Sad Boyz - Overcommitting w/ Charli Marie

Episode Date: July 16, 2018

Today on Sad Boyz we're talking bout overcommitting with design youtuber (and friend of the pod) CharliMarieTV. All of us have a tendency to bite off more work than we can chew, so we try to understand where that comes from and how we can be a little easier on ourselves Find Charli https://www.youtube.com/charlimarietv

Hey there, it's your one and lonely Jarvis coming at you from my room, aka where the magic happens. So we've been gone for a minute. I wanted to give y'all an update on what we've been up to. First, we were at VidCon in Anaheim where we filmed this very episode with the wonderful Charlie Marie. Then a week later, we went to Hawaii with some friends on vacation and just narrowly missed some opportunities to record the show. And then this past week, I got braces and

had a lot of YouTube stuff to do before that, so I fell a little behind on the edit. You can say I may have overcommitted a bit. Sorry. Speaking of overcommitting, that is the topic of today's episode, and it's another video episode, so you can head on over to youtube.com slash sadboyspod to catch us live and in person, except it's neither live nor in person. Y'all know how videos work. While you're at it, check out my personal YouTube, youtube.com slash Jarvis Johnson, because I put up like three videos in the past week, including the braces story. How do I sound with braces? I still, it's still not quite comfortable to talk.

Anyway, I've rambled for long enough, my dear audio friends. Without further ado, oh, actually, I wanted to, no, I'm just kidding. Sad Boys 28 on overcommitting with Charlie Marie. Enjoy. Welcome to Sad Boys, a podcast about feelings and other things also. I'm Jarvis. And I'm Jordan. Brush that dirt off your shoulder coat. Are you Jay-Z now? Yeah.

I'm excited about the new record. It's good. I'm celebrating. We're joined by a guest today, Charlie Marie. That's me. Whoa, it rhymed. Holy shit. Okay, episode's peaked.

Stop watching now. We've made it. This has been the Sad Boys. Thanks for joining us. We tend every episode with a particular phrase. Yeah, we'll see you next week where we talk to no one because apparently we don't have guests anymore because we've peaked.

We're perfect. Charlie Marie, you join us here in anaheim on this bed on on the customary sad boys bed i've said it before and i'll say it again the best episodes of sad boys are recorded in a shared hotel bed absolutely correct and the very first which many other people say is where we peaked it's episode one um mostly me that's where i say we peaked yeah um charlie is joining us today to talk about over committing taking on too much work now charlie you do a lot of different things yeah one could say that i over commit yeah i mean give yourself a little you wouldn't to clarify

she would never say that in case her managers are watching i would say that i'm fine and i've perfectly bitten off as much as i can chew but any professional would say that i have over committed um so so charlie i i can't think of you in any way other than like a multi-hyphenate you're a designer um you are a youtuber you i feel like design is such a broad term but you like within design you're like doing print stuff you're doing digital stuff you're you've made do you still have a t-shirt company yeah i do i i don't talk about it much anymore but that is still a thing yeah i i remember things um i it's a real knock to your self-esteem when somebody has things on the back burner that dramatically outclass anything you've worked your life at right

right just a casual t-shirt company. And you're the CEO of Google, like just on the side. You know, I don't often talk about that. That's every other Sunday. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Just, just got to put in the work, you know, the old ball and chain in trillions of dollars. Are we missing anything from that multi-hyphenate? I also have a podcast. Oh, right.

Podcaster. Design life. Oh, let's have one thing, Charlie. Jesus Christ. All right. Well, I'll leave

you just do the show oh you're really committing to this bit huh we're over committing to this bit oh we've had some good segues today

you have a podcast I have a podcast it's about design also what's it called it's called design life very like unique name. Straightforward.

Well, we thought we wanted to talk about life as designers. I'm not seeing the connection. So I'm seeing a very, very simple mood board. Two words. How do we get them to life design? No, no, no. You were life design for the first 500 episodes. Then we were like, like wait it makes better

sense if we swap it around right right it does take time to you know iterate you were boys sad to start with right we were boys boys comma interrupted there's actually there's gonna be a podcast somewhere with 5 000 episodes and we finally turned that around literally and figuratively into the sad boys so we'll be talking about overcommitting. But first, Charlie, how's your week? Week has been busy. VidCon is a thing that I'm sure you've talked about in past episodes of this podcast. Yeah, we are at VidCon.

We're in Anaheim. We're in a hotel room in the Hyatt Convention Center, which is where VidCon folks primarily are staying. Yeah. So there's tons of... We were in the elevator with David Dobrik when we came up and made fools of ourselves by accident. And he didn't recognize us, which seems weird. Rude.

And then Brigand, who was on the previous episode, worked on the streamies with David Dobrik, and he's like, he doesn't recognize me. It's just like, yeah, this is a serious event. We should say, one of my oh I have a follow up question for you okay for both of you actually

because you both you YouTube correct YouTubers you're tubing kind of myself is it okay fine so right outside of

the Hyatt Hotel which as you mentioned is where all of the creative talent that are attending VidCon are staying the security you can only get in

if you are industry or creative talent there is a little grassy knoll not unlike the right not unlike the jfk assassination right um and the half of yoswald's there but in addition there is a big collection of like 13 year old kids a big that's an interesting way to group them a big collection sorry a murder of 13 year olds i opened my pokedex and i saw there was a large collection of 13 year olds I remember when there were only 151 13 year olds yeah god knows how many, 900?

one of them's made of trash but yeah there's a bunch of them out there, have any of those 13 year olds shouted at you? they're all there to spot talent no when I was coming to this hotel because Charlie and I are actually staying in an Airbnb that's a bit away from here.

Pretty close, but just enough to get out of the hustle and bustle of things. My Uber driver was like, oh, they're all here to see you as a bit. But he committed really hard to the bit. So as I'm getting out of the car, he's like, he's here, ladies. And I'm like, why are you doing this? And then he continues to commit as I walk past his car. And he's like, they're happy to see you. And I'm like, why are you doing this? And then he continues to commit as I walk past his car and he's like, they're happy to see you. And I'm like, drive away.

There's another person for you to embarrass. He drove into the lobby to continue this line with a wig on and started going, he just drives through the window. Flying car. We were on the sixth floor, but yeah, VidCon. So, you know, it's busy busy but how is your vidcon going now you are working while also vidconning yes i did not take vacation for vidcon because we have a big conference coming up at the company i work for next week so that meant that

there was a lot to do so basically i was getting up early and working till like 3 p.m ish on the thursday and friday and then coming to do VidCon. So hence over committing as a topic. Yeah. Was that part of the motivation for that topic? Yeah. I think I messaged Jarvis because I was like, we were talking about VidCon and our plans for the week. And it's funny because, yeah, I think we both have the, I mean, even this very action right now could be seen as overcommitting.

We could be enjoying the convention. Or like having a nap or something. Or having a nap, which is something that Jordan likes to say that he wants to do, but is never actually functionally done. Yeah, I'm also working full time while I'm here because, again, work for Patreon. The work that I do doesn't really stop ever. I can stop doing it, but the creators don't stop talking to me so I've been working my entire time here and obviously this is a major work opportunity for business development

so I'm taking a lot of meetings, doing a lot of stuff sending a lot of emails I finished the three day work grind about 25 minutes before we did our first episode of Sad Boys and the nice thing is which to me indicates that I love this show and I like doing it,

is that it wasn't really a question. It wasn't like, normally I would rather watch 90 Day Fiancé than do anything else in the world. In this particular occasion, I put it on pause. Yeah. No, I think, I really think about overcommitting a lot

because I'm someone who doesn't want to say no to any opportunities. And I currently am in a situation where I produce and i'm talent on this podcast i like do my youtube channel i have my old my own job and your old own job my old own job a stupid old job and then i find myself like doing things that going out of my way to like like i take all those things very seriously also and i find myself in situations where like you know jordan's job involves him traveling for meetings and stuff and so me sort

of in a weird mix of work and play will like fly to the place that jordan is in order to like get in the sad boys episode but then maybe maybe i can help out at a meeting or i could be helpful like in a work context and it's like this isn't in my job description but it's also you know not required of me for like personal stuff either so I somehow found my but I have somehow found myself in that situation so how do we get there um Jordan how has your week been it's it's nice I like the vibe of VidCon I haven't seen very much of it I got to go on the show floor once, and that was for a different meeting, and I came straight back to the hotel.

There's something nice about ambient bustling. It's nice to know that lots of people are having fun and that there are exciting conversations happening, and the fanboy in me enjoys the occasional peripheral vision of a Hannah Hart, you know? But at the same time, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have the temptation to just bump my flight up yesterday. I'm glad that I didn't.

We have the Patreon throwing a party tonight, which is the main reason I stuck around. But in the meantime, I met with a bunch of really exciting people, and I'm glad that I did. But also you're tired. I'm an introvert at my base. Same. Even staying in a hotel room for me even by myself does not serve as downtime it serves as i always feel like i'm performing in my hotel room i'm like oh this is how a normal human would use a towel now you're at home i like to lick it and throw

it on the ground and then like walk around nude throw my cat in the washer like i'm just a garbage person and that's important i have to be trashed for long periods of time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I honestly, like, let's just jump into the topic. I identify with that so much. So how do we even define overcommitting? Because it's in the name, right? It's like committing is a thing you can do. And then overcommitting, that's too much. But how do you define what too much is?

I think sometimes you don't know it until you're already like until it's too late right yeah that's that's what i find anyway although lately i feel like i've been noticing some things that i say yes to i'm like really should i be doing that yeah i like have the moment of questioning and i still try and do it yeah but yeah it's when it's too much you know you're committing too many things you can't be a sane human and get all this done something's got to give usually it's your sanity or like your mental health or something it's like my thing that's given is that i've eaten kind of like shit and i haven't worked out as much as i would like and so that's like what's that's what's fallen by the way those are the else yeah maintenance the L, really. Personal maintenance and general

keeping yourself at a neutral standard of living is the first thing to go. For example, on Thursday night, completely burned out from the first full day of VidCon, I decided to relax by editing my podcast till 4am. That was my little treat and I did not intend to, but

I think the issue, quite honestly, is when you do something that you love yeah and there are other things that you love that require just as much commitment and just as much grind it's not unlike having kids and a job because you're like well i do my job because i have to there's no question i have to make my money i have to be stable right i also want to do this thing that doesn't pay me but i love it so much that i have to spend time with it i want to be a good dad to my dnd podcast and as a result i end up spending many many hours of quality time with it right thus compromising my life to drop it off at school i have to drop it

off at school i print out the scripts i just put it in a school yes and then you just go up to back to the school and kids are now acting out your script which is an honor frankly i find a lot of great acting talent in that room uh how much of over committing do you feel is the result of chronic fomo and one thing i want to clarify about fomo i think so often it gets associated with like petty petulant for like right i wish i was there but it can i wish i was at chipotle right now by the way which is what i actually used to have fun about in high school my friends my okay okay so so when i was in high school i didn't have i still don't have a driver's license and so and i lived in a town where you kind of needed to drive around and so i would have friends pick me up and um it wouldn't take you to chipotle well okay i would have to have friends pick me up or i would have to have like my aunt take me somewhere in her car. And so what would happen sometimes is I wouldn't be able to like go to things because my aunt would just like say no or something.

She's going to Chipotle. Yeah, yeah. A different one. Yeah. And what would end up happening is I would see photos on Facebook of like my friends going to Chipotle. And I would feel like, wow, like it looks like I'm missing out on so much. And I still like feel like I, like I feel bad about those times, but I know for a fact I wasn't missing out on shit, you know?

I think the grilled chicken's pretty good. Yeah. But mostly the interpersonal dynamic. That's what I was thinking about. But also the rice. In that order. Chicken, interpersonal connections and an ability to connect with other human beings. Rice. Rice. Yeah. Spanish rice. Yeah, Spanish spanish rice how about you charlie i don't know i don't think it is about fomo for me like you just said you're an introvert i am too so i can be quite happily go days without

seeing other people apart from my partner mark that i live with and be fine with that for me it's about wanting to help people and wanting to like be good at what i'm doing so i always over commit at work like just within my job yeah because i'm like this person needs this and i'm like oh i know how to make that great like this is like the thing i can do let me help with that fomo of opportunities yeah maybe that's it yeah and also fear that something will be bad if i don't insert myself into it right Right, right, right. There's a lot to unpack there. But I guess my answer to your question, Jordan, is like, for me, what drives me is like being far away from a goal. Like if I'm distant from a goal, I'm like falling over myself trying to do everything I can possibly do to reach that goal at any moment. So

If I'm I don't know trying to start a YouTube channel It's like I need to like do the things and they need to like do the art I need to do these tutorials and I need to buy this equipment It's like I'm just like everything I need to do or first time when I was playing Hearthstone the video game It was I was like constantly like watching people play the game I was constantly playing the game myself because I wasn't reaching the level that I wanted to get at. And I was just like spending all of my time investing in stuff, investing my time in stuff that I thought would help me get there. So I have two questions, one of which is related to something that Charlie said.

And we can start with that. And then the other one is not because that's how i set that up uh so so first so first charlie uh you said that sometimes you're afraid that if you don't have a hand in something then it's going to be bad do you think that your over committing has to do with like instead of a fear of missing out a fear of like relinquishing control yeah that's probably part of it yeah for sure i like to i find it hard to let go of things and to not do things like with my youtube channel for example i could probably hire an editor by now yeah but yet i still edit my own videos apart from the odd vlog that i get my sister to edit but right yeah it's having control over those things and also just knowing that i think i'd rather myself have the burden and like the

suffering than make someone else do it yeah so we're a very small company convert kit where i work there's only three designers on the team and i know that they're both slammed as well and so i'm like well i'll just take this on i won't ask them to try and fit it in you know yeah i think i also take one for the team a lot how about you jordan like what do you think your desire to overcommit or your instinct to overcommit? I'm ready to delegate difficult things to other people as soon as possible. I really don't want to make anybody else's life easier. The main reason I would do anything is my own opportunities.

If I can inconvenience somebody in the process, it's all the better. Positivity and happiness is a zero-sum game. When other people are happy, that's less happy for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a rare moment of truth for you we're getting a we're getting a peel behind the curtain um i don't know where does it come from yeah for you or where do you where do you see it coming from i think your hearthstone example's an interesting one because often when i find something that i'm legitimately passionate about even at its peak even at my most excited, it happens in waves.

My number one flaw, I will very openly say, is lack of consistency. That affects my job, my interpersonal relationships, my exercise, everything. I'm so good at doing something very well 50% of the time. And frankly, in many aspects of my life, it would be better to do it 50% worse 100% of the time. That would actually be fine. Sometimes I overcommit in the quality of things that I put out or bursts that aren't convenient for anybody else.

Now, the main reason for that is honestly kind of unknown. That's just my natural pattern. That's the sine wave that I happen to ride. But the ways I've tried to deal with it and the ways that I want to try and get better at are generally I'll drift towards tasks that I can do unconsciously. And I will commit myself to those tasks without even hesitating. Right, right. Somebody says to me, okay, we need to take X number of additional meetings with creators

in the next two weeks. Yeah. I'm like, okay, great. Meetings with creators is my strong suit. I feel very comfortable getting in a room and getting a nobby yeah yeah set every single one of them up right and then somebody reached out and go hey we organized like a joint party this weekend and you're not going to be here i'm just like oh sorry i didn't even consider that this thing could impact the rest of my life it's just more stuff fill up my workload

fill up my bucket um which is a really unhealthy mindset because for one it makes you seem inconsiderate when well I guess you are being inconsiderate but not in a mean way you're literally not

considering the impact of you taking on lots of small things whereas I can be overly protective of my time when it comes to things that ultimately would be

very positive for me like a vacation is a classic one people invite me on a location invite me on a vacation for a location um and i'll just respond with it's too big i don't care where it is when it is or who it's with that's a big thing yeah and if i commit to that it's going to take up all of my time yeah i kind of liken it to uh if i get home i still watch stranger things season two it's a great uh it's a massive void in my pop culture understanding right i get home every single day and i watch four hours

of youtube videos yeah i can absolutely watch stranger things but i always get home and go do i want to commit myself to one 40 minute episode yeah i'm ready to do that yeah i'm ready to micro commit to a bunch of five minute videos and that's the danger too because so often if you do micro commit to stuff and we can take the creative meeting example out of it just any small any series of hour-long commitments right bulk your life up with chances are the thing you're going to walk away with from those one hour meet or one hour things is not going to be nearly as valuable as that right one big 10 hour thing yeah and i think it's really important to learn the skill of chunking the 10-hour thing into one-hour things so that you can do it. Because I think, at least in my experience, and this has been studied, but the reason that it's more attractive to watch a five-minute YouTube video than a 40-minute episode is because you like you you fear commitment um and it like you're like

well well like 40 minutes yeah what what am i gonna do stop in the middle of the episode i have to commit and it's like what if i get texted and i need to respond to that it's like all these things that you build up that don't aren't actually real uh aren't actually real things can prevent you from starting uh and that's like a very very harmful it's a very harmful thing to sort of be at the service of i find the small things are what puts me over the like fills my bucket up too much all the small things all the small things true care truth brings not because like i'd rather do them than a big thing but because i'm like oh it's just a small thing surely i can fit yeah like, oh, it's just a small thing. Surely I can fit them in. Yeah. That's easy.

I have a question, which is how does... I feel like if I'm being honest with myself, my desire to overcommit is actually coming from a place of bad planning and prioritization. Oh, misprioritization. Yeah. Mine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bad planning and lack of ability to scope things is mine. Right.

Yeah. bad planning and like lack of ability to scope things is mine right yeah um i mean that's this is the the misery that waves over jordan at 1am on a wednesday when he has just watched four hours of let's plays when he could have watched one scorsese movie and been very happy yeah and then taken an evening to really mull on all of the events and think about the characters as opposed to wow every single one of those let's play videos, top-notch, don't remember any of the content. It was just popcorn. And that's what tasks can sometimes be. Popcorn tasks that feel good in the moment

and feel like you're being impactful, but ultimately you just lost hours. Yeah, yeah. I experienced the planning part of it in two ways. There's like the lack of foresight, which is when I like, I've since learned that this is like very common in people with ADHD. But like I have two modes.

Something is either happening now or it's happening later. To a different Jarvis. To a different. Yeah. So it's like I can stuff a million things in later and they all hit me at the same time. And I'm like, whoa, I'm overwhelmed. No one could have seen this coming. Who did this?

Yeah. And then and then now it's like it satisfies the, Jarvis, I needed you to fill in for this interview last minute. Oh, interview. It's like an hour call. It's like a thing that's easy for me to do. It has like these discrete inputs and outputs and I don't have to, like, it just happens.

And then there's the, well, I guess it's also related to planning and foresight, but it's the lack of consideration of priorities. So what are my goals when I'm deciding to watch four hours of YouTube videos rather than watching a television show that will give me social value that I'll want to talk to my friends about? And really, BuzzFeed is just blaring into my eyes and i'm like falling asleep or whatever um like yeah you have one of those apparatuses from a clockwork orange that keeps your eyes open yeah and you try to absorb as much try guys as possible yeah exactly i just have zay frank like holding my eyes open and feeding me uh feeding me buzzfeed soup um but yeah i don't know that resonates with either of

you did we figure it out what were we figuring out we're gonna fix over commitment that's the goal i don't know if we're gonna do that yeah no i think i think like uh i think now we have to turn the corner on we've identified the problem right what are we gonna do about what are we gonna do and now specifically what is charlie gonna do yeah because we again we've over committed to other projects we don't have time to resolve this so it's all on. Charlie, you only have the four companies. So you can probably find the time. You have the fewest number of companies.

And this is an intervention. I think another situation and why I find myself overcommitting as well is because even if I am planning and scoping things or whatever, I'm thinking about fitting them in in an ideal scenario. Yes. I'm thinking about fitting them in in an ideal scenario yeah when I'm in perfect health yeah when nothing else is like coming up randomly and like you know everything is fine you're not giving yourself the flex time yeah I have zero margin that I that I put in my life yeah so the zero margin thing is interesting to me um I remember so recently I had to make this decision to stop doing improv comedy because I was doing YouTube stuff.

I was doing podcast stuff. I had my job. And then I was also on a team that performed like weekly at a show and I had to do practices and stay in the loop for all the things. And technically, all of those things fit on my calendar. Exactly. But that was super misleading because in practice, the lack of the margins, the lack of space in between meant that I was super irritable about sort of when things drifted. And I started to get very upset when things did not go according to schedule because the schedule set out to only be achievable if everything went according to plan, which we know most things don't go according to plan.

Especially when most of the things on your calendar are some of the most hectic and potentially toxic things imaginable. A project, regardless of what it is, is a thing that can go wrong at any moment. That's what defines the fact that it's a thing you're working on. You've essentially, I will speak for just myself,

I had essentially organized a schedule that goes, well, you're going to flip a coin and then it's going to land on heads. And then next, for the next hour, you flip a coin and it needs to land on heads. And then you just do that. And then you realize like when you multiply all those things together, the percentage chance of that happening is like minuscule. And every time something fails, you jump from a flipped coin to like a d6 and then a d20 yeah how the hell am i gonna finish this exactly and then i'm also like getting more and more upset at at what is probabilistically a fact of like it's probabilistically guaranteed to happen i'm guaranteed to be upset and so now i'm looking at a schedule like this is going to

upset you and make you sad yeah and it's really hard to maybe the two of you are better at this than I am. But it's something I'm working on at the moment, which is to get comfortable looking at a relatively empty schedule with something very impactful, dead at the center with the under. I mean, I'll speak specifically to creative projects, if only because working in a startup, you don't have a lot of agency over other things. Yeah. Other events. But let's say that you have a saturday and you want to achieve x and y creative things yeah i have the terrible habit of saying well first of all i assume i'm gonna have a fantastic night's sleep on friday nothing ever goes wrong

there my insomnia never hits then i've decided right then i uh book something at 9 a.m i say 9 a.m go straight to the gym 11 30 specifically once i finish my tricep reps i'm gonna shoot right over to Phil's then I'll have my coffee ready there'll be no delay they'll have almond milk and then once I have my perfect Phil's at the right temperature

that just happens to hit me the right way I will then head home at my desk the sun won't be blaring in my eyes I've decided it's going to be at a different location and I will begin writing I will finish writing

at 1 that's the time I need as you say if any of those things go wrong you screw it up so I've started defaulting to this idea of instead of putting on my calendar I literally just write on my whiteboard

podcast D&D podcast is the thing you make progress with today set some goals set some like ideate ways where you know you'll feel satisfied at the end like you have produced 45% of a finished episode great that'll feel satisfying as soon as I say like

you will complete 45% of an episode yeah including 4 000 words of the script right this amount of the edit it just is too overwhelming especially since often if we're working on this on the weekend we're knackered because it's yeah yeah yeah and that term means tired uh for the american you think it means tired that's so embarrassing so i i think that um so a a technique that i use and i think that's like a really useful one um which is just keeping your eye on the prize but like not making the goals like overly specific which is a thing that you could use in your life as well i just on my calendar like to leave room for the maybe maybe i actually plan out the time that's like, hey, chill the fuck out for this time.

And then the other thing I do is affirm that I have actually been productive. I think I'm very doubtful that I have experienced productivity. When I go like – all I did today was record a podcast and edit a video and write a script. I just didn't also get to writing a second script. And, you know, it's like, and then it's like, listen to yourself. It's like you also need to eat meals and like talk to your friends and like. Sleep. And sleep.

Just because you like something doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think that like sort of verbally affirming yourself that you are. Most people on a weekend don't do one thing. And that's like blows my mind. Like and it's not a competition. But like when you're at work and stuff and you're like, oh, what'd you do this weekend? And it's like, I just I just chilled out, like had some friends over watching Netflix.

I'm just like, right. That's that's what it's for it's literally the the the elder gods of society have hereby decided that two days of doing nothing is required to stay alive yeah to continue doing a work nine to five yeah you need to not do anything for two days i we have a mutual friend um bremner yes i'll call you out bremner um breremner has chronic socialization. Every single weekend he will go out and he will hang out with people and he'll have a great time. Right. But the dude is also busy as hell and exercises constantly and is in fantastic shape and has great health.

Yeah. But is maintaining all of those things all of the time. Right. And every now and again I'll just go like, Bremner, what did you do this weekend? And I'll cross my fingers behind my back and I'm like, was it Binge Netflix? Please let it be binge netflix and i'd be like i um didn't do anything on sunday like yeah but he rested but it's like i've felt this as well because people are like oh i wish i had my thing like you do and i was like

what are you talking about i this is not like glorious this is just like this is something i feel compelled to do right we're taking our diabetes medicine yeah yeah it's like yeah i'm describing like i yeah no i just like i i flipped all these coins because i needed to and they luckily they a couple of them were heads and a few were tails and that made me upset it's like i wish i was flipping coins yeah it's like i was just watching netflix no i should have been resting i was just kissing my wife yeah who loves and adores me um charlie do you have uh anybody in your life that encourages you to do less yes my boyfriend mark is always encouraging me to do less uh it's actually really good um since we moved in together a couple of years ago now i no longer work on my side projects

in the evenings like that's like hanging out time doing nothing great yeah yeah i do often wake up at like 5 36 o'clock and do stuff in the morning instead yes oh yeah i made a whole video about that yeah but you know i used to also then do it in the evenings as well and that's not that's not healthy that is like that is literally addict behavior yes literally i well no no no i can i'm gonna stop drinking and i'm only gonna drink in the morning instead of the evening okay and but you're just doing both this is far worse than the thing that was happening yeah i had a uh i had a like an appointment with my psychiatrist because i take medication for my adhd and they like were like still keeping tabs on things and seeing how

how everything's going and um i was described it's just so funny when you say it um i was like yeah so um i like wake up in the morning around like five or six and i like do like some work I was just so funny when you say it. I was like, yeah. So I wake up in the morning around like five or six and I do some work and then I go into my actual job. And then in the evenings, I'm just like so exhausted and I can't get any work done. And she's like, yeah, I have this chronic fatigue from approximately 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. I just can't keep my eyes open. And she's like, yeah, that's kind of the thing. chronic fatigue from approximately 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. I just can't keep my eyes open. And she's like, yeah, that's kind of the thing.

I get so hungry three times a day. That's weird. I also feel lucky, though, to have people in my life, just mostly friends, like, you know, Jordan's good about this, and who remind me that I'm doing just fine. And I am so bad at seeing that because I don't, I think for me and the way that I imagine my work, I don't feel like I'm building a reservoir. I feel like I'm like on a day-to-day basis,

like filling a tank. And it's like the next day, it's like completely empty. And it's like, I have nothing to my name. It's like, shut the fuck up, dude. You're doing, it's like, you've got all fill it up again. It's completely empty and it's like I have nothing to my name. It's like shut the fuck up dude. You're doing, it's like you've got all these things. You're doing fine. And I just, it's really

hard for me to see that and it helps to like have people reminding me that it exists. Yeah and I think you have to step back from it to even appreciate that. Sometimes you know like, so I have a standing desk and our living room is where I work from because I work remotely. That's where you step back. That allows you to step back. I stand on the the top of the desk i step back and i fall and

i knock myself out and i finally sleep yeah sometimes mark will literally come and drag me away from my laptop in the evenings he'll be like okay we're gonna watch a movie now and i'm like okay just one more nope okay seems like it'd be easier to just pick up the laptop some critical feedback from Mark. I'm going to have to unplug from the screen and, you know, it's a whole thing. You can do that very slyly though. You're like, we have power cut. Weird.

Every day at 6pm. Well, actually, that's interesting in your case because you work from home, which means that there's no like visual or atmospheric delineation between work and play. Yeah, which I think is contributing to a lot of the like overwhelm I'm feeling lately means that there's no like visual or atmospheric delineation between work and play yeah which i think is contributing to a lot of the like overwhelm i'm feeling lately is because i spend 90 of my time in the living room of our apartment yeah you know that's where i relax that's also where i eat that's where i like do my work it's yeah it's too much we're about to move into a two-bedroom apartment later this year which i think will help so that i can have an office to like close the door on yeah work for the day i remember when i was in college and i used to do a lot of work from my dorm room and people like i got advice that i should not do that because when

your work your place of work and your place of rest are the same thing you can do like yeah i can do really bad things to you and and so i i try i try to do that i guess i work from my room a lot but i work from my desk and it's like i'll if i'm in my living room or if i'm in my bed and stuff i don't typically take work it's not i've never really edited a video from bed for example it's so dangerous yeah yeah uh because then it just like the response the like uh you know as if you were one of pavlov's dogs it's like this this situation the stimulus now produces like you now salivate right that's like now you now you should do the thing and if you don't want to do the thing because you're like i'm tired then suddenly

you feel guilty for no reason it's half the reason an office even exists yeah or at least like a workspace you want your brain to trigger instincts you want to activate certain schemas so that when you walk into your bedroom, suddenly your eyes get heavier. When you walk out of your front door and you hear the hustle and bustle and traffic, you activate like, oh, time to be a human.

I better put on clothes. And then you go, I better put on clothes because you work from home, you forgot to do this. Right. I do think it's very telling that the one person that works from home

is currently wearing sweatpants. Yeah. And some dope sweatpants, I will say. Yeah. Did you make these also? No. Do you also have a sweatpants yeah and some dope sweatpants i will say yeah did you make these also no do you also have a sweat unfortunately yeah um yeah oh that's an interesting question are there any skills or hobbies that you have either stopped pursuing or never started because you're aware that they're just going to be a drain in the near future yeah i have a problem with every hobby that i start turns into like a side business yeah well one day you wore a t-shirt and you're like this is fun this could really be something wow yeah no think of the possibilities like i'll

be like oh i could design this thing and then i could do this with it and it could build to this and like my mind works that way but i recently when i was in japan that's we were talking about japan earlier and how jordan hasn't been there but we have japan friends that got on the episode that was good because otherwise it would have been nice for me that's uh that's that's friends in japanese yeah she probably knew that you wouldn't know that anyway while i was there i I picked up a Nintendo Switch. And that's been pretty fun for me to just play this little game called Stardew Valley where you have like a farm and villages. You play it too. Yeah.

You don't play Stardew Valley. You live that shit. You exist in it, yeah. You play your regular 9 to 5 life. Yeah. In order to justify time with your waifu. Right. See, I'm not going to start.

I mean, already my brain is thinking i could start a let's play channel or something with it that's not me that's not something i would do so this is just a hobby for me it's just a relaxation thing and it's nice to have something like that and watching television it'd be nice to have something that doesn't involve a screen probably i think i've worked on that but yeah i i really identify with what you said for me instead of like business it's just competing yeah competing about like i'm just competitive about every it's like every game i've ever played i've competed at it's like i used to play competitive guitar hero magic the gathering yugioh you know hearthstone it's like i was like am i gonna become a pro hearthstone

player i don't know um and i uh or like improv it's like I need to like get on a team. I need to take this bigger, bigger, bigger, you know? I, you know, stopped doing improv. Some things that I'm not starting because I don't, it's not like a thing I want to take on or I'm afraid of what it'll become is like music, for example. Like I like to sing and I like to rap and stuff and i like to write and make stuff with my friends but i don't really want to turn it into anything because i know that it has a high potential to turn into one of those things um and whenever i even get close like i'm

thinking about it using it a little bit uh with just sort of a crossover into some of my other stuff it's like oh and i have for sad boys for as well like it's like we've made like rap bits and stuff and it's like oh whoa jarvis is like surprisingly good well like it's like we've made like rap bits and stuff and it's like oh whoa jarvis is like surprisingly good at rapping it's like i know don't tell me again um or like karaoke is like the place i get that out and it's just for fun and it's like just with friends and then it's always people are like well have you ever been to karaoke with jarvis like that what that just becomes a thing uh and I'm and I like that's at least not super intense but the the urge is like why aren't I taking this further um and and sadly

I like feel like I haven't really played a video game in like three years and that used to be such a big part of my like life and identity and similarly with television I've barely watched tv in the past like year and a half and it's very strange like and i don't know why it's almost as if the way that i value things is like whether or not they feel productive and and if tv doesn't feel productive and if playing a game doesn't feel productive then i can't bring myself to do it i'm like how is this going to benefit me yeah well like it feels like it's wasting time right it feels like it's wasting time but it's like no no you need specifically that you need to waste time yeah i sometimes find myself getting frustrated at the amount of sleep that i need same are you fucking kidding me so i have i have i know people who

only need like biologically like four hours of sleep and i'm like fuck you you you're like you get to be a superhuman. Yeah. Like, I'm so jealous. Now I have to work with this fucking eight-hour sleeping bullshit? Like, it's not fair. Like, it gets to 11 p.m. and I'm like, oh, why am I so tired? Yeah. They're playing basketball and they're a foot taller.

It's just like, oh, okay. I mean, I can really work on it and beat you, but that's such a huge advantage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're boxing and you have a gun. Yeah. It's completely unfair. Right, yeah. Yeah, one of those for the longest time actually for me was music i i found music very compelling and i was a drummer for many years and i knew that i wanted to learn another instrument i played

guitar casually and in the last year and a half or so two years now actually i learned piano when i got into production right i'm so glad that i did because music operates in this weird uh in between zone on the upside down am i right uh sorry pretty current right yeah that reminds me of this part about in season two stranger thing oh yeah where they found stranger things they were in japan they were in japan yeah no they were hanging out Reminder, tomodachi is the word for friend in Japanese. But yeah, music for me operates in this space where for the longest time, it was purely

hobby. There was no practical element to it. It was fun to improve skills over time. One thing that I did drop was guitar. I stopped getting better at guitar because I knew that learning piano more robustly would be better for production. It's just easier right for me i don't want to say for anyone but we have a friend spencer who's spectacular songwriter

by trade is a guitarist yeah for that reason i don't want to judge it but personally i found it easier to write with piano even really early on so i just said okay i'm gonna go down this track in that way i feel sad that i lost guitar but at the same time music has now become this thing that i can do for fun that still feels productive it feels like I'm flexing my brain and improving my cognitive skills just it's it's lateral thinking a lot of the time right um and it's relaxing depending on what you're producing and now with the podcast I'm putting together I'm writing all the music for it yeah and so my very long-winded point here is that you can invest in things that may not seem instinctually valuable

with the understanding that at some point further down the line maybe you can utilize that skill and even if not what's the worst case scenario yeah you watch a bunch of let's plays you laughed and it helps you get a better night's sleep yeah the eight hours you require Derek I would I would also say that like it's okay if it never is useful down the line because I really admire people who have hobbies that are so specific that they can never have a wide application because I would never commit to something like that. What you're learning is commitment. That alone is a good skill. People who are like, yeah, I collect Brazilian Sega Genesis games. And I'm the expert on that. It's like the Sega Genesis is a dead console.

This is a very specific country's thing. And I'm pretty sure that Drew Scanlon, previous Sad Boys guest, has interviewed somebody in one of the Cloth About videos about Brazil that does that and contributes to that community. And I'm just like, this is beautiful to me because i would immediately go this doesn't grow beyond this i'm out you know what i mean like because i i feel there's no higher purpose or like something you can like push further and yeah yeah and it's like maybe you could like somehow like bring people together or in some capacity but for me i'm like i feel like i need more and i need to be contributing like contributing to growth in some way and that's a can be a toxic like instinct that i have uh and yeah i just wanted to say in response to what you're saying sometimes it will be useful down the

line i almost wish i was okay with things that have no chance of ever being useful down the line yeah yeah for sure that was a good episode of sad boys we do have fun i like i we we've been finding lately that a lot of our guest episodes will end with just sort of an exhale yeah everybody's like yeah i'm glad we talked about that all right yeah it's just like well how anticlimactic would that be if we were just like huh i'm glad we talked about that and then i would love that uh that's unfortunately we have a brand and we have to remain consistent yeah yeah

I mean you know we won't include this in the episode but we're all about cash this is why we have yeah yeah which reminds me this episode is sponsored by Maverick

Maverick clothing I thought I had to pay to be on it stranger well don't let the cat out of the bag yeah wait what is your

t-shirt brand well this it's funny you bring up the t-shirt brand because that's one of the things that's very organic yeah that'll make it look like we didn't plan it that's good it's we cut out the part before that so it's just like we exhale and it's like it's funny you bring up the t-shirt brand no i was gonna say that that's one of the things that i feel like i've dropped off lately because i have got so many projects on right wearing t-shirts yeah yeah it's just too different it's the only one i have got so many projects on right wearing t-shirts here yeah it's just too different it's the only one i have i also just work from home so much it's

like what's the point no it's just i don't know i figure i've got a finite amount of time unfortunately because i have to spend some of it sleeping and i wasn't enjoying the whole process of like printing t-shirts and having an online store anymore as much as i was my podcast we've got a community that goes along with the podcast yeah youtube channel what's that like like yeah it just felt like maybe i shouldn't be trying to do the t-shirt company so much anymore right so stop asking me about it okay well we do this is when we do socials so where can people find the t-shirts yeah and now we want to double down uh charlie is a t-shirt creator t-shirt design t-shirt designer that's your other podcast right you had two words t-shirt design design life design church shirt shirt design for 5 000 episodes and they switched to t-shirt design

charlie i have enjoyed hearing you on this podcast i'm a listener now oh okay um i'll do what what voice and i was here too what do you listen to something um you could try and do a new zealand accent that would be fun too easy give me a hard one you can try and do a new zealand accent and that'd be fun you sound pretty australian i know i'm so good at australia so bad in new zealand getting you on the latest episode and i would like to know where I can find you on social media. Oh, you started well, but then you went South African. This is my normal voice.

I need to develop some more depth. Well, I should mention that the character that I'm playing, his father lives in New Zealand, but his mother does in fact live in England. Twist. Yeah, where can I get even more Charlie if I'm interested? Well, my YouTube channel is CharlieMarieTV. That's where I make videos about design every week. C-H-A-R-L-I.

Note E. Also, we're going to start a new YouTube series where Jordan learns to spell. URL, youtube.com slash... Jordan. Seven. It's your name. Batman symbol. Just spell your name. URL youtube.com slash Jordan 7 it's your name Batman symbol just spell your name

crayon symbol J 12 that's two letters two numbers Charlie Marie TV yep that's my YouTube channel

I'm Charlie Prangly on most socials which is very unfortunate because it's a very hard last name to spell but if you're a really committed fan you'll be able to find it

I guess go to charliemarie.com and I link to everything from there that probably would have been the easiest you can also find we'll cut out the rest

you can also go to charliemarie.com and you can find me but I'm not going to tell you where I'm not going to tell you where he's an easter egg yeah see how many

clicks away I am Jarvis is actually the clippy of your website are you looking for t-shirts I'm not going to tell you where. I'm not going to tell you where. He's an Easter egg. Yeah, see how many clicks away I am. Jarvis is actually the clippy of your website. Are you looking for t-shirts? Because that's all I care about here at charliemarie.com. charliemarie.com, not charliemarie.com. Yeah, that's important. Alrighty, what if I just cannot bear to see any more Charlie and I want some Jarvis?

Oh, well, if you just go to charliemarie.com. Right, and you stay on the page long enough I will rappel down from the url bar I'm picturing a photorealistic one yeah I rappel down it's no it's a it's a mocap of me um and I go hey hey it's me Jar Jarvis. I can get you out of here. Please, free me. I start knocking on the screen. Doonk, doonk, doonk. Help me. You can also find me, just because that is a place you can find me.

Plus. You can find me on Twitter, at Jarvis, and on YouTube, youtube.com slash Jarvis Johnson. I'm on Instagram, at Magic Jarvis. I need to get my Instagram followers up I really want the guy who has at Jarvis on Instagram doesn't use their account and has never used their account outrageous

so if anybody knows them Jarvis Chin and can source like hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy it yeah perfect yeah you can get not that you want to but you can get more Jordan Cope at Jordan Adika A-D-I-K-A

one word on the Twitters on the Instas on the youtubes if you can do me a favor just tweet jordan every day and remind him to post to social media specifically instagram instagram i did post both yesterday and today i know i'm so which is like a 700 increase yeah their servers are hot yeah they're popping off i got over a hundred likes on one of them so stop you're saying that a lot what do you mean he's very proud

he's very well I'm gonna commit all right maybe I'll over commit who knows you become the biggest Instagrammer of all time that would be so I would only do it for the meme and you

hate Instagram and then I would delete Instagram because I think it would be funny the not the my app the website oh I would delete Instagram because you get so big that website. Oh, right, yeah, yeah. I would delete Instagram because it would be influence.

Because you'd get so big that you'd own it. That's exactly right. I would text Instagram, that's the owner. Yeah. Get read. Instagram.

Insta is short for Instard. It's like Edward. Instard. Yeah, sure. Just like Edward. We end every episode of Sad Boys with a particular phrase. Instard. It sounds like you're saying something in reverse

um so we we've been recently doing um our ending phrase which is we love you and we're sorry in song form and we kind of had a little array of different song genres. It needs to be for that boy. Yeah, it does. Three, two, one. We love you and we're sorry. Yeah. And Sugar Woo going down.

Boom! Thanks so much for joining us, Charlie. Thanks, Charlie. That was fun. That was so much fun. us charlie that's fun that was so much fun i honestly like this we're gonna