Focused - 187: Drop Zones & Launch Pads, with Jesse J. Anderson

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Jesse J. Anderson is back to talk about troubleshooting productivity systems and his new book for helping adults with ADHD find focus.

Welcome to Focus, the productivity show about more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz. I'm joined by my fellow co-host, the intrepid Mr. David Sparks. Hey, David. Hey, Mike. How are you today? Pretty good. How about you? Excellent. We've got a big show today. We've got a guest back with big news, and I can't wait to get started. But before we do, just a couple points of news.

It is still September. It is still Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and we are still doing the big fundraiser over at St. Jude. So if you go to stjude.org slash relay, you can give some money to help kids with cancer. I'm not sure how better I could make that pitch, but the network is doing great. We're raising tons of money this year, and I think everybody should be a part of it, no matter how little you contribute. My goal for my shows is for everybody to make a contribution, and I don't care if it's just a dollar. It's just something I think we should all chip in. And you can do that over at stjude.org slash relay. And you've got some news as well, Mike, right?

Yeah. Actually, one other thing on the St. Jude thing, it's not too late for this, but one of the things that I did this year, because of my situation starting a new business but still wanting to make a sizable contribution to the campaign, I set up a separate campaign for the Bookworm podcast

because I have people over there who could get behind this cause as well. So if you want to set up your own campaign and reach more people and increase the amount of money that you're able to raise for this worthwhile cause, that is an option as well. So definitely check that out. I was able this year to do matching for the first time because my wife got a full-time job for Disney. So every dollar we gave and we made a nice contribution, Mickey Mouse matched it. So, you know, that's another thing you want to look into if you work for a company that will do matching. But either way, go to that link again, stjude.org slash Relay and check it out. Absolutely.

The other thing I want to just touch on real briefly, because last episode I mentioned the Obsidian University cohort. As this episode goes live, that cohort is now in session. And one of the things that I included with that cohort is the Subsidian 101 course, which I have now made available outside of the cohort. 101 course, which I have now made available outside of the cohort. So it's basically 39 videos on the recommended settings, the key PKM concepts that you need to understand, and walkthroughs of all of the core plugins in Obsidian. So you have a foundation for getting deeper into the weeds with the productivity and the creativity workflows, but really just

laying the foundation for a solid PKM system as quickly as possible. It's about two hours worth of video. I'm selling it for $97, but I'm also letting people who purchase that use that whole purchase price towards a future cohort. So if you missed the cohort, but you want to join a future cohort, and you want to get rolling with laying the foundation right now, this is a self-paced course that allows you to do that. It actually came from the first cohort that I did. It's kind of a condensed version of three separate sessions that is perfect for someone who is brand new to Obsidian. So I just wanted to mention that that is now available to the public and you can find out more information and see a sample video at obsidianuniversity.com slash 101. All right,

we had a guest on our show. What was it now? About a couple years ago. Welcome back to the show, Jesse Anderson. Yeah, thanks for having me. I love this show. And so it was a great honor to be a guest before and I'm super excited to be back with you guys today. Well, Jesse, I thought your show was just fantastic. We talked a lot about addressing ADHD and productivity, which I think is a topic that Mike and I dance around, but we never really speak on it too much because neither one of us are the authority that you are.

And you, when you did the show, you told us, I think offline, I think I want to write a book on this. I have a book in me and gosh, darn, you did it. You wrote a book. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Yeah. It was about a couple of years ago when I decided I was going to write the book and yeah, now I've done it. It is out. Yeah, if you want to dive into how what's going to happen in the last couple of years, I can jump into that. Let me just jump in real quickly before you do that, because I want to call out something

specific with this book. I went back and I re-listened to that first episode that you were on in preparation for this one, Jesse. And you ended the show, we were asking like, where could people go to get connected with you? And you had a newsletter that you were pointing people to. And then you mentioned something along the lines of, and I think I'm going to start writing a book. And the whole episode we were talking about how easy it was to start things and how hard it was to finish things. And I think as far as I can

tell, because I followed you for a while, that was the first public profession of the fact that you were going to write this book. So when you actually wrote it, I knew we needed to have you come back on so we could talk about it. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely been with ADHD. It's like, I mean, that's definitely been with ADHD. It's like, it's really easy to get excited about a new project. There's all that new novelty. And so with that novelty, there's dopamine. And so it's like very exciting to do new things. There's all the, like all the possibilities of what this new project could be.

And so, yeah, I, I kind of can't believe that I finished it because I knew like when I, at the beginning, when you start it, you're like, you feel like you're going to be able to finish it. Like every new project I do, I'm like, oh, this is going to be amazing. And then you get into it a little bit. And then that's when kind of like things start to like the novelty wears off. And then it becomes like every day becomes a little bit harder to keep going. And I with this book, I definitely struggled with that. Like a lot of the original excitement came because I did that ship 30 for 30 challenge, which we talked about

on the last episode, just like a writing challenge of writing like 500 ish words a day for 30 days. And that was sort of like the original spark that made me feel like, oh, this is possible, because I got to the end of that, and I was like, oh, I've got like 15,000 to 20,000 words here. That could be a book. What could be so hard about making it an actual book and making it flow and all of that? And yeah, it turns out really hard. At the beginning, it was really exciting, because I could write all this new stuff and jumping topic to topic. And then at some point, it definitely got that novelty had worn off. And I started hitting the hard part of writing a book like, hey, this has to make sense. Like as a whole, you can't just like throw, you know, 30 little blog posts together and call it

a book. And so that was definitely, that was probably the biggest first hurdle when I just like, I wrote a bunch and then I was stuck. There was no novelty anymore. There was no excitement. And I found it really difficult to kind of keep going at that point. And that's when I kind of, you know, started to lean on some of the advice I have in the book for people with ADHD on how to get motivation. But you did it. So good job. And I want to get into the nitty gritty. But before we do, just for folks listening, what's it called? Where can you get it? Give us all the details. Yeah, absolutely. So the book is called Extra Focus, The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD.

called Extra Focus, The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD. And it's available everywhere. But the best place to go is extrafocusbook.com. And then that has links to you know, Amazon, Barnes and Noble Bookshop, all of the Kobo, all the places are just are there. So extrafocusbook.com is the place to get it. Can I give you my really short review? i was lucky enough to get to read it in advance absolutely so many uh productivity i'm holding up air quotes books um take an idea and they fluff it up i love this book because it gets straight to the point i think it's totaled about 120 pages it's not it's not super long but it's really dense with good ideas. And I think some of this stuff, I wouldn't consider myself someone suffering from ADHD, but even then, I found good tips in here and ways of thinking. And it also gave me insight about dealing with some friends that have ADHD and how to

work better with them. But it's just so addressable and it's not overwhelming. And the other thing you did in this book, which I think was genius, was you got really nice illustrations and they really like sink in and make the point in a nice way. And you just don't see that often where someone makes illustrations and these are demonstrative illustrations. They're little cartoons and they're kind of funny sometimes, but they also really help send your point home. I just feel like you got just the right touch on this, Jesse. Nate Cadillac to do those illustrations. I knew that I wanted to have something like that in the book where it's not overwhelming, but just sort of like every few pages, something, yeah, kind of like you said, to just sort of like add a little touch of like humor and just like help kind of

lay, solidify some of the points and stuff like that. And to just make it more fun to read and flip through, particularly with ADHD. It's like, it's pretty fun reading through and getting a new illustration every few days or every few pages. But yeah, I found Nate because I realized that he does these little illustrations for his newsletter. And I found myself thinking like those, that's the style I would love to have in my book. And then I was like, why don't I just reach out and see if you would do it. And he had never done anything like that before, but he was totally game. And we, yeah, so we'd been going kind of back and forth, figuring out what sort of illustrations to do for the different sections. And I love, love the illustrations. I think they really hit the mark for what I was

going for with the book. And as for like, being like the shorter book, and really trying to make it really readable. I definitely was inspired by the books by Derek Sivers. I really, really enjoy his books because because they're short, and because they're very to the point. And like chapters are like two or three pages, sometimes just a single page. And I've read every one of his books, and I have a hard time reading. So that is not something I can say about most people. And so I really was inspired by the way he writes. And I thought I was like, I, I think this is really friendly to my audience to people with ADHD, because I found this style of writing to be the in this and this sort of like design of a book where it's just very small chapters that kind of lead one to the other. And there's a lot of like, breaking points,

like little pauses throughout where you don't feel like, I don't know, there's there's some books where I've read and even a book that I'm really excited. And then I flip a page. And like, there's one paragraph, and it's just like the entire page, just this wall of text. And I'll probably read that page like for 20 minutes, like trying to get through it. And my, my brain, I just keep like moving back in the text and I can't get past that page. And so I very, very intentionally, I was like, I want my book to be easy to read. I don't want people to ever get stuck in a paragraph. So it's like shorter paragraphs. And I spit like the design was very intentional too. So rather than doing like, just like indented text there, I, you know, I have space between

the paragraphs to make it really easy. So it visually flows for my audience. Cause I know there's a lot of people with ADHD that struggle with reading. And so that I'm real happy that you kind of pointed that out. And I've heard that similar sort of thoughts from a lot of other people that have read it as well, which is so exciting because I'm like, yes, this is doing exactly what I was hoping it would do. I also find it interesting and worth calling out. You mentioned Derek Sivers as someone that you had looked up to in terms of reading his books,

but you got a shout out from Derek on the back. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, I was so excited he did that. So there was definitely I kind of had a wish list of people that I wanted to reach out to for getting sort of those like early, early praise, early blurbs or whatever for the book. And he was one I reached out to and he pretty much immediately emailed me back and said he'd love to do it. And so that was that was pretty incredible. I'm very, very happy that he did that. And I also particularly in the in the ADHD world, Jessica McCabe and Danny Donovan are two creators that I'm a huge fan of. And they both also wrote a little, they, they, they both gave me really positive feedback about the book and gave me blurbs to put on there as well. So it's, I mean, it's really more than I

could ask for, for my first book. It's been an amazing experience other, other than the pit of despair that I was talking about when, uh, when I ran, ran when I ran out of steam kind of early on. Yeah. Well, real quickly, this book is really good. And you don't have to be diagnosed with ADHD in order to benefit from this. In fact, you have a line in here, which I thought was brilliant. Find strategies that work for you for now. And was like that is great general advice for anybody with productivity stuff because what works for you is going to change over time it's going to be right for a season but you have to constantly be considering is this still the right thing for me now and you've got a whole bunch of tactical approaches and and simple strategies that people can use to kind of craft their own system.

So I think anybody can benefit from reading this book, but none of that happens and none of these blurbs get written if you don't actually follow through and write the book. So let's go back and talk about that. Walk us through the process of writing this and where it got hard and what you did. Yeah. So like I mentioned, that pit of despair happened where I kind of stalled out. And then I think it was like two or three months that went by. And I just sort of realized. And I was doing a lot of stuff. I had my ADHD Nerds podcast that was going on.

ADHD nerds podcast that was going on. And I was there's just like, I have a problem of saying yes to anything that sounds like exciting or like a positive opportunity without considering how much energy or time it's going to take. And so like, I had a lot going on. But I realized like, it had been like two or three months, and I hadn't touched the book. I hadn't looked at it. I was like, oh no, I do not want this to be this like egg on my face, like make this big announcement. And then the book never come out. Like I just really didn't want that to happen mixed with like, because at that time, like my audience was growing and I didn't have like a great, I wanted a place to direct people of like, Hey, you like, you know, I write little like jokey memes about ADHD. And then a lot of times people will like reply and say, Hey, this sounds like me. What do I do now? And I didn't have a great answer for that, which,

and that's, that was like a big reason for starting writing the book. Like I wanted that answer of this is what you should do now. Like grab this book. This is going to really help you understand your brain better. If you have ADHD, it's going to let you understand ADHD more so you can relate with, you know, friends because a lot of people have it. But anyway, so how I have ADHD, so I go on little tangents, but how I got out of that pit of despair. We talked about this, I believe, in the last episode, the four C's of motivation, which is kind of what motivates people with ADHD. And this motivates other people

as well. But it's like, these are the four keys that that are relied on. And without these, like, when you have ADHD, it's really hard to get anything done. And those are like captivate, create, compete, complete. And that's basically like adding interest, like something that's interesting causes motivation, something that is creative or novel. Like I mentioned at the beginning, the writing a new book was very creative and novel. There's a lot of novelty there. Compete, which is when something is like a challenge. And then the final one, complete, is all about kind of like due dates, deadlines, that like last second urgency is really what drives people with ADHD, which is why like in

school, I would ignore a paper for like three months and then do all of it the night before it was due because that was when that motivation finally showed up for me. So I knew I needed something like the novelty part was gone. And so I was like, how am I going to get back to this book? And urgency is one of those that I think is easiest to like urgency always works for me. And so I was like, how do I get how do I make this book urgent? Like I don't have I'm not going through a traditional publisher. So I don't have anybody from you know, that I don't have like a publisher that's like banging down the door saying, hey, where's the next version of the book? So I basically like invented that urgency for me. And the first thing I did was I announced to my email list and I said, hey, I'm writing this book and I want beta readers. I want to have people read like an early version of the book so I can

get some feedback. And that so I did that I had a lot of interest. And then I announced a date. And once I had that date, then like, the self imposed panic mode took over. So it's like, well, I can't show them what I have right now. Because what I have right now is like, this embarrassment of like a mess that is not anywhere close to a book. So that was sort of the first, first little ounce of urgency and motivation that hit me. And then I frantically like worked really hard on the book for like the weeks leading up to that beta release. And then I did that a couple more times. And so that was like any anytime I was kind of like hitting one of those slow points, I was like,

all right, new beta version. I need to announce it. And that's going to give me that urgency to jump to it. And a couple more things I did that were also sort of bring up that urgency. I did a couple of courses where I would announce like I would actually have like a cohort course for like I think I did it for four weeks the first time around. And I was basically doing kind of like a beta version of going through the book material. And that caused me to organize it a lot because I had all these like random ideas that weren't totally connected. And by doing a course and selling it, like there was money on the line. And that really forced me to organize all the things and put things in an order that made sense.

And then the final thing I did was hiring an editor because I needed an editor anyway, but that also helped. He was a busy guy. And so he would give me deadlines and would say, hey, you're hiring me, so you don't have to hit this. But just so you know, if I don't have this manuscript by this date, then that means I'm not going to be able to edit it until like two and a half months later because I have other clients lined up. And so that worked really well for me because I did not want it to go,

you know, I didn't want this to be an eight-year project. So those were the deadlines that really worked for me and helped. And it wasn't just like, it didn't just motivate me, but it brought energy to it. It got exciting. So I was like, I got to hit this thing. And so then I would just like, you know, just like pour into it.

And that got me excited about it again. And I kind of just had these little touch points throughout the writing process where I'd use urgency to build things back up again. And then I would kind of use that momentum of that urgency to carry me much further in the process until it kind of waned again. And then I was like, all right, now I'm going to do a course, I guess, or let's see how my editor's doing or whatever it was. Yeah. So that's kind of how I got through all that. And somehow I got to today where the book is done and out and people are reading it. I like that, you know, you've heard of public accountability and like, you know, because often when you get in a project like this, you make an accountability partner,

but one of the tricks is to just announce it, right? And then that's like the whole entire public. But you took that to the next level because you said, well, for some of you, I'm actually going to give you deliverables. And boy, it's hard to let down a whole group of people it's hard enough to let down one person but imagine if you had 500 people and you were letting them all down gosh that's it that's a good way right i think that's pretty brilliant uh what you did with the i'm gonna call them uh milestones and scrum they might be epics you know they have like the mini versions of the the big projects like the cohort based course uh having just done a cohort i i think you're right that when you commit to teaching something and i think it's the same but at a lesser level with a like

video based course when you have to present it live, that's when it really gets real. And so I think that's really smart to figure out what are the milestones that I can incentivize myself to hit. And if I do these things, then the end product, the book, is almost going to take care of itself. And people will have their own versions of how they can do that. But I would encourage people to take the same approach and figure out what is the simplest or simpler version of this that I can ship. Because once I do that, then I'm well on my way towards the bigger goal. And you kind of mentioned this before, that whole idea of like, find the strategies that work for you for now, which I talk about in the book. Like that is like I may go to I haven't started a second book, but I have a lot of ideas. But when I go to write a second book, initially, I'm going to try and do probably these same things. I'm going to try beta reading. I'm going to probably launch some course or something like that. But I may run into it and find out like, oh, man, this is not working this time around.

And rather than just be like, like, what am I doing wrong? What's why? Why isn't this? It's just like, OK, that's that's fine. Like, I just need to move on and find what is going to work for me right now. And like that is that I think that's kind of the trick to productivity. Just like forget ADHD, just in general of like, yeah, finding, finding what works for you right now. And just sort of like building

up a playbook of all these different strategies. And then when it doesn't work for you, like, don't feel bad about it. Just kind of move on. Because I think that's where I, I used to get stuck with productivity stuff where I would just feel so bad when it didn't work. And I was like, this must be working for everybody else. Um, you know, like Merlin Mann says it works. So what's wrong with me for all these strategies for the longest time. And then now I just sort of take the approach. Like, I mean, I ha I have a better understanding of what does work for me, uh, particularly because of knowing about my ADHD diagnosis. So I can look at something and have a pretty good idea like that's that that's going to work for me.

That isn't or maybe not that it's going to work for me, but that might work for me. This other thing probably isn't going to work for me, which is super helpful having that approach because I can read books that are not written for my mind, my type of brain, and sort of pick and choose what is going to work and what won't. Whereas before, again, I would just read these books and then feel like, why isn't time blocking working for me? Or why isn't this thing working for me? What's wrong with me? And now I just sort of know like, oh, my brain doesn't process time in the same way so a lot of these a lot of these productivity strategies that are based on time aren't going to work on me going

to work for me in the same way so I need to take kind of a different approach and try things move on when they don't work try something else and just sort of like keep cycling through this playbook and finding yeah using that for my path forward. Well, I remember having the same sort of thought that, you know, this worked for somebody else. For me, it was specifically GTD and David Allen. And I was like, well, David Allen's obviously really smart and successful, so I must be the problem. And then I started reading more books and I realized that if this is 100% true and all these other systems are 100% true, there's contradictions here. Everybody is speaking their truth and what works for them. But when you understand all of the whole landscape of the productivity advice that's out there, you're

going to run into the contrad there, you're going to run into the contradictions and you're going to have to decide for yourself what is the right thing to do. So it was just the breadth of the knowledge that I was being exposed to that kind of helped me realize that any one of these things is not going to be the thing that just makes everything click. And now it's easy. Yeah, I do.

I do think it's, it's tricky too, because like I, same thing, like I read getting things done and I was all in, in, in that world. And I think a lot of the problem for me at least is like, when I read those books, the logic is sound, like it makes sense. Like I'm reading, getting things done and all of the advice is like listed in there. It totally like the way it's laid out makes sense. I'm like, this should work. This feels logical. And then when I'm reading, like kind of like you're suggesting like another book that has contradictory advice, I think the same thing. I'm like, this sounds logical. This should work. What's wrong with me? And something about like, like the way it's written, like just because it sounds

logical, like we are not logical beings. There's so much like emotion and drive and stuff that is involved in how we get things done that just because something is a logical step or a logical strategy doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to work for you. That's the big challenge. You have to make sense of all of this stuff for yourself. I like that term sense-making. I'm going to credit Nick Milo with that. But really, it's just there's all this information that's out there.

What does it mean for me? You have to be able to figure that out if you want to be able to focus. That's kind of the byproduct of making sense of this stuff. Once you have your North Star and you know where you're headed because you've decided this is the thing that's the most important, then you can implement the strategies and put the boundaries in place and try to protect that focus towards the thing that is going to move the needle. And Jesse, there are some things you speak to that I think are universal truths. I understand with ADHD, you need to have a lot of scrutiny about things that you hear people doing. And well, does that work with the way my brain is wired?

But I think that's true for everybody. And one of the faults of the productivity racket, as I like to call it, is that the way you get successful in it and make a lot of money in it is you tell your story as if it's a universal truth, right? If you say, well, hey, do what I did and you'll be a millionaire and you will never have email again and whatever a universal truth, right? If you say, well, hey, do what I did and you'll be a millionaire and you will never have email again and whatever, right? And I think a lot of people who write books and talk about this stuff kind of degrade to that, where they pretend like their version is the only version. So as consumers of this stuff, we're like, well, what's wrong with me? Because he just said everybody could be rich if they did this.

And I think we all need to realize that this stuff, we're all a bunch of monkeys. And this stuff works different for each monkey. And sometimes, even though the author says with complete confidence, this is the only way to do it, it's not the only way to do it. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. This episode of the focus podcast is brought to you by vitally go to viley.io slash focused for a new era for customer success,

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Yeah, so planning for the pivot is kind of the idea of building off of what we talked about with these the, these productivity systems that like may work for a while and then eventually fail. Um, I am definitely guilty of like finding the new, the newest, greatest, latest thing and feeling like, Oh, okay, this is working for me right now. And my default, there's somewhere in my brain. It's like, well, this is the thing we got to build to be perfect. You know, I got to like, um, if it's like OmniFocus, it's like, well, this is the thing we got to build to be perfect. You know, I got to like, if it's like OmniFocus, it's like, well, I got to do the, what is it? The 50,000 view, the 40,000, I got to build all this stuff so that this is the system that's going to work for me for the next 10 years. And for some people that totally works. Like David, I don't remember if you're still doing OmniFocus, but I know you've, you've really done that like massive system and that has worked

pretty well for you. Yeah, I'm still using it, but it, it, you're right. It does require some, some superstructure. Right. And so for me, I, I think the idea of that sound has always sounded like super appealing. But it's never, it, it, it's never really worked for me. And so I think it's awesome that it works for you. And I wish it worked for me. But it really but it just hasn't. And so and I think that's part of it has to do with that novelty, like the novelty of building a new system is really exciting for me and for my brain. But once it's built, the novelty is gone, and I find it really hard to keep using it. Or I'll have some like flaw in how I built the system or whatever, like, oh, I forgot to account for this thing or forgot to account for that thing that doesn't quite work into how I built things. it to account for that. But for me, I would always get stuck on that. And then I would like,

stop looking at it for a day or a week or a month. And then it would just be like all this kind of wasted work and effort of trying to build something that was going to be perfect and last forever. And so for me, I've just really come to embrace the idea of like, if like, if I just accept that idea of like building this perfect system, like that's just not in the cards of like, if, like, if I just accept that idea of like building this perfect system, like that's just not in the cards for me for whatever reason. Like, I just don't think that that is going to be the solution for me. Uh, that's what history has shown me. So instead, I really try to build, um, my productivity systems planning for the pivot. And with what that means is like knowing that going into new some new exciting system like i can use that novelty and energy to like yeah i'm going to use this thing and it's going to be great

but knowing in the back of my mind that like this is not going to last forever this is not going to be that solution that i'm still going to be using in 5-10 years or whatever like this is this is great for now and going in with the mindset of like, I want to use this in a system that works for me right now. But also, I can easily get my data out of here and pivot to whatever other system I want to try next. And so that I don't just like, use up all that novelty, and all that energy at the beginning to build a system that gets abandoned. Instead, I use that energy towards actually using the system and letting it help me with the plan that it's going to, I'm going to pivot to something else and that's totally fine. And what's great for

me is that means by planning for the pivot that way, for knowing that I'm going to leave this system at some point, that means I get to try a lot of new stuff without feeling guilty about it. Cause I used to like, I love new apps, the new shiny thing. I want to try this out. And I used to always feel bad whenever I would get excited about something new and like, Oh, I'm going to use Rome research now. And Oh no, now I want to switch over to obsidian. And like, maybe now I'm the new, there's a new update to things. And I love how that app looks. So I want to move back there. And I always feel bad

because I put all this time in the previous system and it was all this work. But now I just, like it sounds like a pejorative, but I kind of keep things more surface level in the apps that I use because I just know that like, I want to make it easy to move on from this to another system.

There's actually a system I'm using right now that I've really been enjoying. There's an app called, it's kind of like, it was kind of an early version before Rome research and obsidian and all those called workflow. I don't know if either of you guys have used this app. That's great. I've had, I know several people that use workflow. It's good app. good app. Yeah, it's kind of a simpler version. Like, it's not as, like, you can't have, like, the web in the same way because everything, it's sort of like one master outline that everything builds out of. You can still link and stuff like that. But for whatever reason, like, Workflowy has really, it's been an app that I continue to kind of come back to, and it just like clicks with me for whatever reason. And I recently read

one, I'm in the middle of reading a new book called the work flowy timeline by Frank Degener. I'm not sure if that's how you pronounce his name. But one of the ways this system works is it's very like focused on the moment. So it's kind of like a version of time blocking, but then you're just like, you're just sort of like updating it throughout the day and then throwing stuff away, which has been sort of like against what I've done in the past. When I used Roam Research, I was like, I'm writing this right now because then it's going to last in the system forever. So I can look it up in three years. And that sounded appealing to me. But the reality was for me that I never did that. And so this new, this kind of workflow timeline is very what's like transient

or like it's very temporary. And that I'm early in using it. And I know like I'm still keeping in mind, like I maybe may pivot from this. Like this isn't probably going to last forever. But right now that's been really working for me. It's gotten me like for planning my book launch. like a lot of the stuff I've been doing for that has been using this kind of workflow timeline where it's sort of a time blocking thing, but something about the way I'm doing in a workflow where it's just like

moving, moving stuff down the line and just deleting the old stuff rather than trying to save it has really worked for my brain because I'm not worried about just deleting the old stuff rather than trying to save it has really worked for my brain because I'm not worried about perfecting the old. There's something about time blocking where it's like I want the old time sheets that I'm done with. And I know they're not time sheets, but like I want that old version to look nice, even though I'm not going to look at it. And I think that like gets my brain stuck where where then I can't use it to help me be productive

because I'm too worried about it being pretty. And for whatever reason, this workflow-y version has clicked in my brain where I'm not having that same hang-up for tracking time or for blocking time in a way that's helping me get stuff done. for blocking time in a way that's helping me get stuff done. So I want to go back and hit on something that you mentioned. And I'm curious how you find the balance with this because I've been in the situation that you described before with OmniFocus specifically. So confession time, I was doing a Learn OmniFocus session with Tim Stringer and I

was back in my Asian efficiency days and I shared my OmniFocus session with Tim Stringer, and I was back in my Asian efficiency days. And I shared my OmniFocus setup, and somebody made a comment. It was very innocent, but it landed hard with me as like, wow, I can't believe how simple this is. And that just imprinted to me that I'm using this app wrong. And the story I was telling myself is that I should have this big, complicated, elaborate system where I wasn't getting the full value out of the app. And I've kind of come a long way since then. And now I try a lot of different things.

I'm currently using Todoist and baking some of that stuff into Obsidian. But I have experienced what you talked about, Jesse, where you don't want it to be so complicated that you can't move it to something else. On the other hand, you can't constantly be trying something new. Otherwise, you're just fidgeting all the time and you're not actually doing the work. So what sort of filters do you put in place for, okay, this shiny new object that caught my attention, maybe there is actually something here. So I'll devote some time to playing with this, because maybe my system is going to move over there. Because you obviously can't do that for everything that catches your eye. Right, right. Yeah. And I love that. I love having this conversation with you, Mike, you're really great at bringing things back. You give me like a little topic and I just go on like 17 tangents and I'm like having a whole conversation with myself.

So I love that you're helping bring it back. But yeah, you're right. Like there's something new and shiny and exciting every single day. Like I could try like 50 apps. And especially now that like, I mean, now that I have sort of like an audience, I have people reaching out to me all the time with like their newest shiny thing. And I just don't have the time to like look at it because there's so much stuff. And the filter that I've used for myself to help me filter or to help me choose things

that are going to be effective and not just like a new toy is like giving it a project. Like if I see some new shiny thing that like some new, I don't know, some new iOS app that comes out and I'm like, Ooh, that looks cool. I want to, I want to use that for, I want to try that out for like, you know, tracking my to do's I give it a project. And so it's never just like download the app, try it out, try to set things up. It's like, no, I have this project coming up. And so I'm going to use this app for that project. And then usually I will see it through in that app. And then it's sort of like, hey, did that work well enough to throw another project

at this app? And usually like if I get a couple of projects through an app, it's like, oh, okay, well, this is worth working. Like the workflow thing. That's what I heard about this book. And I was like, oh, okay, well, this is worth working. Like the workflow thing. That's what I heard about this book. And I was like, oh, that sounds like a fun experiment. I've enjoyed using workflow in the past. Let's try it for this book launch.

And so it's really been sort of the driving force of this book launch. And it's been effective. So I know like, hey, once I'm kind of at the tail end of this book launch, though, a book launch really is like a two-year project in and of itself. But like once I, like I'm going to try to put more projects into it and see how that works.

And at some point, like it won't and I'll pivot. And that's totally cool because the newest, hottest, latest thing, you know, there'll be some new plugin for Obsidian and I'll be jumping back over there for like the 10th time. Like maybe this new thing, this canvas is going to be like, that's going to really get me excited for obsidian for a while.

And then that's going to work for projects for this time in my life. And then I'll pivot again. And so for me, it's really about like using, making sure I have a purpose for it. It's not just like something I want to play with. Jesse, I think that's great, but I will tell you that you can date a lot of girls, but at some point you got to get married. And I think that, you know, like looking at these apps, it does become a form of distraction. I like what you're saying. Like, I don't want to spend a bunch of time setting something up. I want to get things done. But you're also repeating the practice so many times. And, uh, the, if you're looking for the app, that's going to be the perfect app, the girl you want to marry, um, none of them are perfect. You just got to figure out the one that works best

with you. And, um, I, I would like, I would like you to say something, but you know, I'm going to just like stick with one for six months, just see how it goes. Even, I don't know. I feel like that is another form of distraction. When you say every month, we're going to try something different. Yeah. I mean, I think, uh, I take your point. I do think you need to know what is going to work for you because that has definitely like 10 years ago, particularly before I knew about adhd like i didn't know that distractions were a problem like distractions were just my reality yeah and so now that kind of i have a better idea of like oh like distractions will derail me for weeks like that they can be a huge deal and so that's very much why like i don't i definitely think of like when i'm using like this

workflow thing it's a season right now and so i'm not trying other apps like i mean i don't, I definitely think of like when I'm using like this Workflowy thing, it's a season right now. And so I'm not trying other apps. Like, I mean, I don't like the marriage metaphor because I don't think Workflowy is going to be. That was pretty tortured. I agree. But I think it's more like, I definitely think of them as like longer term relationships to torture the metaphor more. Like there's no... I'm not doing one-night stands with my apps.

I'm trying something that's going to work for me for a while. I'm definitely distracted by the metaphor. Sorry. Sorry for doing that to you. Let me jump in here because in the previous episode,

you talked about the fact that you had like 30 something jobs and when things got difficult or hard or awkward you would change jobs and eventually you figured out that there are certain things because of adhd that are going to be present in any environment. So escaping the situation isn't necessarily the best approach. And I feel like the same principle can be applied here with the task manager that you're going to be choosing, although in a much smaller level, I think the reaction is still kind of the same as like, well, I thought this was going to just click and it didn't. So maybe I'll go try something else as opposed to, well, maybe my approach is broken or I'm thinking about this this long. And I think you're on the right path with keeping things simple. I think

the simplest solution is often the best solution solution or put another way i think albert einstein is the one who said that everything should be made as simple as possible but not simpler right and i think that is great advice for any productivity system yeah totally i think that's i think that's a great point like comparing it to the job situation because yeah i i would jump job to job to job and eventually kind of realized I was running into the same issues. And that's very similar to yeah, what I've kind of done with productivity, productivity systems in the past, thinking like the issue is with each individual app, and then not realizing, like what, what my own difficulty

was. And so yeah, with the job, I kind of eventually had to figure out like, what my own difficulty was and so yeah with the job I kind of eventually had to figure out like what are the things that are just not working for me and how can I make that work in a job that's going to last longer than like you know three six months and like so for me with productivity systems for now I hope to address this in the future but like for now planning five years in the road it's just kind of not in the cards for me, I hope to address this in the future, but like for now planning five years in the road, it's just kind of not in the cards for me. Like, I hope to address that once I feel like I have a good, like I, it used to be like, I could plan out the week and that was it. And now in my life, I feel like I, I can see kind of the next like three to six months pretty

well. Like any projects that are further out than that like i don't even bother writing them down i kind of um i think base camp they talk about the approach of like they don't really have like a board of all like future features that they want to do they just sort of say like hey the best features will come to us when we get like when we have space or like appetite as they call it uh when they when they have like kind of space to work on something new they sort of say like the cream arrives at the top and those features they they need to get to will show up and that's kind of loosely my approach with like longer term goals and i know that's kind of like uh not really sustainable probably but that's kind of where i am right now so when i'm working in productivity systems like this workflow thing, I'm thinking like, is this going to work for me for this

project? And, or like, is this going to be effective for kind of tracking things that are important to me in the next kind of three to six months? And, you know, to tell you the truth, I think that's all I'm looking for too. I don't look at OmniVocans and say, you're going to be my task manager in 10 years. But I think for the foreseeable future, it still is. But I'm not going to get hung up on switching at some point. But I also am not planning on switching like next week, if that makes sense. But this stuff is all difficult. And I think you do want to get the best tools, but the point I also want to make is that there really is no best tool. We did in the Omni, or I'm sorry, in the Obsidian Field Guide Plus edition, we just did a big webinar with Ryan J. A. Murphy, who's one of the authorities on using Obsidian. He's just, I mean, he makes plugins. He's just super smart guy. And at one

point I asked him, said well you know what about the mobile stuff because i don't think obsidian is quite as good on mobile as it is on the mac and he's like you know i get by with it on mobile when i need to but it's so good when i'm on the mac and he didn't say this verbatim he said it's so good that i don't care and i think that is a very enlightened approach you're like well, well, the things it does well, it's so good at that I'm willing to overlook a few things that I don't think it's as good at as maybe something else. And when you can start discriminating about what is it that I really wanted to do well, and is it doing those things, then I think you're kind of on the right track.

Yeah, totally. I think that makes a ton of sense. then I think you're kind of on the right track. Yeah, totally. I think that makes a ton of sense. This episode of Focused is brought to you by NetSuite. If you have a business, you might be able to relate to this. Your business grows and gets to a certain size, and then the cracks start to emerge.

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Jesse, when you were on the last time, you had some great tactics. You talk about them as ADHD tactics, but I think they're great tactics for any of us. I wanted to go back and look at a few of them and hear some new ones too. Both Mike and I love the to do versus the to da. Could you please explain that? Yeah, like I, a lot of times when I'm writing

down a to do list, it can be overwhelming. I'm writing down all the things I need to get done. And it's just like a massive list of undone things. And like my wife, she does not have ADHD, but she sure loves her lists. So she has she'll do like, multiple pages, like full page, just like top to bottom full of all these lists of things to check off and nothing's checked off. And that, for me, that just really kind of stresses me out seeing everything written out like that. But more than that, it just it can feel demotivating for me because I just see all this stuff and like I haven't done anything. Whereas like the idea of a to-do list is basically you start out the list by writing down some things you've already done.

Sometimes it's like, oh my God, I did this this morning or I talked to this person. I, you know, finished some emails, writing those down on the list and then checking them off and then writing down some like what else is kind of remaining on the day today. And that feels like, you know, you look at the list and you're like, oh, I'm already halfway done. Like I've already done some of this stuff. And I think it can be even, it can even be effective if you're like, like sometimes you just feel like I didn't get anything done today. Even writing down like the things like got out of bed, brushed my teeth, took a shower, made coffee, like even those little tiny things. I think the just the act of putting them on the on a paper, checking them off or putting them in your app and checking them off.

It makes it feel like it's that kind of that mind positivity that just feels like I've done something like it's easy to say I did nothing, but that's not totally true. I've done something. And then it just really feels like you're, you're making some forward progress, some forward momentum. And for me, it totally makes like the rest of the list a lot more approachable and can really help get me set on the right track. What I like about this approach is when I implement it, I guess, for lack of a better term, I don't think I do this consistently, but every once in a while I do recall this principle that you're talking about here.

And instead of searching for something, anything, to show that I have accomplished something today, just flipping the switch helps me to realize the things that I have done, which I typically forget about. I tend to beat myself up because I'm not as productive as I want to be or as focused as I want to be, and I didn't get all of the things done that I wanted to get done. And instead of thinking about the four things I was able to ship, it's the one that was on my list that I didn't get done that I think about for the next 24 hours. So this is a good tactic for me just to help me celebrate some of the wins that are there. It's not manufacturing something. It's not creating something out of nothing just so that you feel better about yourself. For me, it's just

recognizing that you actually did do something worthwhile. And when you recognize that you are making progress, right? Progress, not perfection is the goal here. Then it creates motivation to keep going. Yeah, totally. And that kind of leans right into like another strategy that I call the smile file. There's a bunch of different names for it. This is my favorite one in the whole book. Awesome. Yeah.

And like, I think it's, I mean, this is true of everybody. Like we remember the negative things in our life, but particularly with ADHD, there's a lot of difficulties with memory. And so it's really easy to kind of have, I call it like success amnesia, where you kind of, you forget about those positive things that you've done. Kind of like what you were just saying, but even at like a bigger scale, like I forget that there's a lot of things I've accomplished in my life. And so a smile file is really just a, a place to save all of those things. So it's, it's everything from like something you've accomplished, like writing that down. So it's something you can look back on and refer to, or people like replying to you. Like for me being on social media, like I get comments on stuff I posted and, or, or emails and like

taking those little clips where someone says something positive or, uh, or nice or encouraging or whatever, and saving those somewhere so that I can refer back to them later. Because I, I just know for me, I'm going to forget. And so I'm just going to think all I'm going to be thinking about is kind of like what you said, like, what did I do today? Nothing like or like this one thing that I wanted to get done. I didn't get it done and just started like getting in that negative mindset of feeling like what is wrong with me? Like I haven't done anything. How am I going to take on this big challenge that's coming up next? And like referring to that, that smile file and like seeing positivity from the past. And another thing you can do to even build up this smile file is literally just like ask people, like people that are close to you or like coworkers, like, what do you see as like some of my strengths here? Because I've definitely been in a job where I feel like, ah, do I have any strengths here? Like what, like they keep me around. So I must be doing something right. But I get completely blind to it. I can't see it at all. And then asking like

a manager, you know, if you have a good relationship with your manager, like a lot of times they'll give you some great material to put in your smile file. And that is something I refer to that all the time. I just, and I kind of have, I kind of have different places where I have smile files. And so sometimes I'll just save screenshots so that I'll stumble across them later in, in like the photos app, or I'll save them in notes. And I kind of have them like littered all throughout my life. Uh, I use, I'm using the hay email app right now, and they have like clips where you can like save little snippets from things. And I don't think this is what that feature is for, but I use that for like another smile file. So anytime I'm just sort of like struggling with something, I'll flip open the clips. That's just like, you know, a bunch

of little snippets from people that, you know, things that people have said to me in emails or like something I've accomplished. Um, and just sort of like getting that shot in the arm of like, oh yeah, I can do some things right. Or I have done this really good thing or look at an impact I've made in this person's life. And that really, that, I mean, there's no better motivation than, than kind of being reminded of an impact that you've made with somebody else. Yeah. I've for years had a little, one of my many day one databases is called max berkey love and like if somebody sends me a particularly nice email i just forward it to the magic day one email address for that that diary but reading your book conspired me actually added a smile file to my obsidian and

i'm gonna like start collecting things there but but i don't go there that often, but I've always felt like someday when I'm old and drooling on myself, that will be where I spend most of my time, just reading those emails. Absolutely. I love that. It reminds me a lot of the gap versus the gain concept, which, David, you probably use other tactics to stay in the gain, which is just reflecting on the progress

that you've made versus the gap is I wish I was at this spot or I thought I would have been here faster sooner I'd be better whatever so mindfulness meditation I think isn't one that that you talk about frequently that could help kind of get you back in the game. But throwing something in your face, which is positive reinforcement for something that you did, which is really what a smile file is, I think is a pretty brilliant way to get back into the game. And I have the same action item from this book to create my smile file in Obsidian. Well, I'm ahead of you, Mike. I already did mine. Another concept in the book that I thought was interesting is drop zones and launch pads. Could you talk about that? Yeah, absolutely. So this is, I mean, it's a really simple idea, but basically,

again, like particularly with ADHD, like there, we, when you have ADHD, it's really easy to completely forget about things that are out of sight. And so like a common kind of trope, I guess, or whatever, when you have ADHD is like, oh, where are my keys? I can't find my keys or like leaving the house and forgetting your wallet and all those sorts of things. And so what I found to be like really helpful is having dedicated zones in the house of where to put those things. And so like when I walk in the door, like having a bowl that sits by the front door and that is like considering that your launch pad, like when I'm leaving the house, I grab everything in that bowl, which is, you know, like your keys and your wallet or your purse or whatever it is, having it right there, right next to the door in one spot.

So when you leave, that's where you get it. And there's no more like running around like, where did I leave the keys? Where did I put this thing? And you have to be like, for me, I think you have to be really diligent of like, this is not a junk drawer. It's not where you put all the things you might want to take with you. It's like, this should be a drop and you drop stuff in there and then you grab everything in there when you're leaving. It's just sort of like that zone of where

you kind of keep stuff that's, that's needed when you leave to, you know, when you're going out the front door to leave the house and you can do the same thing for like, maybe, maybe you have something you carry with you into the office. And so you have like a drop zone. I'm talking about like a home office for me, like having a zone where you put stuff that you're going to bring with you. Like maybe it's a water bottle. You don't want to forget your water bottle. So you leave it by that drop zone.

And so that it's just a dedicated place. Because otherwise, like I will put keys in the weirdest places. Like I'll find my keys in the refrigerator or I'll find them. Cause I'll, I'll, I'll take them out of my pocket. I'll be holding them. And then something I'll be like, Oh, I'm going to get a coffee cup, open the door to grab the coffee cup. And for some reason, like place my keys down where the coffee cup was.

And then later I'm like trying to find it. So having, it's really just about being like pre-intentional, like being intentional before you need to be. And so you just like, you automatically know like, oh, my keys go in the launch pad. So it's ready to go when I'm walking out the door. I say I, this is almost to me, some people in my family think I'm, it's like almost like a sickness, but I am so ritualistic about stuff like that i mean to me when i get something i have to know where it's going to go and how it's going to be put there and like it's a big

deal to me that things go where they belong and they don't go other places because nothing makes me more insane than needing something and not being able to find it and um like just recently i put a picture in the in the notes i got a 3d printer and everybody's like boy you're gonna you're gonna start making um a star wars figurine so i'm like no i'm not i'm going to make the world's greatest organization you know i just put a picture we can put it in the show notes with the uh but you know just like i have to that to me man you were when i read that you were speaking my language because it is i'm super anal about this you know like even like when you're in the car where does the cable go that plugs into the car you know where does the

you know where do the sunglasses always go because when i'm driving down the road at 70 miles an hour i need to be able to reach and they need to be there you know that kind of stuff i it's a it's a um my wife thinks i'm insane but that's that's just that's a thing for me well i have a different different version of this that uh cost me money when i read this about drop zones and launch pads um so i i pasted it the in the links in the document. When I read this section, I immediately thought of these Ugmonk valet trays, which are not cheap, but they are amazing. And in the pictures, they have your wallet,

your keys, your watch, that kind of stuff. And I have an office at a co-working space that I go to occasionally. And this would be the perfect place where like when I get there, I can put all that stuff down and I don't have to think about it and then grab it when I leave. Because frequently I'm scrambling around the office like, where did I put that thing? Even though the office isn't very big, I could definitely benefit from having a specific spot where all this stuff landed when I got there. And then I just grabbed it all when

it was time to leave again. Totally. I think you're going to reverse cost me money because I don't know exactly what you're talking about. But if it's by Ugmonk, I know it's just going to be gorgeous. So I'm probably going to look at that as soon as we are done with this call. And David, that is intense. I keep joking to my my wife that i'm gonna get a 3d printer because i i swear once the idea planted in my brain i had like idea i have ideas all the time like you know like a little particularly there's a little annoyance with our refrigerator of you have to push the cup like and to me annoyingly too far in to hit the back where the water pours out and i'm just like you could little, like, like if I had the 3d printer, I could build a little thing that hooked onto that

and gave me a surface area. So I didn't have to push a cup. And I feel like I'm just seeing those ideas all the time. And now you've given me yet another thing. I'm going to bring my wife and be like, I could create this amazing, look what David did. Look at this amazing job. So he has where everything is organized. Like that might be the, that might be the ticket for selling my wife on it because she is definitely somebody that's like, everything should have its own place. And so maybe I'll show her this photo and that will be what gets me into the 3d printing world.

Well, it's a, it's called grid finity. It's an open source project and you build the little grids and then you, you make cut. They also have a bunch of custom sized units you can put on top of them. So like this is a one by three or this is a two by six or whatever, and you just make it fit. And I, I make the ones that have labels on them

because everything should have a label. And it's like, it is, um, my, my sister-in-law came over the weekend and cause I, I just got this thing. I've had it a week and my sister-in-law came over the weekend and cause I, I just got this thing I've had at a week and my sister-in-law came over and she's like, this, this is exactly the kind of sickness that you have. When she saw that and I'm like, yeah, you know me well, but, uh, it makes me very happy. So there you go. Love it. But yeah, I do like having places to put things. That's not just an ADHD thing. I think a lot of us that are trying to get stuff done need all the noise to get out of the way. And honestly, Jesse, your whole book really

resonated with me. I don't feel like I have ADHD. I've never been tested or anything. And I don't, a lot of the problems ADHD folks face, I have been fortunate of not to have to deal with that. But I think there's a lot in here. And I think anybody listening should go check it out. I mean, I know like in Apple books, don't you get a free sample and or if you go to the website, you can learn some stuff too. But this book may be for you or for somebody, you know, another thing we've been talking about today that I want to get into a little bit before we wrap up, though, is this idea of toxic productivity. And when I hear you talk, Jesse,

sometimes I feel like you are putting a lot more burden on yourself when you're choosing productivity tools and systems. Like, you know, this has to work for me. And I feel like that's kind of a failure of people like me talking about how great OmniFocus is. And I feel like that's kind of a failure of people like me talking about how great OmniFocus is. And I feel like I should always be checking myself a little closer. But let's talk about that. I mean, we make a show about productivity.

Are we doing good? Or are we doing evil here? Yeah, I mean, I think particularly this show, I think you, you, you both do a great job of addressing sort of those toxic productivity issues. And just like not trying to like make everything sound like this is the solution, but more talking about what works for you. And I don't think that necessarily a lot of the people I followed early on with productivity. a lot of the people I followed early on with productivity, I don't think they necessarily all were intentionally trying to cause kind of what has really become toxic productivity. Like, I just think like when you do something and it works for you, it's really easy to get excited about that and think like, I found it. This is it. This is going to work for everybody. This is such a brilliant way to do it and then that causes like that can cause a lot

of people issues for people when it doesn't work for them particularly if they have adhd and so their brain kind of works a lot differently but just anything where it's like if that doesn't work for people and you're saying that that is the way that this is going to work it's really easy to um just beat yourself up about it and feel bad and just sort of like, yeah, that, that toxic productivity and kind of how it meshes with like hustle culture to a little bit. I feel like for me, for a long time, I, I've always been really interested in kind of the productivity space. You know, I kind of, you know, I was a little bit older, but I kind of feel like I grew up on 43 folders and all of that kind of history. Because I was having so much difficulty getting things done in my life, because of ADHD, like

not knowing how my brain worked, and trying to do stuff and nothing was working. And so I was really like, just like eating up all this kind of productivity stuff and advice out there and reading the getting things done and all of that. And I really for a long time felt a lot of shame with like, why? What the heck is wrong with me? Like, why? Like just feeling broken. And I don't think that again, like that is not at all what this show is doing. Like you, I love the approach of like, this is what works for me. And so I'm sharing what works for me and hopefully you benefit from that. But before I really knew that that's what was happening, it just like, I, I carried a lot of the weight from that toxic productivity and just it feeling like everything it just feel

felt like it was working for everybody else um and particularly back then because there weren't that there was only so many voices that were able to speak you know prior to social media so you weren't hearing that like oh other people are struggling too and now i think toxic toxic productivity is coming to light and people are becoming aware of it as more and more people say like, oh, that didn't work for me. So but this is how I do it in a different way and sort of revealing the truth of how it is being, you know, how people are experiencing that productivity culture. I think that the fact that we talk about it is a good way to discern it. Yeah, absolutely. I think disarming is a great a good way to discern it. Yeah, absolutely. I think disarming is a great, great way to say it because you want to, I think it's still interesting.

It's really fascinating and interesting to hear other people's experience and what is working for them. Because that's when kind of like going back to the like the playbook metaphor, like I'm gathering strategies by hearing what works for other people. And then I have something to, to try. But now that I know it's a playbook and not like, not like a user manual, like that mindset shift has really helped me to approach it from a much more positive place. And sort of knowing that like, there's some people out here that will say, this is the way to do it. And just approaching that with like, well, that works for them. And they may say it is the way to do it. And just approaching that with like, well, that works for them. And they may say it's the way to do it. And it works really, you know, they think it's the solution. But coming in with my own approach really helps me to discern and know like what

just kind of take what is the best for my own brain and take that going forward. One of the things I love about your story is that, you know, once you realize that you are, you are kind of in the space, the spectrum of ADHD, that gave you a framework to figure out how you learn and how, how things work for you. I feel like there's a lot of people in the world that haven't done that. And this isn't saying that they're undiagnosed ADHD. I just think every person is different. Like I know about myself, I'm very much a visual learner. Like I need to draw a picture, do a diagram, whatever to kind of get it in there.

And I learned that about myself early enough that I just kind of built it into the operating system. But I think a lot of people don't do that. And one of the nice things about your story is that like once the light bulb went off, you immediately went and sought out ways to address your brain the way it works. And I wish everybody listening would think about the same thing. Like, how is it that I learn better? What is the system that works for me? And I don't think that is a question people ask themselves enough.

Totally. And I don't think that is a question people ask themselves enough. you know, you guys are both students of your own brain. Like you're constantly like learning, how do I work best? And what is, you know, what is the thing that works for Max Barker? Like figuring that stuff out. And you're just sort of like learning in public with that kind of like student, student of your own mind. And yeah, for me, when I found out about ADHD, like talking to a friend that was diagnosed, and then he was describing it. I was like, what that that is not at all what I thought ADHD was like, I thought people with ADHD couldn't focus on anything. You know, there's like the meme of like squirrel and like constant distraction. And yeah, distraction is part of it. But like learning about like what the reality of

ADHD was, really helped me become a better student of my own brain because I really learned like, oh, there's this lens that I didn't know I should be using to view my own brain and view my own patterns and habits. And now that I know about this extra, like, you know, this extra piece that this extra filter to understand, like it really helps me understand my brain a lot more. It's sort of like when you're going, you know, growing up, going to school, you might have like a certain subject, like maybe you have physics class or something. And suddenly you're like, oh, this gives me a whole new understanding of other things I'm learning as well. It's like this, this brand new nugget of knowledge that helps, like that affects everything else uh going forward from them and

that's what for me like finding out about adhd was like just this whole new way of understanding and i was like so thankful because um it was like i think some people will say like what's the like there's some people that will find out that they might have adhd and this is a small tangent but i'll wrap it up real quick. And they'll say like, what's the point of getting diagnosed now? Like, maybe they're older and they're like, you know, I've already like, I kind of found a way of fitting with the job I'm doing or whatever it is. And I don't want to take medication for whatever reason. Like, should I still get diagnosed? And I usually say like, I mean, obviously it's your own choice to kind of seek that

out. But for me, like getting my diagnosis confirmed, like this new lens on my life. And it really helped me to accept because like for so long, I had built up my own answers for why I acted differently. And so which, you know, was like self-blame, shame, like feeling bad, like feeling like I was broken in certain ways. So for me, getting that diagnosis really helped solidify like, oh, this is just a new learning of how my brain works. And now that I have this, it's going to help me be a better student of my

brain. It's going to help me avoid feeling that shame going forward because just because I worked differently than other people and it really helped. Yeah, I'm repeating the same thing. It's just like that new lens really gave me a completely new look on how my brain works, which helps helped to release all that shame and make me a better student of how I work and learning what's going to work and what isn't going to work and not feeling bad about that anymore. Yeah, you got to know what you're up against. And I feel like the more understanding you can gain with not an eye towards judgment, like this isn't the way that it should be

i'm currently reading a book called masters of change and it's basically about how we crave stability and order but the reality is that everything is always changing around us the reality is that everything is always changing around us. And once you get okay with the fact that things are not going to always be the same, then you're much better equipped to turn that change into something more positive. And I feel like what you're talking about with the diagnosis, but really just like the larger principle uh, the larger principle is just recognizing that this may not be an ideal set of circumstances, but that doesn't have to be a deal breaker. Like I can still transform this experience and, and get something positive out of it. But you, you can't do that as long as you're pretending

that something's not there or you're denying a reality that is in front of you. Yeah, absolutely. I think for me, the meditation thing has been the silent hero of my life. You know, I started looking into it like in middle school cause I thought I might be a Jedi, right? But the, um um but by the time i was in my young 20s i was getting formal training and i've been doing it now 30 plus years and there's nothing that lets you connect better with what's going on between your ears in my opinion and but it's just i i keep preaching this on the show. I got to stop doing that. But yeah, that has given me a lot of insight over my life that has kept me from going down blind alleys.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think for me, the meditation I've tried, I make the mistake of trying to do meditation like they do in the movies, is not you know what it's actually like but for me what I find works is taking walks and leaving the airpods at home that's kind of where I have that like where I can have that sort of like internal focus internal like working through stuff that way um and it's hard because I want to bring the airpods I to listen to, you know, whatever podcast I'm into at the time. But I've found like, that's where I feel like I get that sort of meditation practice. Yeah, makes sense. It is. But whatever. I mean, it's not meditation. Maybe it's journaling. Maybe it's just sitting quietly with your thoughts or

taking a nice walk. But they do have to connect. I think the part of this where you, you build whatever you're using into the way you work. Well, the fundamental thing there is you need to know how you work and how you think. And it's shocking how many people don't spend any time on that problem because I think in the modern world, more than ever, we're encouraged not to, but then I'm going to start preaching again, so I will stop. Well, to go back to the point about the preaching and the very beginning of this segment on toxic productivity, I think we should probably make podcasters, YouTubers, bloggers, and writers take some version of the Hippocratic Oath when it comes to productivity advice.

Do no harm. Right. Absolutely. There you go. But you don't know. You try your best, but you never know. But it is something, like I said, if you're aware of it, I think you're better off. Either way, gang, Jesse wrote the book.

He said he was going to do it. He, uh, he had his own hero's journey and he did it. And, uh, you can get it now. Uh, you can get it at any place you get books, uh, extra focus, the quick start guide to adult ADHD. Jesse, what was your website again for the book called again? Yeah, it's just extra focus book.com. Yeah. Go to extra focus.book.com. So then when you buy it through there, then hopefully Jesse gets a little bit of affiliate income or whatever too. It's hard to make a living doing this stuff. So definitely go to extra focus book. It's also the place you can go connect with Jesse and follow some of the stuff he's doing.

I just love Jesse, your story and how you took this, this challenge in your life and you turned it into not only a way to, you know, to help yourself, but to help others. And, uh, I really love that. Oh, thank you so much. I really, I really appreciate the opportunity to chat with you and to, uh, hopefully provide some, I don't know, insight or at least share some of my story with your audience, which I am a part of. So yeah, I really hope this book helps a lot of people. That's definitely the goal because when I got diagnosed, my doctor basically didn't give me anything.

And so this book was the book, like I wrote this to be what I wish I had gotten when I was first diagnosed, like I wrote this to be what I wish I had gotten when I was first diagnosed, like something that really helped me get started with understanding my brain. And like you said before, I think it's obviously it's written for people with ADHD, but people without ADHD can benefit a lot from it. And it's a super easy read.

It's a quick one you can put out, you out. You can get through in just a couple hours. Once again, extrafocusbook.com, gang. Go check it out. Also, thanks to our sponsors today, Vitally and NetSuite. For Deep Focus, that's the version of the Focus podcast that you get that's ad-free with some extra content. We're going to go back to some roots here because Jesse's the one that put Mike on this journey with the remarkable. We're going to check in with that today.

So if you're a deep focus subscriber, stick around. Otherwise, have a great day and we'll see you next time.