Focused - 142: Sparky Gets Focused

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

Sparky finally put his money where his mouth is and he's doing just one thing now. In this episode, Mike has questions and David has answers.

Welcome to Focus, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm David Sparks, and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. Mike Schmitz. How are you doing, Mike? I'm doing great. How about you? I've got a few things going on right now, Mike. Yeah, you do. Your whole world is changing. Yeah, this show will drop on Tuesday, January 4th. That's just the day after I will have announced that I am no longer a lawyer. This show will drop on Tuesday, January 4th.

That's just the day after I will have announced that I am no longer a lawyer. Congratulations. Yeah. Well, I feel like from the outside, this has been a long time coming. Listening to the MacPowerUsers episode where you talked to Steven about this. His words were, it's about dang time. And I think anybody who has been following MacSparky for a while would kind of feel the same way. But we're going to get into all the nuance, I'm sure.

And you've got conflicting emotions, I'm sure. But I think this is kind of the next step for you personally. You've been talking to me about this for quite a while. And it's kind of cool to see you make this move. This show started off as free agents with you and Jason Snell. I stepped in for Jason and we shifted focus a little bit. But I feel like this is the story of Max Sparky. And I'm excited to kind of unpack this and get into probably your words, the hippie part of this process here on this episode. Yeah, yeah.

It's been a crazy few months. I really made the decision in early October, and the last three months I have been paddling like crazy to get everything taken care of, the clients safely off to good lawyers, and all the pieces in place for me to actually pull this off. So as you embark on this new journey, how are you feeling? Are you excited? Are you panicked? Are you confident? Are you unsure about what lies ahead? Kind of talk us through how you're feeling right now. I am fine.

It's funny because when I left my firm to go out on my own, it was seven years ago now, I was more nervous about that because having been on somebody else's paycheck for so long, it was a very safe and secure thing. I think going out on your own, you never know. And that was something I second-guessed a lot about. But this is really a strange process. I mean, I wrote about it in a blog post,

and we'll put the link in the show notes. But I know that you and Stephen say that you've seen this coming. And I'll be entirely honest with you that I did not see this coming. We have that group we're in, the Creators Guild, and it really grew out of one of those meetings. And the decision came rather quickly. It was like kind of hidden in plain sight for me, if that makes sense. Sure. I know you've talked a lot about the specifics of the process. We'll put a link to the post that you mentioned in the show notes. And listening to the NPU episode, you kind of talked through the mechanics of all of

this. So we won't go through the exact same process here. But I do want to kind of unpack that Creators Guild decision a little bit. Can you kind of walk us through what happened in that meeting and kind of how you arrived at this decision? Well, I mean, during the meeting, I was talking to you and some friends and saying, look, you know, this year I only got one field guide shipped and this being 2021. And I was disappointed in myself. But, you know, the problem is always the, you know, the fact that when you're a lawyer, you just never know when a client's going to need you. And that always comes first, you know, it's hard not to make that the thing that comes first when you're taking care of other people's needs. And so, uh, the gang was saying, well, you got to figure out a way to get more time into

Max Sparky. And I think you or Ernie, one of somebody challenged me to say, Hey, you know, next week, give, you know, tell us how you're going to do better at this, you know? And at the time I had decided, I mean, almost immediately, you know, how arrogance takes over sometimes I'm like, Oh, this is easy. I'll just get rid of like 25% of my legal work. And that'll, that'll sting a little bit, but it'll give me more time to do this stuff that I really want to be doing. And I had thought that's what I'm going to tell these guys a week from now. When we meet, I had like already had the end of the story written and it was only after

like hanging up on the call and doing some reflection that I really pretty quickly came to the conclusion. No, I can't get rid of just 25% I got to get rid of them all. And it was like, um, you know, I thought about it. I talked to a couple of lawyer friends. I talked to Daisy and the more I thought about it, it felt like a weight being lifted off my chest, you know, because I know this sounds silly, but you know, when you take care of other people's problems all day, it is a burden. And the idea of, as I wrap my head around the idea of what if I didn't have that burden anymore, what would my life be like? And I very

quickly, I mean, like within hours of us finishing that call, I was pretty sure I was going to be shutting it down. So this escalated pretty quickly then. Yeah. I was kind of curious, you know, I could see a scenario where you get off the call and you've kind of made that decision. Well, I'm going to let go of 25% because that's going to give me some movement in the right direction and, you know, make those guys happy. But I don't have to completely change my life. And then you incrementally, as you're talking through things, this is kind of where my brain would work. Well, maybe 35%, well, maybe 50%, well, maybe 60%. But it sounds like that was

pretty easy for you to get from 25% to 100%. And I got to go in all in with this. I went from 25 to 50 to 100 in a couple hours. And I really didn't like make the decision for sure, but I really liked, I wanted to sleep on it and just kind of like get comfortable with what would my life be like without this. I mean, the good and the bad. And then I called and did reality checks

with some of my most trusted advisors, you know, some of my lawyer friends, some of my personal friends, some of my family, and just said, hey, I'm thinking about doing this thing. Do you think it's nuts? And I was particularly interested in my lawyer friend's thoughts on it. And each one of them thought, no, man, you should do this. I don't know why you're not doing it. I'm jealous that I can't do it. And that really kind of sunk in with me. I didn't realize how many of my lawyer friends are very unhappy being lawyers. I wasn't miserable with it. I just had too many things going on.

Was there any advice that you got either for staying with the law career or going all in with Max Parkey that you thought was really great, specific advice? Or was it just kind of the responses to the news as you were breaking it to people and kind of gauging their reactions to things? No, there really wasn't. I mean, I'm always constantly, you know, thinking about, I mean, in a good way, I think about the fact that I'm going to die, right? Yep. And one of the things that occurred to me was that, you know, I'm not a spring chicken, but I'm not old. But, you know, my dad died young.

I mean, if I'm on his schedule, I only have nine years left. left. And that thinking about it in those terms, like, okay, so let's say that, you know, I don't have an unlimited amount of time to stick around. What do I want to accomplish in the time I have? And thinking about that in terms of the law, there was really nothing. I mean, I, it's a good profession. I make good money at it. I've got clients that like me. I could have done it for as long as I wanted, really. So there was a security thing about it, but I didn't really feel like I had anything I wanted to accomplish. Whereas with Max Sparky, I've got a bunch of ideas, contextual computing and better field guides. And I feel like I can really make a difference and have purpose with that stuff. And as I got thinking about, well, why am I doing anything that is not giving me time to do this purpose, you know, this thing that is so

important to me. And I think that is really the driver for me of this whole decision. I mean, money of course matters and all this other stuff, but, but the idea of limited time, what am I going to do with it? Um? I think that was really the fundamental driver. Was there anything, because you mentioned that there wasn't anything unchecked basically on your lawyer list, but there were lots of things that you were wanting to get done on the Max Barkey side, if I am hearing you correctly. Yeah. Did you ever, at the beginning of your law career, identify like when I achieve this,

whether that's practicing for 20 years or whatever, because I know you have a blog post about that too, where that was kind of like the thing that you wanted to accomplish with your law career? Or did it just kind of, I want to become a lawyer and then you just kept knocking down the next domino and at this point you're kind of seeing that there's no more dominoes to knock over. And you're switching gears to Max Parkey. When I first told my dad I wanted to be a lawyer, he was against it. He thought that because of the nature of the profession that it would compromise me morally. And that really sunk in with me.

So my goal always as a lawyer was to be an honest lawyer and a good one and someone who took care of clients and worried more about getting client results than charging an arm and a leg. And I realized very early that that was going to have a cost. I didn't go into the big firm and look for the big bucks as a lawyer because I felt like the way I wanted to practice didn't really jive with those types of scenarios. So my goal as a lawyer was a process goal. It was to continue to do it ethically. I was like, the term I like to use with clients is I like to say I'm a country doctor lawyer. I'm going to get you the best possible result without charging you crazy dollars. And I'm going to tell you when you're being foolish and to back away from something dumb.

And, you know, almost like, well, I guess a country doctor practice. I don't know how else to put it. And so that was always the goal with the law practice was to maintain that, to do something that my dad would be proud of. And so that was the goal there. But I feel like I did that, you know, and that's not a reason to hold on to it. I like that analogy, the country doctor. I think that's easy to understand. Is there anything from your law career that you wish you would have been able to accomplish? Is there anything that's left unchecked as you make this shift to Max Sparky, given, as you mentioned, the limited time that we have remaining? I just read 4,000 Weeks by Oliver

Berkman, and I'm kind of thinking that way too. But is there anything that you wish you would have gotten to that you didn't? Yeah. And first, a side note, I read that Berkman book, I think, in September. So maybe that did play a role in all this. I don't know. But either way, no, not really. I mean, I think when I was a young guy, maybe I had... Every kid in law school says, well, maybe someday I'll become a judge. But I quickly realized that I would be a terrible judge because I don't really like judging people. And that's the clients I have or had were friends. I mean, they all became friends over a period of time. Some of these people I represented my entire career. One of them, I remember when I first started practicing, he had a small business and he had a brand new baby boy and he wanted to make sure that if something happened to him, that he was protected. And

so I helped him with getting set up with an estate plan and doing all this stuff for this baby boy. And then I'll never forget, like in October, when I called him to tell him I was hanging it up, his son was also on the call because his son has an MBA and his son helps run the business with him now. And I've been working with the son as much as him the last three or four years. And like, it's a generational business and I've been there for both generations. And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be somebody that people could rely on that, you know,

I mean, even though I don't do criminal law, I would get calls at 10 o'clock at night when somebody's, you know, son got, you know, drunk driving and they needed an attorney, you know,

or, or I'd get a call when somebody's wife suddenly had cancer and they didn't know what to do about an estate plan, stuff that I don't do, but I was the guy that they would call and I would make sure they got taken care of. That was a very satisfying practice. As you look back on the lawyer career, what is some of the most rewarding experiences that you had? Is there any specific points that you just reflect on and brings a smile to your face? I'm really glad that I was able to do this thing? At the beginning of my career, I was very much a trial attorney. And I could tell you horror stories about being in trials and dealing with juries and having juries come back. And that is so, I mean, so affirming, you know, when you win a case that you work so hard on. And that is almost like a drug, you know, it's such a high you get from it. But to be honest, in hindsight, the stuff that I'm most proud of is stuff that doesn't involve a jury.

It's the way I got most of my clients through the pandemic and was able to keep them afloat through very clever lawyering in some cases. some cases or um the way i was able to take uh like at one point i had a client that him and his son or um father son owned a restaurant and they were ready to go to war with each other and i knew they were both good quality people and they just weren't seeing each other you know what i mean and rather than take them down the road of litigation, I begged them to go to therapy together. And then after like a month of therapy, they started to figure each other out and they're still in business and they, they have a great relationship now. And I was able to like diffuse a bomb with stuff that wasn't even legal work.

And that's the stuff to me that stands out about the practice. Nice. As we wrap up this section, I want to get into some of the thought process stuff, some of the emotional stuff. But since we're still talking about the law practice, you have, in a recent post, some of your reflection questions

from the end of the year. Yeah. And there's one specifically that I really like that you say summarize the last year in a single sentence. So I'm going to ask you to summarize your law career in a single sentence. Oh boy. I know I'm putting you on the spot here. I know, but it's good though. It's good. Always did his best and no regrets. You know, something like that. I like that.

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You need Indeed. And our thanks to Indeed for their support of the Focus podcast and all of RelayFM. So let's get into some of the things that you were feeling as you went through this this process because i know this has been a couple of months of real hard work on your part and trying to anticipate all of the places where things could fall down so you could make a smooth transition but things don't always go according to plan yeah as we record, you're right at the end of this. By the time it publishes, you're done being a lawyer. So what was the hardest part about this transition for you? I think it was the phone calls, you know, because I've got a hundred or so clients that I've got kind of that I've taken care of. And some of them are people that I talk to regularly and some of

them are people I talk to every year or two. So it's not like I'm there. Some of them are very low volume clients, but I didn't want to like, just send out an email blast. Hey, everybody, I'm no longer a lawyer. Go find a new one. Good luck. You know, in fact, one of my lawyer friends told me that would be the easiest way to deal with it. But I, like i said earlier these people are friends and i didn't want to leave them in the lurch so i had to have this call a hundred times saying hey like and some of them i'd been representing a very long time say hey i'm no longer doing this and i got so many different reactions during those calls and that was always kind of hard you know and you had to let kind of like the call take its

course. And each one I called, I already had someone in mind that I thought could take care of them. So I wanted to like, say, you know, I'm doing this, this is why, but here's a person that I think you should talk to, I think could take care of you going forward. And some of the reactions were real positive. I mean, some of them are Mac Power users or Mac Sparky readers and listeners already that found me through that forum. And so those people were like, oh, of course, I mean, why did it take you so long? And that was nice.

They were very friendly and supportive. And some of my clients had no idea that I had this whole separate thing going. Some of them just thought I was a lawyer and had no other thing. And those were tough because I had to tell them, oh, yeah, I've got this separate thing I've been doing 15 years that you never knew about. And now I decided to focus on it. And a lot of them are not internet savvy. on it. And, and a lot of them like are not internet savvy. So they, you know, if you try to explain it to them, it doesn't sink in. They don't think I can make a living at it. You know,

one of them called me the next day and said, I, I was up all night. I think you're going through a midlife crisis and making a huge mistake. Please stop doing this and just, you know, take a month off, you know, you know, and so that was it was sweet. And then some people were actually angry with me. Like, no, you can't do that. You're a lawyer. Don't be an idiot. You know, you're stupid. What are you doing? You know, so I had some people that were like, literally mad at me, like, I can't believe you could be so stupid to do this. And so then you've got to like, do you defend yourself? Or you just say, respectfully, I disagree. I mean, how do you handle that? And so that whole process was kind of

daunting, you know, going through that. Sure. I can, I can somewhat relate to the crossing the streams between your internet life and your quote unquote real life, there are a lot of people who I see frequently who I think were worried about me that I didn't have a job because I worked online. And I've referred to people that I've listened to for a long time as kind of internet heroes. And my wife kind of rolled her eyes when I first used that term. And then she met some of you, like when you came to, to, uh, Mac stock a couple of years ago and she got to meet you is, is kind of crossing the, that barrier. It's like, Oh, these people are actually real. It's a, it's a little bit, little bit jarring. I'm kind of curious as you're having these conversations with people,

you mentioned you had some folks that you've been working with them for a long time you represented the father now you're representing the son was there any of those conversations where you walked away questioning your decision like maybe i'm making a mistake um there were a couple that i thought man these people are so nice and I would so like to keep taking care of them, but there's such a cost to it. You know, one of the things I thought about when going through this whole process is what's the cost of practicing law. And I mean, there are real costs in terms of like,

you got to have insurance and you got to have a, an office and you got to have all the, you know, there's all these trappings that come with it, that costs money, but it's also just the burden of like, well, you know, if something goes wrong, they need me to drop everything and work on their thing. And even just keeping a few of them, I would still have to carry that burden. And by the time that kind of came up, I'd already been getting comfortable with the idea of what if I didn to carry that burden. And by the time that kind of came up, I'd already been getting comfortable with the idea of what if I didn't have that burden, but you know,

and honestly, the other thing is, as a lawyer, you've got to keep up with the changes and everything. I mean, there's a huge time and cost investment to represent one person. You know, if it's just one or a hundred,

a lot of those things are the same so it just really doesn't make sense that's the reason why once i got to 50 it was easy to get to 100 and the other thing i remind myself is each one of these people i found somebody that i thought would be good a good fit for them and honestly the people that i found are just as good at this stuff as I am. And the client is still going to be fine. Sure. As you embark on this new journey, which isn't really new, but you're kind of just doubling down on the stuff that you're already doing with Max Sparky, just going to do it better. What are you most nervous about? Longevity. I feel like I'm good for another year or two. I mean, people seem to like what I do and I've got a bunch of stuff in the pipeline

and I think I'll be fine. How do I stay relevant in 10 years? And the law was a sure thing. Honestly, if I just kept up with the law, kept those clients, I could have made a living on them until they put me in a box. And this is not a sure thing. But it's the thing that I feel that I must do. So that's on me. I got to figure it out. Let's unpack that a little bit.

You mentioned this is the thing that you must do. Do you mind kind of describing a little bit what the thought process is there or what led you to that specific decision? What are some of the feelings that you're thinking? I know you mentioned not much more time possibly. And so you want to sink your teeth into this and do the very best that you can with it. But any specifics in terms of like thoughts, like I want to do this specific thing with Max Sparky before this is all done. Um, well, I mean, as I said earlier, I feel like that's kind of my sense of purpose at this point in my life. So I want to be working on that.

I have a bunch of ideas for things I could do with Max Sparky, um, as youkey as I get through this. But right now, the main thing I want to do is just focus on making better and more frequent field guides, the things that people like. And then I also really want to share more of the journey because one of the problems with being a lawyer was I could never screenshot anything. Or if I wanted to make a screencast of how I'm doing this task management thing or this calendar thing

I couldn't because it was always full of client data so I'm really looking forward to being able to share more I mean I think that's kind of the immediate future and then kind of like blue sky I've got some ideas down the road but I don't want to like really commit to that until I can figure out that I can do the stuff I'm already doing better. Sure. As you go full time with Max Barkey here, what is the thing that you are most confident about?

That the content will be better and more frequent. I mean, I, you know, the exact time track. And I know that like the law practice is routinely taking between 40 and 70% of my time each week, depending on the client emergencies of the week. Like some weeks, the law practice just takes over other weeks. It's relatively quiet, but, um, but suddenly getting that time back. I mean, I'm not going to spend it, you know, picking daisies. I've got, you know, you should see my, my, you should see my schedule for next week, Mike. It's great. It's full. And I know that I'm going to be able to largely stick to those commitments

because I'm not going to have any phone calls that are going to like divert me. So that's the thing I'm sure of is I'll be able to put more time into it. And if I have more time, I can make it better. I know what I need to do. I just need to do it. Nice. Well, I am, I'm excited to see what a truly focused Sparky looks like in terms of the production. I think that's the cool thing about some of these reflection questions. I got asked these recently too. And the most confident about one specifically, it is essentially tied to your strengths. And I think you're right that some of the strengths that make you Max Sparky, you haven't really been able to lean into simply because there's this law component to it and you can't demonstrate everything if you got to blur out the screen

all the time because it's just too much too much work to to do that sort of thing so i'm excited to see where you take this this sort of stuff the other thing i should say that i didn't mention on the show but is like daisy was like a hundred percent behind me and the kids, you know, like I had no resistance. I mean, the night that I had kind of made the decision, we went to Disneyland and had dinner together and kind of talked it through. And she was like,

if anything too enthusiastic, you know, because, you know, she knows the cost of the law practice. Cause she sees firsthand, you know, I mean, I talked about this on Mac power users, so I won't go to it because she sees firsthand you know i mean i talked about this on mac power so i won't go to it in depth but you know sometimes you wake up in the moonlight

worried about client stuff i can't go back to sleep and i start worried about something i just get up and work on it and she sees that you know and she really doesn't want that for me anymore so so she says if there's any way you can do it. I, I, you know, I'm a hundred percent behind you. That helps. Yeah, for sure. Uh, in addition to sleeping better and the more and better field guides, what are the opportunities that you're looking forward to, or what are you most excited about with this transition? Uh, I mean, mainly just being able to go full Mac Sparky, you know, to not have my calendar interrupted,

to be able to make better stuff. I started this new Mac Sparky Labs thing. It's a membership thing. I know, don't roll your eyes. I think I have a good plan and I can share more stuff with people that they want to get into the lab. So that's going to give me an excuse

to make like quick videos and, and things like quick screencasts that I can share with people and things I'm working on that don't have to be the best production values, but can really give people more insight into what I'm up to. Um, so that's going to be really fun to be able to share that. I've always wanted to do something like that. And honestly, I think maybe a little more downtime, though. I mean, although I am going to be working, not having two things, I think, means that evenings and weekends

might get a little better for me. I'll get more margin in my life, and that'll be nice. Yeah, I feel like the margin specifically is going to have a whole bunch of creative benefits for you that you didn't even realize was possible. I'm excited to see what full Sparky looks like. I have so many ideas, Mike.

I've got an Obsidian note. I just keep writing things down and I've made a script now to send things to that note because there's so many things. What will you miss the most about not even necessarily the law career, but embracing these dual identities? You've gone all in with Max Parkey now, which is betting on yourself essentially. And there's, I think, pros and cons to be argued there. Probably more pros than cons,

but the case could be made. So what are you going to miss the most as you change your identity from I used to do two of these things to now I just do this one thing? I think, of course, the thing I'll miss is the client relationships and successes. I mean, I've got pretty good at negotiating contracts over almost 30 years of doing this.

And just a few months ago, I had a client that we negotiated a contract for that came out that looked like it wasn't going to happen. And they needed it to happen. And we were able to get there with all sorts of clever lawyer tricks that I pulled. And there is a satisfaction to that and knowing that you help somebody. But to be honest, I feel like that was a phase of my life that's now over. I don't think I'm going to miss it that much. I think I'm going to look back on it fondly. I mean, as I sit here, I'm very early in the process.

But I don't think I'm going to miss much of it. I enjoyed it. It was a good thing. It served me well, but I'm not going to miss it. Yeah, one of the things that you had mentioned in the Mac Power Users episode, which I thought was very interesting, was the fact that your cells change, completely change, your entire body completely changes every so many years. And that got me thinking about this story of Theseus, who's the guy who beat the Minotaur. And for a long time, they maintained his ship and they kept replacing parts. And after a while, it's no longer the same ship, but they still have this thing in the harbor, you know, as Theseus' ship.

And I think there's a lot of parallels there with what you're doing as you move from the law career to the Max Parkey career. It wasn't an all of a sudden thing. It was a little bit here, a little bit there as you change. And you're still David Sparks. But it's kind of interesting when you zoom out, you can see that shift happening more gradually. And I think this is, anyone who gets that full spectrum view can kind of see logically how this all plays out.

But when you just take two snapshots in time, it's easy to see, well, or it makes it feel like a bigger jump maybe than it really is, because this is who you've become over the last several years. Yeah. And that seven years thing, so I read it in a book by the Dalai Lama and I loved the idea of it. So I've always carried it around. In fact, I use that on friends when they're beating themselves up. They're saying, I can't believe I did that. And sometimes it's like something they did 15 years ago. I'm like, dude, that was two humans ago. That was two, two versions of you go. You're not

that version anymore. It's okay. Let go, you know? And, um, but I just looked it up while you were talking and that is seven to 10 years. So, um, it is interesting to think about your life that way that you do regenerate every seven to 10 years. So why are you hung up on something that you did 30 years ago that was several versions of you ago? Right. And then along with those decisions that you make are a whole bunch of ramifications that go along with that. I know some of the frustrations you've shared with me having to deal with emergencies that you had no control over but what is the thing that you're just completely glad this is out of my life and i'm not going

to miss this at all that is probably the primary one um that you know the law the lack of control over my own schedule but i mean that's the job you get paid for it and that's what you accept that you know that's you accept the checks when they for it and that's what you accept that you know that's you accept the checks when they pay the invoices and you agree that you're going to give them your time whenever they need it that's kind of the way that's that's the gig right yep and I'm giving up all the money but I'm also giving up the responsibility to respond and that's the part that I uh I'm looking forward to set behind me. It's funny because as we record this, I only have like two days left as a lawyer.

And just this morning, I had somebody send me a bunch of stuff because there was a last minute thing and it had to get taken care of. So it's like, it still is there with me, man. But starting next week, that's not gonna be a thing. This episode of Focused is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform week, that's not going to be a thing. cutting edge design, and world-class engineering, which makes it easier than ever to establish your home online and make your ideas a reality. Squarespace has everything that you could

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Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. So now let's get into some of the nitty gritty here from the productivity side. You've let go of a lot of those emergencies and fires. You've got more control over your time. You've got maybe some additional margins so you can do things a little bit better. Let's talk a little bit about how you're going to implement some of this stuff. So how do you see just focusing on Mac Sparky versus balancing that plus the law career? How do you see your day-to-day changing? I think I'm going to get more reliable time into the field guides every day, which means they're going to come out more often. There's like some updates I've been wanting to do. I'll finally get

time to do those. And just in general, there'll be a more regular release cycle and the quality will be better because I won't always feel rushed when I have to work on them. And, and I think they're good quality now, but I feel like I could do better and this will, you know, help that. So that that's the first thing. The second thing is just like, give me that margin gives me room to do things more regularly and routinely. I've talked on the show about running downhill. I even wrote about it in the blog post, but I, I want to get better with like even the podcast planning, the, the newsletters and the webinars that I release. I want them to be more regular and better.

Everything to me is like I want them to be more reliable and higher quality. And I'm not saying that I feel like my work has been garbage. I feel like I've been doing good work. But I feel like I could do better if I was able to give all my time to this. And that's really what I'm looking for probably in this first year, I'm not going to change a whole lot. The only thing commitment I really added was the max Sparky labs, which is the membership thing, but that's stuff I'm going to be doing anyway. I'm just setting up a way to share it and giving people a way to help support me that want to. And, um, and so I, I really am focusing not on like signing on for a bunch of new commitments

here, but just like taking the ones I have and doing the better. There's new, no new podcast planned or anything. Um, I expect you'll see a few more field guides than one in a year. And, um, and that, uh, and hopefully everything, the quality dial gets turned up on. Sure. Now I know we've talked about how when it comes to creating specifically, you can't just endlessly create. You're not going to get 40 hours worth of creative work done in a week. So how are you thinking you're going to balance this? Because

I think when you have two different things going on, you can kind of jump back and forth between those things and use that transition. It's kind of a reset to get amped up for the next thing. But now you're going all in with Max Sparky. You're going to be creating. You're going to share more of the process. That sounds great. But how do you plan to manage the ebbs and flows of the day-to-day? Are you going to focus on recording in the morning because that's when you're sharpest? Are you going to use the afternoon as your thinking time about new projects? What's kind of your new ideal schedule?

And I know I'm asking you this before you've actually implemented it. Are you looking over my shoulder, Mike? Are you looking at my fantastic color right now? Because that's basically what I'm going to do. No, I'm not. But I think that's a great first step as you're planning this. Again, it's going to change. Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. But we talk about time blocking and intention and all that. So this just seems like the natural next step for you. Yeah. And then I have two podcasts, this one and Automators that are biweekly. And I have been talking to you and Rosemary. So we're scheduling recording times for these shows where I'm going

to have for every two weeks, one week we'll have the majority of the podcast recording in it and the other week we'll have just one podcast to record and that gives me that's the real heavy production weeks for me and I like the idea of kind of being able to bunch in both directions like okay I'm gonna the next three or four days I'm gonna be working really hard I'm making great podcasts and the next week I'm gonna be working really hard I'm making great field guides and I'll still do field guides on the podcast weeks, but not, I won't expect as much from myself. And I like, so I'm already kind of putting some things in place, but I'm also taking a really open mind to this. I feel like this is, you know, anytime you make a big transition, it gives you a chance to reevaluate how you spend your time and what your habits are.

And I'm aware of that going in. So I'm not going to lock everything down, but I'm being very mindful of what I've got ahead of me. What does that do in terms of batching to the way that you currently manage your projects? currently manage your projects. Again, I'm just thinking out loud here, you've got the law career where things are going to pop up. So you kind of have to build in a margin for the things that you're going to try to get done on the Max Sparky side. But I'm assuming you have prioritized order of those things. And when you batch things and theme things like you're doing where you have one week is the podcast, another one the next week is the field guides, maybe that messes up some of your start, due date,

you know, how you slot these things into your calendar. So what are some of the specific strategies, I guess, for how you're thinking you're going to do this? Well, I mean, to begin with, I put them on the calendar and I use time blocks, you know, so like I've already blocked out time over the next couple of weeks, but I've also left a lot of gaps. And to me, the morning is basically the best creative time for me and when I make my best stuff. So I try to do that primarily, and I'm trying to protect those and then keep the afternoons relatively open. So then I can say, well, maybe I feel like making more content or maybe I need to work on back-end things. I mean, there's a million little things going on this whole time.

I switched the blog to WordPress and I had to integrate it for the labs and there's a whole bunch of stuff going on. So I've got other things I need to work on too. So in general, I'm like blocking about a week and a half out and expecting those blocks to largely stick. I mean, what I did historically was I tried to spend the morning on Max Barking, the afternoon on the law. But if a client writes you at four o'clock and says, hey, we got to get this deal done and I need to get it back to them by noon tomorrow. Well, guess what just happened to tomorrow's max Sparky time, you know, it just went out the window and then like, okay, I got that done. I got it delivered by noon. I've been working in the evening and all morning on this very,

you know, brain intensive project. Am I really going to sit down and record screencasts in the afternoon? No, I'm not going to, it's just not going to happen. So, so that variable has been removed. Um, so I think it's going to get easier and better, but you know, I, I'm just starting this now. So I think we'll have to check in on it, but, but what I'm trying to do is be conscious of the fact that I don't want to take on a bunch more commitments, that I'm going to be blocking mornings largely and trying to keep time in the afternoons for the other stuff, like phone calls and meetings. I have more of a team now. Maybe that's another day. But I've actually built a little team around Max Barkey at this point, and I need to take care of that.

And so there's other things that I need to take care of that. And so there's other things that I need to work on as well. But the initial plan is mornings are going into creative work, and afternoons are going into admin work. Do you think that, I know typically you would do your weekly review on Sundays, and maybe with things getting a little bit simpler, on Sundays and maybe with things getting a little bit simpler, you have the ability to simplify your task management. So are you still thinking everything's going to stay in OmniFocus and this is just what I've done. I'm just going to do it on a smaller scale. Are you going to do more analog stuff for like the moving the needle stuff that you've done in the past? How do you think that this simplification changes some of the ways that you manage your tasks?

Or does it just stay the same? Well, I'm using the same tools for now, but I'm also aware that I have new options that I didn't have before. And I'm going to be looking at that stuff. didn't have before. And I'm going to be looking at that stuff. I will tell you that OmniFocus is better now than it's ever been for me because as I've been sending clients off, I've been dropping massive amounts of tasks out of my database. And so suddenly OmniFocus is a lot cleaner for me. So that's nice. But I don't know. I want to look at everything, man. I mean, So that's nice. But I don't know.

I want to look at everything, man. I mean, there's ways to manage tasks in Obsidian. There are great other smaller task managers. I mean, Reminders on the Apple platform is really good now. So I'm going to look at tools. I really like the way OmniFocus hyperlinks. And to me, that's a big deal. You know, like I have an obsidian page for every major project and having OmniFocus one click out of that direct link is nice. And,

and I need to explore what, you know, is that even possible with some of these other apps? I mean, there's different things going on, but that kind of goes back to the idea of, you know, with a transition, you should keep open to anything and I'm going to be. Sure. I am assuming that in the transition, kind of everything maybe is blown up a little bit, but how do you feel this single focus now affects some of the stuff that you talked about with moving the needle maybe how has or how will your definition of a successful day change when you just have max sparky stuff to deal with instead of balancing the the client needs well it's going to be easier to feel like i'm moving the needle honestly i think because it's easier to evaluate when you only have one career instead of two

sure i mean i've had two careers for well not i started max barkey like 15 years ago but for at least the last probably 10 years it's been almost like a career to me but i've always been juggling weekends nights you know in order to keep both masters happy you got to work a lot and this gives me an opportunity to to turn that back a little bit what does this do to your arete what roles maybe are no longer there that you're not measuring and are there any new ones just one role is dropped lawyer you know sure i mean in my rta um lawyer and max barky there's like i think 10 of these categories and they are each represent one of the 10 they're 10 of how i judge myself i mean it's not of how I judge myself. I mean, it's not the, the way, you know, my, that is not the, I mean,

the father is, and husband are way more important, you know, in my mind. So this is, you know, relatively small part of who I am in that regard. And, uh, you know, and it's a thing I did and it's the thing I no longer do. I mean, I really feel like it's a one-way trip. And that's a little scary sometimes when you do something. I mean, between school, that was seven years, and I practiced 28 years. That's a 35-year endeavor. To think that you're walking away from it can feel a little intimidating. But I think it's OK. That's life.

I think the other thing that helped me make the decision, honestly, was the Ryan Holiday Courage book. Because when I started thinking about what I really wanted to accomplish, fear was keeping me in the law in a lot of ways. I mean, not entirely, but that was an element of it. And once I recognized that, it was easier to throw it overboard. Sure. That's interesting. Yeah, I've read Courageous Calling this year also, and it's a great motivational book to get you to take those chances that your rational mind can kind of convince you that's too scary. As you make this transition, is there anything else about your day-to-day,

maybe your routines that changes either positively or negatively? I'm not sure yet. You know, I mean, so this is not like, it's not like I'm taking on a new career. I've been doing the field guides for 10 years and I've been doing Max Barkey stuff and making these podcasts. So I know what I'm going to be doing, but the lack of that wild card phone

call or email, it's got to be good, right? That you don't have that happen anymore. I mean, imagine you had a job where at any point someone from a different department can come and say, oh, I know this is important to you, but you need to do my thing first. Well, imagine if that stopped one day, how does that change your relationship with the work? I don't know how it all plays out. Um, you know, as we record this, I'm really just You know, as we record this, I'm really just getting to the payoff, but I can tell you that I feel really good about it. And it is scary, you know, giving up that money. And it is scary taking yourself out of something that you know you could have made a living at for the rest of your life you know to kind of like leave that aside i think that's why frankly some people got were angry with me is because they recognize that no you had a good thing why would you stop that that's stupid you know and um so that that is a little scary but honestly the the good outweighs the bad here you know i i really feel like this is going to give me a

chance to really focus on what's truly important and fulfill a part of me that needs fulfillment. So I can't wait to get started. Well, I'm excited to see what you're able to do as you embrace this. as you embrace this. I don't want to say wholeheartedly, but kind of. Because I know we've had Sean McCabe on the show to talk about the sabbaticals and that was always never even an option for you because you've got clients

and they need to be responded to. So maybe we can get you to take a sabbatical now and you can do a few more of these productivity experiments. And I think that's going to be really cool to see you share the process as you figure all this stuff out. Yeah, I actually, at one point through the transition process, I texted Sean and said, hey, guess what? And he wrote back. He was very positive. But I feel like, yeah,

now I may be able to do that once in a while, you know, and if I can, you know, hit some ship dates and get some stuff taken care of, as I've got the team kind of growing to handle the backend stuff, maybe there will be, it will be easier for me to disconnect once in a while. And even like, you know, we've got a couple of vacations planned for 2022. And it was always hard to take those with clients because you just, you know, you just never know. And like Daisy's very excited to take me on vacation without having to deal with a client. And I'm sure there'll be some max sparky stuff to handle, but most of that is predictable and manageable. It's not the same. Right. You made a comment a little bit ago about this giving you the freedom to express something in you that needs to be expressed.

And I'm kind of curious, if you don't mind, in your own words, defining for yourself what this purpose is. You mentioned this is the thing for you. Max Sparky is the thing. And people who listen to this show have a general idea of what a Max Sparky is and what you do. But if you were to define it today, what is your purpose that you're excited about leaning into? I feel like the thing I can help people with is the technology problem. The problem is technology is growing rapidly and it's sold as snake oil. I mean, they tell you, you just get this technology, your life will be better. Well, how many people that have a thousand items in their email inbox are going to tell you that technology makes life better? I mean, in a lot of ways, we've just enslaved ourselves to it.

Or technology has become a distraction device to keep you from doing, you know, you've got this great novel in you, but Instagram keeps calling you. There's so many problems with technology. But I do think there is a path. There is a path of using technology to be more productive. And if you're going to do that with Apple technology, I think I've got a lot of ideas and I can help you. And I want to help people do that. And having made these field guides, having heard from customers, I have been doing it, but I think I could do it even better and more effectively if I give it all my time. That's the purpose in my mind.

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I keep timing running on my Mac at all times because it is the definitive source of what I've been doing. Whenever I try to manually throw timers, I just never get them or i forget about them it's just it's just a hard habit to stay on top of with timing i know to the minute when i started working on a project and when i finished and and this gives me great information so i can make informed decisions about what i should be doing and should not be doing or how long exactly did it take me to do that thing it's easy to learn You put it in your menu bar,

and it just starts working for you. It even automatically starts categorizing for you. So it saves you that trouble as well. So if you want to take control how you spend your time and improve your productivity, download a free 14-day trial today by going to timingapp.com slash focused, F-O-C-U-S-E-D, and save 10% when you subscribe. That's timingapp.com slash focused f-o-c-u-s-e-d and save 10% when you subscribe. That's timingapp.com slash focused to try timing for free and save 10% when you subscribe. And our thanks to timing for their support of the focus podcast and all of RelayFM. So enough about me gazing at my navel gang. Mike and I had started some segments on the show that we didn't really sort out last year we're going to try and make this a more regular thing

on the show and the two of them are shiny objects and focus challenges so mike let's talk about shiny objects anything lately in your life that's helping you stay more focused? Sure. Well, I have this beanbag chair that I have in my office, which I got inspired after we talked to Sean McCabe because I know he talked about he uses his beanbag chair as his thinking chair. Yeah. And so that got me thinking about how I could incorporate that into my office setup. I don't have a ton of room, but I do have room in the corner kind of underneath my whiteboard for a beanbag chair. We also have five kids at home, not a huge house. It's not a small house, but we don't have like a guest bedroom if someone were to come and stay with us. Not that

that happens a ton anymore. But around the same time as I was looking at these beanbag chairs, I came across a Shark Tank episode where this company called Corduroy's was on, and they have this beanbag chair where you can take off the cover and the foam inside of it will expand. And so you lay it out flat and it puffs up and it becomes like a queen size mattress. Wow. So I have this beanbag chair, which doubles as a guest bed if we would need it in my office. And it is super comfy. I've had the chair for probably a couple of months at this point.

But the new thing that I got is they also make an ottoman. And so I have the beanbag chair in the corner, but I also have this ottoman, which allows me to, same company, Corduroy's, so I can put my feet up. And sometimes I just sit in that chair and take a nap. It feels so good. Well, also, I really, because I have a comfy chair in my studio that I like as well. First of all, I like it because my dog sleeps on it all day while I work, and she's right next to me, and that's just, that's awesome. But also, I go there to do reviews, and at the end of the day, review my tasks list, and I'll sit there with an iPad and an Apple Pencil and work in it. And it's definitely

a context change to sitting in front of my big screen. And it sounds silly, but it does help. And it's like, I identify things that I do there. Like project reviews always happen in that chair. And it's like sitting in the chair almost starts like, you know, gearing up my brain for that project. I don't sleep in it much, but I do sit in it and I read books and do work in it. And I am a big fan of having a comfy chair in your office or your studio. So I'm glad you did that. Well, I hadn't intended to use it as the napping chair, but you have convinced me to embrace the nap and just sitting in this chair, it's so comfortable that it happens sometimes.

I can't just let that slide by. Are you napping frequently now? Well, I guess you could call it frequently. Probably a couple times a week, I will sit in that chair. And the big thing for me, last time we talked about the subject of napping was that you don't actually have to fall asleep. You eliminate that pressure and you just say i'm gonna sit in this chair and relax for the next 15 minutes that's that's good enough uh and so i've been doing that a lot i can find

15 minutes here and there and just sitting in the chair and and uh chillaxing that's uh the lower barrier to entry for me than laying down on the couch for some stupid reason. That feels like a major commitment to me, but sitting in the chair and just resting, occasionally falling asleep, that's easy. Yeah. The trick for me is never more than 30 minutes. I usually set a timer for 35 minutes, so I give myself five minutes to fall asleep, and then after 30 minutes. And I don't do it every day, but if I feel myself dragging at one or two in the afternoon, I will absolutely take a 30-minute nap, and I get so much more done the rest of the day from the nap. It's like a small investment for a huge payoff.

Yep. Even when I worked at the law firm, and that was not cool, right? They didn't have nap beds at my law firm. I would just pack a sandwich and then I would eat a quick lunch and I would go down in my car in the parking structure and just take a nap in my car for 30 minutes. So I never told anybody there I was doing that it was my secret but you know so i i if you haven't tried naps and you find yourself not being very productive in the afternoon i would recommend trying it but don't sleep so long that you get into rem cycle then you're a dead man wise words what about you i bought something that came up on the show i don't remember which guest it was that talked to us about the time timer.

And it's made for kids and teachers. It's a little timer. It's like a kitchen timer. But it's got an ingenious little thing that when you spin it, it has like a solid bar that shows you the amount of time left on the timer. And I didn't think I needed this because I run timers on my Apple watch all the time. Like I'll sit down to do an email session. I'll set a 30 minute timer and just set a timer on my watch and I'm good. But I do a lot of work at my desk. And I thought that maybe if I had a visual reminder that I was on a timer, it would be

help me make sure I stay on track that I don't like, you know, drift off into something else during my timer, which I do sometimes. And so I bought one, it was like 20 bucks. It wasn't super expensive. It's just, it's just like a little kind of clock thing. And, um, I got the basic one in gray and it sits on my desk and I've been using it for a couple of weeks and I'm sold. I mean, it's a great little thing. It's a good investment if you try to run time blocks. Yeah, this is a really cool device. I have not used one myself for my work, although we do have one in the house that we use for managing video game time because we have four boys who love their video games and managing the the uh exchange uh between somebody's time and another one starting uh was a pretty big chore as people want just a few more minutes to wrap up and things like that so pretty much overnight buying this time timer eliminated all of the the stress from

managing the process for mainly my my wife i'm I'm down here, hold up in my focus cave. She's upstairs with the kids, does a majority of the homeschooling that we do. So it's been a big help for her. When my kids were little, it was like, one of the things I learned that I never would have guessed is that a kitchen timer is gospel truth to children. And like, if them that they have five minutes to go to bed, and then five minutes later you tell them it's time to go to bed, they never believe you. But if you tell them when the kitchen timer goes off,

you have to go to bed, they don't question it. It is straight from heaven. So it's kind of funny. But that works. I can see how this would work with kids. It works with me too. So there you have it. I, uh, it's kind of funny, but the, uh, that works. I can see how this would work with kids. Yeah. It works with, with me too. So there you have it.

So, uh, you've got some challenges that you've, uh, got to figure out here a little bit different than the challenges where we give each other, but, uh, I thought maybe we could just give you some space to talk through some of the things that you're thinking through in, in the middle of all of this transition for yourself. Yeah. I mean, it has been crazy. Shutting down the law practice took way more time than I estimated it would have. And that probably was poor foresight. I mean, I should have known better that it was going to take a lot of time. So I've been shutting it down for the last three months and winding up Max Barkey for this big transition at the same time. And I haven't had a lot of

time to think through like, how does this change the daily routine and things like that. But I'm very aware of that. This is a major transition in my life. And it is a chance for me to turn the apple cart upside down. So I want to do that mindfully. And so the challenge I'm giving myself is to do that, to pay attention over the next couple of months as things change and not just fall into habits because that's what I've always done or because that's what, you know, at the time is most expedient, but try to engineer my life around this stuff in a way that makes the most sense and serves the bigger purpose for me. So I'm really going to be spending a lot of time evaluating myself and thinking about planning and going forward how this works.

And that's the thing I haven't done enough work on yet, but it's something I know I need to do. And I'm going to try and be very conscious of that. I've added some questions to my daily kind of review questions, and I'm going to try and force myself to confront these issues daily, at least for the immediate future. Yeah, a wise man once told me that when you're going through some significant life change, that's the perfect time to consider your habits. Yeah, it is. It is. And I need to figure out what that means. I mean, am I going to... I don't know.

I just don't know what it all means yet. But what is the start time? When's the end time? How do I handle email? I mean, a lot of stuff that I had to do before because I was legally obligated. And now a bunch of that isn't there anymore. So, you know, what does that mean with everything? And we talked about apps a little bit on the show, and I don't think I'm going to have

it all sorted out in a month or two. But I have this exciting journey ahead of me where I get to kind of reconsider everything. And I can't wait to get started on it. All right. So we'll check in next time and find out if you are crazy productive or if you have just started playing Fallen Order more. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't played that since this all started. I'm on my third run through.

All right. So I'll take the same challenge because just with timing and you making this move and everything, we didn't do a whole lot in terms of how we think about the next year. But I'm kind of going through some stuff too and reconsidering my habits and routines. And so I think maybe next episode we can talk about our end of the year review process and some of the changes maybe that we're making as we go into 2022 and what we hope to see from those changes. Yeah, let's do that.

And I can report back because then I'll actually have some data. I'll have actually been in the trenches a little bit. All right. Sounds great. Well, as we wrap up this episode, I just want to say I'm really excited about the future for you. I think that everything Max Sparky

is about to get a whole lot better. And we'll have links to all the stuff, including the labs for people who want to take a look at the different support options in the show notes, which by the way, I think you did a great job explaining the differences between those different levels. Looks great. And people can identify with any one of those, you know, the amount of access that they want. I appreciate the

fact that it's not an all or nothing sort of thing because those typically I'll sign up for those. And then I don't have the opportunity to join the live calls, whatever. And I feel like I'm kind of wasting money on the membership. So you've got a lot of different options there which make a lot of sense and I'm excited about what's in store for you in 2022. Yeah and to peek behind the curtain a little bit I just want to thank you Mike. You were a key player in this for me, a great friend and you and some of our other friends were giving me prods when I needed them. And, um, as I've been going through trying to get everything, cause I did all this kind of secretly, I couldn't really share it with the world until now. Cause I didn't want a client to hear that they were losing their lawyer on a podcast,

you know? And, um, but I had to kind of keep a bunch of the secret, but you've been really good about kind of helping me behind the scenes with all this stuff. And thank you. Well, thank you. All right. We are the focus podcast. You can find us over at relay.fm slash focused. We've got a great catalog of shows back there. We're going to have even better ones the next year. Mike and I are working hard at planning right now for the next year i want to thank our sponsors indeed squarespace and timing and if you want to support us you can join the deep focus the member program where you get a little extra content you get no ads and today in our deep focus we're getting into board games so we're going to be talking about mike's new board game table and how we're using them. So anyway, we'll

see you there and thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.