Focused - 155: 12 Favorite Problems

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

David & Mike explore the idea of favorite problems and identify a dozen of their own in a quest for self-discovery.

Welcome to Focus, the productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz, and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. David Sparks. Hey, David. Hey, Mike. How are you today? I'm doing great. Ready to talk about some of your favorite problems? Yeah, we're going to really just go for it today, aren't we? Yep. This is an idea that surfaced in the last episode when we got the opportunity to talk to

Tiago Forte. This is an exercise, not that he came up with, it's originally by a psychologist, is that correct? Physicist. Physicist, Richard Feynman. But I've heard from lots of people who have gone through building a second brain and they have said that this is one of their most favorite parts of that cohort based course that Tiago runs is this exercise and doing it together with other people and seeing the kinds of questions that other people come up with. And I thought, why not do that?

The two of us. Yeah. And hopefully inspire some folks to try it at home because the process really is interesting. You know, we're going to get it at home because the process really is interesting. We're going to get into it deeper in the show. But Richard Feynman, who I was surprised you hadn't heard of him before, but maybe just a thing of my age. He is a very well-known physicist. He was, I believe, at Harvard, and he was a very good teacher.

leave at Harvard and he was a very good teacher. He's got some lectures on YouTube that explain physics in a way that I, that even gets, you know, penetrates my dense brain. And it's just a very charismatic guy and a great speaker and teacher. And, um, he was the one that came up with this concept of, uh, of 12 favorite problems. And, uh, to begin with, with, I really love the idea of interjecting the word favorite before the word problems. Yeah. That is interesting. Those two maybe don't necessarily go together in people's minds.

Yeah, but it works, right? Because I do think that there is a tendency to look at a problem as a negative. And so often the problem is an opportunity it you know problems create you know opportunities to find a new way to deal with something i mean i have a really you want to hear a really banal example yeah let's do it we have a credit card family credit card and um it got lost yesterday you know one of the kids had the credit card lost it somewhere you know tears and you know everybody was upset and and and i i thought she was overreacting but you know i felt bad at the same time but you have to cancel the card and you realize that um you know you have like your gas

bill and your electric bill all the stuff that you have on because we only have one credit card but i had this apple card i got like a year or two ago that i've never used i got one because i thought i might write about it someday but i have it in a drawer that i've never charged anything on it and i thought well rather than just get a new one issued, why don't I use this one? I started looking into what it can do, how I can share the kids one of their own, that it has spending limits, that I get better reporting. And there's a little problem that became a good opportunity to solve it in a better way and manage the money better in the family. I don't know. Maybe I'm making too much out of that, but it just, it was interesting to me that the whole thing started with tears and it ended with

actually us having a better way to deal with a specific issue. No, I like that story. And to make your kids feel better, I did the same thing a couple of weeks ago. So I understand all of the things that can be tied to a credit card and what a pain it is to change a lot of stuff over to a new card, but it happens to the best of us. Well, we also, to get techie for a minute, Daisy and I now have a shared Apple Note

where we have a list of everything that we use the card number on. So if we ever have to do this again, it gets a lot easier. Yeah, but I want to just clarify real quickly here that the 12 favorite problems, this is not just learning to make the best of whatever situation. It's not finding the silver lining. It's not the positive perspective changing stuff. It's really just these problems that you noodle on in your subconscious, and they're just kind of always there. You're not actively working

on them very often, but they're always right there. And what happens is your brain is kind of thinking about these, even when you're not staring at the problem itself, even when you're doing something totally unrelated. And then because these favorite problems are so top of mind, what ends up happening is you end up connecting some dots and finding some better ways and new and interesting ways to overcome some of those obstacles. But it really has nothing to do with positive versus negative stoicism, Ryan Holiday, overcoming the obstacles sort of thing. It's just, what are you curious about? What are the things that push your buttons?

And then those things are always within arm's reach. Yeah, and it taps into this idea of the subconscious brain solving problems for you. I've talked about this years ago on Mac Power Users on the Cooking Ideas show. And this is a practice that I use often where I have like mind node or mind maps open on things I'm working on. And the trick is to only work on it in short bursts of time and come back to it. And it's like, suddenly you have ideas on how to solve the problem. And it wasn't because you sat there deliberately thinking about it, but you had this like as a background process, just running, collecting, thinking. And what Feynman has done here is kind of formalized it to something where you

acknowledge what they are and you say, no, these are the 12 that I'm going to be always filtering for as information comes at me. Yeah. Why don't we share some of these quotes from Richard Feynman because he probably explains it better than we can. And at this point, the one I put in here says, you have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large, they will lay in a dormant state. And every time you hear a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your 12 problems

to see whether it helps. And every once in a while, there will be a hit and people will say, how did he do it? He must be a genius. And that is the background processing you described with the cooking ideas that i feel is exactly what this is is talking about yeah and i get the impression that a lot of this like some of the correspondence we found researching for today's show was him talking

to graduate students for instance and a lot of this is related to science and and you know the ideas and concepts he was pursuing as a scientist you know five you know 12 favorite problems would be 12 you know mysteries he's trying to solve as a physicist and suddenly he learns something about a completely different discipline but it fits in to a puzzle piece to one of his 12 and and, you know, there is also science behind the advantage of interdisciplinary in getting to these issues. But I think that the world has taken these 12 favorite problems a lot broader. I don't know if Feynman ever used it in some of the ways that you and I are using it, but I think this is something that can apply even if you are not a Harvard

physicist. I think it's something that can apply even if you are not a Harvard physicist. I think it's something that can apply to your life no matter where you stand. I agree with you. In fact, when I was starting to research for this episode, I kind of anticipated I would be able to find a YouTube video by Richard Feynman explaining this exact thing, but you can't find that. You can find lectures that he's given and he kind of talks around some of these concepts, but there's nothing explicitly 12 Favorite Problems by Richard Feynman. There's lots of other people who have written things about it and they've taken that quote that I shared earlier and some of the other stuff that he's written online. One of my favorite resources I came across was this one by Farnham Street, which is the blog and the publisher behind the great mental models books that we talked about. And he's got this whole big letter that's published where he's writing to one of his students.

And what I love about this letter is there's a whole bunch of insights to be gleaned from this. One of the things as it pertains to 12 favorite problems is that no problem is too small or trivial if you can really do something about it. That was something you had mentioned in the outline. Yeah, I pulled that straight out of the letter. Yeah. But then when you think about that, that means that favorite problems, the right favorite problems are different for different people. And that's what I kind of like about this letter is he's basically apologizing to a former student for

giving them a problem instead of letting them discover their own. And then kind of rebuking them for picking a problem that isn't very exciting to them and basically encouraging them to whatever it is that you're excited about, no matter how small it seems, you should be solving for that and you should be helping other people to understand that. And that kind of reminded me of one of the core values at the ConvertKit company. I've been to the Craft and Commerce Conference and they really do a great job with that. But they have, when you go to the conference, at least the last time I went, they have t-shirts that they give all attendees with one of the company core values on it. One of them is create every day. I've got one of those stickers on my

iPad. But another one is teach everything that you know. And it's easy as a creator to think that, well, what I have to share, everybody knows this already. So I shouldn't be the one sharing this. Somebody who can speak better to this should be talking about this. And it's really an encouragement to remember that there are people who are just not quite as far on their journey as you are. And those are the people that you should be looking to help. Those are the problems that you should be thinking about solving. I mean, the only reason I even know about this idea of 12 favorite problems is because Tiago Forte took it from Feynman. I mean, the very process demonstrates that. But I do think the word favorite carries weight here. And that was one of the issues of this letter. We'll link it in the show notes of saying, you know, it has to be a problem that you're excited about something that you want to solve,

or you don't have a chance. I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but I really liked this letter. There were a couple other quotes in here that stood out to me. And one of them is, I think, because we're going to ask you to do something at the end of the show we want you to make your your own 12 favorite problems and uh finding out how do you do that you know how do you find a problem that's worthy of the list something that's not so specific like you know you know how do i get the uh the horse tail to start growing again in the backyard because lately it's been drying out uh or that's too broad, like how do I accomplish world peace, you know, but you've got to find something in the middle. And he addresses this. He says, the worthwhile problems is a quote from Feynman. The worthwhile problems are ones you

can really solve or help solve. The ones you can really contribute something to a problem is grand in science if it lies before us and solved. And we see some way for us to make some headway into it. So I do think when I went through this process, I really was mindful of that. And I tried to come up with problems that are specific enough that I can make progress on them, but they're also grand enough for me to feel like progress is worthwhile. Absolutely. That encapsulates it perfectly. They need to be something that are going to stretch you, but they're not going to be so far out of your reach that you get discouraged. There's no way that I can possibly make a dent in that goal or objective, to use a different word for this, like you mentioned, world peace. That feels so unattainable for an individual.

You got to be able to measure your own progress by the things that you're going to be doing as a response to these favorite problems. I almost said favorite questions there because I feel like that is another aspect of this, is that whatever problems you are trying to solve, they probably are going to end up in some way, shape, or form as questions that you ask yourself. I was reminded of the conversation that we had with Mark Champagne and asking better questions. And I feel like the right questions will naturally point you towards the right problems. I agree. And it's interesting.

As I was working on this process, I started it as a document right after we did the interview with Tiago. And that's when we actually recorded quite early. So I've had like three in here, but I keep coming back to it. And originally they were just concepts, but eventually they all turned into questions, which is, I didn't really expect that, but I guess that's only natural. Another thing that I tried to do when I was going through and make mine is not throw myself softballs in the sense that these are not problems that I can necessarily solve. These are problems that I could possibly solve, but pretty almost every one of my 12 problems are ones that I may not pull off. Sure. And I think that I think that's kind of important. I think that is important, too. I'm

kind of curious. Do you think if you were to practice this consistently, though, and you you started off with the softball questions, do you feel like over time as you ask yourself those questions you would realize that i should be stretching myself a little bit more here i don't know i mean this is a new practice to me i do think for me and we haven't even discussed this yet but how do we judge ourselves on these now that we've gone through the process i mean it needs to be more than writing them down and talking about it on a microphone once. I think it needs to go into my monthly or quarterly review. And I think really the way I'm going to weigh progress is just with that term progress. Have I made progress on that? Some of these will end at some point, some of my problems. I will find

out whether I pulled it off or not, but some of them I think are going to take a while. And I'm just going to look at kind of in sense of progress, you know, the usual mantra from Sparky, don't be hard on yourself to see if you're making, you know, you know, if you're doing good on it or not. So that's what you should be judging. That makes sense. Um, I, I do think maybe there is an opportunity with these to make them too outcome-based. I kind of wonder if maybe the magic of the question and kind of what activates the power of it is the fact that you don't have to necessarily track progress against it or mark it as done. Just being curious about this thing and whatever comes out of that curiosity is okay. There's no

expectation that I am going to achieve X result at Y date because I have entertained this problem. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I feel like some of the ones I have chosen are of that ilk and some of them do have kind of terminations. Like there's one in relation to one of my kids that at some point they will progress in life to where that is no longer a favorite problem because it won't be a problem anymore. And so I've got to

like kind of balance it. But I guess what we should do is start getting into the meat of this. Let's do it. This episode of Focus is brought to you by Setapp. Getting things done is a challenge that everyone struggles with. And one way to tackle it is to make sure that you have the right tools for your computer. That means having the right apps. And the best way to discover new quality apps and get all the tools that you need to be successful and productive is Setapp, a subscription for quality Mac apps. Setapp packs over 240 apps into one. There's an app for almost any task so you can stay in your flow and finish what you started. So you can think about your tasks, not the apps that you're going to use. Setapp also now allows you to take your projects,

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CleanShot X, which allows me to do a whole lot more than the standard built-in screenshotting tools, like even create animated GIFs. And DropZone, which is a menu bar app that I use to drag files into a shelf and then pull them into other applications like Obsidian. But this is just scratching the surface. There are so many quality applications in here. Head over to setapp.com slash focus

F-O-C-U-S-E-D to try Setapp free for a week. And if you like it, you pay just $9.99 per month. That's setapp.com slash focus. Our thanks to Setapp for their support of the Focus podcast and all of RelayFM. Okay, Mike, why do I feel like I just stepped into a hot seat here? Because you kind of did. Yeah. So want to talk to us about some of your favorite problems? Yeah, when we when we decided to do this show, it seemed like a great idea. But here we go. Now the pressure's on. These are not, I'm not sugarcoating it.

These are what I came up with. The process took me about three hours. If you add the time after the Tiago interview and the time over the last three or four days. And I did a lot of soul searching for this. And actually, I want to talk about that later, just the experience of doing this. But I have 12. And they're not in order of importance, but they are kind of categorized by areas of my life.

The first one for me is kind of the, and I don't know if I phrased it well, but here it is. How can I help people turn their technology into a force for positive change in their lives? And when I decided to stop being a lawyer, it was because I felt like I had this calling with respect to Max Barkey. Technology has made false promises to us. So many people are in worse shape in their lives because of technology instead of better. But if you know what you're doing with technology, you can actually take advantage of it and do the things that are important to you and have time to enjoy your life.

I feel like there is a recipe there for people. And that's the reason I'm doing all this. That's the reason I stopped being a lawyer. It's the reason why I'm doing all this Max Barkey stuff. So I want to give people the tools to make that happen for themselves. So that is kind of my sense of purpose. And if you read anything I've written the last six months with this big transition in my life, that's basically what I've said. So that's my number one favorite problem in that, like, how do I do that better? You know, how can I help people do

that? And everything that I see really does get filtered through that. When I learn of some new app or some new technique or when I hear about something somebody's doing, I do think, is this something I can use to help further that goal of helping people make technology work for them instead of against them? I love this question. Yeah, I agree. This is the Max Sparky question. But what I love about this is the overlap of the different areas of what you do and how you've kind of condensed that into a single sentence. But then also the question format of this kind of provokes opening and recognition of other opportunities that you can use to connect things that you could be doing into this purpose.

I have a similar thing like this, not in my questions. I maybe should have done that. I like what you did there. I may modify mine, but I have this concept I call a life theme. And I do filter everything through a connection to that life theme. And basically what you've done is you've turned that into a question. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's my filter.

Like if I'm going to ask a guest on a show, can they help with this problem? If I'm going to decide to make a field guide, if I'm going to make content for the labs members. I mean, this is the big filter for me. And it's funny because this has always been lurking in the stuff I've done, but only by forcing myself to focus on one thing, have I got the clarity out of this that I needed. It's relieving. You know, a lot of this stuff we were reading from people

talking about 12 questions talked about how you use your 12 questions to find your purpose. Whereas I feel at this point in the universe, I know my purpose. I don't need to figure it out. I just need to execute on it now, which made, I think this whole process a lot easier for me.

Isn't that amazing though? I mean, we can, we'll go on to the next, next question here after this, but you mentioned you've been doing this for a long time. You've been creating very specific content for a very long time.

And then just the act of going through this exercise brings the clarity, even though you kind of knew this stuff all connects in some way, shape or form, right? There's probably a lot of people in that situation. I know I've been there before where you have this vague idea of how these things all connect but when you force yourself to stare at something and actually connect it it's kind of amazing the the momentum that can come from that yeah well i mean for me it actually came at the moment that i decided to stop practicing law

because this is more important to me that's's kind of the focal moment for me. But this is number one for me for a reason. Number two, how do I continue to make content that helps and interests people? I mean, one of the things I'm doing now is I'm making my living by teaching and helping people learn about stuff. If people aren't interested in what I'm doing, then I no longer make a living and I've given up my other career. So this is a problem of mine. You know, it's a favorite problem. I don't really feel negative about it, but it does motivate me to find new ways to find interesting and helpful content. And the words interesting and helpful were deliberate. It took me a while to figure out, you know,

originally I was like, how do I make content that interests people? Well, that's not really true. There's plenty of content that interests people that I'm not interested in sharing. I wanted it to be helpful, but it also needs to be interesting. Helpful for the purpose of, you know, the big goal, the big purpose of helping people. It needs to be helpful and then interesting so they'll pay attention to it. So that was how I kind of came up with that one.

I like that. And I feel like that's a pretty brilliant distillation of potentially competing forces, right? You want something for yourself, but you also want to give somebody who doesn't know about you what they want. And that's the interesting part. But you want to feel like you are making a positive contribution, living out that first question. So making it helpful. I love how these fit together and how this is kind of a practical distillation of the first question. It seems like this is the kind of thing you could very easily put on a checklist for everything that, you know, you get an idea for something you want to make and you

check the box. Is this interesting or is this helpful? And if it doesn't check one of those boxes, then, you know, it again, a filter. So you decide not to do it. Yeah. It's almost, it needs to check both boxes really. Yep, exactly. It's always felt to me kind of like the secret agenda of Max Barkey is to make people better at this stuff in a way that is not, you know, I don't want to get into it all again, but you know, technology wants your attention. It doesn't want to help you anymore. So I feel like there, but there's a way around it. And so this all kind of ties in. This third one is somewhat related, but I feel like it's a separate problem. How do I teach this better?

And this is in italics for me. And the other thing that I kind of realized as I was going through the whole process of shutting down the law practice and winding up Max Barkey as the thing is, you know, how do I categorize myself? How do I think of myself? You know, I know it's very popular to say you're a content creator, you know, I'm a content creator, fancy, right? You know, but really, I think fundamentally, I'm a teacher, and the stuff I do is meant to teach people. And so that needs to be my focus when I am sharing this information, assuming it's helpful and interesting. The next challenge is finding a good way to teach it. And I certainly don't have all the answers.

And because of the technological nature of so much of the stuff that I teach, it's always changing. This is a problem that I should constantly be thinking about. Is there a better way to teach this? I like that. It could have a lot of different results, I feel. As time goes on, how do I teach this better? It could be you've got a different mental model or understanding of a concept, a different visual that you can use to communicate the idea.

It could also be a platform change, like going from iBooks to field guides, right? Yeah. So there's a lot of different avenues that the answer to this question could take. And even the format of it, like I was thinking about when I went through law school. In the law school I went to, they were very strict about the Socratic method. The teachers never told you anything. They only asked questions. The whole process was questioning you. And it was like, you know, should I be spoon feeding? Should I, you know, get the, should I get my listeners,

readers, followers to try and figure out some stuff on their own? It's like, this is all stuff that I think about constantly. And everything I make, I'm trying to find the right balance to get it across, but also inspire the consumer to actually adopt this and use it. And spoon feeding them isn't always the answer, but you can't also make it so cryptic that they never figure it out either. True, yeah. Anyway, that's one of my favorite problems so those

three really are the focus of kind of my purpose is max sparky you know how do i how do i get them how do i how do i uh how do i get this message across how do i get good content and how do i teach it well so you mentioned that you had three that you had right away. Were these the three? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So now we get to the hard part.

Yeah. Because I just thought about it in terms of this Max Barkey purpose. And I hadn't focused enough on it until we decided we were going to do this show. I'm like, okay, now I got to do the hard work. So then I got thinking about like kind of the internal facing things. And I've got several of those, you know, this is the stuff between me and myself, right? The question or the problem that I constantly face, I mean, it's one of the reasons I make this show is, you know, how do I hold on to intentionality? You know, how do I hold on to focus? You know, I talk about it

on this podcast. I write about it with the stuff I make, and yet I still fail at it so often. Yeah, I have a focus-related one on mine as well. I was hoping you would have something along these lines. I mean, it's not that hard if I just slow it down enough to use all the tools and tricks we talk about on the show all the time. enough to use all the tools and tricks we talk about on the show all the time. I have the tool set, but sometimes I just lose it. And I know that every time I have an intentional day, it feels like a better day, like I'm actually living it more than when I'm just blindly racing from one thing to the next and kind of losing track of myself. There's every reason in the world to bring these focus and intentioning muscles to bear every day. And yet I can't do that. So that's a problem I need to solve or at least work on.

And that's the thing about the question. Again, there's multiple avenues for this. How do I hold on to intentionality? Maybe it's realizing that something is stealing your time and attention. Maybe it's just the fact that you've got a lot going on. So you start saying notice some stuff. I mean, it's not a simple cookie cutter answer for any one of these questions, which is what I love about them. Yeah. All right. You want the next one yeah okay this one is uh you know everybody has their their issues they face this is where i'm getting super hippie like i i had a lot of meditation teachers as i kind of started getting serious about meditation and one of the things i learned is that a lot of early meditators are dealing with aggression, you know, anger and aggression.

Interesting. That is a very common theme with people as they try to, like, get more of a quiet mind. And that has never been an issue in my life. I just don't get angry very easily. But I realized through the process that what I do get often is fearful. You know, I worry about stuff all the time. My kid lost a credit card yesterday. I'm immediately on the bank website trying to figure out somebody's like, you know, buying pizzas on my credit card. You know, I just, uh, I am, uh, at my root, a fear driven person, you know, and, uh,

as I've acknowledged the monster, I've been able to put him in a box much better over the years that's one of the reasons why I like meditation because usually if I find that there's something on my mind I don't know why I say all this stuff on a podcast Mike but anyway if I have a problem in my life, right? Like if I'm worried about something or something is bothering me and I use a practice and meditation of just start saying, well, why is that? Why is that? Just start like kind of drilling into the issue. Ultimately, almost every time for me at the root of it is some fundamental fear, you know?

And then once I recognize it, it's like, oh, it's that thing again. It's like a puff of smoke. It goes away. It just really helps me kind of process this stuff. I'm like my own therapist, I guess you'd say. But that stuff really helps me. But I'm also, just like an alcoholic says, I've been sober for so many days. I feel like that with fear. It's like, this is a piece of my programming that I'm never going to fully get rid of. I've always got to be aware of it. So I, one of my favorite problem is how do I become more courageous and less fearful? Because I feel like courage is the inverse of fear. And, and I like to think about that daily and in that way I bring it into my actions. That's great. And the

big thing from this, it sounds like, is just the awareness aspect of it. So again, back to the point about the tracking your progress in these things, like you really just want any sort of movement in the right direction with this one, right? That's really the purpose of this is bringing awareness to the fact that this is my default state. And so I don't want to respond this way. I want to, even if it's one time in the next two weeks, change my reaction, then that's a win. Yeah.

Another one that I struggle with is balance. I tend to go extremes at anything I do. And I want to get better at balance. That's one of the reasons why I stopped being a lawyer. So I've got a little bit more time, a little bit more margin. And by balance, I mean being able to spend time with my family, but also do good work. But it goes beyond that. It's also time for my hobbies and looking at the way I react to things.

I mean, it's balanced with a capital B. Let's just leave it at that. Sure, and I love this one because the balance that you're describing, that probably looks very different a couple years ago or in a couple of years than it does right now. And so just intentionally leaving it ambiguous,

it can mean whatever you want it to mean at the moment that you're asking yourself that question. Yeah, and getting back to what we were saying earlier, this is one of those that is on the list for the duration. I feel like it's not going away. Another one that is interesting to me, it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I talked about on Deep Focus how I'm getting back into woodworking. People already know I like to play my saxophone. And something that comes to mind for me is that I get a profound sense of satisfaction from creating art for the sake of art. I mean, I would argue that what I do as Max Barkey is art too, but

doing art just for the sake of it, to me, is deeply rewarding, much more so than watching TV or a lot of the other things you would do with your downtime. And getting kind of started again with woodworking and the way I do it is going to be a way that I just primarily do hand tools. I cut all my joints by hand. I'm the most inefficient woodworker on the planet, but it's the process of making the art and seeing it afterwards that I find extremely satisfactory, you know, and the same thing with music. And, and I just feel like, um, whenever I get in a bad spot, it's usually when I'm not making enough art. So I think a favorite problem for me is going to be, how do I make more art? I think when I make more art, everything else I do gets better.

I love that. As you were talking about art, the thing that came to mind was this essay that Derek Sivers wrote. The title of the essay is How to Do What You Love and Make Good Money. It talks about having a well-paying job and then you can seriously pursue your art for love, not money. And when I read that, it really hit me like, yeah, that's the approach that I want to take. But the URL for this is balance. Going back to your previous question. I feel like balance and art, however you want to define those, those are going to be connected for a lot of people.

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the thing with the woodworking that I like is there are people who make their living making furniture and they've got to make what the client wants. They've got to make it on a schedule. They've got to use a lot of loud screaming machines to do it. Whereas I can take a year to make a box and it doesn't matter as long as it's, I make it the way I want to. And I enjoy the process. Yep. The joy is in the journey.

There's a great Latin quote. In fact, I was, I'm going to carve it or put it on my work bench. Um, ours, longa vita brevis. You ever heard that before?

I have not. Life is short or it's forever i love that um the uh the so that's kind of the self-facing ones and then there's a couple more practical ones actually there's one more practical one on self-facing and this is a temporary problem for me but it's an interesting and favorite problem of mine is i'm really getting serious about this idea of a sabbatical. I mean, we've had guests on the show. We've talked about on the show. You know, just yesterday I read about Jason Kotke's on a sabbatical now. You know, Sean, I think is really kind of the inspiration for me and the way he's doing them.

I'm not talking about the, you know the formalized university sabbatical process, but a way for me, and frankly, I'm not thinking about a year off. I'm thinking about a week off once in a while where I just have a week that's not scheduled. I haven't really done it yet. I tried to do one back when I was still a lawyer and it kind of worked, but it really wasn't a true sabbatical because of the nature of my life at the time. I'm still in the middle of a big transition, so I don't really feel like I can do it right now, but I'm working towards it. And it's something that like I am actively working toward. And I know some of the listeners don't like to hear about this stuff. It sounds too internet, you know, geek nerdy, but I think it would be really helpful once in a while to just

like step away for a little while. Totally agree. Yeah. All right. Uh, so another, uh, problem I have favorite problem, and this one has just been inspired with the long arc of my life is I feel like right now at this point in my life, I've done a better job with this one than ever. And so I want to acknowledge it and keep working on it. How do I find uplifters and escape bring-downers? Did you get that one? Yeah. Yeah. I like it.

Yeah. At some points in my life, I had way too many bring-downers. And now I'm surrounded by all these uplifters. And I think about my friends like you and some of our other friends that I talk to and I always leave the conversation feeling better about the world and myself and those are the kind of people that I need around me. They feed me, you know, and that is a favorite problem and it kind of impacts who I decide to spend my time with. I'm not going to get in arguments with bring downers. I'm not going to fight with them,

but I'm going to run from them. Yeah, it's not worth it. I remember doing an exercise one time where I made a list of all the people that I regularly interacted with. I rated them from plus, plus, plus to minus, minus based on when I think about a standard interaction with this person. Are they bringing me life or are they sucking life out of me? And that's maybe a terrible way to think about it. But basically what I want, and it's not like I'm going to stop talking to the people who every time I talk to them, they want something from me. But I'm going to recognize that going in and I'm going to do everything I can to be around the people who are the uplifters as you're talking about. Yeah. And for my last three, I have some, some problems that

are specific to specific people. You know, the three most important people in my life, what my life are my wife and my two daughters. And with each one of them, I'm currently facing some transitionary problems. Like the Sparks household is in a state of transition now, like never before. With me, like giving up being a lawyer and making this big transition. And then with my wife, we are transitioning our relationship as our kids are growing up on us. You know, for so many years, we were a parental corporation, right? I mean, that's part of being, raising kids. They take over and they are the most important thing in your life.

But my kids are getting to an age where they don't need us as much. And we're transitioning to that. And if you know anybody that's gone through this, they call it emptiness syndrome. A lot of people get divorced when their kids grow up because they don't have anything in common anymore. And we fought against that the whole time. We still have a great relationship. I'm not in jeopardy of divorce here.

But as we make this transition, I want to do it artfully. I want our relationship to grow in different ways. And she's going back to work again so i'm like doing a bunch of stuff for her because i want her life to be easier you know i'm doing more laundry and stuff like that and i just want to figure out how to make this transition work that but that is a that's a favorite problem right now as we go through this. I love this. I've got several of mine which are related to my significant other and my kids as well. And just to clarify, people are not problems to be solved. Yeah. I'm not talking about her being the problem,

but the problem is a transition that is happening. And if I do it mindfully, we can make it better. I want to come out of this better than I went into it. The other problem I have, I have two daughters. And the one that's on my mind right now is my youngest daughter, who was in school to be a playwright. And she's doing really well and winning awards. And I'm very proud of her. But I have a job to launch a playwright into the world and I want her to be able to do her art, but I also want her to be able to eat, you know, and you know, like, how do I help her and guide her in a way that she has the option for the rest of her life to do what she loves. And, you know, I can't, you know, I'm going to be gone one day,

you know, I'm not going to be able to support her forever. So, uh, how do we figure that out in a way that she gets to do what she loves, but also, you know, stick with it.

You know, a lot of people that get degrees like that end up, you know, out of them, not, not from choice, but out of necessity. And I don't want her to ever have to face that.

So, uh, I'm thinking about that. I talked to face that. So I'm thinking about that. I talked to her about it. I give her books and we, you know, all the things that you could imagine I would be doing, I'm doing. And then I have the opposite challenge with my other daughter who just launched. I mean, she finished her master. She got her first job. She's a high school teacher starting in the fall. And I need to do the opposite with her because I've spent all this time getting her ready for lunch. Now that she's launched, my challenge is I have to figure out how to let her go into the

world and make a bunch of mistakes, just like I did, just like you did. And I have to take more of a hands-off approach and be there for her when she needs me but it really let her let her get into some scrapes and get out of them if she's going to make this work and that's almost harder you know right i can imagine yeah i'm not quite there yet but that is one of the things i am least looking forward to but i'm actually thinking about how do I deal with that? I mean, at some point, what if she gets like over her head on a credit card or, you know, what if she has a problem at work or something? You know, it's like, I, uh, I have to let her

struggle with those things. I mean, I've always been, uh, trying to make my kids independent. We've always made them kind of fight their own battles. But at the same time, when she gets into the real world, it is hard not to want to, you know, step in. And I think the answer is to not, and I've got to figure that out. That's a problem for me to solve, not for her. Right. Your role is kind of changing a little bit and figuring out where those boundaries are going to be and how best to play the new role and also figuring out where it complements where she's at in her own journey. That's a lot going on. Yeah. So for like the big, taking those three together, my favorite problems right now are transitions in my family and help doing what I can to make them as good as possible for each person. This episode of the Focus podcast is brought to you by NetSuite. Go to

netsuite.com slash focus for the leading integrated cloud business software suite and get a special one-of-a-kind financing offer. This is it, the putt to win the tournament. If you sink it, the championship is yours. But on your backswing, your hat falls over your eyes. Is that how you're running your business? Poor visibility because you're still relying on spreadsheets and outdated finance software? To see the full picture, you need to upgrade to NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system to power your growth. With visibility and control of your financials,

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has a new financing program for those ready to upgrade just go to netsuite.com slash focused head to netsuite.com slash focused for this special one-of-a-kind financing offer on the number one financial system for growing businesses n-e-t-s-u-i-t-e.com slash focused is the link go check it out our thanks to netsuite for their support of the Focus podcast and all of RelayFM. All right, Mike, I feel like I kind of laid myself out there, but the good news is now it's your turn. Yep, now it's my turn to be on the hot seat, as it were. My favorite problems, I actually cheated. I have 13 of of them i'm looking for one to cut but i'm not sure which one it's going to be yet okay at the beginning of this process i found it hard to even

come up with 12 and then once i got rolling i had a hard time paring it down but i have a different arc to my questions i feel than you do my first question, the one that came right away, was how can I make things easier or simpler? I have a tendency to make things complicated, which is maybe okay if I'm the only one that is working the systems, but you don't do life alone. And with a family unit and five kids, we've got to get alignment. That's more important than a complicated process. So what I've learned is, even if I feel this is the absolute best version of this thing that needs to get done for our household. If I'm the only one who understands how the thing gets done, that means that often

the thing isn't going to get done. Whereas if we simplify it and we make it easier, now there are other people who can chip in and help because they understand why this thing needs to get done. And the family aspect is only one arena where this could play out in. With the day job, I'm recognizing with a team of about 20 people that you want to get everybody on board with something and you want to actually affect some behavior change

in the way that people will get their work done. Oftentimes, the easiest solution is the best solution, right? Occam's razor, that whole mental model. So I don't want to approach a problem from, okay, I'm going to start from scratch and let's figure out what the simplest thing is. This question is more taking the things that are already there. So recognizing that the systems that are in place, how does the thing currently get done? And then this question is really, how can I make that thing even just a little bit easier

or simpler so that it doesn't require as much effort to do it? Okay. So can I just tell you, when I saw that, I'm like, yes. How did I not think of this? I mean, we came up with our list independently. I just kind of pasted it in and I didn't realize that that's such a great question. Just the whole idea of how would this be easy? What if this were easier kind of mentality question. Just the whole idea of how would this be easy? What if this were easier kind of mentality is something so many of us, myself included, need to fold into the system. Yeah, I am sorely tempted to have 13 now as well. Well, I guess the revelation for me on this question and why it was so important is that oftentimes the thing that gets in the way of success, how I have defined it personally and professionally is often me. It's not other people. It's easy to point to things

that other people do and say, oh, well, that's the reason that this didn't work. But I've learned to shift my perspective over the years. And instead of finding fault in somebody else for doing something, I kind of by default now will look at myself and say, you know, I don't really even care if what they did was wrong. What did I do in this situation that was wrong? And how can I fix this for myself? So recognizing that I am my own worst enemy when it comes to progress a lot of times. Yeah, I like it. I like it. That's a good one. You started off strong, my friend. Yeah, I like it. I like it. That's a good one. You started off strong, my friend. All right. The next one is how can I live with more meaning? And this is sort of open-ended. I've got one further down, which maybe I'll talk about this one too, because these kind of complement each other. How can I live out my life theme? We talked about this earlier.

So the life theme, that really is the thing that brings meaning to my life. And that is a distillation of my vision for my ideal future, what I want my life to look like, and the core values that I've identified and we've identified as a family into a single sentence. So for me, that is my life theme, helping people answer the question, why am I here by inspiring, encouraging, and teaching them to connect to their calling, discover their destiny, live a life they were created for. And everything that I do personally and professionally, I try to filter through that life theme. And if it's not connected to that life

theme, I have a very hard time doing it for very long because I quickly lose motivation. I just to that life theme, I have a very hard time doing it for very long because I quickly lose motivation. I just see what's the point, right? So how can I live up my life theme and how can I live with more meaning? On the surface can kind of be the same question, but I feel like they are a little bit different because how can I live with more meaning? I can find meaning in the moment. If I'm in this situation and these are the people that i'm around how can i live with more meaning is very different than zooming out how can i change on a broad scale you know how can i make a bigger impact with uh by living out my my life theme does that make sense yeah it does but i tell you i worry about these in a little bit because i feel like they're a little too broad sure what do you you know where i'm coming from i mean it I feel like they're a little too broad. Sure.

You know where I'm coming from? I mean, it just feels like they're so broad that everybody's got to choose their own questions. You can't really do this wrong. But do you worry about that? I don't know. I think between those two, if I had to cut one and get it down to 12, I would cut How Can I Live Without My Life theme because that I think is kind of answered with this previous one of how can I live with more meaning. And like I said, that one changes depending on the situation. If I am in a scenario and I'm at that point, I am doing the thing that is in front of me. If I'm at church or out to eat with my wife and another couple,

how can I live with more meaning? And that moment looks very different than when I am doing my weekly review and spending thinking time at home. And I think you could also argue that your life theme question is answered by the other 12 questions. Yes, I agree with that too. So maybe that's the one that I should cut. I don't know. you know, your life theme question is answered by the other 12 questions. Yes, I agree with that too. Yep. So maybe that's the one that I should cut. I don't know. But I do think the real thing here is how do I instill more meaning into the things that I'm doing? How do I feel like I am making the most of the time, talent, energy, resources that I have

available to me? The next question is more practical, I would say, and that is how can I create more and consume less? Tiago talked about this in Building a Second Brain, and I instantly latched onto it because this is something that I'm very passionate about. I actually have on my iPhone home screen using the WidgetSmith app, just a text block on my first home screen says, create, not consume. Because when I pick up my phone, I want a little nudge in the right direction. Don't go just surf the endless feeds. Don't dip into the infinity pools. You came here for a reason. Do that thing. into the infinity pools. You came here for a reason. Do that thing. I'm trying to just foster what I consider to be a positive, intentional use of technology because the technology that we have

does offer a lot of opportunities to create. But with great power comes great responsibility. I think this is like your favorite problem because you talk about this a lot. And I feel like this is something that you're passionate about, not just for yourself, but for others. That's true. Yeah. I didn't think about which one of these questions is my favorite, but you could be right. This could be the one that would bubble up most often. Next question. And this is just something that's kind of been spurred by some of the conversations that we've had lately. Who are my true fans and what do they want? And this is just in regards to all the faith-based productivity stuff that I do,

the Focus podcast, Bookworm, Intentional Family, the YouTube stuff, all of that. Now, I can look at one of those things in isolation and say, oh, well, this is the person that I'm trying to reach with that. But I'm realizing more and more over time that my true fans are the ones who love all that stuff just as much as I love all that stuff. And to optimize for any one of those individual audiences would be doing a disservice to my true fans. I've been thinking about this a lot already, and I've got a whole bunch of things that I'm noodling on with this. But I want to continue to ask myself this because I feel like just bringing attention and awareness to this, I'm going to get a lot more aha moments on.

Like, oh, this is the thing that this person is struggling with or coming back to teach everything that you know, right? And I struggle with that a lot. I'm not an expert. There are other people who are smarter than me, done more than me. So who am I to speak to this? And just got to realize that there are people that you can reach, that you can help, who are just not quite as far along on their journey. And putting myself in their shoes, remembering what it was like when I was there and how do I help them. Yeah, agreed. And figuring that out, I think, is a huge step for you. Yep.

Because so many people are going to give you contrary advice, but you have to answer that question for yourself. Absolutely. Next question is, how can I better lead slash serve my family, wife, and kids? And I feel like there's a couple of questions combined here, but in my opinion, leading is serving. Maybe this is obvious to all the other parents out there, but I'm realizing more and more, I understood this practically because you've got, when you have people who are dependent on you, you have to provide for their needs and just naturally your preferences and what you do are going to change. But you can kind

of just do that because there's this thing in front of me that needs to get done. Or you can understand what is so significant about the opportunity to serve this tiny little human who is completely dependent on you. And I'm realizing that leadership really is just serving others, not even in a family context. The further up you go in leadership, the more it's about selfless service and the less it's about you, which is kind of contrary to how a lot of people think about leadership because they see people who have climbed the ranks and maybe they see they've got an assistant who they bring them a bottle of water as soon as they're done speaking on stage or

whatever. I kind of get the picture of like a John Maxwell type person. But the more you actually lead people, the more it's not about you and what you want. It's all about the other people and helping them get where they want to go. So I feel like of all the people that I can help, the ones that I really need to shine a spotlight on every single day are the ones who live under my roof and ask myself, where can I make an improvement to help them become better people. Yeah. I mean, I feel like this one is very broad too, but in fairness, like I made one for my wife and one for each of my kids and I only took three questions that would have taken half of your questions. So you really, you really can't, but I would encourage you to take this, forget about the 12 limitation, and take this one level deeper. And take each one of those people and think about what is the problem that you face in helping them specifically. At least to have in your mind with know with each one you know what is

toby doing right now that i can particularly help him with does that make sense sure yeah it makes a lot of sense challenge accepted all right my next one and this is again kind of general how can i better understand the other side this kind of gets into the bubble of belief that we understood from our friend Ernie recommending liminal thinking by Dave Gray. Basically, you tend to surround yourself with people who think and talk just like you, and you build all of your preconceived notions of how the world works on this tiny little sliver of experience, which is one fraction of what true reality really is.

And the more I know, the more I realize what I don't know. That's not even close. Yeah, see, I don't think this one's too broad at all. I think that's a great question. Okay. Yeah. This manifests in a lot of different ways. I mean, just naturally, I think that's a great question. Okay. Yeah. This manifests in a lot of different ways. I mean, just naturally, I guess the obvious place is you start talking to somebody who

disagrees with you. They're of a different political persuasion or something. And the natural tendency is, well, I don't want to talk to this person. But really, this question is intended to make me more curious and understand things from their perspective. Why do they think the way that they do? And maybe I can learn something from it. Yeah. I think a corollary to this is, how can I eliminate so much judgment? I think if you take judgment out of the equation, it makes it a lot easier to understand others. Very true. The next one is, how can I have more more fun because i tend to be very task oriented and if i commit to something i'm going to follow through and do it and i can over commit i can get so focused and i don't know how this is going to get done but i'm going to get it done gosh darn

it i just pushed myself too hard uh and to the to the point where in the past I would physically just wear myself out and I would get sick every three, six months because I just didn't take time to take care of myself, didn't take time to just slow down and have fun. So I don't have a whole bunch of things that I do for recreation, but I want to start looking for some of those. I, you know, knowing you, Mike, it seems a little crazy that this would be one, but it totally makes sense. And I'm really happy that you put it on your list because I do know you.

You don't, yeah, you don't have enough fun, man. Yeah. If this is what it takes, then please keep this on the list. All right. Next question is, what about this would make a good story? And this is inspired by a while ago, I got to do some speaking coaching with Aaron Beverly, who at the time was the runner up in the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking. Since then, he's actually won.

And one of the things that he told me was that I should keep a story file. And a story file can exist really anywhere, but it's just a collection of different stories, significant things that have happened in your life. So I've gone through StoryBrand and stuff like that, where I recognize the importance of stories and I reflect on the things that have happened in my life. There's a lot of good stories in there. So I've done that retroactively and tried to create some of those stories inside of a story file inside of Obsidian. But I want to have this question

so that when I'm in the middle of something, I can recognize at that point, oh, this would actually make a good story and go start the file for those things and collect more stories. All right. That makes sense. That's not a problem for me. Stories just spill out of me. I can't help myself. Sure. Next one is what can i learn here um i have this personal mantra keep going keep growing so really just become a lifelong learner that's one of the things i want to instill in my kids and i think that you can learn from a lot of different sources. You don't have to have a guru or an established teacher. My kids can teach me stuff about myself and about them. And so I want to just, whatever situation I find myself in, look for those little nuggets that can change my perspective. Okay.

Next one is another broad one. How can I set my kids up for success? Maybe I should break that down into individual ones as well. Maybe that's encapsulated by that challenge that you gave me already. Yeah. They're both related. The family ones, better lead and serve and set them up for success. I mean, those are related. Agreed.

Next one is how can I leave my dent in the universe from the Steve Jobs quote. dent in the universe from the uh the steve jobs yeah quote uh i added this one because i was inspired by that quote the first time that i heard it and i remember at that point thinking to myself oh this is how i'm going to leave my dent in the universe and i have discovered over time that the way that i would answer that question has changed and evolved. And so I want to just constantly be asking myself this one, not because I expect a huge shift frequently when I ask it, but I want to be looking for those tipping points in my, say, creative career in order to do that. And then the last one, how can I focus on what really matters?

That one is pretty self-explanatory, I feel. How do I keep the main thing the main thing? Just like mine with intentionality. I wonder if we are too broad in our takes at these. I'm looking at some of mine too. But in order to catch, they really have to be something you act on, something that you make progress on. I find all of this fascinating. And I think you've got a pretty good list here, Mike. Thank you. Yeah. I don't know if these are good or not. I guess time will tell. Maybe we can report

back on these after a while. When they teach you negotiation, they talk about anchors. Like if you're going to negotiate with somebody and the thing is worth $100 and you tell them, well, I want $10,000 for it, that doesn't land an anchor because it's so out there that it doesn't even matter. You've got to anchor it closer to what it's really worth. I think there's a bit of that in this. We need to put enough foundation behind them that when we see things in the world, because the whole idea of this exercise, to me at least, is as inputs come into me, there are things that I may be able to funnel into these, you know, getting back to the beginning of these subconscious problems.

getting back to the beginning of these subconscious problems. It's like I see a thing about, I saw a thing about youth theater recently, and I'm like, oh, you know what? That would be a great thing to direct youth theater if you're a playwright. It allows you to make some money and lets you write your plays. So it's like that goes through the system down to Sarah.

And of course, she'd already figured that out. She didn't need to hear it from me. But, you know, but that's the kind of, you know, it's like the problems have to be solid enough that when an input comes in, there's a clear path to something. buy Squarespace, which is the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. You can stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell just about anything. Your products, services, even the content that you create, Squarespace has got you covered. With Squarespace, you can sell your products on an online store, whether you sell physical or

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Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. I want to take a minute to talk about the process of doing this because I found it kind of very rewarding going through and coming up with these. I was putting it off. It wasn't until we decided to do the show that I got more serious about it. And I did do all the reading. We've got some links in the show notes I'd recommend you read. But I feel like it really forces you to kind of boil yourself down a bit when you want to get it to 12. That number 12 kind of helps because you've only got 12. What are the things that make the cut? And having just finished the process, this morning, um, but having

gone through it for a while, I, I, I found this a very, um, illuminating process for me. How about you? Absolutely. Uh, one of the things I was surprised about was the, uh, the fact that I came up with a couple right away. I remember walking out of the interview with Tiago and thinking, this will be no problem

coming up with 12 questions. And then I hit a wall after about three, kind of like you did. And then I spent quite a bit of time thinking about it. I probably spent a couple of hours thinking just about my questions. And I ended up with a bunch and pared them down at the beginning of this. I still had more than 12, but actually talking through it has provided

a bunch of value too, because I realize through conversation how some of those things are related. But I agree that these need to, in order to qualify for your favorite problems, they need to be connected to the things that are important to you. One of the visuals that I found in doing some research for this is these questions that you ask. And then those questions actually direct the ideas that are coming at you towards your favorite problems. And I have found that absolutely to be the case since I have identified these. There'll be things that are bouncing around in my brain. And it's like, oh, yeah, maybe that's an idea.

Maybe I should jot that down. I don't know. Not too excited about that one. And then there are ones that are just like, yes, absolutely. I totally see how this connects. And if that's the only thing I got from the process, it was worth it. So now that we've gone through the exercise, what are you going to do with these questions? I am thinking that I'm going to, well, they already exist inside of Obsidian for me in

a separate note. And I want to basically bake them into like a weekly review sort of a thing. And I don't think I'm going to attach any sort of objective or outcome to them. I'm not going to try to rate my progress against any of these, but I am going to just look at them and bring them back to the top of mind. I have an Obsidian, this dashboard note, which I open up every time I open Obsidian. It takes me to that home, and I'm going to put a link there

so I can access those more frequently if I want to. But at the very least, I'm going to look at them once a week and just see if there's anything in the moment when I look at them that bubbles up. Otherwise, what I am trusting is that by shining a light on those throughout the week, I will be reminded of those questions and see how some of the things that I'm interacting with and the ideas that come to me, how they connect. Yeah, I've got with a lot of my journal reviews, I just ask, how am I doing? That's the question. And I don't have a scale of one to five or anything.

Just like, how am I doing as Max Barkey? How am I doing? That's the question. And I don't have a scale of one to five or anything. Just like, how am I doing as Max Barkey? How am I doing as a husband? How am I doing in the various roles? That's my whole roles-based system. But I just ask the question, how am I doing? So it kind of eliminates the grading element of it and allows me to be just kind of honest with myself. And I think I'm going to just put these questions in the list and ask, how am I doing on these problems? How am I doing on the big goal of Max Barker? How am I doing at getting better at teaching or with these transitions with my family? And I could see myself changing them over time, but I think I'm going to make them an active part, but I'm not going to do it weekly.

I'm going to start out doing it monthly and quarterly. And I don't know that I necessarily will keep it even monthly. I feel like this might be a thing where I just want to see progress over a longer arc. And maybe every three months is about right. But maybe I need to see it more often. I'm going to start out monthly and quarterly and see where it goes. But in my head, I'm not sure that I need to see it more often. I'm going to start out monthly and quarterly and see where it goes. But in my head, I'm not sure that I need to even do it monthly, but I do think I want to resurface these.

And I also want a process where I go back and look at them and figure out if these are still the 12 favorite problems. I could see a time when some of these transitionary problems with my family are going to be solved. And they're no longer a favorite problem because they're just not on the table anymore. And I don't know. I don't know how it all plays out. But I do like having them, and I'm definitely going to be reviewing them. Makes sense.

I think for me, waiting until monthly or quarterly, I would tend to forget about them. So mine is not going to be spending an hour thinking about these and trying to come up with answers then. It's just basically reading through the list. I'm anticipating this is only going to take a couple of minutes. That is actually a good idea. Maybe I need to try that too. Wouldn't hurt to keep them on top of mind. I like that.

need to try that too wouldn't hurt keep them on top of mind i like that yeah one of the things that i've i've realized um going through the linking your thinking course by our buddy nick milo is that my brain is uh it's kind of fascinating to me how my brain connects things and it's been doing it for a long time. Even before I went through that course, that's all creativity really is for me. It's a formula and you just collect dots and your brain connects them in inspiring ways. You don't really even know how those things are connected, but all of a sudden you see, oh, this is the new thing. And it's a remix of a bunch of dots that you've collected, but there it is. There's the thing that you just then express through the act of creating. And using Obsidian for the first time allowed me to

visualize that with the bidirectional links inside of the notes. And I don't want to get too much into Obsidian, but that's the thing for me is I realized that, oh, so those links, those allow me to resurface ideas in strategic places, strategic scenarios. When I'm thinking about this, I might also want to be thinking about this other thing. And so that's what these questions are for me as I'm thinking about my weekly review is that's the place where I want to be triggered to look at these. And I'm not going to spend a whole bunch of time engaging with them at the moment, but I'm going to refresh those dots and bring them back up to the surface and then trust that that's going to provide value throughout the week as I encounter

things. I'm going to, in the moment, see, oh, this is how this thing connects to this problem or this question and provide more inspiration, more motivation to solve those problems. And like I said, I've actually kind of experienced that a little bit already, but I am expecting that this is going to actually provide a lot more benefit as I ingrain this over time. But it's going to take for me a lot more than just looking at it every once in a while. It's going to be something that I need to constantly be reminded about because my brain tends to jump to the new shiny all the time. You know, an interesting idea I had while I was listening to you is I could write a script. I

could even make a shortcut that just gives me a random one from this list anytime I push a button. And that would be an interesting thing to like fold into my shutdown routine just to say, okay, give me a random, you know, favorite problem. And then I can put it in and journal it right there. How am I doing on that? What am I thinking about that? That's a nice way. It wouldn't require you to go through all 12 of them at once, but you would constantly be seeing them. Yeah, I like it. Either way, we would love for you, dear listener, to try this yourself. I think both Mike and I feel like it was a worthwhile use of our time. You should give it a shot.

See how it goes for you. Maybe it can help you make some progress on the stuff that's important to you or even get you a little bit more identified with yourself and check it out. If you do decide to do it, an excellent place to share the process would be over at talk.macpowerusers.com in the focused form. A lot of nice, helpful people there. You don't have to lay yourself bare as Mike and I have done today, and we're not asking you to do that. But I would like to hear if you've gone through the process and what worked for you and what didn't. Maybe we'll follow up on this in a future episode.

I would definitely recommend it. How about you, Mike? on this in a future episode. I would definitely recommend it. How about you, Mike? Absolutely. And just a couple of quick tips, I guess, as we wrap up this episode. Some of the things that I was thinking about as I was trying to figure out what my questions or my problems were going to be are just what are you curious about? What intrigues you? What sort of things have you always come back to and pursued? Or what puzzles you? What are you generally interested in figuring out about life and society? Or what is a problem that just keeps coming back? Maybe you solved it at one point in your life, but it comes back up as a slightly different version of it. It keeps coming up and you just can't stop thinking about those

things. Those are all kind of clues that you can use to help identify your own favorite problems. Well, we are The Focus Podcast. You can find us at relay.fm.com. Thank you to our sponsors, Setapp, NetSuite, and Squarespace. We'll see you next time.