Focused - 258: Personal Defaults

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

Welcome to Focus, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm David Sparks and joined by my ever-vigilant co-host, Mr. Mike Schmitz. Hi, Mike. Hey, David. How's it going? Constant vigilance, right? Yeah. That's a pretty lofty title.

I'll try to live up to that. That's what we need in this battle for focus in the modern age where everybody wants to steal our time and attention. And it's okay not to be serious. I have a funny story, Mike, a focus story. All right. My daughter is a high school teacher. And, you know, it's the time of the year where kids are graduating, school sending. She said, Dad, the weirdest thing happened.

She's like, every year at the end of the year, the kids do this thing where they count down from the year number to zero. And all the seniors, they go in the quad. They bring a bunch of their old papers and they throw them all in the air when they get to zero. You know, and it's a great picture and everybody loves it. And so every year, you know, last year they started at 25. They get to zero. Everybody throws it up for a picture. This year they did it.

She says they got to 22 and they threw the, through the paper up. She's like, that's the weirdest thing, Dad. I'm like, I don't think it is, Sam. I think it's the attention crisis. Yeah, yeah. I said the mistake was they made the countdown longer than the length of a TikTok video. Yeah, that's true. I sound like an old guy, I know, but gang, that's what we're dealing with.

We need to be focused. We need to be thinking about things. That's what we're going to be talking about today. All right. Before we do that, though, you've got a new podcast. I do. Just when you thought you couldn't get enough of me, right? One of my best friends is Chris Bailey, and we talk regularly.

We have these friend calls, and we were having all these conversations about artificial intelligence. We both have a very interesting take on it. I feel like all the people, you know, there's two takes on artificial intelligence. There's the doom, you know, where they say, you know, it's going to kill us all. And then there's the opposite version where they're like, it's going to solve all the world's problems by next Tuesday. And I don't buy either one of those stories, but I do think it is transformative and it's useful.

I've been doing the robot assistant field guide, which is another thing I think I've probably never talked about on this show, but I have a whole field guide about using artificial intelligence in a productive and thoughtful way. And Chris and I have been talking about it. And we had both were talking about how there's really no podcasts out there talking about that middle path where we can use this stuff to be useful, hold on to our humanity, hold on to our creativity, but also help us get the donkey work done.

And so we decided to make a podcast on it. It's called Intentional AI. It's on the Relay Network, the Mighty Relay Network. I'm very proud of the artwork, by the way. way. As you know, Mike, I grow bonsai. And we are trying to figure out how do we communicate that the show is about humanity and AI? So it's got a computer chip in the background and a very curated bonsai tree in the front. I thought it came by really nice. But we've got episode one out. It'll be dropping every two weeks. We've got a lot of cool stuff in store. A lot of people are

really enjoying it already. And I think you'd like it as well. An interesting thing is Chris is really heavy on the productivity side i'm more heavy on the tech side but between the two of us i think we kind of cover the topic well yeah i know you guys have been talking about this uh this show for a while and uh i'm excited that it's out in the the world now yeah i feel like uh this is a a great a great combination you you and chris yeah i agree you in the i mean you're you're you're you talk about productivity too with the productivity field guide and stuff like that so it's not just you know chris chris brings the productivity stuff, but Chris is the productivity guy.

I mean, if you got someone who the TED organization is called the most productive man, you never hope to meet. Yeah. Let him lean into that, right? And then I like the way that Chris is thinking about this stuff, too. I feel like you both go into it with a curiosity that's important for figuring out where this stuff is going to go. And I think a lot of people are going to learn about how to use this stuff in a practically

useful way. That's the goal. That's the goal. Anyway, today's show. Well, Mike and I have been talking offline, kind of about personal defaults. I think kind of this started just in relation to our own workflows. It wasn't really meant to be show content. But the more we got into it, the more we thought, you know, this actually is show content.

Because I think this is something people need to acknowledge. So, Mike, let's today talk about personal defaults. Let's do it. I love the idea of defaults, by the way, because I think it's one of those important things that you don't really pay a whole lot of attention to until, something breaks or you find yourself in a situation where you want something to be different. But there's so much of our lives that are basically on autopilot. And so if you can take a systems designer perspective to this stuff, you can kind of put some

boundaries in place to sort of funnel you towards intentional defaults instead of just the random defaults that, you know, if you never really think about this stuff, you kind of blindly get led down these paths. I feel like this could make a huge difference in people's lives. Yeah. And the thing is, you have defaults. The question is, are you aware of them? Yeah.

And I still catch myself with defaults that I have put in place that I wasn't fully aware of. Mm-hmm. Yep. And I feel like you dial them in and you're like, there, I've done it. And then you take your foot off the gas and you find yourself just drifting back towards the place you say you don't want to be. So constant struggle. Yeah.

It's an interesting relationship with the concept of habits because I think habits often grow out of defaults. And just like habits, defaults are always being formed, whether you're doing it intentionally or not. And I think a lot of us that are interested in being more productive and more intentional often are on a never-ending quest

to set new defaults and looking for new shiny defaults that we can take on that we think may solve a problem for us. Yeah, I do think that habits and really routines, as a more broad term for this, really are the way that you can crease your defaults, though. So like, there's a distinction to be made here, I think. The default really is when I'm presented with options, which one do I choose, either intentionally or by default. This is the pre-programmed

response. If you're filling out a web form, there's text in the field already. What is that for you? And if you don't like it, then you can't just snap your fingers or even just make a decision, okay, I'm going to change that default. But you can decide this is what I want the default to be. and you can make a bunch of smaller decisions, and if you consistently do the different thing, the way that you want to do it, you can change your defaults. I think the best example for me

is just as it pertains to working out an exercise because I didn't like to do it. And I was, I don't know if it was a New Year's resolution or what, but I kind of distinctly remember that really rough period at the beginning where it's like, okay, I'm going to do that. this thing and I hate it. It hurts. It's not worth it. But you stick with it. And I can look back at that now and I feel weird if I don't get to the gym. So the defaults have changed, but it took a lot of

consistency showing up. And as James Cleary would put it in his excellent book, Atomic Habits, casting the vote for the person you want to be, identifying as that person who does the thing. Yeah. And to a certain extent, I think habits are manifestations of defaults. behavior. I know a default that I have been actively monitoring lately is this intention to solve for speed. You know, I always want to do things as quickly as possible. I think that's a default I carry. And I'm not necessarily trying to change that default, but I just want to be aware of it because there's certain things in my life where solving for speed is the wrong answer, you know, solving for more intentionality, for more thoughtfulness is where I need to bring it.

And that's a default that I'm kind of struggling around lately of that behavior of mine. It's like, okay, how can I make this faster or more efficient, things like that? That's a good trait. That's a good default, but it's not necessarily the one I want to follow in every instance. And that's where focus in intentionality come in. We're not telling you that your defaults are your weaknesses here. We're just saying it is who you are. And you need to be aware of that if you want to bring focus and intentionality to bear.

Exactly. The situation that you were describing there about solving for speed, I think that's probably human nature to a certain degree. And let's just unpack that a little bit. Because what's happening, I think, when we default to solving for speed, is there is a problem, there is a threat that I want to be solved, I want it to go away. I don't want to have to worry about this thing anymore. And so I think we're kind of wired to deal with pain more quickly than we are with pleasure.

So another way to say it, it's easier to sell painkillers than vitamins. even though everyone would agree that it's better to just live a healthy lifestyle than take some Tylenol when you've got a headache because you haven't been doing the things that you should be doing. You can look back and say, well, it was so simple. Why didn't I do it? It's because in the moment the intensity masquerades as importance. This is the most important thing right now.

We talked about that a couple episodes ago. Yeah. So I think part of it is you have to recognize. what's actually going on here. Is this a short-term thing that I am solving for? And is the default wired to just put the Band-Aid on, make this thing go away? Or if we can learn to think a little bit more long-term,

I think that's important if we're going to try and shift our defaults into something that, you know, this may hurt in the short term a little bit. Going to the gym isn't comfortable in the short term, but I'm going to like how I feel after I do that. I'm going to like the results if I stick with this for a while. Having that vision of what you're moving towards, I think, can help rewire these defaults, at least for me, having that why behind it is a big motivator.

And then I think another piece of this is you should be aware of your defaults. Like have a file or a page you've written down on, you know, what are my defaults. And we're going to talk about some of them later in the show about like, when do you do your best work and how do you handle these problems? But I feel like that knowledge is so powerful. And the way you get it is frankly just observation. For years, I've been making a little document called SparkyOS. Lately, I've renamed it Mike to the Incuridian because I'm being fancy.

But it's just a list of essays. Some of them are handwritten. Some of them are typed. And it's my default behavior. That's my beliefs and thoughts on how I do things. And like this idea around solving for speed became an essay and the Spark EOS for me because I wanted to like get my head around what my brain, how my brain process, you know, solving for speed and and where that's appropriate, where it's not. But I just feel like this awareness of it's super important. So if you're thinking about this, I think the first thing I would say is don't worry about changing defaults or changing behaviors, but just notice what you actually do, you know,

when things are adjusting. You know, do it for a month. Keep a little log of observing your default behavior. Claude.md for the sparky large language model. Yeah, that's kind of what it is. That's kind of what it is. But, you know, we could do a whole show on that, but I find that practice so useful.

And, you know, and this is not a vanity thing. I don't care if anybody in the world ever reads it. In fact, I kind of go out of my way to make sure they don't. but it is such a self-improvement hack to be able to to actually quantify your thoughts and belief systems and your defaults it makes a huge difference because when you write it down as we've said before in the show I think it becomes real you think it through I jokingly say that that's like the skill instructions for your large language model but I think there's probably a lot of parallel there you know if you don't constantly come back to that stuff

It's not too long before, even as a human, you hallucinate, right? This is the thing that I need to optimize for because this is the thing that's screaming at me the loudest. You lose sight of what is really important. And those parameters, those boundaries kind of help keep you on the right path. Yeah. I had something go wrong recently. Someone let me down.

And I looked at my SparkyOS and there's a page on blame. It says there's two people you can blame yourself or nobody. And I don't know when I wrote that down, maybe 10 years ago, but it's like, oh, yeah, that's right. Okay. Just calm down and move on, you know? Yeah. And it's like that was a moment where it kicked in.

And I do that all the time. And also, that's a very enjoyable practice is stopping to write that stuff down, something where you don't solve for speed, frankly. Yeah. Okay. Well, maybe we'll do that again. If you guys are interested in that, let us know. maybe we can do a show around that topic, but it is a weird thing I do. But getting back to

these defaults, I also think interesting thing about defaults is occasionally you have a moment of transformation that allows you to reset defaults. And this advice was given to me by Merlin Mann when I quit the law practice. Actually, when I quit my law firm job before I quit the law practice. He said, you know, you're working for yourself now. You get to reset all your defaults. And like that really landed for me. I feel like we do occasionally have that, whether you're like, maybe you're retiring or maybe you're changing jobs or you have some moment of transformation in your life. Or are you having your first kid? That's another one. Defaults just change when, you know, the makeup of your family changes. But I actually now kind of look forward to that transatlantic.

no default change when I have a transformation. Do you think about that, Mike? Yes, I remember you're giving me the same advice when I got let go and it was some of the best advice that I've ever received. I do want to ask you, though, because there's something arbitrary about that moment. Like, you have the ability to change your defaults at any point, right? So why is it so effective to anchor that to a moment of transformation or put another way, a moment of crisis.

Yeah, well, I think it's easier then because it's forced upon you. Yeah. You have to take the laboring or under other circumstances. Yeah, there's, there's, uh, my dad has a saying, when pain is sufficient, change will come. Yeah, same thing. Same concept. Yeah. But, but you're right.

You don't have to wait for that moment. Like, you listening to this right now in your car can start rewiring your defaults right now. document them first, take some time, think about them, and also understand a default isn't an always. Even though my default is a solve for speed, I intentionally don't solve for speed on certain things in my life. And I think that's something that you can keep in mind. Yeah, that's the one thing I think I would give people as a takeaway from this particular section is this question. I mean, there's lots of great clarifying questions. I'm sort of a collector of them. But the one that I probably come back to more than any other is what are you optimizing for?

Because we're all optimizing for something. And if we aren't careful, we can optimize for speed. We can optimize for the path of least resistance, which I think is what happens if you never really think about this stuff. But then you don't have to let it stay there. You can move the, you can shift the focus. And you can create intentional friction is the term that, that I like where I don't want to necessarily take the path of least resistance. How do I make the right path, the path of least resistance? I put some friction up on the path of least resistance. There's a big tree across the trail.

Maybe I won't go that way. And you can do that in lots of little ways. This episode of the Focus podcast is brought to you by Incogny. Go to incogny.com slash focused and take your personal data back. Use the code focus and get 60% off an annual plan. Almost everyone experiences robocalls from time to time. If you ever wondered how they keep getting your number, the answer is data brokers.

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Use code focused via the link in the show notes and get 60% off an annual plan. That link is incogni.com slash focused. And our thanks to Incogni for their support of the Focus Podcast and Olive Relay. One of the issues I think surrounding this idea of defaults is your chronotype. You know, when are you at your best? You know, you night owl. What do they call it a morning? Morning lark.

Martin Lark, yeah, actually matters. We talk about it occasionally on the show, but I think in terms of this default behavior, we should think about that for a minute. Yeah, I am curious what you think about this because I understand the defaults. And I think it's really easy to want to put yourself in one of those buckets as I am a morning lark,

I get up early, that's naturally easy for me. Or I am a night owl, and I do my best work at night after everybody goes to bed. I'm wondering how plastic this is. Because there was a time when I again changed my default and became a morning person. I'm I drifted back the other way. So I think it's safe to say at this point that I was not truly a morning person. Yeah. But there was something I really enjoyed about getting up early before everybody else was, was up. Seeing the sunrise is a pretty incredible feeling. You see it coming up before most of the world is awake. And I don't know. I feel like there's probably a little bit of flexibility

with this, but also there's probably a point where if you're really trying to become a 5 a.m. person and you're a night owl, at some point, you want to just recognize the way that you're wired and optimize accordingly. How do you think about this? Yeah, I agree. there is plasticity in this. And I also think this is a function of where you are in your life. You have five kids. They're all home with you still. You cannot, I mean, you're, demands on you go into the evening, right?

To have a 5 a.m. lifestyle, you'd have to go to bed before your kids do. And that's really hard when you're being a dad. I mean, we sometimes do that anyways. But not to the 5 a.m. level. Yeah. So they're older, but, and I think there's a, I've done a little bit of study in this with like, how much sleep do people need at different points of their life. And I think teenagers are kind of wired to stay up a little bit later. And that feels weird to me going into that, that season, especially like later on in the, the teen years, I think they're more naturally night owls than they are morning larks. So it'll be, you know, 10, 1030, I'm exhausted. And my kids are, you know, they want to stay up for another couple hours and read or do whatever.

And I'm just like, see you guys. I can't. I'm cashing out. I'm going to bed. But I have varied as well during the course of my life. Like when duty calls, I would be a morning person, but I've also been a night owl. But I think in general, for me, I am not that effective after like 3 p.m. in terms of like truly creative work.

In fact, I'm really not that effective afternoon. So I recognize that myself. I am very much a morning person. I get up at like five. And so I do a lot of work. I have automated blinds in my studio. And when I get up, it's dark. And one of my favorite things is they're set to automatically raise as the sunrises.

So I'll be in here just kind of doing work. And then the sun rises, the blinds, come up, I go out and work in the garden, maybe go into the shop, you know. So, like, I have a practice, and I like getting up in the morning. I think also part of it is my life circumstances. Like, I've had jobs in the past that were really hard and sometimes you just want to get out of bed and go to them. Now I have this job that's so fun and I get to do stuff. Like, talk to you, Mike. And I like wake up anxious to do more. So I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of ingredients. in that soup of your chronotype.

Yeah, and you mentioned something important that you don't do great work after three and then you even moved it further up. Yeah. After noon. So let's unpack that a little bit. Like, what do you mean by that? I mean, it's one thing to say that I can't do quality work

after a certain time. Sorry, guys. but most people probably don't have the luxury. And this, I don't think this is what you're saying. Like, I'm just not going to work anymore after noon either. So how do you balance that stuff? I'd like to consider myself world class at the work I do in terms of teaching people about the stuff I teach

and running these sessions and making these videos. And I can tell the difference for stuff I shoot in the afternoon. And like if I host a thing on the afternoon, I feel like I'm not as sharp as I am when I do it in the morning. And that's kind of been true for me always. That's always why I always wanted to do opening statements the first thing in the morning in my trial, because that's where you win or lose them. And the judge said, hey, let's do it at, you know, in the afternoon at three,

I'd say, let the other guy go. I'll do mine tomorrow morning. You know, and so I just feel like that's kind of a trait of mine that I do. I'm at my peak. That doesn't mean I can't work afternoon or after three. but what I try to do is load that with type of work that doesn't require to me at my peak. I like the description of being world class. Maybe you don't view yourself as world class,

but I feel like that's the thing that we should be striving for is when am I closest to world-class effort in what I do? Because if you're just focusing on the tasks to be done, you can convince yourself that I'm just as effective at getting the thing done in the afternoon. But if you do any sort of knowledge work, I would argue that you are not. And it still creeps up on me. I still fall into this sometimes where I'll be working on a newsletter or a screencast or something and I'll make great progress in the morning. It's not done. I'll continue to crank on it. If it's still not done, the temptation is there at night to open up the laptop and get the thing done. And every time that I give into that, the next morning when I come back and I look at what I did, I'm like,

That is just not good. It's slop before AI. It's the human stuff. Exactly. Exactly. And if I can force myself to recognize, I am not at my peak right now and take a break, I come back to it the next day. And it's amazing how quickly I can finish the thing and how much better it is. It's like by the end of the day, if I'm writing a newsletter, let's say, and I've got a half hour of work left.

in terms of actually writing the first draft of the newsletter, pulling the ideas together, creating something new. If I try to do that late at night, it's probably taking me two to three hours and it's junk. But it's still so hard to convince myself, well, I've got this time, this thing needs to be done. Just don't touch it until tomorrow. Yeah.

I do think we all need to acknowledge that. And that's where chronotype kicks in because for some people, they do their best work at 3 p.m. Or like our friend Mike Vardy does it at 6 p.m. You know, or later. And understanding that about yourself is important. But I also think there's some flexibility in that,

that over the course of your life, that will change in both directions. Yeah, and it's hard when you're in the moment to make the quality judgment. You have to get separated from it in order to see it for what it really is. Yeah, I've learned about myself. I actually had a good friend one time.

I had done a labs event at like 4 p.m. He said, man, you weren't at your best today. He's like, you okay? I'm like, no, I did it late, and that happens, and I'm not as sharp, you know. But I think I have internalized it at this point to where I'm really good at solving for that problem. Like, if I'm tempted to look at email in the morning,

I remind myself, no, that is dead time work, and I'll do that when I'm dead. You know, I guess that's a wrong word. It's afternoon work for me. I'll do it in the afternoon when I'm not as sharp. And I just, I'm very careful about that. So in the mornings, I'm always doing production type work, you know, what I consider my, the things that I do that are most important that require me the most. I want to go back to that world-class comment, though.

That just kind of popped out. of me, but I honestly try to think about the stuff I do that I take on in that capacity. And if you're listening, you rolled your eyes, I'd like you to think about that for your own work. And like, why not pursue it? No matter what it is you do, to say, no, I'm world-class at this. That doesn't mean you're the best in the world, but it means you're world-class at it. And I think you should have that kind of pride and have that kind of ambition in the work you

do. Yeah, I mean, really it comes back to that question of what are you operating? optimizing for because if you're optimizing for quality, then being world class doesn't rub you the wrong way. If you are optimizing for speed or time and cranking more widgets, then that feels like a luxury. You don't really have the ability to think about how good this thing is. I just got to ship this because there's something else that needs my attention right after I do that. For me, I don't think I'm a morning lark or a night owl. I think I'm kind of in the middle. I'll naturally wake up about 7 a.m. and my peak creative time, I feel, is about 10 a.m.

I think there's a lot of other factors that go into this too, by the way. So sleep. is important to me. I won't tell the whole story, but I was diagnosed with epilepsy when I was 18. So I got to be careful. I track my sleep, not because I think that those numbers are an indication of, like the numbers themselves are less important to me than really just kind of like the big trends that I see. Want to make sure I'm getting enough sleep. Want to make sure I'm getting decent sleep because that's really the only thing I can do to prevent another seizure. But I've been pretty good at it. I haven't had one for over 20 years.

So that's important to me. And getting enough sleep means that I go to bed when I can go to bed. And then I wake up when I wake up. Everything else has to work around that. I also practice intermittent fasting. So I don't really eat breakfast, which means that I get real hungry about 1130. but I've found that that block between about 10 a.m. to 1130, that is usually when I do my best creative work. So recognizing that is interesting.

Now, co-host of the intentional AI podcast, Chris Bailey would call that your biological prime time. Yeah. Do you have an idea for when your biological prime time is? I know you mentioned like you do your best work before noon, but is there a specific slot where this is where Max Sparky is? is that is best? No. I'd say it's from about five to noon. Like that's when the good stuff is going to happen. But I'm kind of at the mercy of the calendar and whatever the obligations are that day. But I don't feel like if I don't get it done at nine, it's not going to happen. I don't have that impression. Gotcha. But I start fading at noon in terms of my best work. But, you know, the thing we're talking

around here is you need to have an understanding of that for yourself. And if you're listening, you don't it's time to start logging that like when do you feel really good to do your best work and keep track of that and solve for it like then when like the grunt work shows up don't do it then you know when important work for you to do occurs try and map it into that time like if you're at an office and you realize that you know from 9 to 12 is your prime time make it know that you're not going to attend meetings then that meetings need to be in the afternoon you don't let people gobble up your best time yes and i want to unpack that further too because you may not be able to with a hundred percent success protect that time and that's okay just do what you can so you mentioned that uh you're

kind of at the mercy of the calendar right there's going to be meetings and things that pop up so we'll do the best creative work around that. I'm a little bit more specific. I know 10 a.m. to 1130. I am really, really sharp creatively. That's when I want to do my writing if I can't. I can't always do that. So what I do is I try to block those activities for that time. But if it doesn't happen, oh well, I'm not going to get upset about it. But if you are in an organization where things will pop up on your calendar, one of the things that you can do, you may not be able to block out from five to noon, like a seven hour block. This is when I'm going to be doing my deep work, right? But you may be able to block out an hour and a half on your calendar. If there isn't already a preexisting meeting

there, that it just shows that you're busy. And other people will schedule the meetings on your calendar for you, but they'll do it around that time. You know, work with what you've got and then go from there. Start with what you have. And I've told the story before, but in the law firm, I did that for like, if I had to write a motion, I'd have a four-hour block that I'm writing the motion. And the senior partners would make fun of me. They'd be like, what is this? That's not in a meeting?

What's that on the calendar for? I'm like, well, I don't know. Do you want me to win the case for you or not? And the funny thing is, like, within a year of that, almost all of them were doing it. Like, first they laugh at you and then they copy you. Yeah, exactly. I remember story from a deep work by Cal Newport where he was talking with someone who busy executive, but their boss was kind of notorious for pop-in meetings and I need you to do this right now.

Well, it's my boss. I can't say no to that sort of stuff. So what she did is she scheduled a meeting with her boss and said, okay, so what do you think I do here that is the most valuable, brings the most value to the company. Well, it's this, obviously. Okay, well, I don't get to do that with all of these pop-in meetings. And she had a log of all of the times that she was interrupted. She said, can I block off the first two hours of every day to do this thing that you just said was the most valuable thing I contribute to the company? Like, oh, yeah, I guess. You know,

and then same results, same story that you just shared, got the, you know, they got the payoff. And they're like, oh, this is amazing. Everybody should do this. Yeah. So, yeah. And that kind of naturally leads into the discussion about capacity, too, because the truth is that for most knowledge workers, we're not really doing eight hours of knowledge work every day. The gray matter between our ears is more limiting than any technological tool that we might be

be using. Yeah, and I think that's why the whole idea of biological prime time, it makes sense because you don't have eight hours of great work in you every day. I mean, the eight-hour number came because they wanted to figure out how long someone can say in the shoe factory, you know, nailing souls to shoes. To do proper knowledge work, I just don't think an eight-hour day is realistic for the actual work. Right. So what is realistic? It depends on you. I mean, you've got to figure out what your capacity is. There's probably some, I mean, I agree with you. You have to figure out what your capacity is. And I think there's some ways maybe that you can measure that. But if you're going to give somebody a starting point, I think it's a lot lower than maybe you might realize.

Cal Newport, author of the aforementioned deep work, lots of other people have kind of done some studies around this. And it seems that the daily ceiling for most humans is about three to four hours of creative deep work. Have you found that to be true? Yeah. Yeah. And I fought against it, Mike.

I've done things in the past where I'd like try to stack podcasts. Like, what if I recorded three podcasts this day? and then I'd have Tuesday and Friday off, you know. But the fact is I don't have the ability to record three in a day and make them good, you know. I mean, I can do one a day, really. And I think about that with all, like, major deliverables in my life. I'm good for one thing a day. And usually that takes a few hours and then I can maybe do something on top of that, but that's about it.

That's just through experience. And that I think is probably fairly generalizable. I think I've experienced the same sort of thing. I also have tried to do multiple podcasts in a day. And on the surface, it's like, I've just been talking for three hours. That's not that big a deal. Why are you so tired? It's true, though.

It's completely draining in a very different way, which sounds kind of precious when you consider all people who have like physical. Actual jobs. Yeah. Yeah. It is true though. And this is really the thing that highlights why the chronotype and the biological prime time is so important. You know, if you're only able to do a certain number of hours of creative knowledge work where you're really getting significant quality output from the effort that you're putting in. You want to align that with when you do that work best. And then everything else can fill in around that. So that's the approach that I take

to time blocking and I pick three things. And every time I share that I pick three things that I'm going to time block today, I get pushback. You're only doing three things in a day. And that's more than the one thing that we just talked about. So sometimes it's even less. But the three things, it's like that's, that's my capacity. I know if I try to do more than that, the work is just not going to be very good. And by putting that stuff on the time-bought plan, I can align it with the chronotype. I can align it with the biological prime time more often than not. I can produce better quality work and all the other stuff, which technically ends up being the more than three things.

But I don't worry about that. That stuff that needs to get done will get done. The podcast will get posted. The emails will get sent. But I don't prioritize that stuff. That is not what I am optimizing for. Yeah. I think just acknowledgement of capacity is a key step in this. I mean, the three pillars of this show, a chronotype defaults and capacity, they all tie together. That's why we're doing it here.

But capacity is the payoff. When you realize what can I actually do, how do I do it? And that's where you use all the tricks we talk about on the show. Time blocking serves a capacity role. Like if you realize that your chronotype requires you to do your best work in the morning, you make time to do that work and you block time in the afternoon to do the grunt work that doesn't require you to be at your best. You're putting all the pieces together at that point. But it's an acknowledgement of capacity. You don't try to block eight hours of doing your best possible work all day. It's not going to work.

I mean, you may joke yourself while you set it up, but by the end of the day, you're going to be disappointed because you're just not going to do it. And when you put all three pieces together, it actually leads to a very, I think, productive result. Yeah, now let's talk about what capacity exactly is. Because I think about capacity, it's 300 cubic inches. How do you measure capacity? Because when I was working with different teams and organizations

and we were using scrum, that's one way to measure capacity for the team. Most individuals I feel like don't want to do that. That's too formal. you just have sort of this gut feel for what I'm able to do. And that's probably worth talking a little bit about because I don't think we want to identify, you know, what's the term, the Fibonacci sequence, the story points or whatever for everything that is on our honey-do list. Yeah.

To me, I think it's really tied to the idea of the types of work. There's different capacity for different types of work. I have, from my own self-knowledge, a limited amount of time to deal with email and communications a day. I find that really draining and kind of, you know, tough. So I put boxes around the time. So I have limited capacity for that. I try to have more time for the creative stuff, but I know when I can do that and to what extent. I just think being self-aware on this stuff is so important.

Yeah. Self-awareness is the key. and the way that I do this, it's interesting for me because, like I said, I worked with teams and organizations where we've implemented scrum and I'm an operations guy. So I was the one sizing the tasks and writing the stories and making sure all the SOPs were there and stuff like that. But then when it comes to the individual stuff, I don't want to do that. It's enough to have a gut feel. And that's where the time blocking for me really pays off not in the time blocking of the specific day, but in the daily feedback loops. So I'll put three things on there. I'll try to get those things done. When I started,

it was five. And I found that I couldn't get five things done consistently. And it was more important to me that I showed up and I did the thing. I followed through on the promises that I made to myself. I followed through on the intentions that I set. And if I have extra capacity that day, then maybe I can grab another thing and work on it. But I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. And so it was consistently making that time block plan. And there was no formal like retrospective process where it's like, hmm, gee, I have failed on 62% of my time block plans.

It's like, that doesn't feel good. I don't want to not get done the things that I set were important to me. so maybe I'll just adjust this a little bit till I found the sweet spot. So that's really the thing I was getting at there is that I don't think you need to have a formal process for this, but you do need the feedback loops and you kind of develop a feel for it as you go. Can you increase capacity, Mike? Is there some magic formula to give you more?

I was thinking about that. I think maybe there is. Not in true capacity, but it can make you feel like you have a little bit more capacity. I think you maybe started a podcast on how this is possible. Because you've got this capacity. You have all these things that you need to get done, right? And there are certain things that, you know,

I don't really need to optimize for quality with this. How can I automate this? How can I delegate this so that I can really lean in to the things that are my greatest contribution to the organization, to the world, my unique ability, right? And I think AI is one of those tools that can help you do that. You got to be careful, though, like you were talking about, don't let it replace the humanity. But if you, and it's not just AI, I mean, any sort of technological tool, any sort of delegation, like even if you worked with a human, I think the tendency is to be like, well, you just, you just worry.

about this. And that's fine. If you are clear, this is, it really isn't that important for me to think about. And I trust you to take care of this instead. Yeah. I mean, just delegation, whether it's to an AI or to a human, is a form of capacity increase because you're not no longer doing the things that you handed off. But I don't think it's, it's going to increase your capacity for the truly special stuff. I still think you've got the biological limit of three or four hours a day. And I think one of the fools gold problems with AI and delegation is you're like, oh, great, now I can do more. And I think what you should be thinking is, oh, great, now I can go walk the dog, touch grass, go in the wood shop, go in the garden, go with my kids. You know, I think we should

look at the boon of this not to be increased output, but increased life. 100% agree. And you're right. I think it can create the feeling of more capacity. I think there are still hard limits on the capacity itself, though. You're never, same thing with your time. You're not going to get more than 24 hours in a day. You can't make more time. Yeah. Yeah. But if you are focused on the things that really matter, it can feel like you have more time for the things that you want to do. But that last point that you made there is really, really important. When you have a little bit more capacity or maybe margin would be another way to describe it,

don't necessarily fill it with more work because what happens, and this is the cycle is we get more efficient, we've got more space, we fill that with more work, we compress that, we have a little bit more space, we compress that. And so we just keep stacking all this stuff on top of one another and pretty soon it's an unsustainable, standard that we can't live up to. We get the situation you described where you're running downhill about to fall in your face. But this is not new. This has been happening forever. I remember when PCs came out, they were concerned that the biggest problem was that we're going to have all this leisure time because the computers were going to do all the work.

Somehow we figured out a way to do more anyways. And I wouldn't, and I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. Yeah, as humans with every technological innovation, we put ourselves even further in harness. And that is something that we all need to be aware of right now as we're going through something kind of transformational. But the big thing I'd like you to take from this show is those three ideas. What are my defaults?

What's my chronotype? What's my capacity? Forewarned is forearmed. Get knowledge of these things for yourself and start tweaking them. If you understand what they are, you can use them to your advantage. So you get more time to touch. This episode of Focused is brought to you by our friends at Vitally, the AI-powered

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for a free pair of AirPods Pro when you take a qualified demo. Our thanks to VITALLY for their support of the Focus Podcast and all of Relay. All right, Mike, it's another episode

of the Focus Podcast where we talk about where we spent money. What are you spending money on, Mike? My shiny new object really isn't shiny or an object in terms of like

we would typically talk about on this show. But I am a coffee snob. There's no way to avoid that term. I used to try to hi at it. Fissionato, whatever. I'm snobby about my coffee is what it is. I've got the coffee robot. I get the single origin beans. I've like the only thing I haven't done at this point is roast my own because I just don't have time for that. But if I did, I probably would. However, I don't want to consume a whole bunch of caffeine. I love coffee. I don't necessarily love the fact that I'm loading my body up with caffeine. And actually my oldest son was the one who kind of brought this to my attention because he was starting to make coffee a little later in the day. He wants to make, like we have an espresso machine at home. So have you ever had an affigato? It's like a shot of espresso

poured over ice cream. I have just, I'm not a coffee guy at all, Mike. So, I don't know any of that stuff. Well, afogados are amazing. Problem is I don't want ice cream in the morning. So by the time I would have one, it's going to keep me up at night. The problem is that decaf coffee has typically been terrible. I've not found any decaf coffee that I liked. However, my son and I were talking about it, did some Google searching.

All of a sudden, I'm getting these Instagram ads for different decaf coffees. And this one comes across. I'm like, eh, I'll try. this. So the brand is decaf, D-E-K-A-F. And they actually have single origin decaf coffee beans. I don't think they're quite as

good as the ones that I subscribe to, but it's way better than any other decaf coffee that I have ever tried. And this came on my radar of you on Instagram ad, but I actually had heard somebody tell me about this previously. So that got triggered in my memory when I

saw it was like, oh yeah, so-and-so was telling me that I should check this out. At the time, I had no interest in the decaf coffee beans. But yeah, decaf coffee, D-E-K-A-F. That is, it's a thing, and it's pretty good. And now I can have coffee in the afternoon and I can make my affigados. I just ordered a new shiny thing yesterday. I don't have it yet. But I am interested in always quantifying my life, I guess. And I'm on a health journey. Daisy and I have been working really hard on it. But also my kids for fathers, they gave me a watch, like a standard watch. So I don't wear my Apple watch every day anymore. And I thought, well, what are some other ways

I could track my health? Google has made a new Fitbit, which is cool. But it's Google. And they don't share data to Apple Health, which is where all my health information is. And I'm not sure I want to strap another thing to my wrist 24-7. But I've been playing with the ideas of these fitness rings. you know, there's a bunch of vendors making them. As we're recording, Aura, which is kind of one of the leaders, just released the brand new ORA 5 ring, and I have ordered one.

I'm curious to see. It may end up getting sent back. I don't know. I'm going to wear it as a wedding ring. Like, you know, so days when I'm wearing the non-Apple Watch, if I want, I can put this thing on and still get good tracking data, hopefully.

I have no idea if it's any good. It's one more subscription, so I'm not sure if I entirely like it. the idea but I'm gonna try it. I love the idea of the aura ring. It's always been too big and bulky for me. Well, new one is 40% smaller. I have the email. Yep, that's what I've heard about it. So I'm curious, curious to see how you, how you like this. I actually have a one of those like silicone bands for my wedding ring just because the one that I have was always getting scuffed up. Yeah. And I like go to the gym and stuff. So yeah, curious to hear.

you like it. My wedding ring was my father's. He passed away before I got married. But I had it modified a few years later. I added three gold stripes to it, one for my wife and one for each of my girls. And I really like it, but I've lost weight and it's practically falling off of me.

And I still am going to wear that one often, but I don't want to, I don't know that I can get it really resize because there's been worked in it already. And that's just one. more reason I was thinking, well, I should have an alternative one. If I lose an RO ring, that won't break my heart. But yeah, I'm going to try this. I feel like this might be the right answer from me. Nice. What do you read these days, Mike? Well, in the last episode, we had Stephen

Robles on, and he talked about range by David Epstein. Got a lot of good email on that, by the way. A lot of people listen to that show really resonated with that discussion. That was a good one. And David Epstein has a new book out now called Inside the Box. And I have been a big fan of this author for quite a while. So when I found out that he had a new book, I instantly bought it. And I kind of forgot that it was a thing until we had that episode. I was like, hey, I think I have a new book from that guy or a new one coming. I forget exactly when it was delivered.

but I like the whole framing of this book and it's kind of about, you know, if range is about generalists, this one's about contrarians. So I think this is probably going to be a great follow-up to anyone who is interested in that topic of the generalist that we talked about in the last episode. I have a feeling you'll probably dig this one, but I just dug it up. So I have not actually cracked this one open yet. I'm very excited to read it over the next couple weeks. Nice. I am reading a book I just recently discovered. I like the writings of Seneca. I've read a lot. He wrote a lot. I think I've read almost all of it, but, you know, Seneca, you're never really done reading him. You're always just kind of reading him. But I was always curious about him in the sense that one of the things he did in addition to being, I think, a pretty smart guy and a wise philosopher was he was the kind of,

of tutor and advisor to Emperor Nero. And yes, that Emperor Nero, you know, the terrible. And I always wondered about how did he do that? Because the words he wrote are so inspirational to me, but at the same time, he was helping Nero out every day. And, you know, it actually led to his death eventually, but of course, because it was Nero. But I just discovered a book written like a decade ago by James Rom, R.O.M.

It's called Dying Every Day, Cynica at the Court of Nero. And I'm about halfway through it and I'm really enjoying it. The takeaways I'm getting is like how easy it is to compromise your values and how hard it is to uncompromise them once you do. And it's giving me a new perspective on Cynica, which I needed. And so it's a good book, Dying Every Day, Cynica at the Corder of Nero by James Rohn. Awesome. All right, we are the focus podcast. Thanks for listening to everybody. Thank you to our sponsors. That's our friends over at Incogni and vitally. On deep focus today, Mike and I want to talk about the idea of workflow indecision. That's something a lot of us bump into. I've been struggling with it on a few things and I've kind of come to my own resolution on it. And we're looking forward to doing that. Deep Focus is the ad for extended version of the show. We'd love to have you as a sponsor. You know, podcasts are not, you know, The sponsorship thing is harder now than it used to be with podcasts, but we love making the show.

Those supporters we have really help keep the lights on, and they're going to get a good one this week on workflow and decision. See you next time.