about those questions, you get all these different ideas for things that fit into those specific categories. Yeah, I really think open questions are the way to go with that kind of stuff because you just give your brain room to roam and you're going to come up with problems or issues that you weren't aware of. Well, Jeff, I am so happy for your success. And I really appreciate what you've done, you know, with this card system, because it's interesting, I had kind of given up on analog being part of my digital system, because it wasn't working for me

writing them down in a notebook. I do actually like getting the fancy pen out and journaling in a notebook at the end of the day. But that's just kind of a journal for my own thoughts. It's not really meant to be like a daily driver system. I actually found the notebook to be more of an intrusion than useful, but these cards sitting under my monitor, staring back at me all day, they're having a real desire to fact. And I'm in the honeymoon period with it now, I'll admit. It's kind of new to me, but I can already see that I will be subscribing to your card subscription. And I think you've really done something great here. Well, I really, really appreciate that. That's an honor to hear coming from you and Mike and

just the compliments that you've given to the system. I feel like the imposter syndrome can kick in for me and be like, what if they find out I'm not as into productivity as they do, or I haven't read as many books. But at the end of the day, to hear that from you, and I know you're not just saying those things, but to hear that it's helping and it's working is definitely a high compliment. Well, if people want to learn more, head over to uggmonk.com, U-G-M-O-N-K. What is an uggmonk, by the way? Oh, the million dollar question that we didn't get to. So it's actually a rare species of insect off the coast of an island in a... No, I'm actually just making that up. You had me there. It's something that we made up, and we have never disclosed the origin of the word.

But an Ugg Monk is what we have defined as the design brand that we are today. It was kind of like Google before it was Google. There you go. And it was a short, available URL, and it happened to be a happy branding accident where we grabbed it back in 2008. And now Ugg Monk is what you see today. Well, I like it. So anyway, UggMonk.com, a ton of products. We didn't really talk about all the stuff you make. I mean, mouse pads and there's a whole bunch of stuff, but it's very nice, thoughtfully designed stuff you can check out over there.

And I really appreciate you sharing your journey with us. I know it's not easy to go on podcasts and talk about stuff like this, but it really helps us understand where you're coming from and makes even using your products all the more fun for me, at least. So head over to Uggmonk.com. Is there any way else people should go to look for you, Jeff? Yeah, I'm Uggmonk on Twitter and Instagram as well. But yeah, you head over to the site and uggmonk.com slash analog and you'll get all of the details about analog and what we were just describing. All right.

So we are the Focus podcast. You can find us over at relay.fm slash focus. Thank you to our sponsors, Smile, Indeed and Microsoft Lists. And we'll see you next time.