Focused - 92: Getting Focused Kourosh Dini

Episode Date: February 4, 2020

Author, physician, and busy guy Kourosh Dini joins us to talk about how to stay focused when you have a lot of things going on.

Welcome to Focus, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm David Sparks and joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. Mike Schmitz. Hi, Mike. Hey, David. How's it going? Excellent. And we have a guest today. Welcome to the show, Kourosh Dini. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me on. Thanks so much, Kourosh.

Kourosh has been a guest on the Mac Power Users in the past. He's a big nerd, but he's a lot more too. He's a psychiatrist, author. He wrote Creating Flow with OmniFocus, which is an excellent book on using OmniFocus. Did a video series about being productive, and we're going to talk about that today. And I know you're a husband, you're a dad, a musician. You're just a busy guy, Kourosh. I get bored easily, so I got to keep going. Yeah, but you know, you and I have been friends for some years and we spend time together. And

one of the things I've always admired about you and one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show is that this whole concept of kind of calm productivity that you, in fact, it's in the title of your Being Productive book. But if anybody out there is listening and they feel frantic or they feel like they always have more to do than they have time to do, so does Kourosh, but he manages to do it with Panache and it doesn't, it seems to stay so calm about it. And I thought today we'd like to talk to you about that. Absolutely. Yeah, sure. Yeah, the idea of calm focus is, I think, I think it's important because it helps to bring out that sense of, you know, when I talk about play, I mean it from this idea of bringing out that sense of identity, who you are. And when you're in that calm state, you're able to be focused in a way that integrates you as a part of your work. And I just find that important.

How did you arrive at that conclusion, though? I can't imagine that you've always been able to handle it so well. No, no, no, definitely not. Actually, even when I'm thinking back on the first edition of Creating Flow with OmniFocus, that was a time where I initially took the David Allen's Getting Things done and integrated it with, um, uh, OmniFocus in such a way that, um, I was running Palomel just like it was, I was working and, um, and it was probably too much in retrospect. It was, it was like, uh, if I could do it, I should do it. And, and, and, uh, it took a while to come to a conclusion that that's not the case. So no, it was not always that way.

I think probably if I could point to a single source, I would probably be starting up a meditation practice, or at least more seriously doing it, at around the same time as I was publishing that first book. And then you can kind of see where all, like all the other publications that I did, how they all get gentler and gentler as you go. Um, and, and, uh, I, so I, that's what I pointed to. And then as a result with, with the, um, being productive course, it, the very first lesson, um, is about making a decision about what you want to do. And the process in which one does that is a very mindful process. So I kind of read you through that because I came to the realization that if you can do that, if you can make a very clear decision about what

you want to do next, it makes all the other structures of productivity sit firmly. I like that. And I went through part of the course and you defined work in there as, correct me if I get this wrong, but I think it was something like anything that you need or want to do, which when you're just starting a course on productivity, you hear that word work and you kind of traditionally think it means, how am I able to get more office-y type stuff done? But I really like the juxtaposition that you have in the course of play and productivity. Do you care to unpack that a little bit for the listeners and kind of explain how your definition of play and focus influences your perspective when

it comes to productivity and getting things done? Sure, absolutely. Actually, starting with your comment on the word work, I've played with that word quite a lot in the process of making that because i i was because i knew that connotation you know when when a person hears the word work like ah do i really want to do this and um but um i think i i took some of it from two places one is from uh uh montessori you know like my kids were original had gone to Montessori school for a little while when they were younger, and what they'll refer to what they do as work. But they also will very much strongly focus on play as being an important aspect of learning. aspect or the other thing that fit into it was was um a psychoanalytic model of the word play comes from a an analyst by the name of winnicott who very much stresses the importance of how this playful state of mind is part of the vitality of a person and um and and it's where

because play is um you know the sort of movement between unconscious and conscious, between self and environment, between question and answer, it's a very focused state. Because of all of that, it is also a path in which a person can develop what feels meaningful to them. Because meaning is connection, is a depth of connection. And so play is, you are moving through that state of meaning. It's not the only thing, it's it's important and as a result of that those concepts coming together and and thinking of play as being this depth of focus as well it was like this is this is where the the synthesis is it's it's play and work fused i think i said a whole lot of stuff altogether there, but yeah. So how do you personally apply this play perspective to the work that you do? I mean, I get it from the perspective of I want to put things in my task manager, which

I have to do and other things that I want to do. But is this just, does it influence the way that you view the work? I think so. Yeah. the way that you view the work? I think so, yeah. So for example, one of the things that causes procrastination, I'll answer the question kind of from an angle here. Procrastination is very much or very often fueled by negative feelings of some sort. So you want to avoid what somebody will think of you if you complete something, or you want to avoid missing something else,

or you want to avoid realizing how bad you are at something. Who knows? There's hundreds of different ways that one can feel anxious or terrible. And what happens is you kind of short circuit your way past it by just saying, eh, later. So when you put something in front of you and move everything else away, put the thing that you want to avoid in front of you, you make that leap to get there. to avoid in front of you. You make that leap to get there. And then give yourself permission to not do it, which sounds odd, but give yourself permission to just not do the work, but you put it in front of yourself. What happens then is then you begin to actually face the emotion, the emotion that you were avoiding to begin with.

And once you start doing that, you're starting to connect what's meaningful to you, your real self, to what is supposed to be meaningful about this work. Do I need to do this? Do I not? What is so important about this? What's stopping me? What's hard about it? What's irritating about it? All those questions can start actually coming to mind. Um, and then as a result of that, um, connection, you are

actually that, that reality, that part of you that, that, that feels like you are genuinely there. You can actually, um, uh, start to, it's not, it's less, um, okay, this is just a report I have to write. It becomes more about what's meaningful about this work to me. That's when you start inviting that playful state, um, because then you're starting to explore something that is important to you. Um, something that is important to you. And as a result of that, the work itself becomes better, too, in addition to being able to be more focused. And it all sounds rather complex, but really it starts with something very simple, which is put the thing in front of you, put everything else away, and sit there with it. If you can gently nudge it forward, wonderful,

that's great. But it starts with just that state. And yeah, it's as simple and as incredibly difficult as that to face one's emotion. Sure. No, I think that's a really powerful idea. I was talking to somebody the other day about procrastination and landed on a definition of, or one of the reasons that people procrastinate is a form of silent rebellion against something that somebody has asked them to do. And I've noticed that in myself, just with things that I've said I was going to do. And I think that the act of just taking the thing that you've committed to and putting it in front of you, like you said, and then giving yourself permission not to complete it, but just to pick at it or even to say, I'm not going to, I don't

want to do this right now. You deal with the emotion right away. And then once you deal with the emotion, it's like, okay, well, here's this thing. And it doesn't seem as intimidating. It's like, okay, well, here's this thing, and it doesn't seem as intimidating. Absolutely. I actually had a very, very apropos connected to that idea of silent rebellion. So one day I was assigned a very long paper that was, in my opinion, BS. I didn't need to, this was something that shouldn't have happened. I won't go into detail exactly. But what happened was I had to I decided if I want to graduate, I have to do this thing. But even if it's garbage, so I put it in front of me and the first few sentences were all just swear word after swear word. Um, and it sounds silly,

but it was important because I was acknowledging my emotions. I was acknowledging how angry I was. And, um, it took me a few drafts, uh, of that, and then a search and replace at the end, uh, to make sure I got rid of all of those. But, uh, uh, but I, I finished it. And at the same time though, as I actually wrote a letter on the side, uh, to, uh, to the Dean to say why I thought this was, was not a good idea. So when I finished it and I did everything graduated, made it all work, I had a letter to go that once I graduated, I could like actually approach them and say, look, there was a problem here. And so it actually wound up being a good thing to be able to sit with it and recognize the

rebellion I wanted. I've done that in the past where I've written letters that never got sent. In the law practice, you deal with some real bozos. And once in a while, people do something that's really wrong. And you sit and write out this letter to them and then you print it out and you read it and you proofread it and then you throw it in the trash and somehow it serves a purpose i don't know what to say but yeah i was thinking about uh you're talking about how simple and how difficult it is and earlier you were

talking about meditation i feel like it's the same thing it's like yeah all you have to do is sit with your thoughts well that's that's very easy to express and very difficult to do and i think that's true with your procrastinated items i mean so often if you look at it mathematically the energy consumption of just doing it is so much less than procrastinating and carrying it and laying in bed and thinking about it and all the things we silly humans do. But there, you need to get past the emotion to get these things done. Absolutely. In some ways, I'm grateful for it because it gives me a job as a therapist and psychiatrist. But at the same time, it's like I succumb to it myself and I have to pay attention to it. And it's something that it's a constant, you know, am I doing what I need to be doing?

So it's not a knowledge problem that you can solve once you have the understanding, it's the implementation and the practice of it. That's the hard part. It's a regular practice. It's the practice of being human. To begin the show, I talked about all the things you're doing, and you are truly a really busy guy. Do you run into blocks? I mean, how do you manage all the various ores you have in the water, and what do you do when things start breaking? Sure.

So I think it's a set of habits that really is, once you've kind of identified the habits, it helps you kind of know where the habits are breaking down. Um, so for example, one of the major things I tend to do, um, is that I have, I choose, um, and actually this lines up with a, uh, episode of, uh, you guys, uh, had done, I was listening to some of your stuff, the moving the needle, uh, you guys were talking about some time ago. Yeah. Where I have like three major things that are ongoing. They are whatever those projects happen to be. I try to max out at three, and I just make sure I do what I was describing earlier. I just make sure I touch upon each one every day.

And sometimes when I have a lot of time, I'll spend a whole bunch of time on any one of them and maybe a little bit on the others. And when I have very little time, it's a matter of at least touching one of them, or touching each one just barely. And it means put everything away, put the thing in front of me and just fully be with it. Even if it's just for a few moments that in and of itself, just that habit, um, does a whole lot. Um, also since there's three there, um, that assumes that there's another set of stuff

that I'm not doing. And I, and I have a clear place for those things. They're all in my parked area. And having those parked and active ideas resting side by side where I examine them every day and say, okay, are the active things continuing to be active? Are the things continuing to be parked? And if not, if I have to move something from park to active, that means I have to move one of the active things back to park. And I have to make that decision. And once I've made that decision, I rest at ease with the remainder of my work for the day.

And just that particular habit, I think, does a good chunk of my work. The rest is, I don't know if this answers anything, but one of my weak spots, I would say, and one that I always have to pay attention to, is wrapping up something at the end of a session. wrapping up something at the end of a session. So a session being just the time I spent with something. It doesn't have to be short or long. It's just a session. And what it means to me is that I have to be able to ask myself very clearly, how can this be off of my mind? And asking that question then spawns other questions like, can I put this somewhere where I don't want to see it or I don't have to see it until I want to do it? So, you know, if I want to do it again next Thursday, I have to have a way for it to be completely hidden until it shows up on Thursday, unless something else comes up and then I want it to show up in that

way. And I have to think through, how am I going to make that structure? And doing that, the more I do that, the clearer everything tends to get, the more organized everything tends to be. But it's sometimes, you know, especially I've got like a repeating task that, you know, I just have to click done and it'll show up again tomorrow i don't necessarily think through that you know that process i'm just i'll be fine and and then i've got this messy desktop of a bunch of icons um so that tends to be a weak spot but i still try to catch that every morning you know i'll look at oh man look at my desktop all right time to clean this up and and and do this um and and it just reminds me of where things are to kind of fine-tune and keep keep working on now i forgot the question well no i but there's a couple things i wanted to unpack there and one is

the idea of finishing a a task you're on before you move on to the next one. And for me, all of this stuff kind of comes together. I'm glad you mentioned that moving the needle show, because for me, a lot of that stuff comes together with this idea of blocking time on the calendar and physically tracking the time I spent moving the needle. And I do that before I go on to the next thing. And it does give you this sense of closure, like, like okay i did that today and then all the you know the the pressure that you put on yourself the you know the the thought the laying in bed time of like how come i'm not doing that you don't get that anymore it's a magical cure but you have to put the effort in and and you're right it doesn't require hours it

can be 10 minutes so long as you did it and you did it with intention and you were deliberate about it. I like the phrase you mentioned. I just want to call it out. I think this is a little bit related. How can this be off of my mind? Because that's different than following the GTD structure or whatever other productivity system you may be trying to follow, you can apply that for yourself. And depending on your own structure and workflow, you kind of know what you need to do for things to be off of your mind.

But that's, for me, the valuable part in giving you the ability to focus on whatever's next. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a question that it's a practice of honesty with yourself. You know, there's an interview with Bruce Lee. There's very few interviews with Bruce Lee, but you can find it if you search for it. And in which he says something like, and I'm totally paraphrasing, he says, I can do all these theatrics, I can jump around, I can move in all these different ways and be really impressive. But what's really hard is being honest with myself. And that's what this question's about. The question of how can this be off of my mind is, is that practice of honesty of like,

what would honestly get this off of my mind? What would make this so it doesn't come back and haunt me in some way? And, and, and, and as a result of that, that practice of honesty, it becomes, but even if you are employed or billing per project, it's helpful to estimate how long a specific task is going to take, and you really have no idea how to do that if you're not time tracking. Time tracking helps you stay on track with your estimates to make sure you don't end up in the red with your creative projects, Tracking helps you stay on track with your estimates to make sure you don't end up in the red with your creative projects, which can help you make more accurate estimates in the future. This is where timing can help you out.

Instead of making you start and stop timers, timing automatically tracks how much time you spend in each app, document, or website. It shows you exactly when you were working on what, when you slacked off, and how productive you really were so you know what adjustments you need to make to improve your productivity. But you know that work doesn't just happen at your Mac, which is why the timeline automatically makes suggestions for filling in the gaps. That way, you'll never forget about entering a meeting. And with the automatic sync feature, your track time will magically appear

across all of your Macs. So if you work on the go with your MacBook, you'll have the full picture on your iMac once you get home. You can even track your work on the go from your iPhone and make use of the Zapier integration that lets you connect timing to services like FreshBooks. And for fans of shortcuts, Timing has shortcuts ready for you to use that make time tracking even easier. I tried time tracking myself and it never worked for me because I would have to start and stop timers manually and I would forget to turn off a timer. So my travel timer, for example, when I would get in the car and drive to the co-working space would keep running and then I'd have hours on my timer,

even though it only took me about 10 minutes. I couldn't trust my data, and I knew that it wasn't accurate, so I didn't really do anything with it. But with timing, you don't have to worry about the integrity of the data. It is what it is. It's there when you're using your Mac, and so when you look at it, you get an accurate picture of how you actually spent your time.

And once you know how you're spending your time, this is where you can start to make the adjustments. So if you look at your timing data and you see that you spent an hour on Twitter every day, maybe you want to cut that back so you have a little bit more time for your creative side project. Timing gives you that sort of data and it's really, really easy to use. You just turn it on, it runs in the background, you don't have to worry about it anymore. You kind of set it and forget it until you jump into the data and decide what adjustments that you want to make. Timing is so confident that you'll love their fuss-free approach that they offer a totally free trial. You can download the free 14-day trial today by going to timingapp.com slash focused, F-O-C-U-S-E-D, and you'll save 10% when you purchase. Stop guessing

how you spend your time and instead focus on doing what you're good at. Again, you can download the free 14-day trial by going to timingapp.com slash focused, and you'll save 10% when you purchase. We thank Timing for their support of Focused and all of RelayFM. when you purchase. We thank Timing for their support of Focused and all of RelayFM. Something, Kourosh, that I hear from listeners of this show and readers all the time is the sense of overwhelm. You know, that everybody's got a lot on their plate. And I think this kind of follows up on the thread we were talking about before the ad break. But, you know, everybody's got all this stuff going. Now, you can either try and get the work done with this hectic feeling or with a sense of calm focus.

And getting to that sense of calm focus is not easy for folks. And, you know, and that's one of the reasons why I like you so much for this question, because you do have a lot going on. You have patients, you have businesses, you have family. Even though you've got things parked and things active, you still have a lot going on. How are you able to slow down enough to work on one thing at a time? It's a process. I think it's using these sorts of, again, these habits. So the three things, yes, that's one thing. But you're right, there's more to it these habits. So like that, the three things, yes, that's one thing, but you're right. There's, there's more to it than that. So, all right, I'm going through my day here. So I do get up early. You know, they always talk about get up early. It's an important thing. Get

up early, whatever it is, uh, get up early. I think it's a good idea. It helps me at least. Um, maybe it's, um, I know there are those who don't function well in the morning and maybe a late night thing is the way to do it for them. I don't know, but for me that's work. So I get up at five and then, um, somewhere in there I do my meditation, but that's also the time that I, I, uh, uh, practice piano, regardless of what happens. I practice piano. There's something going on. There's nothing going on. Um, the only time I don't is if I am on vacation somewhere and there's no piano nearby, which case maybe it would be nice if I brought my guitar, but chances are I didn't do that either. But I got to do something that has to

do with music, even if it's whistle or something like that. And, uh, that I think does a lot, just the music aspect of things. Um, let me think about it. It's always a question that I always feel very strongly about that music is hugely, hugely important to, um, to, I think, emotional health, mental health, at least for me, and I think it's for others, too. And then how to answer why or how is so hard for me to put into words at the same time. David, you play music. You play saxophone. You've done quite a bit. You play saxophone.

You've done quite a bit. And I imagine you feel at least somewhere parallel in this. That it does a lot, doesn't it? Yeah, I feel like the nice thing about music is it's a conscious choice. Everybody feels overwhelmed. Everybody has more to do, especially in the modern world, than they have time to do. And you can get on that treadmill and you can drive yourself straight into the ground, or you can choose to do as good as you can and also carve out time for yourself, you know, like music or meditation or spending

time with your family. And I do think so much of this is just about making the choice. And I know that's really bad advice for a lot of people saying, you know, don't. It's more than a mindset, but there is also a mindset involved. Am I being silly, Mike? No, I don't think so. I'm a musician too, but not as accomplished as probably either of you. But for a while, I was doing a productivity experiment because I do a lot of creative work, a lot of writing. And about one o'clock every day would typically just hit a lull. And I read this article somewhere, which I have since lost, but it talked about the different

types of energy. And it suggested using music as a form of kind of resetting your energy level. So I actually have my guitar stand and my guitar right here, right next to my desk. And I'll pick it up and whenever I'm feeling low energy and I'll just play guitar for a while. It's a different form of creativity. And usually after 15, 20 minutes, then I come back and I feel recharged and I feel like I can, I can tackle the project that I was procrastinating on beforehand. So I do think that there's something, something to that. It's, it's a blend of, uh, of emotion and, uh, conscious thought. It's, it's a, it's a world where, um, words, you know, aren't necessarily that necessarily, you speak emotion in other, in another language,

um, of, of sound and sound is just, it's, it's simpler than words. You know, words are, you know, they, they live in sound. That's right. That's fine. There's rhythm to it and all that, but there's something just even more atomic nuclear basic about, um, a single sound that you can play with so there's that word play again that you can play with um uh uh things that are very simple and create things that are very complex and in such way that i just don't see that um i mean i i

imagine it happens in other arts so so I'm very biased towards music. But it does something to enrich oneself when you're engaged in the arts in that way. Yeah, there's a great interview with Quincy Jones. They made a biography on him, or actually it was a documentary about him. And he kept saying throughout it, he says, there's just 12 notes. It's just 12 notes. I mean, Mozart and Munch worked with the same 12 notes, and they made vastly different things. And there is something kind of magical about that, that we all have access to the same 12 notes. Now, what are you going to do with them?

But I think it goes beyond that. I think that one of the ways to deal with the sense of overload is the act of creation. It doesn't have to be music. It doesn't even have to be painting or what people would traditionally think of as creation. It could be a very well-tinted garden. It could be, you know, there could be many things. But I think you're absolutely right. But I think you have to have that.

But I think you have to have that. If you think you're a robot and you can get up and work on this never-ending list from the time you wake to the time you sleep every day, you're going to find out that that is not going to serve you well. That taking breaks, doing creation, you're actually going to accomplish more than if you had gone bell-to-bell on the thing. Yeah, no, I think you're spot on. I think it is more about creativity. There's just that spirit of creativity than anything that helps to bring that sense of meaning that really buoys oneself, you know, that helps you, you know, see through the chaos. It occurs to me that we're talking about play and productivity previously. And we've talked about habits before, David and James Clear, identity-based habits versus outcome-based habits. And it occurs to me that productivity, typically we associate that with work. And that tends to be

something that has a deadline, something that we have to produce by a certain time. Whereas when we play, we don't have that looming deadline and we're able to just focus on the thing. Like when I pick up my guitar to play it because I need a break from writing, with writing, I've got so many words I need to write or an article that's going to be published. But when I pick up the guitar to play it, it's not so that I have a song written by the end of the day. And I wonder if just recognizing that those deadlines and those outcomes that we pick for ourselves, that that kind of imposes the pressure typically associated with work. And maybe we can flip that on its head and just enjoy the process and then whatever

comes from it, comes from it. Yeah. So so one of the habits that I think winds up being very helpful, let's say with something that has a due date, is to start something as soon as it's assigned. Just try to be mindful of the procrastination that might go with it, but the moment it's assigned, and then set up a repeating schedule, so maybe daily or twice a day or once or whatever to just come back and, and, and be with that thing. And when you do that, you give yourself the longest possible period of time, uh, between when it's assigned and when it's due gives you the most control. And as a result of that, that playful spirit tends to have more of a welcome area to show up, you know, so, so you can try to hopefully bring together that playful mindset with those things that are, that are

otherwise not associated with play. Yeah, and this, this gets at something that you mentioned in the course, when your piano teacher you mentioned told you just touch the keys every day. So if you start that earlier, you're going to learn the piece anyways but then it eliminates the pressure to i have to memorize or i have to practice this section of this piece today you just have to show up yes yes yes absolutely yeah no matter how if you've got a fever if you've got tons of homework just just touch the keys at the very least every day and it's a magical thing i think it makes a big difference and then if you start something way early especially if you got this dude i've started thing i've finished things like oftentimes i finish things way in advance of a due date to the degree that i'm like

i don't want to turn this thing in because they're going to know that i have more time yeah and i'm speaking later this year and it's january and now i have a repeating task and omni-focus to right now just a mind map and but every two days it shows up and and most days i spend a little time in there and i check it off and it shows up two days again if i'm on a day that's particularly busy i'll just forward it one more day and then I'll see it the next day. So, I mean, but having that, that little tickler to remind me to step into it, uh, this thing will be ready, you know, and I'm not going to be prepping slides the night before I get on an airplane. It gives you such a better sense. Yeah. So like if, if it's going to take a lot longer than you thought, then you you're in a much better position, you know, two weeks in advance to let whoever know, look, this is going to take a while. Or it gives you a way to adjust and say, okay,

it's not going to have a certain something that I wanted it to have. Or, hey, it looks like I'm right on time. This is going to go great. Something that you said earlier in the show that just kind of clicked for me is that it is interesting because I don't look at this speaking engagement as something I'm procrastinating or something I'm dreading the work for. It's something I just, it's just part of my routine. And there is, just like you said earlier, I didn't realize I was doing this to myself, but the act of seeing it show up on the list and making the conscious decision to work

on it or to not work on it, it defangs the whole process. Totally. Totally. Yeah, you've got it also as part of the routine. So I imagine that once this is done, maybe something else will come into that slot. And then it becomes a part of the, you know, you have like this general routine of getting your work, you know, getting ahead of your work so that the whole thing is defanged. You're right.

I do think, though, that really also gets to this overwhelm problem that we hear from so many people about. The fact is, there is no magic cure for overwhelm. I mean, you definitely should say no more. We'll talk about that more probably later in the show. But even if you say no a lot you're still going to have a sense of overwhelm and i think that the answer is just like kourosh was talking about pick you know pick your battles you can choose to be overwhelmed or

you can choose to pick the the pieces of it that you want to, to handle and handle those and just put everything else off. And you just gotta be smart about that. Yeah. Yeah. It takes, um, I'm might be that I'm, uh,

uh, spoiled biased or something in that I have a private practice and I've had that for, uh, um, however many years now, what are we 2020 now? Right. So, uh, I guess about, uh, uh, 13 years, 14 years. And, um, so I can, I can call certain shots in terms

of when I see people, when I don't and how I can schedule things. And a lot of people are in positions where they just have to do what they're assigned and things will be more than they can do. where they just have to do what they're assigned and things will be more than they can do. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't run into situations where I have to say no, draw lines, say, okay, this isn't going to work, this will, whatever. I actually have to do it in more, like I actually have to draw many more micro lines, if you will. And in that sense, when you see an opportunity, when you see a place that you're going to have to say no, when you're having, when you're overwhelmed, let's say you write everything down that's on your mind, every, you know, let's say you go through the inbox

process of just, okay, here's all the stuff I got to do and then sort it out and realize, yeah, I don't have this time. Then you have to start picking and choosing and being able to, um, um, um, renegotiate things. You have to be able to call people. You have to start picking and choosing and being able to um um renegotiate things you have to be able to call people you have to be able to email people you have to be able to disappoint people that's where the um emotional aspect comes into play because they're saying no is not just saying no saying Saying no is asserting personhood. It's asserting independence. It's not being the thing somebody else wanted you to be.

And all of the feelings that come with all of those things and more. So it's such a major practice. Yeah, you're talking about micro lines and disappointing people and making those choices. You also talk in the course about this idea of being hyper-connected. And I think there's definitely a connection there. So how do you personally fight that urge to be hyper-connected? Oh, yeah, sure. So yeah, the way I describe hyper-connected is mainly in terms of, yeah, the communication lines, you know, whether it's, you know, email, Twitter, phone calls, and all the rest of that. For example, with the phone, like a simple example is with notifications,

just turning them all off and turning them on one by one, whichever ones you want, you know, that's one sort of thing. With the phone. I have a very clear outgoing message that says, um, you know, I check my messages until about this time afterwards, if you need to reach me, um, there's an urgent line you can reach me on and I'll, you know, um, and, uh, but otherwise leave the message here. So I leave these sorts of, um, lines and then portals to reach me if, if there's, um, um, uh, uh, you know, urgency, uh, needed then. Um, but in terms of myself, um, for example, I do have a certain habit of checking Reddit every once in a while, which is wonderfully jokingly, but accurately a procrastination world. Um, and, um, how do I deal with that? I, well, I,

that's a constant struggle. I've tried deleting it. I've tried moving it off the page. I've tried doing this, that, and the other, just say, I'm never going to look at it again. And no, I still look at it. Um, fact of the matter is, um, I've realized that, uh, I get some of my news that way. I'm entertained by it. And, um And at the same time, I am still able to get all the other things done. And I have a way of saying to myself, look, I've got things on my list. I've got, let's say, four or five things left today to do. And really acknowledging is now a time to do this or not. Is now a time to do this or not?

So in that sense, one has to tread the line, or I have to tread the line, of asking myself, am I procrastinating or am I entertaining myself for these two minutes while the pizza's heating in the microwave? I don't know if I fully answered your question in some solid way, but... I guess the answer is it's hard. It's hard. Yeah. Thank you. Yes, it's hard it's hard yeah thank you yes it's hard absolutely i well i try to game that to a certain extent like things like reddit or video game or

something it's like hey you know what if i move the needle x hours today if i you know if i finish the day with a solid ending to the day with the shutdown and planning of the next day then i then i can reward myself i can do some brain dead stuff in reddit or you earned it video games or whatever and then i kind of try to use it to motivate myself but the trick to that is you got to be honest with yourself and the days that you don't move the needle or the days you don't you know hit whatever it is in your mind you thought you needed, then don't do it. You know, and, uh, no, I, I, I suppose I do similarly. I think, you know, if it, if, you know, it looks like there's a growing backlog on my today list,

it's, it's not time to do, I can't do it. So I know I can't do it. Yeah. And, um, you know, if, yeah, I managed to make it to the end of the day and get through everything and, um, you know, Hey, time to, to, to play a game. Um, or, you know, if, yeah, I managed to make it to the end of the day and get through everything and, you know, hey, time to play a game. Yeah, absolutely. I also like the idea of you mentioned the emergency number and basically the ways that people can contact you if it's really urgent, but not just leaving the door open. but not just leaving the door open. By asking people to clarify whether their thing actually is urgent, I assume that reduces the amount of phone calls that you would get if you just had your phone number up there and people could call you. So I like the idea of putting those barriers

in place, even if all you're doing is adding an additional step and people can still reach you, even if all you're doing is adding an additional step and people can still reach you, adding that additional step, I'm sure, reduces the number of inputs that you, or distractions, potential distractions that could take your focus off of what you want it to be. And it's probably different for everybody. Not everybody's got a practice. But I think it's worth considering, is where can you put those additional barriers to the interruptions and distractions in your own workflow? Absolutely. No, I think that's, people, you know, when you give them the option and saying, look, this is, it's not an open door policy. You've got to knock, you know, and please know I'm in the middle of something.

But then they judge it. You know, they can have their own decision. Yes, okay, I can, yes, now is an important time to knock. And when they do, I welcome them in and hear what they have to say. And yes, okay, that was very, I'm glad you contacted me. Or if it didn't seem like it was something, I might say, look, you know, this is something that may have waited, uh, maybe next time, if you don't mind, I'll just leave a message. I'll get back to it the next morning or something. And you just have that conversation and, and it becomes, um, you know, a part of the, um,

relationship, if you will, uh, to, to say, okay, where can I, um, how can I be reliable to you? Because, you know, if, if, if you have this sort of overwhelmed situation where you're constantly hyper-connected, um, it can, it's not only about, um, your own inability to function, you get, at least I get, I get resentful or angry or upset or something. I don't want to be that. I don't want to feel that way. I don't want to, I don't think I'll be helpful to people in that case. I want to be able to fully be present and feel like, yes, this is something that I want my attention on,

and let's do this together. Yep. And when you feel resentful or angry, typically the person that you are resentful or angry towards, it's not really their fault. They just happen to be are resentful or angry towards, it's not really their fault. They just happen to be the victim, the straw that broke the camel's back, and the person in front of you when you've taken all you can take and you can't take no more. Sure. Yeah. That's not cool. When I'm in trial, I have a response I send out when clients email me. It says, basically, I'm in trial. When I'm in trial, I give my clients all of my attention. And right now I'm in trial for somebody someday.

If you're in trial, you will have all of my attention. But right now I have to focus on this, you know, and, uh, and that, that was really a good kind of auto response because it, it let people know it's like, okay, I care about you too, but right now i don't have time and um and i never got negative feedback to that i like that so you say you say one day when you're you know if you are in this situation i will i will give you that same sort of um attention yeah it's tough though it's tough and uh even just like you you said notifications what a great you

know what a great starting place for anybody to try and take control of this stuff yeah i'll leave my uh for example you know messages um i leave the uh the sound off you know so you know take off like the where you get to choose what sound you want for your messages i just have it none yeah and um and i know there are a lot of people who are not happy with that but that also establishes a certain um you know relationship uh also the type of messages or information i get through there um you know i'm very clear about you know i'll tell clients for instance if you want to reach me the way to reach me is through the phone you know i don't do uh texts generally or i don't do email

you know things like just and then that phone gives all the information about what's the best way for me to discuss things or not because i want to be fully present in the discussion when it's time to have a discussion this episode of focused is brought to you by ExpressVPN, the high-speed, secure, and anonymous VPN service. Get three months for free with a one-year package. Just head over to expressvpn.com slash focused. Gang, I want to talk about VPN services. There's a ton of them out there, but ExpressVPN is special. You want a VPN service that you can feel confident in and you can trust.

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I've tried a bunch of VPN services. I got a free trial to ExpressVPN because they sponsored the show. But when I was done, I subscribed because I really like it. I travel a lot. I do client work sometimes on strange Wi-Fi, and I want ExpressVPN to watch my back. It's easy to use, gives me peace of mind, and it gets the job done. Maybe you think you don't need a VPN service. Everybody now needs a VPN service, and you should do it with ExpressVPN. So protect yourself today. Go to this link right now, expressvpn.com slash focused,

F-O-C-U-S-E-D, and get an extra three months free with a one-year package. Once again, that's expressvpn.com slash focused. Now to learn more, start protecting yourself with a VPN service you can rely on, ExpressVPN. Let's talk a little bit about saying no. I mean, you've been talking about how you manage things. How often do you face the struggle of no? Every 10 minutes. I was hoping you'd say that. Yeah, me too. My goodness. I mean, a lot of it's to myself. I mean, I've got, you know, I want to do other projects, write things that my video game list right now is absurdly long. You know, it's it's like how many like games go on sale. Yeah, probably. And like and I think somebody once described books uh when you buy a book um you buy not only the book you buy the fantasy of time to read it um and uh so so often um i'm i'm uh caught up and like well if i start this what what do i get to do uh what else what else am i not

going to do um which is far too many things. I have a huge filter for television programming. Like everybody says, Oh, you love this show. My first question is always, well, how many, you know, how many hours is this show? You know, is it one of those American shows where they have 28 episodes? I can't even, maybe I would love it, but there's no way I can watch it. So it's like I try to put that no filter in very early on media. Yeah.

That's a good idea. I'm like not, not to start the, not to start the, uh, the show and then realize later, cause now you're, now you're wondering what's going to happen with everybody. Yeah. I think the, the struggle of no is, is a never ending battle. It's, it's something that you have good days and you have bad days with it. But it's also not the only piece of all of this. Yeah.

No, it's part of it. Wasn't, I think Merlin Mann once said something like, renegotiation is the ultimate master skill, productivity skill, something like that. I can't remember exactly. Sounds like something you'd say, yeah. Yeah, that once you're – sometimes you don't realize you could have or should have said no to something because it's now taking up a certain sort of psychic real estate that you hadn't anticipated. And you have to be able to now, um, manage it afterwards.

And that's, uh, like, I don't know if that's like a subset of the word. No. Um, it's, it's like a no after the fact. Um, but it's, it's something like, oh, is that what this is all about? And, um, and you have to work on, on those on those happiness as well. Like if I start writing something and I thought it was an article and now it's a book, okay, now what do I do? I have to decide. What's your process like for those moments when you say yes to something and then it ends up being a whole different animal and you have to renegotiate, what does that look like for you?

Well, if it's with somebody else, then I have to be able to very clearly say, I thought this was something different in whatever way that comes across. And I have to do that early. Something that can be all too easy is kind of say, ah, maybe it'll get better. Ah, maybe I won't have to say anything i think that's too problematic because then often things just keep snowballing so i've realized um that as soon as you realize that something is bigger than you think it might might have might be what i'll say is look i think this is bigger than i think it was and then i'll give myself myself, let's say, a week or two or some time frame. And I'll say, how would you feel about if I gave this another week or two? I'll keep giving, seeing where I can get with this.

And if it seems like this isn't going to get to where it should be by the time that deadline is there, then will that give you enough time to figure something else out? then will that give you enough time to figure something else out? So in that way, I invite the other person to the discussion, because it becomes this realization that the resource of time is limited, and we are going to discuss the fact that time is limited. I think too often we have this sort of societal unspoken idea, maybe I'm making this up, but that time is somehow unlimited. Oh, you can do that. You'll find a way. You know, just go for it.

I can squeeze one more thing in. Right. And we do that even with good things. Like, oh, yeah, start exercising. Yeah, okay, fine. You know, what am I going to do? Yeah. So, you know, I do some, but I can always do more.

And it reminds me of an unrelated sort of joke, which is, what's the best exercise? It's the one you're not doing. Anyway. But, you know, on that point, though, there's something very interesting, because I've observed this with people, too. Like, people will not double book their calendar like i will not plan on going to mike's birthday party and kurosh's um game of thrones viewing party at the same time because that would be crazy right you don't you don't put yourself in two places at one time but we do that with project commitments to the nines i I don't understand, but it seems like an issue where

it's so clear on one level, but we break the rule every day. And I think that's so often true. Myself included. I mean, I try not to, but I still do it. A written task is so, it occupies the same amount of screen real estate or paper real estate. You know, one says buy milk and the other one says write book. And it's, there are two vastly different worlds being described in the same amount of, of, of space. And, and I think there's a part of us that just doesn't recognize that. We have to actively look through our list and think, what would this genuinely look like even just for today? We have a hard enough time with that. Kourosh, you wrote a very good book on OmniFocus.

I did a video series. Mike has always been both at Asian Efficiency and now over at Sweet Setup. You're writing about productivity every day. I'll tell you, once a week, I have a text expander snippet to respond to this email I get. And I'm sure you've seen it as well. It's like, thank you for the course on OmniFocus. Unfortunately, the app no longer works for me.

It has 10,000 tasks in it and the app doesn't work. And my response is, no, the app is working fine. You're the problem. We've diagnosed the problem, and it's somewhere between the chair and the keyboard. Just because a task program can hold 10,000 tasks doesn't mean you should be putting 10,000 tasks in a task program. It means your filters are turned off,

and you have buried yourself. Now you have to dig out. The hope is that I can see where a person gets into that. The idea is that you add things to the inbox and that it's now off your mind. But the problem is you've missed that honest component of it. You've missed the part where it's like, is this honestly off of my mind? missed the part where it's like, is this honestly off of my mind? The only way that's the case is if you've put it in a list or in a place or in something where you genuinely feel that it can be seen when and where it needs to be seen and done. So you have to genuinely feel, yeah, this is not

going to be on some overburdened list. And if you don't feel that, well, now you have to do something about that. So it's, it's, um, that process is, is an ongoing process. And, um, and it's the reason why you have to clean the inbox very regularly. Uh, otherwise the whole thing just collapses. Yeah. I've always given the advice that, you know, put anything in the inbox that comes to mind. You know, flush your brain out, put it in there, and then later go through it and consider it if it's worthy or not. And I wonder if that's a disservice. Sometimes I wonder if people should be applying the filter before they even put it in the inbox. I think a lot of people have trouble once they commit it to digital or written ink.

It's like they have a certain degree of ownership in it. And, uh, you know, the, what's the same kill your babies. I, the stuff that goes in my inbox, I would say at least a third of it never makes it into a project. I don't think it's a disservice. I think it's, it's, it's a two part question. I think it's, it's how often are you going to check your inbox or how often, you know, can you develop this habit of processing your inbox? And if you can do that, that'll dictate how often you can or what you can throw in there. So if, for example, you, I, if I'm like, for example, I'm writing, you know, if I'm writing something, I often will have, you know, 10 different ideas about what to write in addition, and also other stuff that's going on. And if I have it fully in my mind that I will go back after the session is done to process the inbox, I have no problem just throwing, you know,

whatever in there. And I'll come back to it, and suddenly it goes from zero to 20 things in there. That's okay. I know those 20 things pretty well and I can file them very quickly because they're all fresh, which is very different than if I never go to it and I have 20 things that are all very different from each other and I've forgotten half of what they mean and then it's a mess. I think this applies to projects too, though, not just tasks. And you mentioned earlier that you've got three things that you're working on. And if you want to work on something else, then you have to pick one of those three to put on pause. So how do you fight the urge to say, well, this thing maybe took is taking a little bit longer than I thought it was going to. It's bigger than I initially thought it was, but that's okay. I can squeeze it in alongside these other things that I wanted to be working on by now. Yeah. I won't say I've never done that. I have occasionally done that where I'll say, okay, here's a fourth thing very, very briefly. But, um, usually I'll, I'd say that's about one or 2% of the time. Um, One of the things that helps is that I might,

um, so I'll, I'll have, uh, uh, a separate project that I set to a particular, uh, defer date to a date to show up on my list, um, where I'll say, uh, consider starting such and such on this day. So let's say, uh, work on taxes, for example, let's say I'm working on three things right now. And I really want to start working on the taxes to get them done. I might say, consider start working on taxes by Friday, you know, put that on there. Uh, and then it'll show up on my list on Friday. Meanwhile, those three things that I'm looking at right now, um, working on, I'm anticipating that one of them will be done by Friday. So in that way, it's not just squeeze things in. It's about trying to incorporate time into my decisions. time into my decisions. Uh, and then if Friday comes along and I still haven't finished, um, those, uh, those three things, it's time for me to again, reevaluate, well, I'm that much closer to when taxes are due. And, um, I might have to put one of these things aside, or maybe it's, I can,

you know, kick the can another couple of days. Um, and, uh, but I have to do it with these things in mind. So that sounds like a bad idea in that, that kick, kick the can idea. But what happens actually is that as that's going on, nothing else is getting in there. So if I do happen to finish something, it's not like I'm going to look at my parks list and going, ah, now I get to do that. I've got this firmly in mind that this thing is going to be showing up next. I think that's brilliant, to be honest. To give yourself permission to say, no, I don't want to do this thing right now. I know I've fallen into that trap where I've got these projects, I put them in my task management system, and you mentioned defer

dates. That's one of the reasons I like OmniFocus is the fact that they have those defer start dates as opposed to just an arbitrary due date for when this thing is due. But you put a project in your task management system, you've got a date now that it's showing up and you physically can't get to it right now. So what happens? It shows up as overdue. And then you're like, oh, I guess I'm not as good at this task management stuff as I thought I was. So just framing it as consider, I love that because you don't have to spend any time working on your taxes yet. You just have to make a yes-no decision about whether that's something that you want to do. Absolutely. Yeah. Consider is a word that I'll use quite often because it is just,

you want to be able to make the decision at that point, which is, I think, where a lot of task systems fall apart is when you don't realize that the next action is actually the decision to do something. It can also be abused, but I think it is very useful. Yeah, I think I've got that trick out of your book, one of the first versions of it. And I still use it all the time. Just the other day, I won a new bicycle helmet, and I stumbled onto a website with some that I like. But I wasn't in a spot where I could stop and do the half hour deep dive on bicycle helmets, you know? So you save the link and say,

consider a new helmet and it goes in. And at some point you can just pick that up, that thread up where you left off, but not right now. You can get back to your, your, your moving the needle tasks. And it's's it's a wonderful trick and i think it's the perfect word i like it too um yeah no it's it's and in fact the bicycle helmet i'm thinking there might be a time where i might put that into that same parked area and then at some point i might decide that's a move the needle sort of thing for me yeah you know that if you want to spend an hour you know researching which maybe it would take you know maybe even more why not put

it in there and then you know work on it and then and then uh complete it and maybe have it come again the next day and then you know keep working on it until you feel like yes i think i know what the bicycle helmet is that i want yeah and the angle for me on that as of late is, is using, is combining it with block scheduling. When you've got a task management system that can surface those things for you, then you actually build time for it. And for the, the advantage for me is that then I don't worry about the other stuff that's not getting done because this is the time I've blocked to this problem. And now I will work on this problem. And it's, it's very liberating just in, in my head, at least. Actually, as you mentioned, like, uh, that, uh, box scheduling, hyper schedule, all that sort of, it reminds me

there's another aspect that I think is important. There's a certain rhythm to work. Like if you have like, so for example, I have clients that I see, uh, throughout the week. And so as know, over Christmas break or something, and I just have nothing scheduled. I noticed that some, my piano practice, for example, it gets to be less. I don't practice as often, um, uh, or I don't practice as much. I mean, I still do it every day, but it winds up being like five minutes instead of half an hour. So it's, there's something about that. I think scheduling that also helps the things that aren't scheduled to. with a unique domain, award-winning templates, and more. No matter what's your creative project, whether you want to create an online store,

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off your first purchase of a website or domain and to show your support for this show. Once again, that's squarespace.com slash FOCUSED and the code FOCUSED to get 10% off your first purchase. We thank Squarespace for their support of FOCUSED and all of RelayFM. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website. So on the topic of block scheduling, you have an interesting rhythm to how you schedule things in the course where you talk about the difference between the work and the pause sessions. Do you mind unpacking that a little bit? that thing that makes it work. And when you're working, when you're sitting with a piece of work, then often you'll be hit by ideas, things that are related to work, things that aren't.

You'll be frustrated. You can feel negatively about it, want to throw the laptop across the room or whatever. You can feel negatively about it, want to throw the laptop across the room or whatever. Too often, I think, there's this sort of, especially if there's a deadline right there looming in front of you, we work with this feeling of we've got to push, push, push. can especially start early you get the um um luxury of being able to pause and just space out to allow your thoughts to settle and um as a result of that you can you wind up usually finding neat ideas different paths to um develop things uh know, whether you're, you know, if I'm writing something, let's say I was, while I was designing the being productive course, I might suddenly realize, oh, you know what, there's this other thing that needs

to happen before, or this thing that happens later. And rather than be frustrated by that and think this is never going to get done. Um, being able to just let myself, my mind wander, um, I could just write those down and I'll come back to it. I'll, I'll get there sometime. And, and, uh, uh, that encourages, I think that that playful mindset in, in the work. So it is a, it is this back and forth flow between work and pausing just letting yourself kind of stare out the window if you will and you incorporate reminders to do that too if i remember correctly well the reminders are there for um so there's a couple places that i introduce reminders in there one is just to try to help a person learn the process of sitting with something so i'll say you know set a reminder for

let's say five minutes just to get a sense of what this is like um but then once you're done with that you don't need that part the second part where it's helpful is when you can set a reminder to begin closing the session instead of when to end the session. And I'll describe that. So, you know, let's say you have an hour to do something. And instead of setting your alert to say, okay, finish at one hour, because now you have to scramble to stop this thing and run off to the next thing. one hour because now you have to scramble to stop this thing and run off to the next thing this is about having in mind how long it would take for you to kind of shut things down put

things away get it off your mind and all that you know maybe set the alert for you know the 45 minute mark instead so when you do that um it does allow you more time to space out and think and not look at the clock and invite that sort of work and pause motion, that playful motion. So in that sense, the timer is there, but it's not a timer in the sense of, let's say, the Pomodoro technique. Exactly, that's what I was thinking of. This is like the anti-Pomodoro. Yeah, it's like you've... Pomodoro is actually very useful, but this is like you've learned what the pauses will do for you,

and now you get to control it yourself. So Pomodoro is work 25 minutes and pause for five minutes. And I've tried that and I've used it before and there's benefit. But this is more like now you know what a pause will do for you. So if you want to pause five minutes in, go ahead. And if you want to pause for a long period of time, go ahead. But stay with the work. Don't leave.

Don't go somewhere else. Don't play a game. Don't do anything else. Don't search Reddit. Don't look at your email. This is still stay with the work. It's just pause and space out if you want, but pause and be there with it. Yeah. The thing with the Pomodoro for me is that it helps you get started, but then you work until the timer goes off. And then the timer is basically, okay, now you stop

everything. And I like the way that you incorporated the reminders because it gives you kind of a natural off ramp. So you don't just stop when you're going 60 miles an hour on the highway, but you can transition much more calmly, I would say, into whatever happens to be coming next, which is very much in line with the calm focus theme that is behind your course. Right. No, that's exactly it. Yeah. That momentum, that motion, I think is very, very accurate. Like if I'm playing the piano and I'm practicing and suddenly this thing goes off and now I got to stop. It doesn't work. It just, it can't, it can't. And I think the same thing works with, with many, um, um, uh, situations. Now, one thing you could argue with the Pomodoro is that once

a person gets that rhythm down, they kind of naturally start to feel when it's time to start winding down from that 25 minutes. I think that that could happen, but, but then there's still that problem of some things take longer to really develop the roots of attention into everything in your life doesn't fit in a 25 minute bucket. In fact, very few do. Um, I, I, I, I set alarms the same way in advance of the next appointment to give myself wind down. And, um, and I've always admired people that can properly finish something, you know, like when you have a task, then you leave notes to yourself for, you know, future self for continuing it and, um, you know, properly document what's happened. And, you know, there, there is some feeling you get when you

successfully do that, that is indescribable. I think it pushes all my anal retainer buttons, but I think it works for everybody. It's a way of bookmarking. It's a way of saving. It's a way of, you know, it's getting it off your mind. Yeah. Which is extremely valuable because I think probably a lot of people,

myself included, in the past have worked in a form where you've got so much time to do something. And at that time, you've got to stop and you've got to go do something else. Maybe it's you've got another appointment. Maybe it's I got to take my kids to piano lessons. But at some point, you know, you've got to stop. And the tendency is to just keep pushing until that time. But whenever you do that, and you're not able to tie up all the loose ends and put things back where they're supposed to be, you tend to, your brain stays there. And you're trying to think

of that one other thing that you were going to write or one other idea you want to add to the document, you're not able to disconnect and focus on the thing that's most important in the moment and be present. So, I mean, it's the reason, David, that we confess we have so much trouble with our shutdown routines, right? Because we want to work until the last possible moment. And if I could make one small contribution to the Kourosh Calm productive canon, it would be when you set time aside for these things set more time away aside than you need to like maybe by a factor of 1.5 or 2 because i think people um first you always underestimate how long it's going to take and second wouldn't it be nice

if you could finish early often that that the average was that you got done early so you could properly finish the project before you move on to the next one so you got done early so you could properly finish the project before you move on to the next one. So you don't feel like you're being like being drugged from one thing to the next until you drop into bed exhausted. And even if it means you take on a few less tasks, then maybe that's a win as well. I agree. I think, yeah, no, often you, I think often we need more time to just let things come to mind about that, about the project that would let you get it off your mind. You have to actively let it come bubble up in order to say, okay, this thing needs to

be set aside this way. And, um, and, and when you do that and it'll, you know, those bubbling ups will slow down to the point that yes, it's off your mind. I'm curious, do you have any, how do you incorporate the development of ideas into your system? You talked about how if you're in the middle of something, you've got the space there where you can pause, you can think about it, you can put it in the right list. But do you actually schedule time to just think more about ideas and see what's all there? Well, let's say I'm writing something like if I'm writing a book or so, I'll have like a specific project that's called thoughts to add. And, um, and, uh, and because of AmiFocus, I can just write

TTA, you know, to throw things into the project and it'll expand to that. So I just throw in an idea and I might have five or six of them and they just kind of sit there and wait for me. And then when I go to actually write, I'll see them waiting for me and I just kind of pull them out one at a time. So there's just this one dedicated spot for those particular thoughts.

I'm working on something else right now where I'm trying to develop a larger set of ideas of a repository for thoughts, like the slipbox or Zettelkasten type of idea. I don't know if it's basically like a... You're familiar with the Zettelkasten type of idea. I don't know if it's basically like a... You're familiar with the Zettelkasten? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like a linking together sort of thing. I'm working on that right now and seeing where that goes. So that's another path.

But, you know, there's... I've tried to consolidate my writings on several occasions, but I find that I just have different places for different types of thought. If I have a thought about meditation, I might add it to a long list of stuff that's in Scrivener, even though Scrivener is usually used for me just to write a book. If it's a blog post, I might put it in something like Ulysses or so, or I might start it off in iWriter or something. I've tried to put it all into one place, and I just find it doesn't work for me like that. I just have my thoughts go in different places.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as they work for you. I think the idea that you have to have one tool to to rule them all is is a silly one i mean there's a lot of great tools out there now and and we are as humans we are very strange and weird creatures and sometimes we need different environments to do different types of work you know once you once you've kind of started exploring and you can i mean i feel like i've i'm pretty settled with the tools I use, but there are, there's so many wonderful ones. Why not just use, if they're not stumbling over each other, I think you're okay. That's,

that's the way I feel about it. Yeah. I agree. And I'm okay with that. Well, Kourosh, I know that you are very busy and thank you for not saying no when we emailed you and asked you to come on the Focus podcast. We appreciate that. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. If anyone would like to look further at some of the stuff Kourosh is doing, you can head over to, I think probably the best website would be KouroshDini, website would be kurashdini k-o-u-r-o-s-h-d-i-n-i.com he's got links there to all the books and the music and the uh the omni focus stuff the productivity stuff you name it it's covered there and um very

nice website as well so um i think that'd be the place to go uh are you active on twitter or any of those other places kurash yeah twitter tends to be the main place. So my handle is KouroshDini. Yeah. So I'd say I check that at least daily. And then you occasionally do the internet music concert, play your piano. I'll confess, I have sat here in my studio

and worked while you've serenaded me. Awesome. It's very nice. And so go check it out. And really, this productivity video course, I think, is really good. I think one of the most common problems people have, thing I kind of was banging on in this episode about was the sense of overwhelm. And I think the concept of calm productivity is the answer to the sense of overwhelm. And we can all get there. Even if you work for somebody that's crazy and gives you too much work, I think there are ways you can help yourself. And I think this is a great place to start with Kourosh's course. Thanks again, guys.

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